Last night, Money In The Bank took place in New Orleans, and depending on the status of Crown Jewel, which could be in doubt after an attack on the Saudi Arabia International Airport this weekend, this PPV might be the last stop before Survivor Series, the traditional fall spectacular on the pay-per-view calendar. Theoretically, things could settle down within the next three weeks, but the United States issued another travel warning for US citizens after the attack at the Saudi airport, and at this point, it seems foolish for the TKO corporation to take the risk. The $40 million will still be there for the next earnings call if the show is postponed to a safer time. It’s a sad reality of the cruel world that we live in, but a stadium full of fans and presumably at least some of the high-ranking Saudi government officials with American celebrities as the focal point could undoubtedly become a target for attacks.
Obviously, only WWE executives know the odds of the event taking place as planned, but if it’s in doubt at all, you have to wonder if that influenced the booking decisions for Money in The Bank?
The show opened with the world heavyweight title match, and I have to be honest, I was very surprised when I saw that Roman Reigns vs. LA Knight kicked off the show. Usually, with two ladder matches on the card, the office book ends the event with one to open and then one to close the broadcast. If I had to guess, I’d say the reason to put Roman/Knight on first was to avoid the chatter from the crowd of a cash-in after the contest.
The match went over 25 minutes, and while this was significantly better than the Roman/Seth Rollins attempted epic main event that fell woefully short of that mark at Summer Slam, it still started very slow. The difference was that Reigns/Rollins was a snail’s pace the entire 30 minutes it was given on the broadcast, whereas the contest with LA Knight shifted into second gear in the latter stages to allow for some tremendous drama. The near falls on Roman didn’t look too contrived, but rather natural enough that the maneuvers didn’t telegraph if that was actually the finish or not. LA Knight appears to be a much more credible threat to the championship in the ring than he did in the build up to this bout. I don’t think they needed to break the announce table during the first match since it takes away from the gimmicks later in the night, but given the circumstances, it appeared that they were going the extra mile to sell the notion that Knight might capture the belt. Roman retained with the usual superman punch and spear combination.
The women’s MITB match will be known for its car crash spots, some of which were very dangerous. In particular, Tiffany Stratton attempted to do a dive with the ladder set up sideways outside of the ring and came up short, hitting the back of her head on the floor. Tiffany was booked to win the bout and did so as planned, but I’m honestly wondering, if she wasn’t scheduled to go over, would the office have sent word to get her out of the match? I’m not criticizing the effort, because everyone in the match worked hard to make it something memorable, but Tiffany racking her head on the floor was scary. Another concerning spot was when Lola Vice and Jacy Jayne took a bump on the ladder bridge and then tumbled to the floor. Outside of the bumps, everyone had their chance to shine in this segment, and the next generation of the women’s division looks like it will continue the quality that the female segments have been known for the past several years. Roxanne Perez and Sol Ruca might be the next two major stars of the division, depending on if you consider Tiffany a mainstay yet or not. That’s actually why I thought it was somewhat puzzling that she won the MITB contract again, Stratton was already moved up the ranks previously so she probably didn’t need the contract.
Oba Femi vs. Bronson Reed was a really good modern big man match. Their agility was impressive and they kept the action moving based on their athleticism rather than settling into the generic big man sequences. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and place for the classic big man spots, but when you have athletes like this two, there’s no reason to resort to that. The two biggest takeaways from this segment, at least in my opinion, wasn’t so much that they put Oba over as strong as they did with him surviving the interference and the brass knuckles, we knew that was the objective, but rather the work itself. Bronson Reed’s body transformation will allow him to do the best work of his career and he probably added several years to his career as well. By comparison, while Vader is without question a legendary super heavyweight, there’s no doubt that his career was ultimately cut short because of the weight he gained during the latter years. Along with that, the fact that Oba showed that he can sell and work a match with more peaks and valleys than a segment where it’s mostly one-dimensional to rightly showcase him is proof that he has true potential as a main event guy that will be able to work longer matches in the main event picture/ As mentioned, Oba got the win after attempted interference from The Vision.
The triple threat match for the Women’s championship was solid, but the crowd was relatively quiet for the majority of the segment. It was probably an unavoidable situation after what the fans already saw, but these were polished pros that actually worked with the gimmick of the match. The sunset flip power bomb to the floor Liv Morgan landed on Becky Lynch was brutal. One of the criticisms I have of this segment, somewhat similar to the Roman/Knight bout, was that using a table, even to set up the finish wasn’t necessary here. Becky took a nasty spill onto the table that didn’t break, allowing Liv to eventually get the pin on Stephanie Vaquer to claim the title. With the relatively quick title change, this reveals that Vaquer winning the title in Chile was basically just for local crowd, which was fine since it was about the moment, but management seems to have bigger plans for Liv Morgan. All things considered, Stephanie Vaquer doesn’t really need the championship at the moment since she’s already over based on her dynamic in-ring performance.
The main event went over thirty minutes and I’d say that it went about 10 minutes too long, mostly because there was so might chaos to set up spots that trying to get the briefcase almost became an afterthought. There’s a reason that these types of matches usually don’t get penciled in for a half an hour, because after a certain peak, the pace becomes very stagnant or flat. I get what they were trying to do with the ambulance spot since they wanted the clip for social media, but the whole thing looked silly, especially with the roof being made of wood for the spot where Je’Von Evans got sent through it from the top of the ladder. That being said, Penta got the victory and it looks like this might set up for a memorable cash-in so it was mission accomplished in terms of progress for the product.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
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