WWE Hot Take of the Week: Time to Replace Hell in a Cell on PPV List

Welcome to another Hot Take. In this edition, it's time to get fired up about how Hell in a Cell has lost its luster and just isn't cutting it anymore, despite how WWE would love to continue convincing you it's a stronger concept than ever before.

Once upon a time, Hell in a Cell was the big, bad monster in terms of gimmick matches.

In an era when a steel cage was seen as the most dangerous option, Hell in a Cell came out of the woodwork like its mutant offspring—or given the circumstances of the Kane and Undertaker feud at In Your House: Badd Blood, its more violent sibling.

By the end of its debut, the match stipulation built up enough of a reputation that when its name was uttered, it spelled doom.

But that was in 1997, and over the past few years, things just haven't been the same.

In fact, the Hell in a Cell gimmick has dwindled so much in value that the creation of its pay-per-view not only desperately needs to end but should have never been introduced.

Since its inception, there have been 38 Hell in a Cell matches, with two more on the way on Sunday, meaning an average of two per year. However, with this pay-per-view, it's become commonplace to have two or more contests in a single night.

There were four Hell in a Cell matches in 2016. Three went down at the namesake event, while another took place at WrestleMania 32.

Using this gimmick frequently waters it down considerably, as the more matches that happen, the harder it is to think of creative ways to utilize the structure without being repetitive.

This is even worse at the Hell in a Cell events themselves, as it leads to the unfortunate balancing act where WWE doesn't want one match to outshine the others, so if only a few interesting ideas are thought of, they're spread out.

Credit: WWE.com

Each match becomes a showcase for one fun spot—if the fans are lucky. There have been plenty of times when even that doesn't happen and the matches have absolutely nothing going on, to the point they might as well not have a cage at all.

Granted, some of this is due to WWE's reduction of the violence and becoming much smarter with the performers, as it would be far too dangerous to keep trying to top Mick Foley's stunts from King of the Ring 1998.

That is a good thing for safety purposes, but when the gimmick is built around being dangerous, being tame doesn't sell the same image. Desensitization sets in, and for Hell in a Cell to mean anything, it has to go away for a long while for audiences to recalibrate their expectations.

Instead of giving fans a chance to miss the gimmick, though, WWE continually does the opposite by making it run every autumn like clockwork.

Since 2009, once October came around, it was guaranteed we would get at least one Hell in a Cell match with this pay-per-view, if not two or three, whether or not any of the feuds going on were good enough to call for the gimmick to be put into play.

Credit: WWE.com

It used to be that two wrestlers would only do battle inside the so-called Satan's Structure when their rivalry had become so intense that no other standard stipulation like a Street Fight or a Last Man Standing match would suffice.

Mankind and Undertaker were beating each other to bloody pulps in boiler rooms and No Disqualification matches and had tried to bury each other alive before going at it inside Hell in a Cell.

Now, Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton will fight under the same supposedly vicious circumstances just because Orton happened to pull on Hardy's earring a few times and actively chose not to do any harm to him at SummerSlam.

How is that good enough to bring this cage into the mix? They could accomplish the same goal of mutually assured destruction by having the two compete under any other sort of extreme stipulation. Nothing at all mandates Hell in a Cell.

For that matter, the argument that Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler and The Shield's potential interference necessitates the structure for the Roman Reigns-Braun Strowman showdown doesn't rule out a regular cage match. Nor does it mean this event has to be called Hell in a Cell.

If this event were named No Mercy and that feud had enough steam behind it to convince WWE to pull out the bigger cage with the roof on it, there would be nothing stopping them from still having a Hell in a Cell match on another card.

Hell in a Cell matches have happened at WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series and plenty of other events, including Monday Night Raw. It isn't like the Royal Rumble, which has become synonymous with January and starting the Road to WrestleMania.

Even then, the Greatest Royal Rumble showed that WWE is willing to play around with the most important gimmick match of the year, so there's no reason why Hell in a Cell has to happen every September or October.

For nine years, fans knew they were in store for a Hell in a Cell match or two in the fall and a TLC match at that pay-per-view later in the year. They are no longer special attractions that come out of nowhere. Instead, they are the norm.

Credit: WWE.com

DDTs and Superkicks used to signify the end of matches. But when everybody uses the moves, nobody gets excited that they can lead to the finish anymore. Likewise, the more Hell in a Cell matches that take place on a regular schedule—particularly when they're tamer—the less captivating they are.

If WWE wishes to restore the Hell in a Cell gimmick to its former glory, the element of necessity must be brought back too.

Its incarnation as a yearly pay-per-view with matches that may not have hot-enough storylines to sustain its use makes it a shell of its former self, with WWE trying to squeeze the last remaining drops of awesomeness out of a once devilishly delightful match.

Next year, Hell in a Cell should be taken off the list of pay-per-views, replaced with something more generic like Breaking Point or Battleground. What's more, the gimmick should be put on ice for the entirety of 2019, if not 2020 too.

Eventually, people will grow to miss it. And when a bitter-enough feud reaches a boiling point, reintroducing Hell in a Cell would get fans talking and excited to see its return.

This year, though, all we can look forward to is Hardy possibly jumping off the structure and Strowman and Reigns doing something to knock down one of the walls—two spots for the highlight reel and a lot of other filler to eat up the rest of the time.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.