Taking over the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, the WWE presents the annual Money in the Bank event. Two six-person ladder matches will take place, one for the men and one for the women, where the respective winners will earn a championship contract to be cashed in at any time of their choosing for up to one year. For the men, it will be Penta, Bron Breakker, Je’Von Evans, Trick Williams, Kevin Owens and CM Punk vying for that prize, while the women’s field will consist of Roxanne Perez, Lola Vice, Sol Ruca, Lash Legend, Jacy Jayne and Tiffany Stratton. Stephanie Vaquer will also be in action as she defends her Women’s World Championship against both Becky Lynch and Liv Morgan in a triple threat match, and Oba Femi will face Bronson Reed of The Vision in a highly anticipated singles match up. Finally, last but certainly not least, Roman Reigns will defend the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against LA Knight in the opening contest! Whoever wins will be sure to keep their eyes peeled on the main event to see who may next be coming for their gold.
+ Tiffany Stratton vs. Sol Ruca vs. Lola Vice vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Jacy Jayne vs. Lash Legend (Money in the Bank Ladder Match): this was an absolute car crash, which I say as a compliment. There were numerous times a ladder would not cooperate with the planend moves and landings, which made things look wild and especially dangerous, which is the best thing a match like this can appear to be (while they all obviously come out unscathed, ideally). Tiffany Stratton took a particularly nasty fall on the floor outside, which gave me some concerns, and Jacy Jayne was seemingly out to prove she belongs in this division, as she was flopping and falling all over the place. I really love Lash Legend and Lola Vice, and they were fun here, too
+ Roman Reigns (c) vs. LA Knight (WWE World Heavyweight Championship): the crowd was electric for this opening contest, and that made even the stock-standard wrestling seems more exciting. Things picked up as the match progressed and in the end this was a very entertaining back and forth contest which I enjoyed, but can’t think of much to say about. The good crowd made it better than it otherwise might have been
– CM Punk vs. Bron Breakker vs. Trick Williams vs. Je’Von Evans vs. Kevin Owens vs. Penta (Money in the Bank Ladder Match): I hated this match. It was poorly timed, poorly worked and the big selling point made no sense to me as it actively ruined my enjoyment of the things which did not outright suck. The crowd seemed to have fun, but the big moment of the match was so ridiculous and even called out for being dumb by the commentators as it happened, and actively hampered my enjoyment of one of the people who I otherwise look forward to seeing. This was not good, and left a really bad taste in my mouth for the whole show
– Stephanie Vaquer (c) vs. Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan (Triple threat match for the Women’s World Championship): I really wanted to like this, but every single thing about Liv Morgan’s involvement made it worse. Stephanie and Becky, one on one, would have been a significantly better match and paid off the long-running story, and as seems to be a frustrating trend in recent wrestling, adding someone to the amtch did not make it better in any way at all. There was a rough moment at the end where I hope one of these three is okay, but otherwise this was worse than it could and should have been
– Oba Femi vs. Bronson Reed: straight up, I did not like this match at all and I am incredibly worried for the future of both these two (and the Vision as a whole group — more than I already was for the latter). This match was the perfect negative culmination of the issue the WWE is going to have with Oba Femi forever more: this guy destroyed Brock Lesnar, so there is not a single thing ever he should have to worry about in the wrestling ring and they are very clearly treading water until he faces Roman Reigns. That is not to say he even won this match, necessarily; but Bronson Reed is not Brock Lesnar, no matter how many sneak attack beatdowns he has done over the last several weeks, and this translates poorly to matches like this
Should you watch this event: Overall, you know what you are going to get from a gimmick show like this; if you like crazy ladder matches then you’ll probably have fun. For my money, this was a real swing and a miss of a show. I can comfortably say that if you were on the fence at all, don’t bother with this one.
