DID THEY JUMP THE SHARK?
Firstly, this was not a terrible show. Many of the matches were very entertaining and "a few" were actually really good but I'll get into the rest of the card in the comments... I'm sure. LOL
After watching the... odd... finish to this particular Hell in a Cell match, I immediately took a moment to reflect on the build to this match and the overall story arc that I'm led to believe WWE wants me to see here. Having worked in wrestling both pro and backyard; I can truly understand the potential for ambitious ideas to turn disastrous once they are green lit out of the creative committee's pre-show meetings. I also understand how show producers and the bookers can immediately feel the dire need to change things on the fly when they are concerned about the audience reactions from behind the curtains. The goal of any wrestling promotion is to entertain their patrons with the best show possible in order to retain future and more lucrative patronage from said patrons. With this also comes the creative passion and artistry woven into the business through provocative storytelling both inside and outside the squared circle. Basically... when it works, it really works. Its gold. But when it fails, it REALLY fails badly. It becomes the stuff of shameful legacy that smarks, marks, and spoiler readers hark on for decades.
I can personally recall several times things like this have happened. There was of course the Robocop / Sting idea in WCW...
Or... perhaps even the Hawk Suicide attempt story..
And let us not forget the infamous Dog Kennel From Hell Match from 1999's Unforgiven PPV..
DISASTER OR REJECTED LORE?
Lets face it, wrestling is already a surreal narrative environment. We use to watch these shows willingly ready to suspend all concept of reality and believe the crazy we were watching was real. Yes, we did become more jaded during certain eras of the business. Also, it was Vince McMahon himself who publicly stated that WWE [WWF at the time.] were no longer interested in insulting our intelligence by selling us fantasy as reality.
AND YET... we continued to embrace such characters as The Undertaker, Mankind, Kane, Sting, The Brood, Raven, and yes... Bray Wyatt. We revel in their dark sadistic backstories, magic powers, and extreme sadism.
To truly understand tremendous negative fan heat that erupted from this main event match in question, we first must understand the full scope of a long brewing conflict between the beliefs of the fans of Bray Wyatt and WWE creative's perceived lack of faith in the Wyatt character. Much of this began during Bray Wyatt's initial build in which he managed to get a showdown against John Cena at Wrestlemania 30. In what has been described as a "promo masterclass," Windham Rotunda [Son of Mike Rotunda] managed to verbally work John Cena into a match that would see the audience swerve into what is known as a "double turn." The audience began singing in unison "He's got the whole world in his hands." A sign of approval that even after fans began cheering for Cena; they were won over by the sheer tenacity of Bray fighting to avoid being buried like so many other victims of "Big Match John." In the end, Bray fell to Cena and took the air out of the audience which only served as a bitter appetizer for the much more foul pill of the end of The Undertaker's streak that would be forced down the throat over every spectator, fan, and lifer watching the show.
Even after all of this, Bray Wyatt's amazing promo work and in ring tenacity kept him relevant and would see him win a WWE Championship. After an incredibly amazing feud with Randy Orton that sadly did not deliver a great finish; he would go on to reinvent himself after the death [or "deletion"] of his original persona at the hands of "Broken" Matt Hardy. What would follow could only be described as some of the best vignette storytelling in the history of the business. "The Firefly Fun House" segments became the catalyst for a renewed Wyatt fanbase that those on the business side could only speculate on the merchandising profits.
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| Its Hell's version of "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" |
THE FACTS
1. The Kickouts - Ok, I get it. He's a supernatural character. Let's be honest... we all expected this sort of built in endurance... However, I believe what happened here was creative allowed the abilities of The Fiend to extend too far outside the boundaries of well established WWE canon. Yes, we've seen beings capable of getting the shoulder up off the mat after enduring some of the most devastating offense imaginable. It was understandable that Bray would be able survive a few curb stomps but what we saw was way too many. It ruins the built establishment of monsters like Brock Lesnar, Goldberg, and Undertaker. However, having The Fiend nail "1 counts" as Seth Rollings delivers multiple chair and weapon smashes to his skull for well over 3 minutes devalues the entire roster past and present. It destroys decades of established storytelling elements and begins to court full on fantasy fiction narrative. In this way, I believe they did somewhat take the viewers out of the match. Its important to understand that there are established rules and laws in this kind of storytelling that simply can't be ignored. These rules and laws are what make the story even the least bit plausible for the set reality presented to us in the beginning of its telling. There's a limit to how much belief can be suspended and how much a viewer is willing to accept before they begin to feel awkward. This was not a case of exposing the business, this was a case of perhaps inadvertently destroying the business model completely.
2. The Red Lighting - Honestly, it didn't bother me that much. I did see how it could add to the ambiance of the story they were trying to tell. In fact, the fiend is such a surreal character that I can see how maintaining the red hue would have been thought of as an effective way of making us feel like we are in the fiend's world. This kind of this would have absolutely terrified me as a kid.
3. The Finish - The whole ideal that "Hell in a Cell" was built upon was WWE's "ultimate extreme." The Cell was established as one of the 3 most dangerous matches in the industry. It was suppose to be a place reserved for only the most hate fueled feud climaxes. THERE WERE NO LIMITS. NO RULES. It was the most sadistic of sport entertainment matches. This is why I hated it when they made the match more frequent and even gave it a PPV of its own. To me part of the allure of this match was its rarity. Sure, I've enjoyed some of the cell matches put own over the last 10 years but with the age of WWE's PG focus and years of tone down, I just feel like its time to put this concept on the shelf for a while. Its apparent that we've become numb to most extreme concept matches. WWE has done an exceptional job of getting newer generations of fans to see more toned down versions of these extreme gimmick matches as the genuine article we old fans remember. For us older fans, these matches pale in comparison to the original dangers that have been removed for the ring setups. These days the cages have been coated, the steel grate in the chamber has been padded, and even the ladders have been scored. Perhaps having a referee call a "safety stoppage" to a Hell in a Cell match was the final straw. You can break only so many established rules in your narrative before your audience calls a well deserved foul. At a certain point, pushing the envelope goes beyond the line of narrative genius simply becomes bad storytelling. You are leave your patrons uninterested in continuing your story because you have destroyed the world in which your story is being told.
In closing, I do want to urge those fans who were chanting for AEW to think about "why" they were chanting for that promotion. Also, I will say that the match may not be a total loss if they go "the urn" route with this story and use the lamp or perhaps another prop to explain this "over the top" endurance sold during the underwhelming finish of the match. I do understand what WWE was trying to do with this. They wanted to make The Fiend the most terrifying evil in the business. I think they may have wanted to protect Seth's standing as leading man on this show while also making Bray look unstoppable. -- certainly not the way I would have booked and choreographed this thing but hey... --- Perhaps the fans need to take a moment and look at what they are cheering for. Are they truly ready to have "The Fiend" as the face of the industry? ... the main event champion..? Apparent WWE was not ready to "Let Him In" and I personally think that most fans, deep down, are not ready to "Let Him In" either. This may all be nothing more than fan spite and anti-WWE passions fueled by Vince McMahon's more emboldened, ever growing, field of competing promotions and brands led by AEW.
THE COPPER SCALE RATINGS
-DKN
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