Yet the Hell in the Cell has now become a reason for a pay-per-view rather than a reason to watch a PPV, with four matches perhaps taking place within the steel structure. Much like TLC has four matches decided by one or all of the consonants.
This year, HIAC was to decide the Universal Championship between Seth Rollins, who overcame Brock Lesnar at Summerslam to claim the title back, against the new enigma of the WWE, Bray Wyatt and his new alter-ego The Fiend, a masked villain who is scary as hell seemingly unstoppable and hell bent on winning the title and destroying Rollins' soul. Imagine the irresistible force of the Undertaker with the sinister malevolence of a movie stalker who will stop at nothing for victory.
The WWE Universe - the fans that the WWE seemingly mocks and trolls in equal measure - have taken to Bray Wyatt or Wyndham Rotunda since his formative years on NXT as Husky Harris. The son of Mike Rotunda (Irwin R. Schyster) and godson of Barry Wyndham, much like second generation superstars he has wrestling in his blood. Naturally gifted and with enough ability to be married an unassailable in-ring psychology and second to none work ethic like Randy Orton and The Rock.
Wyatt works hard, does not take days off and is rarely injured yet he is seemingly road-blocked time and time again by the creative juices of the WWE writing staff and mainly the bookers once it gets to in-ring action.
The ending of Rollins-Fiend at HIAC this year ended with a disqualification finish in a Hell in a Cell match, that's right a DQ finish in a no holds barred match as the referee called for the bell to end the action when Rollins threw too many weapons on the Fiend. This was after he had been stomped on numerous occasions, pedigreed, kicked to the head and the Fiend promptly kicked out at one.
While the commentary and booking hoped to have Rollins overcome the monster with wrestling moves, the Fiend would not lay down and kept rising to his knees. The Fiend ultimately had the last word planting the champion with Sister Abigail on the outside.
Further, the whole match took place in a red wash of light meaning that most of the action was not able to be seen on coverage so goodness knows how it played out live in the arena. That coupled with the Dusty of Dusty finishes, led to loud boos and heckles of 'AEW', 'Refund' and 'Bullshit' from the capacity crowd.
In a week, when AEW broke onto mainstream cable television with their debut showing on TNT with Dynamite, and winning the first television ratings battle with WWE Nxt on USA Network; it was already a bad week for the WWE.
Then came the debut episode of Smackdown on FOX which was going well until Brock Lesnar defeated Kofi Kingston for the WWE Championship in 9 seconds ending Kofi's reign since Wrestlemania; thus ending a feel good story. That angle finished with Lesnar being stared down, not by a wrestler but by an ex-MMA fighter Cain Velazquez; a man of limited wrestling ability yet he and Lesnar will square off at Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia later this month.
Now you have a WWE PPV ending in the worst possible way, with everything that is bad about WWE being front and centre and laying claim to not caring about what the fans want at all and caring more about shareholders now they have signed this huge deal with FOX.
Much like when Bray Wyatt was on an unstoppable tear when he first appeared in the WWE, he was going one on one with John Cena at Wrestlemania 30 in New Orleans, it was geared up for the fan favourite to be beaten by a favourite of the marks and the era of Cena-nation be ended as Cena looked towards a post-WWE career. Yet it did not transpire, Cena won and made the formidable Wyatt look soft in defeat.
Wyatt had to go back to the drawing board, he had battles with Daniel Bryan, before becoming a mockery of himself despite garnering his first world title at Elimination Chamber in 2017, yet losing it to Randy Orton in a god-awful match at that years Wrestlemania in Orlando. A clash with Deleted Matt Hardy led to a backyard brawl where he was thrown in a river and cleansed of his evil to be reborn as Hardy's tag partner leading to a tag title run which was then itself deleted.
Wyatt has all the tools to be a great world champion but for some reason backstage are reluctant to get behind him fully be it his size or their naivety to have a true villain as the main champion, yet Chris Jericho is a villain now on AEW and it will work wonders for their week to week shows.
The WWE are in the old problem of having a champion who finally gets the title still be relevant, this a problem that has gone on for years with many talents; the chase is so much better that being caught. When Daniel Bryan finally won the World Title at that same WM when Wyatt lost to Cena, he was thrust into a bad battle with Kane - ex-tag team partner who did not deserve any title shot. It is as if once the title is won what more is there to do with a champion, yet in history you had Hulk Hogan overcome many a challenger for close to three years, even CM Punk held the title for over a calendar year. That was a mixture of booking, good opponents and story telling.
Yet because Rollins retained the title what now for the title picture, is the Fiend still the No. 1 contender even though he lost and there is the rule now with no immediate rematches for defeated challengers of title matches. Rollins is team captain of Team Hogan versus Team Flair for a showdown at Crown Jewel, will the Fiend be facing off against Rollins there or is that unlikely to materialise due to the sensitive nature of the Fiend being present in a Middle Eastern country which may not take favourably to a controversial character. Hopefully the Fiend will not be lost to vignettes and he will become a regular factor on television with or without the mask
The WWE need to address their air of invincibility; they may well have a problem with creative writing as the AEW shows a freshness both in terms of talent and in-ring ability, while the matches now are run of the mill warfare, finishers and catchphrases.
If they are not careful they may get stuck in the slipstream and risk being left standing still while others overtake them; that starts with taking threats to superiority with seriousness and not dismissing their now clever fanbase with disdain; wrestling fans are smarter now with more knowledge of backstage antics and histrionics coupled with office politics. Finally, it is sometimes good to give the people what they want, and what they want is to be a friend to the business, not be treated as the enemy.
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