Sasha Banks Beats Bayley, Wins SmackDown Women’s Title at WWE Hell in a Cell

Sasha Banks defeated former best friend Bayley in a Hell in a Cell match at the same-titled WWE pay-per-view on Sunday night to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship for the first time in her career.

Both women pulled out all the stops, and the way in which Banks won showed how far they were willing to go.

The Legit Boss wrapped a chair around Bayley’s neck and applied the Bank Statement. She began kicking the chair for good measure, forcing the champion to tap out and end her 380-day reign.

Banks and Bayley left it all in the ring.

The match between the two had been a long time coming, and the wheels were officially set in motion when Bayley turned on The Boss by viciously attacking her a few weeks ago.

After Banks and Bayley dropped the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships to Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax at Payback, they fell short in a rematch on the Sept. 4 edition of SmackDown. During that contest, The Boss had her leg worked over by The Queen of Spades and was in immense pain afterward.

Bayley called for the doctors to leave Banks alone, but rather than comforting her friend, she caused further damage and ended the beatdown by placing The Boss’ head inside a steel chair and then stomping on it.

Banks resurfaced two weeks later with her neck in a brace, and Bayley attempted to injure her even more by attacking her with a steel chair from behind, but backstage personnel were able to prevent it from going further.

The Boss finally got some measure of revenge at Clash of Champions on Sept. 27 when she emerged after Bayley purposely got herself disqualified in a title defense against Asuka. Despite still donning the neck brace, she took The Role Model out with a steel chair and sent her scurrying away.

The Boss was able to recover and ditch the neck brace, which led to her earning a title match just over a week ago on the Oct. 16 episode of SmackDown.

Banks took the fight to Bayley in that match, and sensing that her title reign could be in jeopardy, the champion hit her rival with a steel chair and intentionally got herself disqualified.

With Banks wanting to ensure that Bayley could not take the easy way out in the next encounter, she announced they would do battle inside the cage at Hell in a Cell.

Banks is a Hell in a Cell veteran having previously faced Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch in such matches, but Sunday marked the first of Bayley’s career, meaning The Boss had an advantage from a storyline perspective.

She used that experience to end Bayley’s lengthy title reign and joined The Role Model and Asuka as the only Superstars in WWE history to hold the SmackDown, Raw and NXT Women’s Championships, as well as the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships, during their career.

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