At the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas last night Hell in a Cell. Universal Champion Roman Reigns met Braun Strowman, who secured the title match in his Money in the Bank case in advance. AJ Styles also defended his WWE Championship against Samoa Joe and Raw Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey met ex-Champ Alexa Bliss.
Winner & still SmackDown Tag Team Champions: The New Day per Trouble in Paradise by Kofi Kingston against Aiden English, after he had substituted himself. Rusev was visibly upset. The never-ending story, part 2 continues: After SashaxBayley/vs. Bayley, which has now completely fizzled out, Rusev and English are now back in dispute.
Whether the bookers really have a concrete plan for one of the two, or whether one simply kills time, will (perhaps) show the next weeks. But the hope that Rusev will one day emerge stronger from this storyline may have been buried by the last optimist.
Winner: Randy Orton, after Jeff Hardy jumped off the top of the cage, dodged the Viper and the Charismatic Enigma crashed through a table. That match was brutal, period. As expected, Hardy unpacked some heavy spots, including a Swanton Bomb on a chair placed on Orton’s chest. Furthermore, he attacked his opponent’s back with a belt, whereupon Randy began to bleed.
The fall at the end looked bad and the finish looked all the more violent as the Referee had the cell lifted to let the ring doctors see Jeff before Randy pinched him. Hardy has not injured himself more seriously, but after his brother’s probable career end, they are now also playing with a serious injury to Jeff. This feud should be over.
Winner & new SmackDown Women’s Champion: Becky Lynch, after dodging a spear and rolling Charlotte in. After the match Flair Lynch offered the handshake, but she refused and explained that she would not let her take the moment. With the finish, WWE sensibly continues Lynch’s new portrayal as Tweener and actually crowned her push with high merit.
Charlotte was only a transitional champion to further increase her number of titles in the finest Cena manner. For Becky, who was once again unbelievably over with the audience, it is the deserved reward for years of hard work and it remains to be hoped that her second title run will be booted better than the first – at least the beginning is already promising. The feud against Charlotte will of course go as far as Evolution and culminate in a rematch.
Winner & still Raw Tag Team Champions: Dolph Ziggler & Drew McIntyre after a Claymore kick from McIntyre against Rollins. Another top-class match with many spectacular spots that brought the hall to a boil. Rollins took the pin as Ambrose continues to be protected after his comeback and it is still obvious that this tag team feud is primarily used to push Drew McIntyre in perspective as a singles heel. Since no other teams at Raw are somehow relevant and only the B team would still be possible as a new challenger, this feud will be continued in doubt for the time being.
Winner & still WWE Champion: AJ Styles, after countering the Coquina clutch in a pin. Joe then discussed extensively with the Referee and grabbed the title before Styles sent him out of the ring. Then the Samoan stomped up the ramp in rage and demanded SmackDown GM Paige. From the afterplay after the match we can conclude that this feud will continue for at least another month and will end in another title match.
This makes sense, because Joe seemed to be the winner at the end of the match and SmackDown didn’t build up any other serious challengers for styles. At the same time it also shows the main problem of WWE and Joe: The league simply doesn’t have any heavily booted heels at the moment. Samoa Joe should have won the title here when his momentum was at the top, like last year against Lesnar.
Instead, they decided once again to portray him as dominant, but in the end as a loser. So things are similar for Joe as they were for Shinsuke Nakamura, who as a US champ wasn’t even allowed to compete in this PPV. The probability that the Samoan Submission Machine in the WWE will still be World Champ has dropped massively last night.
Page 1: Hell in a cell – the prelude
Page 2: Reigns vs. Strowman