Money in the Bank Review

Hello! Well, last night ended up being a bit mental didn't it? Since I was talking about it in my Predictions, I'll start off by saying that no this wasn't in fact the "best Money in the Bank ever". There's two better ones just off the top of my head, the one where Punk won the Title and of course the obvious one that happened in Appleton. With that said, I actually felt satisfied by a PPV for the first time in quite a few months once last night went off the air. Anyway, there's a lot to talk about- because we had 10 bloody matches last night- so I'm just going to start.

Pre-Show: Golden Truth v Fabreeze
Some people will be burying this match, and I completely understand why. However, I'm actually not going to bury this match. Yes, the gimmick of the match was completely stupid without a doubt- but at least they had something. Comparing this to the other Pre-Show match, this one actually had a bit of build, and an actual story that was being told in the match. My thing is, especially with the upcoming Brand Split- they need to start giving the Undercard some actual angles because the Undercard is going to become a key part of the show once they've done the split. So while it was a completely ridiculous match, at least it was a completely ridiculous match that had a story behind it.

Pre-Show: The Lucha Dragons v The Dudleys
I only saw about half of this match. The reason being my WWE Network decided it just didn't want to function properly. What I did see was a pretty standard RAW match, which I get the feeling was what the actual match was. The Lucha Dragons won, and I'm not at all interested in seeing if these two teams continue to feud.

New Day v The Vaudevillains v The Club v Enzo & Big Cass- Tag Title Match
I actually had quite high hopes for this match. So, when what actually happened in this match happened- I thought it was just going to be "one of those nights". Which would've been ironic given they were billing this as the "best Money in the Bank ever".

I'm not even just talking about the obvious botch with the finish where Big E had Karl Anderson up for the Big Ending for about 30 seconds while Gallows just stood there looking at him. Those WWE game glitches are actually real! I'm assuming Big Cass missed his cue on that spot by the way, so hopefully he doesn't get any heat off the back of it. There was actually quite a few spots throughout the match, where if you were really watching you could see people looking lost, people out of position etc. Basically, in-terms of expectations vs the reality of the match we got- this was a complete let down. Also, that whole 3-Count with Enzo thing wasn't a 3-Count and I've got no idea why people thought it was a 3-Count. That was one of the times that there wasn't actually a botch.

There's still some decent stuff coming off the back of it though. Given the albeit botched finish, I'm assuming it'll be New Day and The Club for Battleground- which I'm all for and in the Pre-Match stuff we had New Day in complete burial mode for the first time in a while and them calling out Omega & the Young Bucks. That wasn't even the best bit though, they name-dropped The Elite- and they actually managed to make Cole say it. Cole may watch New Japan and know about it, but I'm hoping for the sake of the joke that he doesn't. That ended up being the highlight of the entire segment.

Also, Big E- STOP DOING THAT FUCKING DIVE SPOT. YOU WILL DIE.

Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho & Alberto Del Rio Backstage Promo
Jericho's great, Owens is great, Del Rio is... not great, but he's still decent.

Baron Corbin v Dolph Ziggler
Looking at profightdb, Corbin and Ziggler have now wrestled each other 7 times. One of them is a Dark Match, and two of them ended up being a DQ or a Count-Out. So basically this was the 4th time these two have wrestled to a proper conclusion. Which actually surprises me, because it felt like it's the 100th. I'm just bored of this pairing, and that's not necessarily a criticism of either guy. The match, despite the "boring" chants was solid. It went too long, and I think they probably gave these two more time than they were perhaps expecting to rib Ziggler- because he probably just wanted to be backstage watching the Basketball for the whole night.

Charlotte & Dana Brooke v Becky Lynch & Natalya
The match was just "meh". I think it was at this point I was having a discussion with someone on Twitter about the card, and basically how it was structured. They knew there was a section of people who were going to be watching the Basketball and/or Game of Thrones. So they basically booked around it. They got all of the "meh" matches out of the way while the 1st Half was on, put Cena/AJ on while it was Half-Time and then did the Main Event after it had finished.

Natalya's turn is the obvious talking point from the segment. I'm just really not interested in it. We've seen Nattie as a Heel before, we know what we're going to get- it's not suddenly going to make her watchable. It's good that we've got another angle in the Womens Division as we approach the Brand Split, but that's pretty much the only positive I can see from it. Who wrestles Charlotte next will be quite interesting as well. I'm still not ruling out Nikki.

Apollo Crews v Sheamus
As predicted, Apollo won with a roll-up- in what was a fairly solid match. I would be saying I'm happy Sheamus didn't attack him straight after the roll-up to "get his heat back", but I get the feeling that's what we're going to see tonight on RAW.

AJ Styles v John Cena
I said it in my Predictions, so it's only right I talk about it here. This wasn't a Match of the Year contender. However, I still believe that without a shadow of a doubt these two will have 1 if not 2 contenders before this feud is done. Cena needs to shake off his ring-rust, which was fairly evident last night. I'm not sure how many, if any House Shows he's been working- but that'll likely be where he needs to do it.

Basically, now that Cena's got his first match back out of the way- I'm expecting to see him in 6-Man Tags with New Day against AJ, Gallows and Anderson. However, this was still a really good match. I made the point on Twitter last night about a third of the way in, the story in this match was simply "AJ can out-wrestle Cena". That was it, and it blew my mind that they did it. They even had Michael Cole putting over how great AJ was doing against Cena.

It obviously got a bit more even as the match progressed, and we had the Ref bump and The Club stuff (which was the one thing I didn't want to see for fuck sake) for the finish. I actually thought this was quite a smart angle in hindsight. They wanted us to feel robbed of a proper finish, to make us want to see the Rematch even more. That's not speculation, they basically had JBL being the "voice of the people" in that respect.

So basically, good match- but the rematch(es) should be even better. This could still have a serious case for Match of the Night though.

Money in the Bank Ladder Match
I've learned not to compare any of the "modern" Money in the Bank Ladder matches to some of the "original" ones. Basically, the Wrestlers have either gotten a lot smarter, or they're not being paid enough to do the stupid shit that made the early Money in the Bank's so great. Instead, I'll just compare it to last years- and this match was just infinitely better.

Cesaro looked absolutely amazing last night, and things like the spot where he jumped off the Ladder onto the Middle Rope and did a Springboard Uppercut were just completely ridiculous. Del Rio was weirdly really over last night, so good for him and he definitely reciprocated with his performance. It was by far the best Del Rio's looked since he returned. So I just want to see more of this Del Rio basically, because it's between him and Cesaro for the "MVP" of the whole match. We got the Owens and Zayn spots that will keep the feud going for a little while yet. I don't know how they're going to fuck each other over at Battleground, so I guess we'll have to wait and see. Jericho actually took a bit of a back seat I thought, the only spot I can remember involving Jericho was Cesaro swinging him into a Ladder.

The finish was actually really good, however contrived the build-up to it was- with the ring being clear for Del Rio and instead of him deciding he wanted to win he just went "you know what, I'll set up for a Ladder spot". Owens taunting Sami while he was laid out on the Ladder is where the stuff about them being too distracted by each other to succeed thing comes in. Had Owens not spent those 10-15 seconds taunting Sami, it was implied- at least to me that Owens would've won given the fact he was at the top of the Ladder before Ambrose even started climbing. Then Ambrose won, the right man won Money in the Bank. Which after last year meant this match was already ahead.

Rusev v Titus O'Neil- US Title
I just found this hilarious. They were airing Adverts with Titus all about being the nice dad that he is. It was on Fathers Day, and then they just had Titus tap-out to the Accolade. THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE HIM PASS OUT! HE TAPPED OUT! Then we had Rusev, being the amazing person that he is, go to the outside and taunt Titus' kids who were in the front row. I loved this, HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

Seth Rollins v Roman Reigns- WWE Title
This was a good match. It wasn't extraordinary, and the two matches Roman had with AJ were better in my opinion. Roman was working as the Heel for this match, and he plays it off so well. Which makes the fact he's not going to turn any time soon even more frustrating. Added into the fact that Roman was working as the Heel, and Seth just wasn't really over as a Babyface- because he was booked as the fucking Heel for the build meant it was a bit flat to me.

However, despite the match being a bit flat- the finish was just absolutely amazing. Seth countered a Spear into a Pedigree, Roman kicked out, Seth then just got him up for another one, hit it and then pinned him clean in the middle of the ring. Roman Reigns lost clean. Seth Rollins showed that he can beat Roman Reigns clean in the middle of the ring and became the new WWE Champion. Roman Reigns still hasn't beaten Seth Rollins.

Dean Ambrose v Seth Rollins- WWE Title
When I say Rollins became WWE Champion, he was Champion for all of about 2 Minutes. I liked the thing with Ambrose coming up behind Rollins and clocking him with the Briefcase, just to protect Rollins that little bit more- if he wasn't already completely made by having Rollins beat Roman clean. Ambrose hit the Dirty Deeds and won the WWE Title. MICHAEL COLE'S BEING REPLACED BY A FISH TANK TONIGHT! REJOICE!

The thing with PPV's, and shows in general is that when they end strongly people leave satisfied when a show may have been mediocre. The show wasn't mediocre, but the way the show was booked was designed so the big impact matches/segments/moments had the biggest impact possible- so in that respect fair play to the WWE. In also has to be said, that for the first time in a quite a few weeks- I'm genuinely excited for a RAW and to see how it all plays out. Despite the fact that these next few weeks of RAW are likely to be the WWE just treading water for the most part before the Brand Split. I'm also hoping for/expecting a Bray Wyatt return tonight, and it'll be interesting to see where he fits in on the show.

Thanks for reading as always, as I said- I'm genuinely looking forward to RAW for the first time in a while. Whether I'm actually happy with the show, you'll have to wait and see in my RAW Review tomorrow. Thanks again for reading, hopefully you're tagging along on Twitter tonight to see how they treat Ambrose, Roman and Seth- as well as everyone else. Roman Reigns actually lost clean. He lost clean.