It's been an extremely busy week for professional wrestling. Raw kicked off a new season, we saw the first Wednesday Night Wars clash between AEW and NXT, and SmackDown made its long-awaited debut on Fox, complete with appearances from The Rock and Cain Velasquez. Now this action-packed week of professional wrestling is coming to a close with the WWE Hell in a Cell 2019 pay-per-view event.
Hell in a Cell 2019 will feature two matches inside the actual Hell in a Cell structure itself. Becky Lynch will be defending her Raw Women's Championship against Sasha Banks in the opening match, and later Seth Rollins will defend his Universal Championship against "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt.
Here are the WWE Hell in a Cell 2019 match results:
1. Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Sasha Banks
Winner: Becky Lynch defeated Sasha Banks via submission with the Dis-Arm-Her. Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair fought in the first-ever women's Hell in a Cell match, but this match blew the original out of the water. It started with some fighting outside of the Cell itself, and then devolved into a number of clever table, ladder, and chairs spots in the ring. Some of the more brutal spots included Banks hitting Becky Lynch with a Meteora that drove the back of her head into a ladder and slamming Becky's arm in the cell door. There were some clever spots as well, with one of the most notable being a chair/kendo stick contraption set up in the corner of the Cell that Banks got dropkicked off of, which is something we haven't really seen before. The theme of the match was Banks using chairs and knees throughout, but the chairs ended up being Banks' downfall. Lynch hit Banks with a Becksploder off the top onto a pile of chairs and immediately followed up with the Dis-Arm-Her to force Banks to tap out.
Grade: A
2. Tornado Tag Team Match: Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan and Luke Harper
Winners: Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns defeated Erick Rowan and Luke Harper. It was fun seeing Daniel Bryan wrestling as a full-on face again. The match itself had some hard hits and fun spots, especially the announce table spot where Bryan countered a powerbomb with a hurracanrana, and Roman Reigns speared Rowan through a table. The lead-up to the finish felt a bit flat, as the crowd hardly reacted to Harper's dragon suplexes to Bryan. However, there was a big pop for the final sequence of moves, which included a running knee to Harper, who then ricocheted off the ropes into a Spear from Reigns, giving Bryan and Reigns the victory. The post-match shenanigans saw a callback to Daniel Bryan's "hug it out" phase as Reigns and Bryan solidified their alliance.
Grade: A-
3. Ali vs. Randy Orton
Winner: Randy Orton defeated Ali with the RKO. YIKES. It was very uncomfortable watching Ali try to get the crowd into the match. They did the classic spot where a face is down in a hold and starts pumping his leg and arms, with the idea being that the crowd starts cheering to get will the face to their feet. Unfortunately, no one cared about this match, and it's hard to blame them. This match had no real storyline momentum at all, it was just thrown together, with Randy Orton and Ali getting next to no reaction for their moves. The crowd actually started chanting "RKO" and cheering for Orton, despite him being the heel in the match. The finish was nicely done though, with Ali countering the first RKO attempt by doing a lightning fast handstand, only to suffer from one moments later when Orton countered Ali's own move.
Grade: D-
4. WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Match: Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross (c) vs. The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane)
Winners: The Kabuki Warriors defeated Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross to win the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship. This match felt sloppy and oddly paced. The crowd didn't want to boo The Kabuki Warriors, and Cross struggled to get people behind Bliss. There were a couple of solid spots, like Cross countering Sane's elbow drop, and Asuka busting out the Green Mist on Cross at the end of the match to help her get the win. The title change was a bit unexpected, but heelish Kabuki Warriors doesn't really work.
Grade: C-
5. Six-Man Tag Team Match: Braun Strowman and The Viking Raiders (Erik and Ivar) vs. The OC (AJ Styles, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows)
Winners: Braun Strowman and The Viking Raiders defeated The OC by disqualification. Another bleh match that the crowd didn't care about. The crowd has pretty much been dead since that Orton/Ali match, though this was the liveliest they've been since. Despite the referee ignoring all sorts of rule-breaking throughout this match, he called for the DQ while The OC were stomping on Strowman. After the match, Strowman punched AJ and knocked him out. The commentators couldn't stop talking about the Strowman/Tyson Fury stuff from SmackDown and hyping the upcoming confrontation between the two on Raw, so this match felt like filler. Which is what it was.
Grade: C-
6. Chad Gable vs. King Corbin
Winner: Chad Gable defeated King Corbin with a roll-up. This match went on way too long for what it was, and, like most of the night, the crowd just did not care. There was even a "boring" chant for this bout, unfortunately. The bright side to this was Gable finally picked up a victory over Corbin and redeemed his King of the Ring tournament loss.
Grade: C-
7. WWE SmackDown Women's Championship Match: Bayley (c) vs. Charlotte Flair
Winner: Charlotte Flair defeated Bayley via submission to win the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship. This was a decently-paced match with solid wrestling and a surprise title change. Not much to remark on, though Charlotte gets her 10th reign, and it looks like Bayley's character may be going down a darker path moving forward.
Grade: B
8. Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Universal Championship: Seth Rollins (c) vs. "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt
Winner: Seth Rollins and "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt fought to a no contest. This match was on track to becoming one of the most compelling Hell in a Cell matches. It was really the first Hell in a Cell match to capture that "horror movie" vibe since the original one. Bray no-selling Curb Stomps, kicking out of eight Curb Stomps in a row and a Pedigree...Seth being forced to do increasingly more messed up things to try to beat Bray...it all worked really well. And the crowd was into it. Then they blew it. They ended a Hell in a Cell match in a no contest. Out of all match types where you don't end it in a no contest, Hell in a Cell is one of them. And the crowd hated it. AEW chants started up and continued, even after Bray did a Mandible Claw that had Seth bleeding out of his mouth. The ending to this match taints the whole thing. This will probably also bring Wyatt's momentum to a screeching halt. What a mess, and a great way to send the live crowd home really angry.
Grade: F