WWE Hell in a Cell 2011: What If a Company Held a Pay-Per-View and No One Cared?

There are less than 24 hours remaining until WWE's annual October offering, Hell in a Cell, hits pay-per-view airwaves. This year is headlined by two championship bouts inside the brutal, unforgiving prison that is the cell.

Monday Night Raw presents a Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship in which John Cena defends the WWE Championship against challengers, and former champions, CM Punk and Alberto Del Rio. From SmackDown, the World Heavyweight Championship is on the line as current title-holder and all-around bad-ass Mark Henry defends against former champion Randy Orton.

Unfortunately for those involved, it is likely that this year's event will rank among the lowest purchased pay-per-view offerings in WWE's long and mostly illustrious existence. The question is, why? For an event headlined by what should be two high-quality main events, and a mid-card featuring two matches capable of stealing any show (Sheamus versus Christian and Air Boom versus Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger), it would seem as though fan anticipation would be at a high. At the very least, the cell is one of professional wrestling's most popular match gimmicks.

The reason for the overall lack of fan anticipation and what, presumably, will be an extremely low buy rate is clear. After a summer of teasing its fans with something new, something fresh, and something exciting in the form of the rise of CM Punk to the upper echelon of the sport, WWE has reverted to the same boring product fans were tiring of far before Punk saved them for a few weeks in July and August.

Panicking at the sight of a 2.7 television rating for the Sept. 12 edition of Raw, Vince McMahon and company devolved, refusing to push ahead with their new creative direction and instead, looked to the stale and dreadfully boring John Cena and Triple H to "save" WWE television. At the Night of Champions pay-per-view, Triple H defeated CM Punk in a painfully over-booked main event while John Cena captured his 203,845,252,354,242,342nd WWE Championship, defeating Alberto Del Rio after only a month-long reign. Reverting to the same two stars that have carried the company at times in the past highlighted a much more profound and serious issue WWE officials should be scrambling to fix immediately.

The fact of the matter is that the WWE's creative team, in general, no longer understands what is necessary to craft a fresh, exciting, and entertaining program. As evidenced by the panic switch from Del Rio to Cena at the September event, the writers are incapable of fixing a problem. Rather than writing stronger promos for or booking Alberto Del Rio as a stronger character fans can really either support or jeer, they take the easy road and give the WWE Championship back to John Cena.

Imagine, if you will, a patient in the emergency room with a nasty, gory open fracture of the tibia. The bone is literally protruding through the skin and the patient in screaming in agony. A nurse appears, opens a Batman Band-Aid, and sticks it on the wound. The Band-Aid has done nothing to heal the wound. It is simply a way to cover up what is really wrong. That is the current state of the WWE product. Let's face it: outside of the incredible, old-school booking of Mark Henry on SmackDown, there quite literally is not a single thing on any of WWE's programming that one can look at and say "well, that's fresh."

In April of 2000, with WCW is a period of absolute disarray, and with a main event roster of stale acts, the company attempted a re-boot. In September of 2011, with a product that had become to jumbled and, at times, incoherent, DC Comics initiated a re-boot. In both cases, fan interest was piqued.

WCW's was, ultimately, a failure due to behind-the-scenes power struggles and idiotic booking. Thus far, the DC Comics re-boot has been largely successful. Perhaps WWE could take note. Perhaps, for the product to become reinvigorated, Vince McMahon must realize his company's shortcomings and "shake things up again" in a manner far more involved than a simple draft lottery.

Until WWE makes peace with its tedious and boring offerings of, really, the past three or four years, it will continue to see fan interest, viewership, and buy rates fall off. Hell in a Cell will likely be another in a string of solid-to-strong pay-per-view offerings the company has produced since July.

Both championship matches will likely deliver. Sheamus and Christian will be good, as will the tag title match. Fans of the Divas will probably rejoice when Beth Phoenix FINALLY wins the Divas Championship. And Sin Cara versus Sin Cara will, well, it will probably suck. Can't all be great. But the question every wrestling fan should be asking themselves is this:

"If I don't buy this pay-per-view, will I miss something big?" And the answer will be no.

And that, my fellow wrestling fans, is a sad, sad reality.