WWE has spent most of the year building Seth Rollins as its top babyface star, centering the promotion around him and establishing the former Shield member as a capable wrestler.

No opponent is too formidable for Rollins—he has even beaten the all-but-unstoppable Brock Lesnar twice, a seemingly impossible task.

Across the ring from him at Sunday's Hell in the Cell was The Fiend, a horror movie-style villain expertly unleashed on the WWE Universe through a series of incredibly entertaining vignettes, videos so compelling that fans were willing to overlook two failed gimmicks and give Bray Wyatt the benefit of the doubt.

In theory, a top babyface and a hot heel, placed in a deadly structure like the Hell in a Cell, should be a guaranteed success with the fans. Instead, the crowd at the pay-per-view absolutely rejected the bout and its finish: booing the finish, asking for a refund and chanting for the rival All Elite Wrestling promotion.

It was, in short, a disaster.

So, how did it go so terribly wrong? Personally, I think there are multiple factors driving the disgust. Any one of which might not have been enough to create this reaction. Together, it was too much for the audience to stomach.

1. The wrong guy won. Worse than that, the wrong guy has the belt and has been gifted the push of a lifetime. 

The crowd was booing Rollins from the first bell. They just do not accept him as the champion. You can't book a wrestler as a sympathetic babyface, expecting fans to urge him onward in the face of impossible odds, unless the audience has clearly bought into the performer in a big way. 

That hasn't happened with Rollins.

Despite the audience response, the writers clearly picture Rollins, the king of perseverance, as the protagonist of this story. The conflicted, violent Fiend is the villain, a mere obstacle in the hero's road to immortality. But the audience feels differently. Much as the fans don't accept Rollins as a champion, they have also rejected him as the hero of this tale.

2. Fans expect carnage in a Hell in the Cell match. They do not expect that too much punishment will result in a ref stoppage. The entire concept of the match is contained and sustained violence. 

Besides, the level of violence didn't really escalate beyond the norm for this style of bout. That made this ending wholly unexpected, unsatisfying and a betrayal of the very idea of HIAC. To paraphrase my favorite tweet of the night: "Mick Foley didn't almost die for THIS."

3. Even if you buy that Rollins delivered an unacceptable level of violence—the wrong guy was guilty of the excessive carnage. The audience may have been satisfied with a similar ending if the roles were reversed and The Fiend had doled out extreme punishment to the universal champion.

4. Finally, I think fans rightly felt disrespected and manipulated. They were told the violence had gone too far, yet wrestling followers can remember far worse things happening inside the cell over the years. If the match must be stopped for excessive violence, then you better make it with some violence in excess of all the other HIAC matches through the years.

Otherwise, the fans are gonna call you on your nonsense. 

The Wednesday Night Wars: AEW vs. NXT, Night 2

For the second week in a row, All Elite Wrestling and NXT brought formidable events to the front line of the new wrestling war. And, for a second consecutive week, the upstarts at AEW walked away victorious.

While both shows were fun to watch, the crowd energy and enthusiasm helped AEW reach heights NXT just can't match.

While there's something cool about the studio-style aesthetic NXT has cultivated, it makes the show feel less important and exciting than the wrestling offered down the dial on TNT. 

AEW Dynamite

Hits:

• Private Party, virtually unknown before AEW's launch, were launched into stardom by upsetting the amazing Young Bucks. The match was an all-action affair, featuring highspot after highspot as the two teams took turns wowing the crowd with unbelievable athleticism and aerial daring.
• Chris Jericho, already a first-ballot wrestling Hall of Famer, proved once again he's "still got it." A promo in the first hour likely sold thousands of new Inner Circle T-shirts as he introduced his new faction to the world. Later in the evening, he more than held his own in a great tag team main event. While there has been some criticism of featuring Jericho in a high-profile role, he's proved he absolutely belongs.
• Cody Rhodes looked like a serious star, coming to the rescue of his seemingly ageless brother and Adam Page after The Inner Circle attacked them after the match. Last week, the bad guys stood tall in the ring as the show went off air. This time it was the heroes, including MJF, who earned the upper hand.

Misses:

• Jim Ross heavily foreshadowed the Private Party upset. He told the audience that the duo basically had no chance against a team like the Bucks. That all but guaranteed they would rally for the win. No one says things like that for no reason.
• The Darby Allin vs. Jimmy Havoc match didn't have the energy and fan interest one would expect from a title eliminator in front of a scorching hot crowd. Perhaps Pac was right—these two guys may be moving too far up the card too fast. Allin made up for it, gloriously, when he rode a skateboard down the ramp to deliver a knee to Jericho.
• The AEW rules are kind of unclear. What sort of interference is allowed and when? Who can say? The rules appear to be fluid.

NXT

Hits:

• Walter and Kushida had a barn-burner in the main event, topping a night full of really fun matches. The show is a mix of squash matches and legitimate contests as the creative team attempts to build stars and maintain them. It's a tricky balance but they are managing through Week 2.
• Roderick Strong and Isaiah "Swerve" Scott had a classic "Ring of Honor in 2007" style match, well-executed and solidly wrestled as you'd expect with Strong involved. As good as the bout was, Mauro Ranallo and Nigel McGuinness' dueling Nick Cave references were my personal highlight.
• WWE is getting behind Lio Rush, who won the cruiserweight title from Drew Gulak in a fast-paced opener. Rush, who is an elite flyer, may be the kind of act that attracts the younger audience WWE craves.

Misses:

• Beth Phoenix's series of double entendres introducing Fandango and Tyler Breeze could have been disastrous. Through sheer force of personality she managed to pull it off—but more often than not, the broadcast swings and misses when it attempts to get too cute.
• NXT doesn't just play to a small crowd. It's also a crowd mostly hidden in shadow. Hard to miss as AEW continues to include the audience as an equity partner in its show.

Match of the Week: Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks (Hell in a Cell)

WWE closed Hell in a Cell Sunday night with one of the most widely panned matches in modern wrestling history. And that's too bad—because it opened with one of the best bouts of the year.

The first Hell in the Cell match was between Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in 1997. The next was Mankind's tour de force that included not one, but two of the most insane bumps the WWE Universe has ever seen. Over the years, the concept has been watered down from its early gruesome glory. 

Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks took a step back in the right direction.

No, Lynch didn't run a razor blade across her forehead in an attempt at immortality. And, no, there wasn't a wild swan dive off the top of the cage. But working with the confines of a contemporary, family friendly wrestling show, the two women delivered the goods. 

Lynch and Banks constructed a remarkable, innovative and consistently brutal match. There was copious violence, highlighted by The Man's running dropkick off the apron, nailing her rival who she had carefully placed on a chair stacked atop several Singapore Canes. It was a spot so intricate that the previous statement likely makes no sense without a visual reference—a good sign that the creativity was next-level. 

The finish was perfect for a cluster of a match like this, Lynch suplexing Banks onto a pile of chairs tossed into the ring ECW style. It worked perfectly, a bout and crowd both seemingly transported from a Philadelphia Bingo Hall in 1996. 

For a hardcore match, I can think of few better compliments.

Runner Up: Young Bucks vs. Private Party (AEW Dynamite, 10/9)

Hard Times Promo of the Week: The Rock Lays the SmackDown on Fox

It's been 20 years since WWE SmackDown debuted, its very name an indication of just how transcendent The Rock was in the world of professional wrestling.

His star eventually shined too bright and hot for the insular, niche world we all love so much. As great as he was, Dwayne Johnson was born for bigger things, his effervescent personality and incomparable charisma too much for our sport to contain.

And so, begrudgingly, we shared him with the wider world. But SmackDown continued on. 

The Rock, of course, is always welcome back home. What better time than Friday night and what better place the live on Fox?

His promo, standing side by side with Becky Lynch and brutalizing poor Baron Corbin, was vintage Rock. He swung and missed trying to get an "STD" chant over but scored big calling the latest King of the Ring a "Burger King on crack."

That's part of the secret the greats don't always share: You're going to bomb in this business, even if you're The Rock.

If handled with good humor and grace, you can move on from failure on the microphone easily, leaving the stench of it behind by moving back to the comfortable and familiar.

The Rock always has—and that's why millions (and millions) of his fans sing along with Brahma Bull, why we know about his taste in pie and why it doesn't matter what we think about what he's cooking.

The Rock is a true legend in a sport that uses that word awfully cavalierly. His presence in a WWE ring doesn't distract from current stars. Instead, it raises everyone up. Lynch is better for sharing the spotlight with him. So is Baron Corbin.

That's the power of The Rock. May he continue laying the smackdown on all our candy asses for years to come. 

This Week in Wrestling

A lot goes down every week in the wacky world of wrestling. Here are a few of the highlights from a particularly busy seven days.

Smackdown

• Smackdown debuted on Fox with crazy ratings. Brock Lesnar stole the show by winning the WWE Championship from Kofi Kingston, but his celebration was interrupted by former UFC rival Cain Velasquez.
• Velasquez wasn't the only top fighter featured at the show. Boxing champion Tyson Fury jumped the railing to challenge Braun Strowman, a feud that continued on Monday's Raw.
• Shane McMahon was (use your best Vince McMahon voice) "fiiiiiiiiiiired" after losing a ladder match to Kevin Owens.

• A great women's Hell in the Cell match saw Becky Lynch retain over Sasha Banks in an instant classic.
• The Kabuki Warriors won the tag team titles from Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross.
• Charlotte Flair beat Bayley to become the new Smackdown women's champion. It is her 10th title reign in an already legendary career. 
• WWE fans had #cancelwwenetwork trending on Twitter after the disappointing finish to The Fiend vs. Seth Rollins main event.

• RAW pretended like the disastrous PPV never happened, choosing instead to focus on the Lana/Rusev/Bobby Lashley love triangle and Fury's feud with Strowman.

• NWA Powerrr debuted on YouTube. It was a throwback to the 1980s, shot in an intimate studio like the classic wrestling many of us grew up on. 
• AEW Dark joined the NWA on YouTube. The show, hosted by Tony Schiavone from the AEW command center, featured some solid matches, especially a show-stealing match between Darby Allin and Cima.

Three-Count: Looking Ahead

New Japan Pro-Wrestling: King of Pro-Wrestling (October 14, New Japan World)

• Kazuchika Okada v. Sanada (IWGP Championship): Okada is the greatest champion in modern wrestling history. So good, in fact, that it's hard to even pinpoint a contemporary rival. He's suggested Sanada might be that man. A big win could help establish this idea much better than words ever could. Prediction: Okada
• Kota Ibushi v. Evil (For contract to main-event at the 1/4/2020 Tokyo Dome): Ibushi, Kenny Omega's long-time tag team partner, has finally earned a chance at the spotlight, winning the G1 Climax to guarantee as shot at main-eventing the biggest show of the year. Evil is trying to take that away. This could very well steal the show. Prediction: Ibushi
• Jon Moxley v. Juice Robinson (United States Championship): The first two matches between the two Americans have surprised the highly particular NJPW fanbase. With Moxley's growing international profile, this bout is suddenly bigger than a belt. Prediction: Moxley