Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: hell in a cell, sports, tv, wwe

WWE Hell in a Cell: Banks Makes a Statement and Ends Bailey's Reign

The fourth match of Hell in a Cell kicked off in the WWE's ThunderDome hot on the tail of the Otis vs. Miz match, with the Miz exiting victorious. With John Morrison and Tucker standing ringside to cheer their best friends, Tucker swung the Money in the Bank briefcase hard enough to break everyone's hearts, and WWE had the audacity to expect fans would recover in time for Bailey and Sasha Bank's showdown.

In a lesson of friendships gone bad, this toxic duo demonstrated the issues with the nuances of stardom, and with her titles being threatened, Bailey used Banks as a means to an end in her infamous rise to the top. With Bailey being the more dominant of the two, the need to turn on her biggest ally seems to be nothing more than an internal power struggle with her once best friend.

Sasha Banks entered the Hell in a Cell arena first, being the only woman in WWE history to have competed in every female Hell in a Cell match ever. Claiming that her name is bigger than Bailey's ever will be, Sasha stood defiantly in the center ring, waiting for current reigning to make her own entrance into the fight. Bailey made her own entrance carrying a chair, calling Sasha a "stupid idiot," and set the tone for the match as one of blood gone bad.

Sasha intelligently kicked things off first by launching Bailey's chair out of the cell before the first whistle and rendered her opponent's advantage useless. With no disqualifications, Sasha Banks broke out of the gates with more than a warning shot and attempted to end things with Bailey once and for all with a barrage of blows followed by a Banks Statement, which Bailey was only able to break by ruthlessly biting her opponent. Bailey did respond in kind by luring Sasha out of the ring only to slam her into the unforgiving beams of the Cell. Known for her use of weapons in her recent matches, Bailey attempted to use an array of kendo sticks, only to have them tossed out one after the other by Banks. Tired of the nonsense, Sasha pulled a table from beneath the ring for nothing other than nefarious purposes and showed this Hell in a Cell match was going to be a callous demonstration of what happens with two women scorned.

Bailey very nearly lost the entire thing after taking a direct meteor from Sasha and only kicked out at the very last minute. Writhing in the center of the ring, Bailey managed to avoid a chair swing from Sasha and flung her opponent directly into a table outside the ring. Following a hard fall, Sasha writhed away from Bailey's chair, and last-minute pushed the current reigning into the Cell. The control of the match so far was evenly matched, but Sasha's experience in the ring was a harsh demonstration for Bailey, with the Boss leaping from ring to fence like SpiderWoman. Using the kendo sticks to create a bridge off the metal stairs, the two women exchanged blows, resulting in Sasha landing face-first into the trap she had so previously laid for Bailey, crashing into the sticks and laying injured outside the ring. Using the shift in momentum, Bailey wasted no time throwing Sasha into the ring. Bailey protected her championship with a harsh callousness and taunting of the Boss's neck injury.

Each woman continued to give the other a cruel lesson in anatomy. Sasha poetically gave Bailey a backstabber, very nearly ending the match until she caught herself in the ring's skirt and was given a bombardment of blows from the kendo stick for her trouble. Instead of MacGyver-ing a terrible kendo trap for Sasha, Bailey should have focused on the Boss, who got her hands on a fire extinguisher and blinded the champion just when it seemed like the match was ending for good. In months of pent up rage, Sasha released her pent up rage against Bailey through a hellfire of hits from the kendo stick, in a move that very nearly seemed like it was breaking the Boss' heart. However, the moment passed quickly enough with Sasha attempting a frog splash against Bailey, who last minute protected herself with a steel chair.

Just when things couldn't seem to get any more out of control, Bailey desperately retrieved a ladder from beneath the ring, using it to create a bridge between two steel chairs in a nefarious trap for her old friend. To add insult to injury, Bailey spray-painted an "X' on a chair, attempting to end the match once and for all for Sasha, who responded in kind by launching herself off the ladder and catching her opponent with a Bailey to Belly maneuver. Unbelievably, the two women kept going, somehow still showing signs of life despite all the career-ending hits off of ladders and with chairs. In the end, however, Sasha managed to get her hands on Bailey's weapon of choice, the chair, to catch her ex-friend in a Banks statement and cause the now-former champion to tap out. In an unbelievable upset, Sasha Banks ended the longest-running women's Smackdown reign and launched WWE's next best rivalry between two titans, which we can expect will extend long into WrestleMania.

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