Entry #370
Seth Rollins (c) vs. The Fiend
Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Universal Championship
WWE Hell in a Cell - October 6, 2019
And so now we get to the year and a half of Bray Wyatt's career that produced most of his career lows. Strap RIGHT the fuck in, folks, it's time for the Fiend. Bray disappeared from TV for half a year and re-emerged with the Firefly Funhouse. A series of vignettes full of awesome lore that recast the Bray Wyatt character in a subverted kids' show... which led to the introduction of a clown demon! One who just wants you to let him in. Promising stuff, could be the dark side of Bray going for revenge against those who wronged him in his previous lameo storylines. But then... they made him care about the title. They made Seth Rollins (at the peak of his Unlikeable Top Babyface arc) scream like a little girl. Then came this match, in the Big Red Box. Let's get this shit over with.
Champ out first, and the crowd doesn't really seem to care outside of shouting BURN IT DOWN. But, I will say, it does feel refreshing to hear the words "Seth Rollins" without "Freakin'" in the middle. I've got to say, Fiend's entrances hit different than Bray Wyatt's ones, but not in a good way. The ambience of the fireflies is ruined by red light flashing. WWE's visual shorthand is that RED LIGHT = SPOOKY. And that red light is what this match will be bathed in, tonight... I strongly dislike this already.
Fiend's just chilling in the corner. There's something about the camera cuts early on that makes it feel clipped, even though it was live. "Yowie Wowie" chants. Seth's soon under the ring, scrambling for a kendo stick. Which Fiend no-sells, naturally. Seth hits a forearm (which does get sold) then goes off the top rope, straight into a uranage. Time for BRAWLING ON THE OUTSIDE: Cage Edition. Which, obviously, is mostly bashing against the cage wall. Fiend eventually gets a body avalanche against the Cell, before whipping Seth into the steps a couple of times. Fiend goes to retrieve a weapon, but Seth has now picked up the steps and bashes them against him.
"Seth's gonna have to go to dark places" says commentary as Seth picks up a table. If a table is dark territory, the Dudley Boyz had the darkest hearts in wrestling history. Seth goes for dives a couple of times, then sets up the table. He goes for a third dive, but Fiend catches him and hits Sister Abigail on the cage wall. Fiend tries to put Seth through the table, but Seth elbows out, superkicks Fiend on to the table, and hits him with a frog splash through it. No pin, though, because Seth has that RVD syndrome where he gets hurt by giving frog splashes.
Superkick, Curb Stomp... Fiend stands right up! Seth tries it again but Fiend catches him into Sister Abigail for a close two. Then he does those blows to the back of the neck, but since 2019 WWE production is so dogshit there's 5 cuts in 2 seconds, all with shaky cam. Between that and the red light, how can you even watch this shit? Then as if this match hadn't lost me enough, he does that lame NECK SNAP! That's not how snapping necks works! It's somehow even more lame than when Kon does it in 2024! Seth does that uncomfortable spasm sell until Fiend rolls him out.
Fiend digs under the ring for his GIANT NOVELTY MALLET! Commentary talks about the weight of that mallet, even considering that it's made out of hollow plastic (at best). Mallet thrust to the midsection, but Seth fights back with superkicks (I now realise why people bash the Young Bucks) and then a Curb Stomp on the mallet. Fiend gets back up though. He then no sells a springboard knee a couple of times. More superkicks! A third stomp and a fourth, and a fifth. Crowd's BURYING this display, and cheering the Fiend. Seth hits a low-elevation Pedigree, and a SIXTH Curb Stomp... Fiend kicks out at 1!
The stomp counter reaches 11. ELEVEN. Yes, that means we've just had five stomps in a row. Seth does his best "going to a dark place" face, and grabs a chair. "Yowie Wowie" chants are back, but quieter this time. The Fiend is prone, and could have been pinned 500 times over by this point. Seth swings the chair right down on to the Fiend's clown demon head... kick out at 1! He drives a ladder into a chair on the Fiend's face... kick out at 2! Seth gets a pile of kendo sticks, but isn't satisfied with that.
He gets a toolbox now. He drapes the ladder over the Fiend's face, puts the chair between the two halves, and smacks the big pile with the toolbox. It comes open, revealing it to be full of more tools than the WWE writers' room. Crowd is BURYING this EVEN HARDER. Seth now pulls out his ultimate weapon: the Triple H-style sledgehammer! The ref begs him not to do it. "This isn't you", says the ref. "You're going to kill this guy", he continues. "Please, Colby", he adds, and RIGHT FUCKING THERE it's now a WORKED SHOOT. A worked shoot featuring a MAGIC CLOWN DEMON. I think this is the stupidest fucking part of the match, and I know the finish!
Speaking of which, Seth (Colby) cries a bit, before using the sledgehammer. And the ref calls for the bell. That's right, it's a DQ. In HELL IN A FUCKING CELL. DQ IN THE CELL. And just like that, the entirety of WWE takes a flying leap over the shark.
Crowd is absolutely shitting on this, "Bullshit" chants right away. The Cell's quickly raised, EMTs are checking on the MAGIC CLOWN DEMON, while the refs are trying to hold off Colby because apparently this turned him evil? A few people are calling for the match to restart. Colby tries to attack Magic Clown Demon but gets a mandible claw for his troubles. Sister Abigail on the floor. Now EVERYONE wants the match to be restarted. Sister Abigail on exposed concrete. Fiend tries to attack some refs, then gives the claw to Colby again while he spits fake blood and sub-haunted-house stings play. Fade to black. Fiend jumpscare.
(What you don't hear, because the feed finishes before then, is "AEW" chants. That's right. A few matches have led WWE audiences to chant for TNA, but only one has led them to chant for AEW.)
This is everything that was wrong with late Vince WWE. Zero internal consistency, awful production choices, major matches that are just cynical finisher spam, and most of all, the writers have no idea what they're doing. Clown demon worked shoot. DQ in the Cell bullshit. I'd rather watch a million Bushwhackers vs. Sheik/Volkoff rematches than this. Horrific insult to the intelligence of everyone still bloody-minded enough to watch. Somehow, a WWE match has pissed me off more than Lawler/Cole did. More than Cena/Laurinaitis. Actually one of the worst ANYTHING that has happened in wrestling history.
