Hello and welcome to Team SLTD’s predictions for Sunday night’s Hell In A Cell PPV, today we have both @callumowen98 and @MikeJC821 aka The Wrestling Brain and Mouthing Off With Mike JC giving their picks and they’re going to kick off with the match between Alexa Bliss and Shayna Baszler.
The Wrestling Brain: TWB
Mouthing Off: MO
Alexa Bliss Vs Shayna Baszler
TWB: I have very little interest in seeing this match play out, which is a shame as on paper if you told me a few years ago we’ll be seeing an Alexa Bliss Vs Shayna Baszler on PPV, I would’ve been quite looking forward to it, but the booking in this entire feud just hasn’t clicked, I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m not really a fan of Fiend style characters and that’s what we’re really getting out of Bliss right now, the whole Lilly stuff doesn’t connect with me at all and it’s not what made me a wrestling fan.
It’s pretty sad to see how far Shayna Baszler has dropped over the course of the last 15 months, back at the start of 2020 she was heading into a big Wrestlemania showing against Becky Lynch which in hindsight she should’ve won, and really she has never recovered from there, sure she’s been Women’s Tag Team Champion alongside Nia Jax, but even in that period she’d lose singles matches or be the one pinned in non-title tag bouts.
I anticipate tons of shenanigans which will in the end lead to Alexa Bliss winning, I would be very intrigued what sort of reception this match would get in front of a full crowd, and I think we’re going to find out in months to come as I expect this feud to continue.
Winner – Alexa Bliss
MO: Boy has this been bad. Like really bad, to the point where I just don’t care about it, and I’m not sure anyone does. Alexa basically took Bray Wyatt’s gimmick and made it worse somehow. Introducing Lily a doll who she claimed she had as a child and it made her do things. Then for weeks, weird things were happening in women’s tag team title matches, like fire in the ring posts and big walls of fire in the entranceway. All of us pretty much knowing this was Alexa, to the point where we got recorded laughter from her and the doll Lily.
Then Shayna Baszler got mad about Reginald getting involved in her and Nia’s matches so she faced him and lost of course. Then Alexa invited Reginald onto her show, Alexa’s Playground for some reason. This brought out Shayna to beat up Reginald after she lost making the match even more pointless and threatening Lily (remember this is a doll). Then the following week Shayna is invited onto the playhouse herself and one of the worst segments on raw ever closes the show where Shayna threatens a doll again and stomps on it and storms off.
Then Shayna is stalked by a doll and the camera goes black and Shayna screams. Then the week after, the doll is gone, my guess is because Vince got bored of it and Nia says Shayna is gonna face Alexa at HIAC….what? Oh, and let’s not forget for some reason Reginald was hypnotized by Alexa this past Monday….what? There will surely be something stupid in this match probably involving Reginald that will no doubt be very, very dumb. Alexa wins, who really cares though?
Winner: Alexa Bliss
Kevin Owens Vs Sami Zayn
TWB: I don’t think I could ever get bored of seeing Owens and Zayn take on each other, they’re two of the best wrestlers in WWE in the past decade, and I expect they will have a match to remember as I anticipate there most recent feud will close on Sunday night.
I feel that with the current incarnation of Sami Zayn, he can lose as regularly as he does but he’ll still remain over as a heel and keep his momentum going and realistically I can’t picture Sami in the World Title picture anytime soon so another defeat wouldn’t do him much harm.
As for Kevin Owens, I feel this is a must-win match, I do think he’s slowly dropping down the pecking order in terms of faces on Smackdown, so perhaps a turn back to the dark side in the upcoming months will suit him more once fans are back.
I have to pick Owens, as I said earlier on, Sami losing doesn’t really have a great effect on his long term booking, whereas KO winning gives him some momentum with Money In The Bank on the horizon where I assume he’ll be one of the favourites to hold the briefcase.
Winner – Kevin Owens
MO: I can never get tired of these two facing each other. No matter the circumstance it is always a good match. This match was announced on Smackdown after Sami Zayn kept getting involved in Owens’ match and causing a distraction preventing Owens from winning a tag match on Smackdown. There’s really no other context to why it’s happening and Zayn isn’t often successful when someone is coming for him like Owens is here.
So for that reason, I think Owens will win again. I don’t know what it means for either of them after this because the match really is for nothing. Hopefully, something productive will come in the future for both men.
Winner: Kevin Owens
Cesaro Vs Seth Rollins
TWB: Similar to the previous match between Owens and Zayn, Cesaro and Seth Rollins are two wrestlers I could watch take on each other over and over again, and my intrigue for this show certainly went up a few notches when this was announced on Smackdown on Friday night.
I believe Cesaro has to be a favourite to win the Money In The Bank next month, he’s received a solid push since the start of the year, and personally, I wouldn’t be against him carrying around the briefcase and then become World Champion in the near future.
I imagine Seth Rollins will also be in the Money In The Bank match as well, and he will be a favourite for certain purely because of being a former winner.
In terms of Sunday night I think Cesaro should win he lost at last month’s PPV against Roman Reigns, so back to back defeats will halt his momentum and Seth is in a position where another defeat won’t hurt his.
Winner – Cesaro
MO: Another late addition to the card. The build for this one also has been very good. Seth felt embarrassed at Mania and Cesaro continued to embarrass him every chance he got which drove Seth to destroy Cesaro after his WWE Championship opportunity at Backlash, and then taking him out on the Smackdown that followed. Seth would gloat about taking Cesaro out and on Bayley’s show, Ding Dong Hello! Cesaro would make a surprise return destroying the set and Seth Rollins.
I loved that so much and made Cesaro look like a star and kept him at the level he’s been at since WrestleMania. This is certainly going to be a hell of a match again as these two work super well together and I love seeing these two go at it. I think it’s only right that Cesaro wins to build momentum going into Money in the Bank in July as he is my favorite to win it, so for that reason, I’m picking Cesaro.
Winner: Cesaro
Bianca Belair (C) Vs Bayley
Hell In A Cell Match
Smackdown Women’s Championship
TWB: In a rematch from Backlash… Sorry Wrestlemania Backlash how could I forget, Bianca Belair defends her Smackdown Women’s Championship against Bayley inside Hell In A Cell, once again I expect a good match between the two based on the chemistry they have together, but I do feel it’s the most predictable match on the PPV.
Belair has now held the title for just over two months following her win over Sasha Banks at Wrestlemania, and personally, I’m almost convinced that we’ll see a rematch between the two at Summerslam.
Considering this is going to be the final PPV in the Thunderdome or the Performance Center era, I think it’s worth saying now that in this period, Bayley has been the MVP of WWE, her promo and character work has significantly improved and whilst it’s very hard to find any positives out of the last year or so, the growth of Bayley is one of them, and that was on show at Wrestlemania where fans cheered every segment Bayley was in and even demanded her to be featured on the show, and I firmly believe that her popularity could lead to a successful face run in the future.
Bianca is a shoo-in though for the win, as I said earlier on, it seems almost a guarantee that she’ll face Sasha Banks in two months time at Summerslam.
Winner and still Smackdown Women’s Champion – Bianca Belair
MO: I’ve actually really enjoyed the build to this match and how they sort of made sense of why it’s happening. In their first match for the title, Bayley tried to use Bianca’s hair and Bianca turned it around on her. So Bayley’s argument is Bianca cheated to win even though she just beat Bayley at her own game. So Bayley gets another shot mainly because nobody else on Smackdown really matters right now, unfortunately.
The build to this match has been great though because they didn’t need to wrestle each other every week Bianca looks like a winner and Bayley looks like the challenger playing mind games like she’s supposed to. I’m excited to see this match again, and didn’t really expect it to be in a hell in a cell match which was changed last minute after Roman versus Rey Mysterio was moved to Smackdown. With that said I think we all know Bianca is retaining.
Bianca needs a lengthy reign to establish her as a top tier talent the thing is as mentioned she needs more established challengers and nobody is. Bayley hopefully will move on to something else and stay in the forefront of the midcard and actually get some women’s feuds on Smackdown that aren’t for a title. Bianca retains.
Winner: Bianca Belair
Rhea Ripley (C) Vs Charlotte Flair
Raw Women’s Championship
TWB: I think if given time this could easily steal the show, Ripley and Flair had a great match at last year’s Wrestlemania and personally I feel Rhea needs a strong performance to cement her position on the Raw roster, as her move from NXT has been a bit underwhelming so far.
It feels that Charlotte can never be out of the title picture, I know she’s a star but I’d rather see her in a feud that doesn’t revolve around the Women’s Championship, as it’ll give other wrestlers an opportunity, but also by having Flair in a non title rivalry it’ll elevates that feud simply because of her involvement.
Whilst her reign hasn’t set the world alight Ripley has to retain, it’ll make no sense in Charlotte winning the Women’s Championship once again. I anticipate Flair will compete in the Women’s Money In The Bank in a few weeks time, whilst I’m still expecting that Rhea Ripley will clash with Becky Lynch as we head into Summerslam.
Winner and still Raw Women’s Champion – Rhea Ripley
MO: Contrary to the Smackdown Women’s Championship match, this build has been absolutely horrible. Charlotte started off by trading wins with Asuka but Charlotte got the title shot and not Asuka. Then Nikki Cross got involved and wanted an opportunity and they treated her like she didn’t matter and had a two minute challenge with both Rhea and Charlotte where Nikki won by lasting, which immediately ruined her credibility since we already know how good a wrestler she is and shouldn’t be treated less then but is anyway.
Then Charlotte and Rhea are arguing about facing Nikki. Then Nikki pins the champion, Rhea in a tag match thanks to Charlotte. Still not added to the title match mind you. Then Nikki faces Charlotte again and wins by count-out thanks to Rhea. So the champion was pinned the challenger was not and Nikki still not added to the title match. Then low and behold, Rhea beat Asuka again in the fourth match they had since Mania. Only for her and Charlotte to brawl and Rhea busting Charlotte’s nose.
Where was Nikki during this brawl you ask? Nowhere to be found. So in turn you got two losers going into a title match, a champion who is treating her challengers like a non-threat and making meme face at her, and a challenger who treats everyone less than, even though she’s lost a lot. That’s horrible and made everyone involved look bad. Then you got Nikki who should be in this match for everything that has happened since her involvement and we know she’ll just get a random title shot on Raw where she gets destroyed and we won’t see her again for months, so all that she did becomes pointless….why?
So I think Rhea will retain probably by DQ to keep this feud going for no reason which is annoying because just like almost everything in WWE, nobody else is established enough to challenge Rhea.
Winner: Rhea Ripley
Bobby Lashley (C) Vs Drew McIntyre
Hell In A Cell Match
WWE Championship
TWB: I really hope this is the last we see of Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre, it’s not been a terrible feud at all, the matches have been good but we’ve had these two in a rivalry now for around 4 months and quite frankly not much has changed or developed since Wrestlemania.
I expect it to be a very physical and brutal cell match though and one that benefits from the use of the structure, the added stipulation of if Drew loses he can never challenge Lashley again I think gives the result away, and that is that Lashley retains and McIntyre goes off to do something different for a while, as it’ll make no sense for the title to switch hands because if it were, then the feud would just continue and I feel that it’s time for a fresh challenger for Bobby.
As for Drew, I think in the upcoming draft at the end of August he trades over to Smackdown which will give him a new set of opponents and a certain Tribal Chief to try to de-thorne.
Winner and still WWE Champion – Bobby Lashley
MO: This is another Raw match with a pretty bad build. Kofi Kingston beat Lashley in an open challenge non-title match, I hate that I have to mention again that’s not how open challenges work when you are a champion. Now Kofi won with Drews help but he still won. That puts him at the front of the line because he pinned the champion. Instead, we got a number one contenders to match between Kofi and Drew that ended in a no contest, horrible decision from a storytelling standpoint.
Instead of making s triple threat (the right decision) they had a rematch between Kofi and Drew and of course Drew won. Making his third attempt at Lashley’s championship official, and Kofi just goes back to tag team wrestling. Why are they forcing Drew into championship match after championship match? Why does it feel like they want us not to care about Drew by making him the same old babyface who doesn’t do or say anything interesting? I’ll never understand how this company is really good at ruining babyfaces ever.
To that point they made a point to say this is Drew’s last chance and for that reason I think he’s going to win and that will be their way to prolong this even longer which is very annoying, and have another goddamn rematch at Money in the Bank this time with Lashley as the challenger, so get ready for the fourth encounter if that happens.
Winner: Drew McIntyre
So, that’s all for our Hell In A Cell predictions, check out the latest episode of the SLTD Wrestling Roundtable Podcast where Callum and Adam chat about tomorrow night’s PPV but until next time stay safe and enjoy the show!
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