Kevin’s WWE Hell In A Cell 2021 Review

WWE Hell in a Cell
June 20th, 2020 | Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida

Mandy Rose vs. Natalya
It’s your Kickoff match. The women’s tag division is laughable. WWE keeps getting rid of actual teams and what they’re left with doesn’t work. Like, the storyline here is that Nattie feels Mandy/Dana only got their opportunities because they’re hot, which is dumb and lame. They opened with some basic back and forth that was even to showcase that Mandy was on her level. Mandy got more aggressive with a sweet neck whip on the rope but Natalya could combat that with her power advantage. Mandy stayed with her at every turn, even when Nattie called her “just a fitness model.” She came close with her Better Than Kenny knee strike but in the end, Natalya won with the Sharpshooter in 9:40 because…reasons, I guess? Bad booking aside, I do think that was a good match that was better than expected. [**½]

Time for the main card.

WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship Hell in a Cell Match: Bianca Belair [c] vs. Bayley
So far, the women’s cell matches have ruled. Sasha/Charlotte (***¾) was good, while Sasha/Becky (****½) and Sasha/Bayley (****½) were all-timers. I liked that these two didn’t waste time with a traditional opening exchange. Bayley got a chair as soon as she was overmatched and I loved Bianca countering it with her hair. The braid was also used to trip Bayley at one point. Her matches often have creative spots involving the hair, which I like. Nobody else can do that, so she stands out. Bayley doing things like biting her out of desperation was great, as was Bayley learning from last year and avoiding repeating a mistake. The violence picked up when Bayley went through two kendo sticks and then Bianca started slamming her into the cage several times. Bayley got in her own stuff near the end to even things out. The ending was awesome as Bianca hit the KOD onto an open ladder, retaining in 19:44. I think that was really good due to the creative hair spots, some of the history involved, and the finish. [***¾]

Cesaro vs. Seth Rollins
Rollins jumped Cesaro during his entrance, frustrated with his inability to beat him. As usual, these guys put on a quality wrestling match. They’re in that category of being next to impossible to have a bad match with each other. Cesaro quickly overcame the sneak attack and held serve early but Seth fought back and took control. Cesaro fired up with uppercuts galore to get back in the driver’s seat. That remained the case as Cesaro was always one step ahead of Seth. When he did the Big Swing, it looked like Seth was in dire trouble. However, he survived the Sharpshooter and used a pinning combination to steal this after 16:15. That was another good match between the two and I liked the finish. It kept Cesaro strong without doing some cheap DQ or something like that. He was better but Seth got lucky. [***½]

Alexa Bliss vs. Shayna Baszler
This feud has been the pits. The idea of this match was just that Shayna kicked Alexa’s ass but Alexa just laughed it all off. Even when Alexa got her arm stomped on, she only hurt for a short time before shrugging it off. She demanded Shayna look at her, which scared her. Alexa got going with offense following that. Nia and Reginald were at ringside but Alexa suddenly started controlling Nia with her mind, making her hit Reginald. Alexa then won with Twisted Bliss in 6:56. I don’t even know how to rate that. It was weird. It was dumb but I have seen wrestling do dumber things so what do I know? [½*]

Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn
Like Cesaro and Rollins, I don’t believe these two can have a bad match together. They might not hit the levels of their 2010-2016 stuff but it’s still quite good. Things were going along as they normally do between them until Sami hit a tope con hilo. He landed on KO’s arm and Owens sold it like his arm was destroyed. He kept trying to seemingly pop it back into place and it would dangle when he wasn’t using it. That was a good way to make Owens the guy who has to make the comeback since he was always the dominator. You could see how physical it was when they traded blows with Zayn having a bloody mouth. Sami won out and hit the Helluva Kick to score a rare win over KO in 12:39. The usual goodness from them with just enough of a twist to be different. [***¼]

WWE Raw Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley [c] vs. Charlotte Flair
Their WrestleMania match last year ruled but had the wrong outcome. Rhea should feel like the biggest female star in the company but she comes across like an afterthought. Charlotte got in a cheap shot before the bell, adding to the mind games. Rhea fought back and hit some big moves like a missile dropkick. Her submission doesn’t look great on Charlotte because she’s too tall so she’s not dangling. Charlotte hit Natural Selection and then oddly put her feet on the ropes for the pin. It made no sense because she feels that she has Rhea’s number and that was a semi-finisher. It wasn’t really needed. Rhea started to really get going and even hit Riptide but Flair was too close to the ropes. Charlotte dropkicked Rhea’s leg into the steel steps and put on the Figure Four but Rhea got free. Outside, she hit Flair with the top of the announce table for a cheap DQ in 14:11. Lame finish and a disappointing match. [**¾]

WWE Championship Hell In A Cell Match: Bobby Lashley [c] vs. Drew McIntyre
I really liked their meeting at WrestleMania (why wasn’t this show titled WrestleMania Backlash?) and they basically deliver some good old fashioned BIG MEATY MEN BUMPING MEAT. That’s basically what they delivered. You got the sense that these guys don’t like each other and it showed in this match. There was a level of hard hitting violence that wasn’t there in other bouts (maybe Zayn/Owens only was on that level). They didn’t go overboard with the weapons, keeping it to a table and chair while still delivering the intensity this needed. MVP got involved a fair amount towards the end which I’d rather not have happen in a match like this. Then, the ending kind of killed this. Having MVP hold McIntyre’s leg to allow a cheap rollup was a lame way to close out a Cell match. It all went 25:49 and was good but the ending held it back from great. [***½]

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

At no point did this PPV ever do anything great but it was consistently good. The only thing that sucked was the Alexa/Shayna stuff. Otherwise, the stuff bottomed out at decent and capped at very good. A fine way to spend a few hours.