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The last 7 days were not a fun time for the wrestling fan that lives inside me. As most of you know, I am not a fan of the Money in the Bank concept. I am not a fan of people blading (and taking stupid, totally dangerous and unnecessary bumps that cause major abuse to their bodies. And of course, I hate the term “Forbidden Door” and wish it would go away away forever. In the last seven days? I got to “enjoy” three of my least favorite things in wrestling.
Now, before I get into the Money In The Bank show let me say this. If you thought AEW’s PPV last Sunday featured dream matches, great! You probably follow New Japan religiously and those matches were dreamy for you. To people like me who don’t follow NJPW? We thought it was just a bunch of matches for a match’s sake and without good storylines to build up to it. It didn’t move me. Blood and Guts? Well, I hate blading. I hate ridiculous stunt show carnage, so I hated that match too. That brings me to MITB. Out of the three events, I liked this one the most. I didn’t love it or anything, but I liked it better than the two AEW offerings, which again in all fairness were not marketed to someone like me.
I will also make the standard statement that on all three shows the talents worked very hard and showed what pros they are. In most cases, they are not the issue. To me, the storylines and the characters are a huge part of shows. They are the reason I care about people having a match. None of the shows “talked me into the building” with their booking.
So yes, I won’t bother talking about the work in the matches. WWE has amazing talents and the ring work is almost never the issue. The story last night for me was the booking, as is usually the case.
Going into the women’s MITB match, other than Shotzi, Liv was the woman I thought had the smallest chance of winning. That isn’t because of her not being deserving, she it. It’s because she has been booked to lose over and over again. So of course in WWE’s world, she won. It’s so typical of WWE to beat someone down before they then try and lift them up. I guess I should have figured out that with all of her recent losses, Liv would get the win here. As we saw later on, there was a reason for that. The other booking question coming out of the match is going into SummerSlam, “What’s next for Becky”? Tune in Monday for more!
After Theory got as much of a rub as anyone gets from John Cena on Monday, I figured for sure he would get the win here. It made no sense to have him lose……unless they were going to put him in MITB and had him give up a lesser title for the briefcase.
That’s what happened of course. Lashley is awesome and I am glad he has a Title belt again. And Theory? He has a real chance to be special and I hope he doesn’t get yoyo’d the way every single talent that has had a chance to be special before him has gotten yoyo’d. Had the last visual we saw of Theory been him tapping out in this match, it would have been bad. But much like with Liv earlier, WWE just loves to have you lose before you win, for whatever odd reason.
Bianca Belair vs. Carmella went as I expected. I love how good Mella has gotten but there was just no way in this spot she was going to win the belt, nor should she have. I would guess Becky finds her way to the Champ in time for SummerSlam. That’s the match that really matters to WWE, not this PPV.
The Usos vs. The Street Profits also went as expected. I love The Profits and have since their days in NXT but with The Usos in the top act, I didn’t see any way that they would lose on a B show and again, they shouldn’t have.
Ronda vs. Natty was kind of like the Raw Women’s Title match. I love Natty and all she has done for and in the business, but I didn’t see any way that they would put the Title on her at this time, not with SummerSlam on the horizon. After a match that was kind of bowling shoe ugly in a “that came across like a real fight” kind of way, Ronda was selling her leg.
And then, exactly why I hate Money In The Bank with a passion happened. Out comes supposed babyface Liv Morgan to cash in the stinkin’ briefcase because Ronda is super hurt and easy prey, you know a HEEL MOVE. She attacks the injured leg and got a flash pin, basically stealing the Title. For a heel to do that? It works perfectly. For a babyface, who has lost so much leading up to this moment, to do it? It sucks. It tells me that since I have seen her lose so much, the only way that Liv could win the belt is to attack the injured champ and steal the Title. Yeah, that makes her seem like a champ who earned it to me. Not. The fans in the building disagree with me. They chanted she deserved it, but they were there in the moment and didn’t probably think about how she just stolen the Title. Now let me say, I love Liv and do think she deserves way better than she has gotten, but that was not the way to make her the champ in my view.
Then it got weirder when Ronda hugged her and presented her the belt. HUH? If it were me, I would be pissed if another babyface came in and stole my Title like that. I would think that since Ronda hugged her and all, it looks like a she will ask for a rematch at SummerSlam (unless she is taking time off) and if that happens and Liv wins a straight up match, then OK I can see it working. If not…
And then, we had the main event. Before they aired a promo about Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar in their 947th match at SummerSlam, the announcers talked about how by the time that match was over, whoever wins the men’s MITB match would have the winner ripe for the picking and a cash in. I could totally see that happening and since it gives the case holder A Title shot, not a shot at two Titles. That could be how they get one of the belts off of the winner and gives Raw a champion again.
Then, as the match was about to start, for no real reason at all, Adam Pearce added Theory to the match. Of course, we are to believe evil Vince McMahon made it happen so at that point it was pretty clear to me that he was being put into the bout to win it, not just take up space. Remember that loss to Lashley earlier? Even though Michael Cole reminded you about it when Theory came out, you can forget about it now because Theory has something much more important than the US Title belt, he has the briefcase.
The optimist in me says, “Maybe they are finally going to start pushing some new blood at the top”. The realist in me says, “I will believe it when I see it.”
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