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SACRAMENTO — When Sasha Banks returned to WWE, she made it clear that she was in it for the spotlight – even more than potential championships. The headlines. The notoriety. It’s safe to say she’ll have both after WWE Hell in a Cell, though perhaps not for the reason she’d like: Despite pulling out all the stops in her second trip into the Cell, Banks once again came up short, leaving Becky Lynch to claim the victory inside the place where rivalries are settled forever.
The WWE Universe will undoubtedly be talking about Banks’ efforts inside the Cell, which rank among the most twisted and merciless strategies the structure has ever seen. Even if Banks didn’t throw Lynch off the top of the Cell, she certainly rose to the occasion by laying a series of sinister traps for The Man involving tables, ladders and chairs. In one recurring maneuver, Banks hit a trifecta of increasingly grisly Meteoras — one that sent The Man tumbling into a ladder, another to Lynch while she was seated on a chair, and the last through a table that Becky had set up.
Lynch, on the other hand, initially relied on her fists and her wits as her implements of choice. Save for an opening sequence where she wrapped the chain from the Cell door around her own fists, The Man based her strategy on turning Sasha’s own traps against her. As things progressed, however, Becky got into the spirit of the match. She propped Sasha up on a steel chair that she had hung on the Cell wall before blasting The Boss with a running dropkick, rained Kendo stick blows on her opponent’s torso and, most crucially, sent Sasha tumbling onto a bed of steel chairs with a Bexploder suplex off the top turnbuckle. Moments after The Boss hit the canvas, Becky locked in the Dis-arm-her. Sasha frantically grabbed at Becky’s hair and reached for one of the nearby chairs, but she soon had no choice but to tap.
The match took a significant toll on both women, but Becky somehow survived the barbaric bout to retain her title and added another historic notch to her already historic year. Sasha undoubtedly set a benchmark for all of Lynch’s challengers to come and helped raise the bar for any woman who decides to set foot inside the Cell. Becky wanted Sasha at her best. Sasha wanted to once again set the standard. Only one left with the championship, but in some ways, Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks both got exactly what they wanted.