Hiya!

In my eyes, WWE‘s Money in the Bank pay-per-view always has the potential to have the year’s best running storyline. That all depends, however, on who wins the Men’s and Women’s Money in the Bank briefcases. Sometimes, it can be good and sometimes it can be bad. It doesn’t really matter who wins it in retrospect. Rather, it’s what the person does with the Money in the Bank briefcase which can make or break them. That’s why I’m always eager to see who manages to climb the ladder and retrieve the briefcase.

This year, however, I’m kind of “meh” on the results. I’ll talk more on that later but, right now, let’s go check out what happened during the entire show, shall we?

The first match of the night was the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match. This had Alexa BIiss, Naomi, Stephanie Vaquer, Giulia, Roxanne Perez and Rhea Ripley hoping to grab that contract for a title shot. I do have to mention how the stadium looked strangely empty throughout the match, despite Michael Cole saying the arena is “sold out.” I’m not sure why but, thanks so some audio wizardry from the WWE, they either magnified the crowd audio or pumped in canned cheers. Honestly, it would’ve fooled me if my eyes didn’t see the empty seats!

There were a mixture of genuinely good spots and a couple of odd botches. The botches mostly revolved around Roxanne Perez and Giulia trying to take out Rhea Ripley. The first came when they tried to sandwich Mami in-between a ladder but Perez forgot to remove the lock, leading to an awkward moment when the ladder didn’t slam into Ripley. The other came right after that when the duo tried to push a ladder onto Ripley, only for it to bounce off the top rope and not hit their fallen victim. The highlights do outnumber the lowlights, though. Moments like The Prodigy’s springboard moonsault into Rhea Ripley, Vaquer climbing the ladder while Giulia had her locked in with a Black Widow hold, dual Canadian Destroyers from Alexa Bliss and Roxanne Perez and, for the gooners out there, Vaquer hitting Rhea Ripley with her Devil’s Kiss signature move on Rhea Ripley while on a ladder bridge.

The finish was rather anti-climactic. Roxanne Perez and Giulia were dragged down the central ladder by Alexa Bliss and Rhea Ripley. The latter duo then hit their respective finishers and then they started climbing the central ladder themselves. The two started duking it out while they were close to the top when Naomi, who just generally took a beating throughout the match, shoved the ladder down, sending Miss Bliss and The Eradicator face-first into a ladder that was draped in the corner. Naomi then climbed the ladder without any interference to retrieve the briefcase and become this year’s Women’s Money in the Bank winner.

First off, I am happy for Naomi for winning the Money in the Bank but, at the same time, I don’t think it’ll serve her well. She is already a former Smackdown Women’s Champion so she doesn’t need to be placed in the title hunt right now. I would’ve rather seen Roxanne Perez get the briefcase because I think she would benefit from it more and she does seem to have the chops to do a lot of heelish actions with it. Also, while the good spots overshadowed the botches, the entire match did seem overly long. Still, this was a good start.

The next match of the night saw “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio defending his Intercontinental Championship against Lucha Libre AAA‘s Octagon Jr. I’m actually surprised they chose Dom to face off against a non-WWE luchador but that does show the WWE has a lot of faith in him? Anyway, this match was pretty quick but they did stuff it with a good number of spots. Octagon Jr. got to highlight his flying and spinning ability with an amazing corkscrew crossbody and a not-so-amazing-because-it-took-so-long-to set-up corkscrew armdrag. To his credit, Dominik did hold his own and did some neat heel tactics like tying up Octagon Jr’s mask to the bottom rope and preening to the crowd.

The finish came when Octagon Jr. took control of the match after dodging Dominik’s 619 attempt. The luchador hit a slingshot corkscrew splash to Mysterio for a 2-count. He then hit a beautiful fisherman’s swinging neckbreaker and started climbing up the top rope. However, Liv Morgan, who accompanied Dominik to the ring, distracted Octagon Jr. while he was setting up for a moonsault. This gave “Dirty” Dom enough time to recover and trip up Octagon Jr. He then hit a 619 and a frog splash to get the pinfall victory and retain the 2nd biggest championship on the RAW brand.

This was just an okay match but it didn’t have to be a banger anyway. This just had to be a short and sweet match between a WWE guy and a AAA guy just so AAA can show their stuff and they did. Not a bad match but not something I’m gonna remember in a couple of days. It’s fine.

The next match had Lyra Valkyria defending her Women’s Intercontinental Championship against Becky Lynch. Before I do talk about the match, I really think Lyra Valkyria should look at getting better clasps for her ring gear as this is the 2nd pay-per-view where her top nearly came off! Anyway, there were a lot of good spots from Lyra Valkyria here, like her hooking a half crab while pinning her foot on Lynch’s head, hitting a legdrop while Lynch was draped over the barricade and Lyra muscling up The Man up into a superplex without Becky Lynch’s assistance! Lynch was effectively vicious by hitting her Manhandle Slam finisher on Lyra from the 2nd rope and while outside the ring!

The finish came after The Man hit the aforementioned Manhandle Slam on Lyra Valkyria. Lynch had to rush into the ring to break up the count. This gave Lyra enough time to recover and hit her Nightwing finisher on Lynch when she scrambled back outside the ring. Both participants made it back into the ring. A slugfest ensued with Valkyria getting the upper hand. Lyra went for another Nightwing but Lynch reversed it into an Oklahoma Roll, which Lyra reversed into a pin, which Lynch kicked out of. Lynch then went for a Manhandle Slam but Valkyria reversed it into a rollup. The man reversed the rollup attempt and, with using Valkyria’s tights for leverage, gets the pinfall victory to become the NEW Women’s Intercontinental Champion! After the match, Lynch demands Valkyria raise her hand in victory as part of the match’s stipulation, which Lyra begrudgingly does. Lynch still has more demands as she orders Valkyria to put the belt around her waist. Valkyria complies… but hits Lynch with a german suplex and her Nightwing finisher while Lynch was gloating.

This was an impressive match and much better than I expected. As this was a rematch, I expected them to just run their old hits but they did mix things up a bit here. Lyra Valkyria looked really good in the ring but a big reason as to why is Becky Lynch. There were times when I could plainly see her lean in and give Lyra instructions. It didn’t hurt the match itself but it was just something I noticed.

The 4th match of the night was the Men’s Money in the Bank match, featuring Andrade, Solo Sikoa, PENTA, El Grande Americano, Seth Rollins and LA’s own LA Knight (Yeah!). I expected there to be a lot of spots but I didn’t expect there to be a huge storyline element here! First, the spots. I mean, there’s a lot to talk about, like Andrade hitting a sunset flip powerbomb on El Grande Americano from the top of the ladder, PENTA suplexing Rollins onto a ladder while The Visionary was hanging upside down from another ladder and PENTA hitting a destroyer on Andrade while they were on a ladder bridge, just to name a few. My favorite spot had El Grande Americano climbing a ladder from the outside, using another ladder to swing to the center ladder in order to hit PENTA with his loaded mask. I love it because you can see Seth Rollins holding onto the ladder swing to make sure it doesn’t topple over while El Grande Americano was on it. To top off that spot, LA Knight scrambled over using that same ladder swing to suplex El Grande Americano off the top of the ladder. Teamwork, baby!

The finish saw a mad scramble with practically everyone scaling the middle ladders to get to the briefcase. This is when Seth Rollins called his squad, Bron Breaker and Bronson Reed, to storm the ring and assault everyone. The duo start stalking Solo Sikoa and this is when Sikoa’s group, Jacob Fatu and Jeff Cobb JC Mateo, rush in to even things out. A brawl ensues, leading to Bron Breakker taking JC Mateo and himself out with a spear through the ringside barricade. Fatu manages to hit a pop-up samoan drop to Bronson Reed and then finishes the job with a suicide dive!

The ring is now clear with Solo Sikoa all by his lonesome. He enters the ring and starts climbing the ladder but he’s stopped by… Jacob Fatu! The current United States Champion yanks Sikoa down and strikes his former leader with a superkick and then follows that up with a springboard moonsault! He then takes Solo out with a uranage through a ladder that has been setup outside the ring, taking Sikoa out.

The match continues, however. Seth Rollins then sets up a ladder and starts climbing only to be stopped by LA Knight. Knight hits a big lariat to Rollins and The Megastar starts climbing himself. Rollins manages to get up and pull Knight to the floor. Knight goes for his BFT finisher but Rollins blocks it and tosses Knight into the ladder before Rollins hits Knight with his Curb Stomp finisher. Rollins is all alone and retrieves the briefcase to become a 2-time Money in the Bank winner!

This was a really fun match. While the spots weren’t as extreme as previous Money in the Bank matches, there were still enough moments here which looked brutal enough to make things engaging. I was surprised with the Jacob Fatu turn because I didn’t expect it to end this quickly. I guess the finisher was a bit of a letdown as only LA Knight and Seth Rollins were involved. Even so, this is something I wouldn’t mind watching again.

The final match of the night had Cody Rhodes and the then-current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, Jey Uso, take on the reigning Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, John Cena, and Logan Paul. Honestly, I wasn’t feeling any heat from this and, now that it has to follow that rather amazing Money in the Bank match, I really hoped they had something good in store. They did… but they took their sweet time getting there! The first 2/3rds of the match was uneventful, with the heels dominating Jey Uso. Things did get more interesting when Logan Paul tagged himself in and John Cena didn’t appreciate that, leading them to argue amongst themselves and allowing Jey Uso to get the hot tag to Cody Rhodes. This is when the majority of the spots came, like Logan Paul accidentally hitting a springboard splash to Cena since Cody moved out of the way, Jey Uso spearing Cena by running the announcer’s tables, Logan Paul connecting with a springboard moonsault to Jey Uso through the table and, of course, the creative use of Logan Paul’s drone so you can get a POV shot of what it looks like to get hit with a superplex by Cody Rhodes.

The finish came after Logan Paul took Jey Uso and himself out of the match with the previously mentioned springboard moonsault through the table. The referee went to check on the both of them, allowing Cena to get his Undisputed WWE Universal Championship Belt and clocked Cody Rhodes with it. After this, however, a figure rushed the ring and took Cena down with a spear and mauled him with punches. It turns out it was R-Truth, who was supposedly fired just a couple of weeks ago! R-Truth then smashed Cena’s face in with the belt before escaping through the crowd. By this time, the official returned to the ring and Cody Rhodes hit his Cross Rhodes finisher on John Cena to get the pinfall victory for his team.

As good as the closing moments were, this was pretty boring. It’s almost like they were waiting for some metaphorical time limit before actually doing anything of note! This didn’t exactly feel like the main event for a pay-per-view but more like the main event on RAW or Smackdown or maybe even Saturday Night’s Main Event. Still, that last burst of action was pretty good and it’s nice to see the WWE has the ability to still swerve the fans as we all believed they fired R-Truth for real.

All things taken into consideration, this year’s Money in the Bank was good but not great. I still have to question why they gave Naomi the Money in the Bank briefcase and the main event, despite surprising everyone with R-Truth’s return, was pretty dull. The only really exciting match to me was the Men’s Money in the Bank match but Dominik Mysterio vs. Octagon Jr. and the one for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship did hold their own. Like I said, good but not great.

Byee!

What did you think of this year’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view? Let me know in the comments section below!