10 Times WWE Stipulations Meant Nothing

Vince really seems to hate the Hell in a Cell match in recent times. If 2018 was not bad enough, last year WWE well and truly outdid themselves by managing to come up with one of the worst pay per view main events in their history.

Seth Rollins, an extremely divisive figure by now because of his antics on Twitter, was taking on the red (get it?) hot Fiend who had revitalised his career and became arguably the most over character in the biz. The script wrote itself. Everyone was ready to see the Fiend batter Rollins and take the Universal Title from him. And then, and then this match happened.

The ending was so baffling that for a good amount of time, the crowd refused to accept it, chanting ‘restart match’, among other, less flattering things. Rollins had basically thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Wyatt, only for him to keep getting up. Driven beyond his wits, Seth got a bunch of metal tools and a ladder, and placed them on top of Wyatt’s head. He then got a sledgehammer, because of course, and despite the referee pleading with him like a distressed mother, proceeded to use the hammer to smash all that hardware directly into Bray’s skull.

This, for some reason, prompted the referee to call for the bell. It was so weird and inexplicable for so many reasons. Vince alone may understand the logic behind it.

We had seen moments far more brutal inside Hell in a Cell. Even Mick Foley getting knocked unconscious after his second fall did not stop his match with The Undertaker. The sledgehammer itself has been used countless times by Seth’s mentor Triple H, to pretty devastating effects inside the Devil’s Playground and never caused a ref stoppage. This one moment took the entire history of Hell in a Cell and its stipulation, and forever tainted it.