By the grace of god, a close friend of mine gave me his WWE Network access, so I’ve actually kind of been able to play catch up with wrestling, since I haven’t really watched any televised shows in nearly two years. I ditched cable television in this span, so although I still can’t watch any RAW or the supposed renaissance of Smackdown that I’ve heard so much good things about, but at least I can watch NXT and pay-per-views as they come out.
And speaking of which, I was able to catch the latest WWE ppv, Money in the Bank, which I like to often describe as the storyline bailout show, since the sheer mechanism behind a one-time, unpredictable title challenge is a blessing for both fan anticipation and Creative, and can easily bail out any bad storyline choices, or add drama to existing ones.
Unfortunately, as much as things change throughout the years, some things never change either, in the world of professional wrestling. Such as the ideal that if a ppv isn’t Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble, it’s basically a glorified bonus episode of RAW or Smackdown. Money in the Bank is definitely on that B-tier of annual shows, but at least it gets to have a consistent name, and not something random and thoughtless like Great Balls of Fire (really?).
Needless to say, I was excited at the prospect of having a relatively free evening where I could watch MITB, but after the show was over, I was left with this unimpressed taste in my mouth, like when you drink a Pepsi MAX which tastes good going down, but leaves a lingering, slightly acidic and bitter twinge in the back of your throat whenever you swallow afterward. Except the difference between Pepsi MAX and MITB is that I actually find Pepsi MAX to have been enjoyable, and was mostly meh about the rest of MITB as a whole.
Quickly though: best match was The New Day vs. The Usos. There’s chemistry between both teams that oozed throughout the whole match, and the parade of near finishes and “ok it’s over now” moments actually got me excited about the match at one point, before it’s cliché, but in this application, nuclear-heat generating finish. It didn’t matter that Jey Uso has gained so much weight he no longer looks identical to Jimmy, there’s still tons of talent between the two, and mixed with The New Day led to a very good match.
Orton vs. Mahal was a legit snooze-fest. Putting a square against a foreign square doesn’t change a really fucking unenthused and uninspired World championship feud.
Baron Corbin winning the men’s MITB was not predicted, but that’s the kind of finish that Creative loves to do these days, so they can really feel like they’ve pulled one over on the fans. I don’t see him failing to convert on his eventual World championship cash-in like Damien Sandow unfortunately did, but at the same time, I don’t think he’ll be any better than Jack Swagger as a MITB World Champion. A definite B-tier MITB winner, my prediction.
What I really wanted to talk about however, was the women’s MITB match, because I frankly thought it had the most potential on the entire card. Because it was the first, and the current crop of women wrestlers are all super workers probably amped up and wanting to make even more history, I thought there was a good chance fans would see some fresh storytelling, and if anything, justification to how good these women are at willing to take bumps and put on a show.
Charlotte definitely continues to steal the division and stand out as the alpha female on the main roster, and I find it difficult to not cheer on Becky Lynch in general. Tamina should at some point get a brief run with the title at some point, but Natalya has cemented herself as the de facto glorified women’s enhancement talent, and I don’t think she’ll ever be able to be a serious Women’s champion, even if they ever let her win the belt at any point in her career.
Carmella was the weakest worker amongst them all and least expected to win such a historic event, so it should have come as no surprise that she ended up winning. To which I’d be okay with Carmella winning MITB had it happened in any other manner than how it transpired, but then again when it comes to the WWE and treatment of the women performers, it’s often times a case of one step forward, two steps back.
Spoiler alert: a man won the women’s Money in the Bank.
I don’t follow the indies or have paid much attention to professional wrestling as much as I’d like to have throughout the last few years, so I have no idea who James Ellsworth is. He’s a weird looking wimp with no chin who looks like a glorified fan with maybe a little bit of bump training that somehow got a WWE deal, and exists on the roster for smarks and fans to wish to see get destroyed. He’s a living embodiment of a troll from Creative to rile up fans, which doesn’t necessarily work against me – as long as he doesn’t get involved in matches.
Which is exactly what he did in women’s MITB, when he not only cockblocked Becky Lynch from winning the match, but ended up climbing up the ladder himself and retrieving the case, thus winning the match. Sure, he threw the case down to Carmella, and declared her the winner of the match, but let’s not ignore the symbolism of a man climbing the ladder and fulfilling the sole win condition of the match.
I know this is all done for storylines, to create an ambiguous situation that will require a few weeks to untangle, and ultimately result in something of a rematch at the next Smackdown ppv, or Summerslam itself. The women’s MITB case, much like the men’s is another title to be fought over, even if it isn’t a belt in itself. But its initial inception into The Universe is marred with controversy that kind of reeks of ol’ Vince’s ageless misogyny.
Frankly, I thought the only possible saving grace for Carmella to go through with her threat to cash in immediately, when her music hit and she came out during the (also terrible) Naomi/Lana match. That way, if she won the title, she could have cashed in before the foreboding GM Daniel Bryan’s threat to solve the issue could have even taken effect, and then a whole gigantic clusterfuck could have ensued, and the MITB would be back off the table before it could even be resolved.
Regardless, MITB as a whole was kind of meh, but the manner in which they handled the women’s division was yet another example of the WWE constantly claiming they’re growing and evolving the women’s division, but then doing little things that continuously justify the notion that it’s a men’s industry first and that they simply won’t let women have their own successes and failures without the involvement of men.
And this isn’t the first time that a man has won a women’s competition. Shit, it’s not even the second time they’ve made a mockery of women’s wrestling either. One step forward, two steps back.
