The Day WWE Hell In A Cell Died

You don't need to read or hear another word about Seth Rollins Vs The Fiend, and it's likely that neither do they. A gimmick-killing catastrophe the company literally couldn't have made worse if they'd actually tried, it was so bad that the cell itself surved the worse of the aftermath.

Rollins' title reign was beyond b*ggered and Bray Wyatt's last live preserver became a clown instead of a killer, but neither could be given the responsibility of butchering the gimmick itself. At best, this was a long and illogical p*ss on a corpse.

You're a discerning wrestling fan otherwise you wouldn't be on WhatCulture.com, but it shouldn't take much explanation to highlight the immeasurable difference between Kane pulling the door off when Hell In A Cell was born and Brock Lesnar doing the same to signify its death 21 years later.

'The Beast' didn't posses powers theoretically beyond humanity, nor was he the inspired kayfabe answer to a finish with lots of questions. Quite the opposite in fact - Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman were already given the bells and whistles when Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins fought on the roof before two took tumbles through tables. Lesnar's run-in (he brutalised Reigns and Strowman, to the sound of angry sighs in the arena) resulted in a match that promised the definitiveness of hell instead delivering the mundanity of purgatory.

That door might have gone back on its hinges a year later but the damage was far greater than something some basic DIY could fix. It falls to Sunday's big four to be the next to try.

CONT'D...