At WWE Hell in a Cell 2019, we’re going to witness what may be the single most exciting match and rivalry since the formation of the Universal Championship. In its 3-year lineage, the championship has changed hands a few times and only Brock Lesnar and Seth Rollins have won the title on multiple occasions.
Other than that, the title has primarily been dominated by Brock Lesnar, who has held the title for a good part of 2 years. That means that the other reigns are scattered across, but this time around, it seemed as though Seth Rollins was in for another long title reign…or so we thought.
Seth Rollins has had back-to-back clean victories over Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman respectively and that is no small feat. No other superstar has ever defeated two such behemoths back-to-back and it seemed like it was WWE learning from the mistakes of the Roman Reigns push.
It certainly helps them that Seth Rollins is a well-established fan favorite and he has been their obvious (and correct) pick to be the face of Monday Night RAW, further adding to the legacy of the “Monday Night Rollins” name. However, despite having defeated Lesnar and Strowman, Seth Rollins finds himself up against the toughest challenge yet as Universal Champion.
He is all set to face none other than The Fiend Bray Wyatt at Hell in a Cell for the Universal Championship. It’s the most unusual feud because the general assumption was that Wyatt didn’t need a title to feel special – and to some extent, that was very true. It helped that WWE knew how to handle him when he returned in April to television and made an in-ring return at SummerSlam 2019.
It’s very clear that this version of Bray Wyatt is something very special. Fans had a lot of praise for Wyatt even when he was The Eater Of Worlds, but now that we look at it, his previous persona is a far milder version of what he is right now. And everything about Bray Wyatt speaks volumes of what a wrestling genius he truly is.
For example, let’s take a look at his dedication. Braun Strowman is a great friend of his backstage and revealed to Sam Roberts in an interview that while Bray Wyatt was cooking up the idea of The Fiend that we know today, he shut himself out from the world. He said:
“We went for a while without even talking because he went so deep into this character; he shut himself out from the world. I remember watching the very first episode of the Firefly Funhouse and was thinking, ‘What the hell is this? Bray, what are you doing?’ But the more I watched, I couldn’t turn away from it. It was so intriguing what he was doing, and then they brought ‘The Fiend’ out and I was like, ‘Alright, it’s unbelievable.”
This alone speaks volumes of how much effort Wyatt puts into his character. Sure, he’s not the best in-ring worker, but in WWE, that will always be secondary to a strong character that connects with crowds. Not only does Bray Wyatt always successfully connect with the crowd, he essentially has them in the palm of his hands.
He has a very special ability that was obviously not capitalized on before and WWE knows that this time, they can’t make the same mistake. The reality is that if they want to, WWE knows how to make anyone look really good. And to their credit, they have been all in on Wyatt since the Firefly Fun House.
Since Seth Rollins is coming off two back-to-back hot victories and has momentum, it normally wouldn’t make sense for him to take the title. But as you’ve figured out by now, this is no ordinary rivalry. The Fiend’s momentum in WWE right now is a whole world in its own and it’s safe to say that as of this writing, Bray Wyatt might just be the hottest superstar in WWE.
They have made sure that he never appears on every episode of RAW, nor does he wrestle every week and at every PPV. It’s certainly helped make him a special attraction and they should keep it that way even if he is Universal Champion. The real question, however, is as to who has more to lose – Seth Rollins or The Fiend?
The answer to that would be The Fiend. His new character is still undefeated and only has one match. He’s been more interested in having a body count and ideally, Seth Rollins should be in that as well. They go to war inside the gargantuan steel structure and the setting and circumstances make it perfect for Wyatt to win the match.
Unless they do something very creative that protects both superstars, it’s going to be a very tricky situation for WWE. The best outcome would be for Rollins to continue being champion without actually having to defeat Wyatt. Again, a lot of different complications come into play because it’ll mean yet another screwy finish to a Hell in a Cell PPV. And since the men are most likely going to main event, they need a convincing finish.
Wyatt as Universal Champion doesn’t sound bad at all.
