What we learned from WWE Money in the Bank 2017

Money in the Bank has come and gone, and people are angry for a lot of different reasons. Some of those reasons are valid! Some are because their favorite didn’t win. We’re here to sort it all out and figure out what we’re supposed to have taken away from the SmackDown-exclusive, ladder-based show.

You’re going to want to take a seat for this one. So I get what WWE was trying to do here. Carmella is a cowardly heel who often gets assists from her friend who is a boy, James Ellsworth, who is also a coward but knows his role as Guy Who Distracts Or Takes Punches For His Friend. Having Ellsworth climb the ladder, bring down the briefcase, and drop it into the hands of a barely aware Carmella works in the sense that it gets everyone really mad at him, at Carmella for being OK with winning that way, and so on.

The problem here is that this was the first-ever women’s Money in the Bank ladder match, propped up repeatedly by WWE as a historic outing. Unless they’re quite young, fans are aware that there is a writer making these decisions for who wins and who loses and how it all goes down. Because of that, people are much more upset at WWE’s creative team for having a man win this supposedly historic match for a woman than they are at Carmella or Ellsworth for what was clearly an unsportsmanlike act we’re supposed to be mad at.

It’s tone deaf, and they can never go back and change the fact they had a man bring down the briefcase. This moment in time is ruined: there’s no shining clip to flash back to on a future WWE Network special with a woman hoisting the briefcase overhead after taking it down from its harness, and that was what we were supposed to get here, even if that woman was heel Carmella. Even if she had climbed the ladder to take it down because Ellsworth had simply pushed Becky off the ladder instead of then climbing it himself, it still would have been her!

However ... WWE also did this on purpose, and there is much more of this angle to come. All of WWE that isn’t Carmella and James Ellsworth is (storyline) furious about this. SmackDown commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan already said they plan to address this on Tuesday, and they might not have to if Natalya, and Tamina, and Becky, and Charlotte, and Sasha, and Nia and so on all decide that murder is justified here.

So! While that moment in time is ruined, taken away from women who have waited far, far too long for even a shred of equality in WWE’s presentation of wrestling, the show has already moved on to the next stage. This can be an unfortunate (avoidable!) mistake and also include an entertaining and even satisfying conclusion to the story it started to tell.

Will that happen? It goddamn better.

What we learned: Besides the above? That this and other stipulation matches need to be a staple for WWE’s women, because they are killing it (and each other), even when the outcome is questionable.

Also, props to Carmella for rolling with it.

This was hard for audiences to take because it meant Money in the Bank began with two goofy finishes meant to anger fans. But in a vacuum, this was the right end to this SmackDown Tag Team Championship match.

The Usos thought they were just going to crush New Day, and honestly, that was a fair belief. The Usos have busted ass both figuratively and literally while they’ve been heels on SmackDown, and New Day of late has spent more time making jokes than having matches where they look threatening. When it turns out that the New Day were apparently just resting up for the ass-whooping they delivered on Sunday, the Usos jointly agreed it was time to bail.

What we learned: This feud is not over, and if Sunday’s match is any indication, that’s great news. New Day looked as inspired as they ever have as in-ring performers, and that’s no small thing given how much of their popularity comes from their mic work instead. The Usos continue to be so much better as heels than they ever were as faces, and aborting this title match when they realized defeating New Day was easier said than done means we might even eventually get ourselves a situation that the Usos can’t walk away from.

Lana had some pretty old-school ring work going on, as she spent a lot of time trying to ground the high-flying, fast-paced Naomi. It was a successful strategy for much of the match, but it became clear that she didn’t have the second gear she needed to put Naomi away the longer the affair went on. It also didn’t help that she let herself get distracted by Carmellsworth as they came out with the briefcase mid-match to let both competitors know they were officially in the women’s main event scene whenever they felt like it.

What we learned: This was one of the only positive outcomes of a night devoted to heels doing heel things, as Naomi maintained her status as the only face champion in the entire company ... wait hold on seriously? Man, SummerSlam might be all faces all the time this year, just to restore balance to the galaxy.

We also learned that Lana is competent in the ring, and that given her performance and loss, probably isn’t going to stick around the title scene for long, if any longer at all. That’s fine, though! The announce team spent the entire match putting Lana over as better than anyone had any right to expect. So the lesson to be taken away from this match was that she’s ready to participate in a division that laughed at the idea of having her.

Also that her ring gear makes her look like she just came off the set of a 1950s space-themed B-movie.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees I am so ready to hate these two; hell I already do. Who is going to punch these wonderful bad people first?

This was shockingly a pretty good match, as Jinder Mahal and Randy Orton had their best interaction together to date. And also maybe their last interaction. Hopefully their last one. Listen, this was good, but I don’t want to get greedy, OK?

Jinder looked like he was going to lose — Orton even got a visual pin, but Mahal’s cohorts, the Singh Brothers, made sure to put their main dude’s foot on the ropes to break the count. They were kicked out of the match. So instead of making their way to the back, they made sure to cause enough damage to allow Jinder to recover: They taunted Orton’s dad at ringside and grabbed him, causing Randy to exit the ring and throw them around like they weighed nothing. Which, to 6’5 Randy Orton, they probably do not.

Orton got back in the ring after Mahal had time for a nap and a massage and a refreshing drink and immediately ate Jinder’s finisher, ending the match.

What we learned: Randy Orton has been around forever, but the voices in his head can still convince him that losing matches is worth the distraction of harming someone else.

We don’t know who Jinder will face next — maybe Orton again at Battleground, allowing Mahal a fresh feud for SummerSlam? We’ll probably have a better sense of this on Tuesday, though.

I gotta say, I don’t know if I believe The Ascension actually destroyed the office of Breezango and attacked them, or if they just want to claim that they did because it was an easy way to make it onto a pay-per-view. My money is still on American Alpha turning heel and beating the hell out of both teams to let everyone know who is actually responsible for all of this.

What we learned: I’m still incredibly happy when the Fashion Police are allowed to thrive, even if it’s against The Ascension in a cooldown match buried during the back-end of a pay-per-view.

This match was perfect. Baron Corbin didn’t make an entrance, instead opting to come in behind Shinsuke Nakamura to beat the heck out of him during his own. That took arguably the most dangerous opponent out of the proceedings until late, which accomplished two things: Everyone else got to shine before super-powered Nakamura returned late in the match, and it helped build up the idea of an eventual feud between Corbin and Shinsuke.

Nakamura had an opportunity to win when he reentered the match, too, but decided instead that he wanted to regular wrestle AJ Styles. Now, Styles vs. Nakamura is really anything but regular, but you’re supposed to climb the ladder, boys! Man, even James Ellsworth understands that.

Corbin took advantage of everyone else being destroyed by each other and Nakamura and brought down the case for himself. Nakamura should feel cheated, Styles should feel cheated, and the fans should feel cheated — except, like, in the good “he’s a bad guy who won” way, not the You’re Ruining History way they feel about Ellsworth winning for Carmella.

What we learned: Corbin is unlikely to challenge Mahal for the title, but then again, Corbin has no love for either heels or faces, and if any heel were to go after another heel for the title, it’d be Baron. Plus, maybe that would give Jinder an opportunity to flesh out more of his face side — he’s been a bit of a tweener in some promos, and you’d have to think the crowd would side with him over Corbin if he leans into it. Right?

Chances are good that Corbin will hold onto the case for some time, which will inevitably set up Corbin vs. Nakamura for the WWE World Championship even further down the road. Now there’s a sentence that you never would have imagined seeing just two years ago.