Previously at Hell In A Cell…
The Kabuki Warriors nabbed The Women’s Tag Titles (come back, Kairi!), Harper, Rowan & The O.C. all lost (who?), & WWE had quite possibly the worst finish to a pay per view ever (which we won’t dare talk about).
WWE decided this was basically a three match show & relied heavily on them to carry the card. All of them were in The Cell, with a few regular matches sprinkled in between. Were they able to deliver? Any new champions crowned? Here we go.
Alpha Dog
Peak heel Roman Reigns is now officially my favorite thing in all of WWE. More than Sasha & Bayley, more than The Fiend & Alexa, & yes, even more than The IIconics. The guy is in another level of the atmosphere with his evilness. While most heels in WWE are filled with jealously & “You people”, Reigns is out here making familial murder into a gimmick. On top of everything else, he’s also rocking a faux Infinity Gauntlet on his right hand now. As he’s actively trying to erase half of The Usos from the universe in this match, it’s a good look.
The crazy thing is I don’t begrudge him for it. It’s for sure delusional, but you can wrap your head around his stance. He’s like Tywin Lannister. Will do anything for the betterment of his family, even if it’s at the expense of those in that family to obtain it.
One of the only good things to come out of this empty arena wrestling is that they’ve turned the microphones up in the ring, so you can hear the back & forth trash talk between everybody. I think it’s on display best here. You hear both of these guys’ clear motivations, their reluctance at times to hurt the other & how people on the outside don’t matter, whether it’s Heyman or the officials that come down towards the end.
And let’s talk about the end, because ooooohhhh buddy was it great. From last week’s Smackdown review:
I think the big x-factor in all of this is Jimmy Uso returning… That throws a lot of possibilities into play heading into Sunday if he tries to interfere… Roman could also just start assaulting Jimmy’s injured knee, making Jey quit so it stops the attack, which would be a nice role reversal from Clash Of Champions.
I’m not trying to brag about being right about how it played out (okay, maybe a little), but there’s nothing I like more about WWE than when they reward you for actively paying attention. We clearly see Jey Uso is never going to say “I Quit”, even with Roman threatening to mush his brains out his ears, so you take a more indirect route to get there. You stop attacking him physically & go for him mentally. Enter Jimmy Uso. The emotion shown by Roman before he did what he thought was necessary, breaking down to tears was incredible to watch. Just because you knew what was coming. Roman takes the low road & snatches up Jimmy in a choke, so Jey has no choice to give up. He won’t see his family hurt to further his agenda & that’s the difference between him & Roman Reigns.
I am curious how the whole “indentured servant” thing unfolds. You would think The Usos would have to fall in line after Roman nearly ended both of them, but WWE babyfaces are a stubborn, stupid lot. If they don’t, I wonder if this feud continues on or if they do fall in line, if they’ll do so willingly or reluctantly. I like the idea of a Reigns & Usos stable running through Smackdown, so it’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out.
A Banks Statement
This match & The Universal Title Match were neck & neck for the top spot. You could make a case either way, I don’t think I’d fight you on it. This one had the better wrestling, but the Reigns one edged it in story, so I gave it the slight nod.
That being said, Sasha Banks vs. Bayley delivered in every sense of the word. I was a little worried these past few weeks that they were losing steam heading into this match, but they overcame those hurdles & put on arguably one of the best women’s matches of the year. There’s so many callbacks here that I’m sorry if this part runs a little long, but I want to make sure I do this year long build justice.
The symbolism used throughout this whole bout is outstanding. I wasn’t a fan of the Sasha in white, Bayley in black thing to show their alignment because I think Sasha has been just as much a heel this entire time, but I appreciate the effort. What’s fantastic though is the chair Bayley brings down to the ring. The same one she used when she turned on Sasha weeks ago & tried to break her neck with. There’s a giant ‘X’ on the part of the chair she used to hit her with, which is a nice touch. On the other side, it’s supposed to say ‘1-0’ to signify what her Hell In A Cell record will be after she beats Sasha, but her line between the numbers is too long so it looks either like a shovel, a toddler drawn fish, or a ding dong (hello?). Shorter hyphens next time, Bayley. I bring this up because they flip the image with the chair from Bayley’s entrance to her tapping out to show the win-loss record turned on it’s head. That second Banks Statement also has Sasha banging her foot on the chair to enhance the submission, which was a great callback to their Iron Woman Match in NXT.
My favorite moment of the whole thing is during the post match. I can’t be sure if they meant to do it, but Graves makes sure to point it out, so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. If you recall way back to when these two had won The Women’s Tag Titles, but Sasha had yet to win The RAW Women’s Championship, they were dropping subtle hints of Sasha’s inevitable betrayal the entire time. We went from this months ago:
To this last night after Sasha won:
*Chef’s kiss*
Sasha is obsessed with becoming champion, but when she finally gets there, she doesn’t even immediately care for it. She had Bayley before, but didn’t have the title, which she wanted. Now she has the title, but not Bayley, who she wants back. She eventually snaps out of it & starts to gloat, but I think that snapshot right after the victory is the real reaction. Sasha lives for the thrill of the chase. She’s a dog chasing cars. She wouldn’t know what to do if she ever caught one. That explains how every time she’s won a title, her first defense is always a loss, so she can start the cycle all over again. It’s probably not as in depth as all that, but that’s such a fun way to look at it.
I could spend another bunch of paragraphs on the pathos, but I won’t. I barely even talked about the actual match. Which was awesome. It told a great story & was violent, but not over the top. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t. I’m still torn on Sasha winning as Bayley has been the MVP of Smackdown & possibly all of WWE in 2020, but that’s how you know a feud is good, when you can make a case for either winner. If they decide this was the end of the story, they definitely went out on a high note. We’ll see if my theory about Sasha holds up going forward, but for now, Smackdown has a whole new women’s roster & should be a fun watch in the weeks to come.
Scot Off Guard
It’s tough not to feel for Drew McIntyre after all this. After being let go from WWE, he rehabs himself into this monster of a wrestler with great promo skills & finds his way back there. WWE is so impressed by him that they decide he can unseat their Big Bad at WrestleMania in Brock Lesnar, but then the pandemic hits & Drew has to do it in an empty arena to crickets. There weren’t even any people on Zoom to watch. That’s obviously not his or anybody else’s fault, I just think Drew’s doing the best work of his career & it just so happens to get undercut by an abundance of outside factors.
The Hell In A Cell Match between him & Orton is good enough, but suffers greatly from being the third one of the night & not nearly having the story backing it up like Reigns & The Usos or the wrestling to carry it like Sasha & Bayley. Despite Randy Orton’s 2020 resurgence, there’s still the thought of hearing “Randy Orton Main Event” & dreading it heading in. Like most Orton main events, this one seriously drags & wasn’t nearly as good as the match at Clash Of Champions. There’s a couple nice callbacks with The Backslide & the chair to McIntyre’s jaw, but this was the clear worst Cell Match of the evening.
I appreciated them leaving the cage & fighting up on top of it to mix it up, but I was pretty burnt out with the gimmick by then. I didn’t love the spot they used from the cage with Drew falling through the table either. He falls maybe like ten feet into what’s essentially a crash pad in the announce desk & we’re supposed to buy it like he was shot with a cannon. I’m not advocating for them to top Taker & Mankind, but it just felt hokey. Not to mention the whole lead up to the spot & the aftermath was like a combined fifteen minutes before the action picked up again.
At the end of the day, Orton is 1-2 against McIntyre, yet is now WWE Champion. I wish Drew had a better run, or at the very least got to perform in front of a live crowd once as champion, but he made the best of an awful situation. I think he’ll be fine. There’s enough solid competition on RAW now that he can fall back into something else for the time being. I hate to admit it, but as of right now, Orton probably is the better option as WWE Champ. With The Fiend traded to RAW & now Miz with MitB, Orton has a lot of people that he has history with that’ll be gunning for him.
Or everybody will be friendly & be Team Red this next month.
*Shrugs*
Soul Crushing Finale
Oof.
Speaking of people to feel bad for, poor Otis. First his girlfriend gets traded to RAW, followed by his best friend, then he loses a court case for his Money In The Bank Contract via bribery, only to lose the match for it when his “best friend” decides to all of a sudden turn on him because the year 2020 hates wrestling friendship more than Johnny Gargano hates wheels. Otis should’ve tried to cash in on Roman Reigns before this match even happened & told Miz to fuck off. He would’ve got killed for it, but at least he goes out not looking completely hopeless.
Tucker’s weird decision to cost Otis the match makes little sense to me. He rationalizes it in a backstage interview in typical tag team break up fashion saying he was the underappreciated one on the team & carried them the whole time, only for everybody to love Otis & not him. I guess he was clearly Team Sonya during her feud with Mandy. There’s a few issues, though. First, if he hated tagging with Otis so much, Tucker’s problem JUST got solved for him once he’s traded to RAW & Otis wasn’t. WWE did your dirty work for you. And now that they’re on different shows, they can’t even feud about it. I’m sure WWE will use November as “The one time of year wrestlers from different shows interact”, even though they just spent October doing it, but the whole thing was just a lazy, nonsensical swerve to get Miz the briefcase. God forbid he actually just win a match on his own for it.
One thing I didn’t realize that was said in the post-match interview (other than Morrison loving “The Secret”), was that The Amway Center is where Miz cashed in his first go round with the briefcase. And on whom you ask? WWE Champion Randy Orton. In November. So if there’s anything good to take away from this, it’s that WWE gave a nod to history & a talking point going forward. I still think it’s pretty bush league to do Otis dirty like that, but I can’t say Miz isn’t the better option as the contract holder. Miz takes it seriously, constantly looms over champions with it & is smart enough to pick his spot at the right time. I’m not sure Otis even seriously teased cashing in before, except that one time on Strowman, but got scared away after Strowman just side eyed him.
Here’s looking forward to WWE Champion shithead Miz. As for Otis, we’ll be reminded he exists come The Royal Rumble when he enters at number eight & I’m sure Taz will be wondering what Knucker Tight is doing in The Dynamite Zone in a few months.
Gulak Of Respect
I don’t have a ton to add to this other than that Drew Gulak might be the most underutilized guy on the entire roster. I know there’s several candidates, but Gulak has great promo skills, fantastic comedic timing & can most importantly wrestle you into dust. He might also be the biggest heel in WWE for beating the shit out of an imaginary child. If you didn’t catch it, take five minutes & watch what was probably the best actual 24/7 match ever here. The whole thing is silly, but there’s a surprisingly good amount of solid wrestling. Were there any actual stakes involved, this may be sitting behind Sasha & Bayley in this review.
If we don’t get a John Cena vs. R-Truth program before it’s all said & done, I will be so disappointed.
Jacklash
RIPIP RETRIBUTION August 2020 – October 2020
You had a terrible run.
What an absolute disaster this whole thing has been. No need to recap how we got here since I don’t want to give myself vertigo, but what in the ever loving hell are we trying to do here? RETRIBUTION has been in two official matches now & Lashley has tapped out T-Bar & now SLAPJACK cleanly in each contest, respectively. They had a real chance to get this thing over once MVP announced an impromptu United States Championship Match. You could’ve had Dijakovic or particularly Ali take out Lashley & give some instant credibility to this faction. Now they somehow look more fucking hapless than they already did. What a joke.
Maybe they can ditch this idea now that Halloween season is coming to a close & they can not look like Mad Max rejected artwork going forward. Nobody’s into Jack Skellington in Shorty G basketball shorts.
Axe Is Smashed
Remember when Jeff Hardy tried to convince us all he’s a good person during his feud with Sheamus?
The second hour of RAW rolls on with this complete time filler of a match between Elias & Hardy. Elias encapsulates 2020 America pretty well with his utter ignorance towards facts & evidence, still choosing to believe Jeff ran him over with a car a few months ago, even though they’ve loudly stated several times that never happened. The whole thing is just an excuse for Hardy to get his revenge on Elias for hitting him in the back with a guitar two weeks ago, which he doeshere for a DQ. There needs to be a rule in place for pay per views where if I could throw your match on Main Event, it’s not allowed. The way WWE books feuds now, look forward to this continuing well into 2022.
Overall
Worth Your Time: Universal & Smackdown Women’s Championship Matches
If You Have Time: WWE & 24/7 Championship Matches
Don’t Waste Time: US Championship Match, MitB Contract Match, Elias vs. Jeff Hardy
And that’s Hell In A Cell, everybody. Not the show of the year or anything, but miles better than last year’s by comparison after that show’s ending left a horrible taste in everybody’s mouth. The Smackdown side was absolutely must watch & the RAW side was… not so much. I know I’ve been saying this for weeks, but I really hope now that The Draft’s over & these feuds have had their big blow off matches, we’ll see some new directions on both shows. What’d you guys think? Enjoy Hell In A Cell? Predictions on where we’re heading? Sound off in the comments or on our Discord. We’re officially into Survivor Series mode, so get your red, blue & yellow t-shirts ready accordingly. I’ll be looking to invade RAW & NXT reviews these next few weeks in order to establish my supremacy. You’ve been warned.
