Hell in a Cell 2020: Three Cell Matches Save a Thin Card

The Kickoff match is exactly what a five-minute 24/7 Championship defense should be: light, brief and mostly disconnected from the more serious tone of the main card. Gulak gets enough technical offense to remind viewers that he can wrestle beyond comedy, but the Little Jimmy material and the constant threat of the 24/7 chase keep the bout from developing any real competitive tension. Truth survives the leg work, strings together his familiar offense and ultimately counters Gulak into a bridging pin for the retention. Nothing here is actively bad, but it feels disposable the moment it ends, especially on a night built around three much more consequential Cell matches.

Reigns and Jey turn the Cell into a family pressure chamber rather than a traditional stunt match, and that choice gives the opener enormous emotional weight. The violence matters because every strike, strap shot and Spear is tied to Reigns demanding acknowledgment as Tribal Chief. Jey refuses to quit even after repeated punishment, forcing Reigns to escalate until officials intervene and Jimmy Uso enters to protect his brother. Reigns briefly appears remorseful, then traps Jimmy in the guillotine and forces Jey to surrender to save him. The finish is manipulative in the best possible way: Jey is not beaten by a move so much as cornered by family loyalty, and Reigns leaves with Afa and Sika symbolically recognizing his new position.

Hardy and Elias never escape the feeling that their match is an intermission between major attractions. The wrestling is competent enough when they are trading conventional offense, and Hardy's comeback briefly gives the bout some pace, but the feud's car-accident framing has already made the story awkward before the bell. The finish makes matters worse: Elias reaches for his guitar, Hardy takes it away and then uses it himself, drawing an obvious disqualification. That protects both men for another chapter, yet it also turns the match into setup for a future gimmick bout instead of giving the pay-per-view audience a satisfying result.

Miz and Otis have a clearer story than the wrestling quality suggests, because the entire match exists to separate Otis from the Money in the Bank briefcase and fracture Heavy Machinery. Otis controls the physical exchanges whenever the bout stays one-on-one, while Morrison's ringside involvement keeps creating openings for Miz. The referee eventually ejects Morrison, which seems to clear the path for Otis, only for Tucker to swing the briefcase into his partner while the referee is distracted. Miz makes the cover and leaves with the contract. The betrayal is the real content of the segment; as a match, it is ordinary, but as a storyline pivot it cleanly resets several characters at once.

Banks and Bayley deliver the night's best match by turning years of shared history into a weapon-filled Cell fight that still feels like a wrestling match. The spots are creative rather than random: chairs, kendo sticks, a ladder and the Cell wall are repeatedly tied back to the feud and to each woman's knowledge of the other. Banks survives Bayley's biggest counters, answers the Bayley-to-Belly with increasingly violent offense and eventually traps Bayley's head inside a chair before applying the Bank Statement. Bayley taps, ending her record-setting title reign and giving Banks the one championship victory her SmackDown run needed. The finish is definitive, the escalation is earned, and the match never loses sight of the personal rivalry underneath the hardware.

The United States Championship match exists almost entirely to reinforce the Hurt Business as stronger and more credible than Retribution. Lashley dominates the physical exchanges, Slapjack gets only brief hope spots, and the outcome never feels remotely uncertain. The Hurt Lock ends the match in under four minutes, which is probably the correct length given the mismatch but also confirms that the challenger is not being treated as a serious threat. Retribution attacks afterward and the rest of the Hurt Business arrives to even the numbers, making the post-match faction confrontation more important than the title defense itself. It is efficient booking, but barely a pay-per-view match.

McIntyre and Orton work the most traditional of the three Cell matches, and that is both a strength and the reason it feels slightly less special than the other two. Orton's veteran strategy drives the story: he attacks before the bell, works McIntyre's injured jaw, cuts the lock off the Cell and ultimately lures the champion onto the roof. The major spectacle comes when McIntyre is knocked from the side of the structure through the announce table, a bump he sells for the remainder of the match. Back inside, McIntyre lands a Claymore but cannot cover because Orton rolls to the floor. A second Claymore attempt is countered into one RKO, giving Orton the championship and ending McIntyre's first reign.