4 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Hell In A Cell 2020

2. Banks Cashes In

Bayley Sasha Banks
WWE.com

There might have been temptation for WWE to book a screwy finish in the Hell in a Cell match for the SmackDown Women’s Championship and try to drag out the feud between Bayley and Sasha Banks longer, but for once, the writers capitalized on the circumstances at the right time and delivered a gem.

Sasha and Bayley’s friendship and rivalry has been one of WWE’s better ongoing storylines, with the duo dominating the entire women’s division for much of 2020, at one point holding all the gold. Their breakup was inevitable, but it has worked pretty damn well, with Bayley solidifying her status as a lead villain rather than the predictable route of Banks turning on the formerly gullible Bayley.

Their HIAC match was solid, with some interesting and unique spots while still looking aggressive and vicious. Sasha finally pulled out the win after a series of near-falls by reversing out of a Bayley-to-Belly and hooking in a Banks Statement with the steel chair for the tap-out.

Had this been a simple one-on-one match, you could have cheated and had Bayley get DQ’d to return, setting up this match. But a Hell in a Cell match is supposed to be definitive, and the story was peaking nicely, so this was a good time to end Bayley’s historic title reign. Nicely done.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.