Yes, I decided to watch a WWE Pay-Per-View event from 2018 over either the latest Double Or Nothing show or WWE’s latest Blood Money venture from the progressive kingdom of Saudi. Truth be told, I almost bit on the DoN replay until I heard it was eleventy-billion hours long… yeah, no thanks. I don’t need to spend three months watching one show.
For what it’s worth, this is probably the only show that I hadn’t seen back in the day… though to be fair, this show was following Backlash, a show that was memorable for the Roman Reigns/Samoa Joe main event that was so thrilling that people were walking out before Roman even got a win. Also, if my old musings on the show are anything to go by, the show itself was pretty dreadful.
So to close out this month before beginning my June-wide wrestling moratorium, I decided to revisit this show for some reason and… you know, some time has passed and one has to wonder if this show is going to be any better now than if I were to have watched it live. I guess we’ll have to see about that.
Daniel Bryan Danielson defeated Big Cass (a.k.a. Big Bill in AEW) in the opening contest that was mostly Bryan moving heaven and Earth to try and get a good match out of Big Cass, who was mostly just there. I’d imagine if these two were to have a match on AEW, it’d be better than what they had here, especially since Big Bill is such a far cry from Big Cass, it’s almost like they’re two entirely different people.
Bobby Lashley defeated Sami Zayn in a thing that happened… was this before or after the bit with the three crossdressers posing as Lashley’s sisters? Don’t worry if you have no idea what I’m talking about; it’s probably for the best.
Intercontinental champion Seth (not yet “Freaking” and thank fuck for that) Rollins defeated Elias to retain the title in a pretty good match. This was Seth the miracle machine trying to get great matches out of guys who wouldn’t normally have great matches. Mind you, Elias was no slouch in the best of times, but he was brought to another level in this match with Seth. Watching this almost makes me feel a bit sad because it made me realize how much I miss this Seth Rollins. The cool, popular babyface with slick moves and a confident demeanor. There was a reason why this guy got a following and eventually a couple runs with the belt when Roman was out of action. Looking back at this guy, there was no doubt that he could’ve had a great run as the top babyface champion on RAW… and then the Fiend ruined him and we eventually ended up with Clown College Seth for the rest of time. But I digress. This was another quality outing from one Seth Rollins and even Elias held his own just fine.
Alexa Bliss defeated Natalya, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Naomi, Ember Moon, Sasha Banks, and… Lana in the 2018 Women’s MiTB ladder match to win the briefcase and a title shot. This was a case where you pretty much knew who was going to win long before the end result and I don’t recall if I ever had an issue with Bliss winning, but she seemed like the obvious choice here. The match was your usual collection of ladder spots and things of that nature. Pretty much standard modern ladder match are.
Roman Reigns defeated Jinder Mahal in a match that saw the crowd give Roman the business of being booed out the building. Also we’ve had CM Punk chants (the show took place in Chicago), Velveteen Dream chants, This Match Sucks, End This Match… possibly a This Is Awful chant as well, though I could be wrong. It didn’t help that the match was slow, plodding, long as fuck, and horrendously boring. Roman would eventually win the Red Belt title from Brock before giving up due to leukemia… and that would be the point where people would actually appreciate Roman a little more. Fortunately, Roman came back and went on a tear of a run that lasted a few years, but we already know that story. As for Jinder? Well…
Smackdown Women’s Champion Carmella defeated ASUKA via mysterious masked person attacking Asuka to retain the title. Oh yes, this is the infamous match where the masked person reveals themselves to be JAMES FUCKING ELSWORTH. THE MAN WITH NO CHIN! See, I may not have seen the show… but I do remember this clip. It’s what prompted me to whip up this image.
The really sad thing about this whole deal is that you have this person in Asuka’s robe and mask distracting poor Kana-chan and there’s already an Elsworth chant… because the audience isn’t stupid. And yes, there’s a huge pop at the reveal. Yes, Asuka is terrified by the chinless man. Yes, that makes her a geek… and not the kind of geek who’s giddy about manga and video games, but the kind of geek who’s stupid and useless in life. It also doesn’t help that the match isn’t very good. Carmella, at this stage in the game, wasn’t all that great – and to be fair, she would get better eventually… but yeah, this whole thing was pretty bad. And by the way, this was the same year that saw Baby Flair end Asuka’s long-running undefeated streak for no reason other than so that the braindead monkeys in WWE Creative could tell more stories with Asuka… and THIS is the best they could come up with.
Fuck you and fuck your show.
WWE Champion AJ Styles defeated Shinsuke Nakamura in a Last Man Standing match… oh yes, this was the famous feud with Naka kept kicking AJ in the balls and eventually we paid off this whole thing by having AJ kick Naka in the balls and a forearm through the table puts him dow for good. For what it’s worth, the match was really fucking good because these two are great at what they do. This lasted 30 minutes and at times, it felt like it dragged a little, but for the most part, I enjoyed the match. I enjoyed that we had a decisive finish and AJ could move on to something else from this point… until he would drop the belt to Daniel Bryan on a random Smackdown months later to kick off Bryan’s Planeteer phase where he’d bring out the hemp WWE title. That was a fun time; the only fun time I could recall having.
Ronda Rousey defeated RAW Women’s Champion Nia Jax via DQ when Alex Bliss hit Ronda with the briefcase, presumably giving her a concussion that I’m sure is talked about extensively in her newest tome. Bliss then cashes in her shot and beats Nia for the title to end the Nia Jax title run that nobody asked for. Alexa would eventually drop the belt to Ronda and we’d begin our road to the first women’s Wrestlemania main event. I’m usually down on Ronda most of the time, but she’s capable of having a good match, she can play the babyface in peril just fine and evoke some kind of emotional reaction, and Nia Jax, when used properly, can be the giant monster that’s basically a stone wall before she’s eventually taken down. So yeah, the match was fine and getting rid of the briefcase was probably the smartest thing they could have done here.
Braun Strowman defeated Finn Balor, Samoa Joe, Rusev, The Miz, Kofi Kingston, Kevin Owens, and… oh yeah, Bobby Roode was a thing in WWE once upon a time. I almost forgot about him… anyway, Strowman won the Men’s briefcase. Big guys beat the shit out of each other, little guys do all the cool spots… Strowman winning certainly wasn’t the worst idea and with a proper push, a match between him and Brock would be gangbusters… oh wait.
Money In The Bank was mostly alright… the first half of the show was a whole lot of nothing, but the ladder matches were fun for what they were, the AJ/Nakamura match was pretty damn good, Seth/Elias was a reminder of better days for Rollins, hell, I even enjoyed Ronda/Nia. I wouldn’t go so far to say that I missed out on anything, but it sure would’ve helped in cleansing the palette after the turd show that was Backlash 2018.
So yeah… this one was alright.
And on that note, I’m done with wrestling for the next month.
Later.
dtm666 