Money in the Bank is pretty heckin’ good. You ever notice how you never see any lists out there ranking the ten worst Money in the Bank matches? It’s because there aren’t ten bad Money in the Bank matches to work with. Considering how in recent years WWE has seemingly chosen to do deliberate damage to the reputation of their own creations; see Hell in a Cell, see The Fiend, see Retribution, Money in the Bank has had a pretty healthy life.
So why does Money in the Bank not feel quite as special as it used to? It doesn’t have the same aura that it once had but how can that be fixed? The match itself? It’s a f**king ladder match, it’s perfect, there’s nothing to change. For the most part WWE’s Money in the Bank matches have been on par with their other multi-person ladder matches in terms of quality. They’re WWE ladder matches, they’re almost always good. Maybe don’t do that Brock Lesnar s**t ever again, and let’s leave the corporate, cold, socially distanced, double money in the bank match in the past with the rest of 2020. But thankfully 2021 saw the Money in the Bank match return to form a little bit, so I’m more confident that the years prior was more a couple of missed turns rather than a total turn in the wrong direction. The issue then lies in the chase but more importantly, the solution, as even though the 2021 Money in the Bank ladder match may have been the best in the stipulation’s history, somehow the presentation of WWE’s get out of midcard free card has gotten stale, and I won’t stand for it.
The Beginning
Before we get into how to fix all of WWE’s self-inflicted woes, we should probably actually identify what the issue is. Money in the Bank was a concept that hit the ground running in WWE and had a very cool first five years. Yes some of the winners may have been duplicates but each presentation was unique and engaging. But while that’s how the gimmick may have started, it certainly hasn’t maintained that perfect average. Let me explain what I mean.
Edge is your first Mr. Money in the Bank and he established a solid foundation for the gimmick to build on with a long run with the briefcase to build anticipation with the audience before cashing it in in the biggest moment possible, after an Elimination Chamber match, to win his first WWE Championship. A moment was made and it would be very easy for WWE to look at the thing that worked and see that it drew them a big rating on Raw the next night and do the exact same thing when the next Money in the Bank match came about soon after.
But they didn’t do that. Rather than just having the 2006 Money in the Bank match be won by another emerging heel and have him cash in in a dastardly manner, Rob Van Dam won the briefcase and cashed it in to completely different circumstances than Edge had. Whereas Edge established himself as the ultimate opportunist, RVD used his contract to get himself a WWE Championship match with John Cena in his territory, wrestling an iconic and very silly match at One Night Stand 2006.
Keep the ball rolling and even if it wasn’t by design, Mr. Kennedy losing the briefcase to Edge was different. Kennedy was told he had torn his tricep and lost the title shot to Edge so he could go on to win the World Heavyweight Championship from The Undertaker, only to then find out that he’d actually just broken some blood vessels and would be fine after all. Sorry, no give backs says Edge. It may not be the best use of the briefcase in history but it is still completely different. I have no trouble telling you what happened with the 2007 Money in the Bank contract because, once again, it was unique.
Even having CM Punk win back-to-back years in 2008 and 2009 in itself is different but it goes beyond that as well. Punk’s 2008 trip to the bank was the first time the Money in the Bank cash-in surprise was a babyface moment, resulting in a huge ovation when he beat Edge for the title the night after Night of Champions. But they then used that to build off of the following year when Punk’s 2009 go around was the first heel turn to come as a result of a Money in the Bank cash-in. We’ve had five Money in the Bank contracts so far and we’ve had five totally unique stories told.
And while I am not going to sit here with the benefit of hindsight and tell you that it was a good idea for WWE to pull the trigger on making Jack Swagger World Heavyweight Champion by having him cash in Money in the Bank the same week he won it, that was different too. 2010 was the first super short Money in the Bank reign and while that was a little neat at the time, it also did become clear that something was lost when you throw patience to the wind. But okay, you learn from that and you move forward right?
Downhill From There
What do you mean the next one was even shorter? Yes, also in 2010 WWE introduced the Money in the Bank pay per view where more than one contract would typically be fought over. And this will be a point of discussion here but let’s keep looking at the winners for a moment. Here WWE’s solid batting average for Money in the Bank stories just begins to decline. As with much of the rest of the product you can start to see a laziness and a complacency in a lot of the storylines from around this time.
In this instance, it almost felt like as WWE introduced a Raw briefcase and a SmackDown briefcase that was a chance to just have one of them be a throwaway. The first year, Kane won the first briefcase and cashed it in an hour later. Now I can vibe with this, someone had to be the first to cash it in the same night and if WWE was trying to establish the Money in the Bank pay per view brand as being an exciting show where anything can happen they accomplished that. And you can get away with that if you do have another briefcase to also give fans the longer run they might want to see. In this case with The Miz having a solid run and winning the WWE Championship months later.
However, the law of diminishing returns reared its ugly head because having two briefcases really was a booking shortcut that WWE was going to exploit over the next few years. You started seeing a dud Mr. Money in the Bank every year it seemed, just because WWE didn’t feel it necessary to make the stories behind the cash-ins a bit more distinct.
Alberto Del Rio wins the red case in 2011 and he holds it for a month, there’s nothing to it and his cash in isn’t built to, built up, paid off, or made to feel interesting in any way. It’s as if they decided the contract was the interesting part and stopped crafting stories specific to the briefcase because this would happen with medium regularity. Semi-infrequently perhaps.
John Cena cashed it in after eight days for a one-on-one match that ended in a DQ via ‘wild Big Show appears’ and even just that goes to show that the effort into developing these moments just wasn’t there like it was. For years everyone fantasy booked how the first Money in the Bank cash-in failure would go. How could it be done to make the moment awesome and not kill the gimmick? Have a babyface at 1 HP valiantly mount a comeback against a heel and retain his title and it would be so cool. Instead, they just had Cena get bonked by the Big Show and the Money in the Bank contract has rarely looked this bad again. I wish I could say never but… I can’t.
Thankfully there were some great ones mixed in here like Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins who did get the unique Money in the Bank moments that were still attainable like cashing in at WrestleMania or the day after, but now seemingly more and more often the Money in the Bank contract was just the prop that got WWE through whatever SummerSlam writer’s block they were dealing with that year. Del Rio beats Punk at SummerSlam, Cena enters the title program before SummerSlam, Randy Orton cashes in at SummerSlam, it was happening a little too often in a short time period and even when the cash-in was very successful and unique in the case of Orton with the birth of The Authority, it still felt like we’d seen part of it before.
Ms. Money In The Bank
I won’t go through every single man and woman to win Money in the Bank but really can you tell me anything worth mentioning about the Money in the Bank runs of Sheamus, Dean Ambrose, Baron Corbin, Braun Strowman or Otis? And while many of the dudes have had trouble making Money in the Bank something to get interested in, the women haven’t even had the chance to do that. Of the first five Ms. Money in the Banks, Carmella had a good long run, holding the white case for 287 days, but after that the longest someone has held the Ms. Money in the Bank contract is one day.
You know how I said all of the early Money in the Bank cash-ins felt totally original and unique right? How is anyone supposed to remember any of these moments when they all serve largely the same narrative purposes and are all executed the same way? Alright maybe not Asuka, that one is different but different does not always mean better because the belt just being in the briefcase isn’t something I’m down with. I am a wrestling fan who will get in a fuss if the colourful box has a belt in it and not a piece of paper entitling them to fight for a belt.
Bayley, Alexa Bliss, Asuka, and Nikki A.S.H. all win their briefcases and then before they can work that into part of their character or do anything interesting to create something memorable, the gimmick is taken away from them. Again, I think you could get away with doing the same-day cash-in once. It’s a cool thing that you can do once. But Money in the Bank is so much more fun when you get to actually do what they want you to do most of the time, that being let it play out.
Has this been just a long elaborate way for me to just say the answer to fixing WWE’s Money in the Bank problem is better long term booking? Well, not just. The “WWE’s problems would be solved with some long term storytelling” drum has been beaten to death over the last few years but this is one piece that will be part of a larger puzzle. But it is certainly the biggest piece. So many of these problems could be solved with just a little more thought being put in. Like everyone loves Big E and his crowning moment could have been one of those moments that gets aired in every WWE highlight video but WWE rushed things and again this wasn’t as big a moment as it could have been. And if Big E is going to win Money in the Bank the only acceptable way to do things is to do them right. Sorry, thems the rules.
What’s The Fix?
There are a few more things WWE could do of course. This one comes down to preference as it doesn’t make that big of a difference, but I would just rather see the Money in the Bank ladder match be an attraction at WrestleMania than its own random B-pay per view. I personally just think its cooler to have that year start and end at WrestleMania than just some random day in early Summer. It makes it feel more significant to win a match like that at WrestleMania and honestly Money in the Bank has been a better way to get people on the Mania card than most of the other wacky multi-person matches we see so often.
And finally, the amount of good title reigns to come as a result of a Money in the Bank cash-in is shockingly low. Like appallingly, abysmally low. Again your concept of “good” might be different from mine but I mean good lord look at these reigns.
Edge has a live sex celebration then loses the title prematurely (I hear it happens to more men than you think). RVD was going to go to Raw but then he got high and lost the belt after a month, Edge got hurt the second time, Punk’s first reign is seen as generally underwhelming, second reign however pretty solid. Still very short, clocking in at under two months but it was a good two months.
Swagger was next, need not say more, Kane had an awful rivalry with The Undertaker and then an awful rivalry with Edge where your enjoyment would be tied to how much you wanted to see Edge inflict PG torture on Paul Bearer. If you like The Miz’s reign this isn’t the article where I’ll argue with you. But after Daniel Bryan’s breakout run it gets BAD. Besides Seth Rollins’ reign, we were then treated to Dolph Ziggler’s career burial, Cena, Damian Sandow, Baron Corbin and Braun Strowman didn’t even win, Orton held the title a month, as did Sheamus and Brock Lesnar, while The Miz didn’t even make it that long the second time and fan favourites like Dean Ambrose and Big E had fans demoralized after lousy reigns and lacklustre presentation.
Thankfully you have Carmella, Bayley and Asuka to help make up for things on the women’s side as well but holy mother of God what is the malfunction here? Why is it that after 28 different cash ins we have seen like half a dozen good reigns? I didn’t even know that one when I sat down to write this man what the f**k is that?
It does get difficult to do these pieces sometimes because there is only so many ways to say that WWE is bad at long-term thinking but really that is what many of the problems with the actual product boil down to. Money in the Bank is such a cool concept and it’s a concept with literally infinite creative possibilities. You can do whatever storyline you want to do with Money in the Bank and if that wasn’t enough control for you, you also get to do it literally whenever you want to do it. You cannot stack the deck more heavily in your favour and yet WWE has managed to fumble those great hands more often than not when you look at the full execution of these stories from start to finish. Money in the Bank is one of WWE’s greatest ideas but if utilised properly, it would be a yearly license to print, well… money.
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