WWE Hell in a Cell 2017: Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens Preview, Predictions

The Story So Far

When Owens first joined SmackDown Live, he immediately questioned whether or not the show is actually “The Land of Opportunity”, and his first appearance on Talking Smack made it clear that he intended to push things to another level. Owens insulted Renee Young and Shane McMahon at every chance, and his character had even more of a nastier edge to it than it did on Raw. After destroying Chris Jericho when he won the United States Championship back, Owens entered a feud with AJ Styles.

Both Styles and Owens traded wins back and forth with the title, but the big loss for Owens came at SummerSlam with Shane as the special guest referee. Owens took issue with the way Styles called the match, and the two continued to have issues on SmackDown Live. At one point, Owens picked another SmackDown miscreant, Baron Corbin, as his special guest referee in a match against Styles, but Shane deemed him an incompetent and biased referee. After losing so many matches, Owens eventually ran out of opportunities at the US Title, leading tensions between him and Shane to reach an all-time high.

Who can forget the big confrontation in which Owens told Shane that his family would have been better off if he passed away in a helicopter crash? Who can forget Owens head-butting Vince McMahon’s head open, hitting him with a superkick, and then crushing him with a frog splash? Who can forget Owens attempting to end Sami Zayn’s career before Shane heroically rushed out to stop the attack? Who can forget Owens throwing Shane all around the arena before crushing him with a pop-up powerbomb?

This feud has been built up perfectly, and if any match deserves to be inside of the cell, then surely it’s this one.