WWE Money in the Bank Review

Well that was awesome, with a new champion crowned, we finally have some plot progression in the WWE, and it couldn’t go to anyone more deserving. Dean Ambrose is the World Heavyweight Champion!

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Money in the Bank was great, but something needs to be talked about. Cards on the table, if MITB seemed a bit filler filled, that’s because it was, it had to be. The WWE had a lot to contend with this Sunday, while MITB was on, so was game 7 of the NBA Finals, one of the tensest finals in years and The Battle of the Bastards, an episode that has received an entire season of build up. Whoever booked the card, knew that people would switch from MITB at times to watch one of those, that’s why we had filler matches. That’s why Corbin vs Ziggler, Crews vs Sheamus and Rusev vs O’Neil (Also arguably the Women’s match) were so spread out over the card rather than all at the start. Imagine how bad the WWE would have looked if people turned off Cena vs Styles to watch the end of the NBA Finals? That’s why the US Title match was so far down the card, during the end of the game (Which was tied with a minute to go). The WWE needed the filler. 

TheRealDills – Tag Team Fatal 4-Way (Tag Team Championship)

The opening match tonight was rough, to say the least. All 4 teams were pretty good tonight, however, this match type just breeds botches. On the positive side of things, we saw some good old-fashioned entertainment as all teams looked as if they were enjoying themselves when things went smoothly. If I take anything away from this match it will be how bad I feel for referees when the in-ring action is this chaotic. This match was just all over the place. We had a dodgy 3 count that the fans screwed up on leading everyone to think Enzo had picked up the win and more illegal men in the ring than I could count. The low point was when Luke Gallows decided he wasn’t a wrestler for a while and just stared down Big E while he held Anderson. The icing on the cake was that when The New Day got the pin it wasn’t even on the legal man. As for New Day winning, it was obviously going to happen. No way WWE wants to keep the record with Paul London and Brian Kendrick. I do think we are definitely going to get new champions soon but just like Nikki Bella and the divas title they just want to cement that legacy first.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 6/10

Parzy’s Rating 6/10

Parzy – Baron Corbin vs Dolph Ziggler

All that being said about filler being needed, this was rough. What was even rougher was that it wasn’t pre show material.Instead, the pre show saw the Lucha Dragons vs The Dudleys and the grossest most humiliating match I’ve ever seen in The Golden Truth vs Sunburnt Breezango (Their skin was made up to look like it was peeling off of them). Having barely made the main show, this match was exactly what we’ve seen in the already, Dolph overselling, Corbin’s hairline visibly receding and Corbin showing little to no emotion throughout the entire affair. At this point, I enjoy ‘Make Darren Young great again’ segments more than this match up, at least we don’t see as many of those as we do Corbin vs Ziggler. I hope this is the final match of the feud but I won’t get my hopes up.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 4/10

Parzy’s Rating 3/10

Parzy – Becky Lynch and Natalya vs Charlotte and Dana Brooke

Boy oh boy, I hope that Dana Brooke stops tagging around Charlotte soon because I am fucking sick of her. I had my reservations when she first came up to the main roster, I gave her a shot when they kept pushing her after Emma’s injury, but enough is enough. She came up to the main roster far too early, it’s even worse that she’s now always in our faces since she’s partnered up with Charlotte. Let her develop on house shows until she finds her character then give her a solo run. Her complete lack of talent meant that Natty and Lynch’s loss was completely unbelievable. They were dominating, then Brooke and Charlotte get a leg up and run off. There was then an uncharacteristic betrayal by Natty as she beat into Lynch after their loss even though Lynch saved her from Charlotte in the first place. With the seeds of a Lynch/Natty feud in place, there looks to be two women’s matches at Battleground, giving the women’s division the push it’s been needing.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 5/10

Parzy’s Rating 4/10

TheRealDills – Apollo Crews vs Sheamus

Now I am a big fan of Apollo Crews who may lack some character and personality but in the ring, he is the complete package. However this placing of this match couldn’t have been worse for a feud with this little build, after 2 matches that were either filler or just simply uninteresting this match capped off a very boring middle of the show, and as someone who lives in the UK watching 3 back to back boring matches at 2am in the morning is bloody torture. The match was pretty standard and didn’t feel like a match worthy for the “greatest MITB of all time”, with both Crews and Sheamus doing nothing in particularly special. It seems obvious to me that they are going to do the exact same thing to this feud they have done to Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler. They are going to trade wins until the newer guy, in this case, Apollo, comes out on top.

Rating: 4/10

Parzy’s Rating 5/10

Parzy – AJ Styles vs John Cena

This match was incredible, while this is expected of the two long time veterans, their performance was still noteworthy. Every spot was impressive and showed off both competitors talent, making predicting the winner during the match almost impossible. However, the end definitely has to be brought into question. After a ref bump costs Cena the count out, The Club run out and delivered a Magic Killer to Cena, before depositing Styles’ corpse on top of him for the count out. This should have voided the match since it went against AJ’s contract but it didn’t. AJ gets the hollow win. The only consolation to this is that it looks like AJ gets away without being buried for now, and we may see the two duke it out again at Battleground, if this match is anything to go by, they’ll put on another incredible bout.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 9/10

Parzy’s Rating 10/10

Parzy – Money in The Bank Ladder Match

The fantasy booking came through guys! Ambrose won! Then he cashed in! Now they’ve set up a Shield triple threat! Yay! I’m getting ahead of myself. This match was the tits. Every participant landed some excellent spots, especially Cesaro and Del Rio, with Cesaro’s flying uppercut off the ropes taking the throne as the most impressive maneuver of the night. The match was brutal in every way that a ladder match should be, Zayn slamming Owens onto the ladder being the primary evidence of that. That part definitely brought up some worries from their last ladder slam at WM which made me think Kev had died as well. The match was great but although every participant was great, Ambrose really took a back seat until the end, making some of us question whether he was deserving of the contract. Having fought the least, it seemed like it, we thought he had to save his energy for the end of the night, but all he did then was one Dirty Deeds? I think he had more in him for the match, but his win was still important.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 8/10

Parzy’s Rating 9/10

TheRealDills – Rusev vs Titus O’Neil (US Championship)

There are two things that I need to say/ask, firstly Rusev is the heel to top all other heels. It takes a special sort of man to beat a father on father’s day then to go up to said father’s kids and berate him and them about how much of a loser he is. Monster Rusev is coming back guys. The other thing I wanted to ask is do Dads kiss their children on the lips? Is that a thing in America or something? Anyway, it goes without saying that this match was a squash match and ultimately just a way to get Rusev over as a heel as Titus is the latest victim of the accolade.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 6/10

Parzy’s Rating 4/10

TheRealDills – Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns (World Heavyweight Championship)

So we finally get to out Wrestlemania calibre main event as we see two of the three members of the Shield collide, and as we all found out earlier the possibility for that third man to get involved is very likely. Now despite the fact that Roman gets hit with the “you can’t wrestle” chants we have come to see that Reigns is very capable of putting on a match of the year candidate as long as he has someone world class to work with as seen with Bryan, Lesnar and most recently AJ Styles. Now as Seth is one of those world-class wrestlers I expected one of those matches, but what we got was quite different. Firstly unlike the matches I mentioned this one saw Roman take the lead rather than Seth, which unfortunately did make the match suffer as Reigns just isn’t as good as Rollins in the ring. However, this was done for a very specific reason as it allowed Roman to play the role of monster heel all match with Seth fitting into the role of babyface underdog. The match wasn’t a classic like the Styles one at Payback but it was still great and we saw some great offense from both guys (please make the Razor’s Edge powerbomb Roman’s finisher). To everyone’s surprise, Seth actually ended up picking up a clean victory which only strengthens this heel-face dynamic possibly hinting at a double turn. Seth beating Roman clean was absolutely huge but it only got bigger when good ole Dean Ambrose made his way down to the ring in order to cash in on Rollins but hitting him from behind then laying him out for the pin. All 3 Shield guys were world champion in the same night and Ambrose finally has his deserved title run. That Shield triple threat is coming and it’s coming soon.

TheRealDills’ Rating: 8/10

Parzy’s Rating 9/10

Overall

The Real Dills Rating: 8/10

Parzy’s Rating 9/10

The matter of the bet from the preview must be brought up. For our predictions, I got 5 correct predictions, Harry got 6. That means that Harry got rights to name my first born child [REDACTED] Wood. Huh, guess I’m not really allowed to say his name due to the WWE’s removal of the name as a whole. Oh well, luckily I got a picture of the kid in the future. Here he is. 

So that’s it for our MITB Review, come back next month for our joint Battleground review and as always, follow our Twitters @oliverwoodster and @therealdills.

 

 

 

Money in The Bank Preview

Hello and welcome to this month’s PPV Preview! As with last month, you have myself and resident Raw Reviewer, TheRealDills giving you our thoughts and predictions on the matches coming up this Sunday. We’ll tally up our correct guesses and declare an ultimate winner! (Winner gets to name the losers future first born). After last month’s astounding victory I’m sure to take it. In all honesty, ignoring the low card matches, which are kind of shit, this is one of the most stacked PPVs I’ve seen in a long time. I mean we have the MITB itself, a chaotic 4 way tag team championship match, Big Match John vs AJ Styles and Roman Reigns finally tussling with Rollins. This is sure to be a great event (Unless they truly fuck it up). Let’s get to it.

Parzy – Dolph Ziggler vs Baron Corbin

In what is perhaps the most highly anticipated match of the night, we have our two strong top card competitors battling it out at the end of their critically acclaimed rivalry, surely this’ll be a match for the… I’m sorry, I just had to try and inject some excitement into this boring ass ‘feud’. Y’know how I said the low card was shit? Well here we are again with Corbin vs Ziggler! Again. I’m starting to feel like this feud will go on forever without anyone actually noticing. I mean come on, has anyone really noticed the build up to this? Never mind, this match will help boost Corbin’s career yada yada yada no it won’t. This match will solidify Dolph’s place in the Hall of Fame bla bla bla no it won’t. I had hope that this feud would end on a high note at Extreme Rules yet here we are, 4 weeks on. I’m as sad about this as you are, see if you can catch the first ten minutes of GOT, no one will judge you.

Parzy’s Prediction: Who cares? Corbin probably

TheRealDills’ prediction: Baron Corbin

TheRealDills – Apollo Crews vs Sheamus

So first up for my preview matches is the up and comer Apollo Crews set to face off against Sheamus at Money In The Bank. The feud has seen little TV as of recently, with the run in on this week’s Raw being the most important development the feud has had in weeks. This match should be decent at the very least as Crews may not be the most charismatic guy but he can definitely go in the ring and despite the Fuck Sheamus camp being as strong as ever at this point he is a seasoned veteran. The result could go either way depending on how long the feud is set to go on. If this is the end tonight then expect Crews to be going over The Celtic Warrior, however if they are looking to prolong this rivalry similar to Ziggler and Corbin then this could definitely result with a Sheamus victory.

TheRealDills’ prediction: Apollo Crews

Parzy’s prediction: Sheamus

TheRealDills – Rusev vs Titus O’Neil (US Championship)

Now there are two things WWE can do here. Either the right thing or the wrong thing. Rusev has yet to the hit the stride that his last run with the belt had but who can blame him? Titus ‘bear hug’ O’Neil is hardly a prestigious opponent for Rusev who is trying to restore the United States Championship to its former glory. Clearly it would be a grave mistake to take the belt off of the Bulgarian Brute this soon to someone with as little momentum as Titus. Yet in the back of my mind, I cannot let go of the fear that the father of the year is going to get a father’s day rub (as well as the “sorry we suspended you” rub). They can’t be that stupid can they? I’m going to be optimistic and pray WWE don’t screw this up.

TheRealDills’ predictions: Rusev

Parzy’s Prediction: Rusev

Parzy – Becky Lynch and Natalya vs Charlotte and Dana Brooke

This is the first PPV since Mania that there hasn’t been a Women’s Title defense so people are getting scared that the WWE doesn’t care about women anymore. Is the Women’s revolution over? My answer is no. We had a long string of Diva’s championship defenses stretching back to last year, the WWE still cares about the division. You should be a little worried if there’s no title defense next month, but for now, see it as a break. Admittedly, we could have had a break with a better feud than this but we get what we get. This match could have easily been Becky vs Charlotte straight up but absence makes the heart grow stronger, hopefully next month we’ll have a title match between them. This match is kind of slanted in Team Beckalya’s favour, what with Natty beating Charlotte multiple times and Dana just being smushed all around, but you have to make the champ look strong so this could go either way. I’m hoping Becky and Natty win to make Becky look good going into next month’s bout.

Parzy’s Prediction: Becky Lynch and Natalya (Beckalya)

TheRealDills’ prediction: Becky Lynch and Natalya

TheRealDills – Tag Team Fatal 4-Way (Tag Team Championship)

This is one of two matches on the card that I feel is really open for multiple people to win. Though the obvious favourites have been established on the recent episodes of Raw and Smackdown I feel like this is an open race. The match should hopefully be good as long as it does not get too chaotic, all 4 teams are great together and can put on a solid match. For me both The Club and The New Day have good arguments for why they should be the favourites but it comes down to the tag team record, New Day are so close to this record and with it being mentioned on Raw it seems as if they are likely to break it.

TheRealDills’ prediction: The New Day

Parzy’s prediction: The Club

AJ Styles vs John Cena

I could not come up with a better person for AJ to go heel against than Cena. I mean wow, what better way to prove yourself to the WWE Universe than to challenge the biggest dog at the park. AJ put in some incredible work against Jericho and Reigns, with even Stone Cold himself saying that AJ carried those matches, so I think he could have a chance with this one. I mean sure, Cena has uploaded some… disconcerting images on Instagram,

But I think AJ could truly assert himself with a win here, making him a concrete fixture in the WWE. Of course I say all of this while AJ is the current top seller of merch in the company, and is here to stay, but if AJ doesn’t think he’s made it, who am I to say otherwise. A win here would be phenomanal.

Parzy’s Prediction: AJ Styles

TheRealDills Prediction: AJ Styles

Parzy – MITB Match. Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, Alberto Del Rio, Sami Zayn, Chris Jericho, Cesaro

The build up to this match has been incredible. Even after the wondrous Intercontinental push, this match is one to behold. The participants in this match are by far and away, the most fun to watch standalone superstars in the WWE today (except maybe Del Rio). They also have the most personality out of the standalone superstars. I have no doubt in my mind that this match will be masterful. The problem for your humble reviewers is the prediction. Ideally, Dean AMbrose wins this, cashes in for the Title Match and walks away champion, setting up a triple threat somewhere down the line. However, Creative hates us,  they hate our families, they hate our pets. This paired with Del  Rio’s desire to turn heel, gives me the uneasy feeling that he takes this. Ultimately, I need to go with my fantasy booking gut for this one, lest I fall to depression.

Parzy’s Prediction: Dean Ambrose

TheRealDills’ prediction: If you asked me this 2 weeks – 2 months ago I would have said, Owens, 100% but recent booking has changed my mind to Dean Ambrose

TheRealDills – Roman Reigns vs Seth Rollins (World Heavyweight Championship)

I said it last week. I will say it again. There is no way (Jose) Roman Reigns loses the title before Summerslam. As much as I would love it for my lord and saviour Crossfit Jesus to get the win, it is just not going to happen. The WWE are committed to the Roman Reigns experiment whether we like it or not. Despite this inevitable ending, this will obviously be a great match. Though Seth has been off a long time but he is one of the best wrestlers in the world a future best in the world. As for Reigns, despite the deserved hatred he has received from fans, he has proven that with world class talent like Bryan, Lesnar and Styles he can put on tremendous matches. The only other question worth asking is will a Dean Ambrose MITB cash in occur? I have been going back and forth on this possibility and while it is likely Dean wins the MITB, I don’t see such an early cash in.

TheRealDills’ prediction: Roman Reigns

Parzy’s prediction: Please please please Seth Rollins

And that’s it for our Money in the Bank Preview! Make sure to come back after MITB for our review, where we’ll tally up our points and declare a winner. Also expect to see my either ecstatic over an Ambrose win or saltily bitching about Del Rio’s inevitable win.

TheRealDills: When I win, I’m naming Oliver’s kid Chris Benoit Wood, if it’s a girl, Yvette Wood, pronounced ‘I’ve eat’
I’m gonna name Harry’s kid Woody ‘Sin Cara’ Dillon when I win. Felicity Smoak Dillon if it’s a girl.

You can follow us on Twitter @Oliverwoodster and @Therealdills