After Friday’s red-hot return (for WWE) to performing in front of full arenas of fans, we’re now moments away from Money In The Bank. Tonight’s event on THE COCK is, arguably, the fifth biggest event on WWE’s calendar year, behind only the “Big Four” of WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, and the Royal Rumble. Based on the reactions to things on the pre-show, this crowd should be quite lively and active all night.
As I typed that last sentence, The Usos defeated Rey & Dominik Mysterio to become the new Smackdown Tag Team Champions. For those keeping track, that is now the second time Jimmy Uso has almost immediately won the Smackdown Tag Team Titles after being arrested, so… there’s that.
This event has all the makings of something very special, so let’s not waste any more time.
Are you ready?
I’m ready.
Since we’re all ready, you know the deal… say it with me, folks…
LESS DEW EET!!!
(0:00) As the pre-show goes off the air, they announce that the Women’s Money In The Bank match will open the show. Good call. There’s a nice mixture of popular participants and rumored surprises surrounding the match, so the crowd inside the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas is going to be all over it.
(0:05) The mere announcement to the crowd that this match was up first caused them to erupt in cheers. Yeah, tonight’s going to be fun.
(0:08) Liv Morgan appears to be wearing one of Ruby Riott’s jacket to the ring. *sobs*
(0:09) Nikki A.S.H. makes her entrance to almost no crowd reaction. OUCH. That is not a good sign. Don’t think ol’ Vinnie Mac isn’t backstage and taking note of that.
(0:10) The new stage and ramp setup for these shows is wild. When you look at the stage, it looks like a WrestleMania setup. Then the wrestlers get to walking to the ring and it looks like they can almost stretch their arms out and slap hands on both sides at the same time. It’s a unique look. I kinda dig it.
(0:15) Alexa was about to use some superpowers to bring the briefcase down from the mat (I called it), only to eat a suplex from Asuka. Fun spot.
(0:16) “Nobody is mean-a than Tamina” makes me hate Michael Cole.
(0:17) Then, not even a minute later, Pat McAfee says the same line. Fucking hell.
(0:20) lol @ Liv Morgan being pinned up against the corner by a ladder, and Alexa Bliss trying to creepy walk up the ladder to terrorize her, only for Alexa to slip and slide all over the place.
(0:22) More Alexa superpowers! She and Zelina Vega were near the top of the ladder, but Alexa used her mind control powers to make Zelina climb back down. So much fun.
(0:24) Heel heat is one thing, but you can tell this crowd REALLY doesn’t want Natalya or Tamina to win this match. It’s kind of funny to watch. They’re getting booed basically every time they even look in the general direction of the briefcase or a ladder.
(0:26) Nikki A.S.H. climbs to the top of a ladder that is set up at ringside, ready to dive onto the other women in the match. At the top, Nikki stops to pose and play to the crowd, meaning that the other women literally have to stand there and wait for her. They all looked like fucking dumbasses. To make it even better, Nikki’s dive nearly caused the ladder to slip, and her feet barely cleared the top rope. My goodness. Nobody looked good there.
(0:28) NOW LIV MORGAN LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING DUMBASS. As everyone else is at ringside, burying Alexa Bliss under countless ladders, Liv gets in the ring to… adjust a ladder, and then readjust the ladder, and then stand there to make sure the ladder is adjusted, and then readjusts the ladder again.
(0:30) Holy shit. As Liv, Naomi, Tamina, Natalya, Zelina, and Asuka are fighting atop three ladders set up under the briefcases, Nikki A.S.H. simply walks up one of the ladders and grabs the briefcase to win the match. All six of those women looked like morons. The replay made Asuka specifically look dumb, as she noticed Nikki was there, but had to pretend as if she couldn’t do anything about it. She acted as though Tamina was preventing her from reaching Nikki, but Tamina wasn’t even touching her, and Nikki won the match a foot away from Asuka’s face. I can’t even begin to explain how dumb these women were made to look in the last five minutes of this match. What a disappointment. Just a poorly put together final stretch. The match was doing well until those last five minutes, too. All in all, I’ll give the match 3 stars and move forward.
(0:37) A “bo-ring, bo-ring” chant is heard during a backstage segment with Roman Reigns and The Usos. Things were going well in the segment, but then it carried on too long and saw Jimmy and Jey basically trying to outdo each other as they kiss Roman’s ass.
(0:39) Time for the Raw Tag Team Title match, with AJ Styles and Omos defending the belts against The Viking Raiders.
(0:40) The Raiders, as the faces, got almost no crowd reaction. AJ Styles, the heel, got a big face pop when his music hit. Sounds about right.
(0:42) Styles tags Omos into the match within seconds. Erik then tags Ivar in, and they try to double-team Omos. To the surprise of nobody, that double-team wasn’t successful. Omos handled them by himself, then tagged AJ back in.
(0:44) A very loud chant for Styles breaks out as the Raiders are working him over. Then, Ivar plays to the crowd and hears some boos. Erik, standing in the corner, looks to the crowd, almost shocked.
(0:46) Kudos to Ivar for not changing anything after the initial crowd response. He actually got a good pop for some of his athletic moves, including his running splash and ducking a Styles clothesline with a cartwheel. The crowd is still strongly behind the champions, but at least the challengers are trying to make that battle interesting.
(0:52) Omos just pressed Ivar above his head before slamming him to the mat. That’s a 300+ pound man that he lifted in the air as if he were a child. Wow.
(0:55) Omos gets the pin on Erik to retain the titles for he and AJ. He was involved in more of the match than most would’ve predicted him to be. The match itself was longer than people probably thought it would be. Honestly, that was fun. The Raiders got plenty of chances to show off their unique offense, while both AJ and Omos played their roles to perfection. I’ll give that 3.25 stars.
(0:58) Drew McIntyre is brought in for a backstage interview. His response is very familiar to those listening at home. The women and the kids were strongly in his corner, while he got some pretty audible boos from a portion of the males in the crowd.
(1:00) Looks like we’re going with the WWE Title match up next. Bobby Lashley vs Kofi Kingston. Will we see KofiMania 2, or will Lashley simply have to wonder who’s… next… for him in his title reign?
(1:03) EL OH FUCKING EL @ cameras cutting to some random dude during Kofi’s entrance, showing the guy clapping completely off-beat to the New Day music. In case you’re wondering… yes, he was. ‘Nuff said.
(1:07) I’m very excited to see the return of badass, no-nonsense Bobby Lashley. It’s the exact version of Lashley that is needed, no matter who’s… next… for him, whether it’s the Money In The Bank winner, Brock Lesnar, or someone else.
(1:10) Kofi is already bumping around like a pinball for Lashley in this match. The man knows what he’s doing.
(1:13) There is a grown adult in the crowd holding a giant Lilly (of Alexa Bliss fame) doll, hugging and rubbing it, bordering between looking like a man-child and someone who is preparing to fuck the doll. It is very distracting.
(1:14) Lashley is looking as dominant as he ever has in this match. He is absolutely destroying Kofi, just now hitting back-to-back-to-back Dominators on a limp Kingston.
(1:15) As I type that, Lashley puts Kofi in the Hurt Lock and the referee steps in to stop the match. Almost a complete squash match. Yikes. Poor Kofi. I don’t even know how to rate a match like that. It did everything it was supposed to do to tell the story that was being told, but it wasn’t much of a MATCH, you know? I’ll leave the rating to some of you that want to handle it.
(1:20) Time for the Raw Women’s Title match, with Rhea Ripley defending against Charlotte Flair. These are going to be some interesting crowd reactions.
(1:22) Pretty quiet reaction for Ripley. She continues to act like a heel, but then she slaps hands with fans on the way to the ring, after we were shown a video package that had commentators calling her “classless” for mocking what was thought to be an injured Charlotte. WWE has no idea what they want to do with her.
(1:24) Charlotte got a louder reaction, but it was very mixed. Some cheers and some boos, but the loudest reaction, as per usual, was the “Wooooo” heard time and time again.
(1:27) Charlotte with the reddish eye makeup, looking like Andrade farted on her pillow last night.
(1:28) A “We want Bec-ky” chant breaks out, causing Charlotte to look out into the crowd and flip them the bird. It only makes the crowd chant it louder. Time and time again, Charlotte has shown that she lets crowds get to her. Even when she’s a face, it rattles her when she receives a reaction that is mixed or leaning more to the heel side of things.
(1:31) Is… is the crowd being muted? That second, louder Becky chant seemed to stop almost immediately, and then there was barely any crowd noise for a couple minutes.
(1:32) Another chant for Becky Lynch, and then almost total silence after Rhea plays to the crowd. I’m sorry if all I can talk about is the crowd here. There’s not much going on. You’ll see a move or two, and then the woman on offense looks out into the crowd for a bit. Lather, rinse, repeat.
(1:36) Impressive display of power from Rhea Ripley, muscling Charlotte up for a suplex.
(1:38) Things are starting to pick up nicely, just as Charlotte hits one of her patented top-rope moonsaults onto Rhea at ringside. It’s getting good.
(1:40) Charlotte looked somewhat emotional after hitting the moonsault, and she continues to look emotional after getting a near fall just now.
(1:42) The entire arena just bought into a pin attempt by Charlotte after a top-rope Natural Selection. I bought into it. Wow. The camera cuts to multiple fans with shocked looks on their faces, then cuts back to Charlotte saying “holy shit” pretty clearly. That was well done.
(1:44) We have a new champion! After attacking Rhea’s knee with the ring steps, Charlotte picks up the submission win after locking the Figure Eight in. After a slow, clunky start, that match picked up like crazy. Really good stuff. Let’s call it 4 stars. Surprisingly enough, though, no Becky Lynch.
(1:48) I don’t know if it’s just my connection, but the feed on THE COCK is the drizzling shits right now. It’s like someone is hitting the pause button on their remote over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
(1:51) Upon checking in on Twitter, I see that it isn’t just my connection. It has been said by numerous people before, but now I can say it… of all the major streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, etc), THE COCK is easily the worst of them all, and it isn’t even close.
(1:52) We’re coming up on almost five minutes of this shit going on. I won’t be able to watch the upcoming Men’s Money In The Bank match at this rate, let alone do any sort of Running Diary entry for it. Wonderful.
(1:54) Twitter is shitting all over NBC for the quality of this stream, and rightfully so. WWE is going to have to issue some major apologies for this. This shit is unacceptable.
(1:56) The stream is still awful. I’ve literally had to turn away from my television, as the choppiness of everything is giving me a headache. I feel like I’m having a fucking stroke.
(1:59) Well, it’s less choppy now. Kind of. Sort of. Still pretty fucking choppy, though.
(2:00) We’re at 12 minutes of this bullshit now. Upon looking at Twitter again, I’m seeing some of my non-United States follows that are seemingly watching this just fine. Must be nice.
(2:02) I haven’t been this disappointed over THE COCK failing to stay up since that one night in 2011. In my defense, though, I was tired and was stressed out about starting a new job. That usually never happens to me. I swear.
(2:04) After being instructed to close the app and open it up again, after having done that several times before, the feed is finally back to normal. I have no idea how much of the match I’ve missed., but I skipped right through all eight entrances and am picking things up with the match already underway. Sigh.
(2:05) A loud “John-ny Drip Drip” chant from the Texas crowd. Fuck my life.
(2:11) Kevin Owens is suplexed onto the side of a ladder, and my sciatic nerve just reached out and kicked me in the dick.
(2:13) After taking forever and a day to set the move up and standing on the top rope like a doofus, John Morrison either COMPLETELY missed a move, or was unlucky enough to have a camera angle that made it look like he completely missed.
(2:15) As Drew McIntyre is climbing the ladder, Jinder Mahal and his new cronies make their way to the ring. They take him off the ladder, wear him out with a steel chair, and then drag him backstage.
(2:17) Ricochet with back-to-back “HOLY SHIT” spots, first walking across the top rope and jumping onto a ladder, and then being tipped off said ladder, but then bouncing off the top rope to land a splash on everyone at ringside. It simply isn’t fair for one person to be able to do the things he can do.
(2:19) Not that one should expect anything less from Money In The Bank, but this match is just rapid-fire, giving us spot after spot after spot. Exciting stuff.
(2:20) Kevin Owens is powerbombed onto a ladder that was bridged between the ring apron and the announce table, and he damn near over-rotated, landing on his shoulders.
(2:21) Big E wins! The arena exploded when he unhooked the briefcase, and he looks like he’s getting emotional as he celebrates atop the ladder. I’m going to watch the match again at some point soon so that I can see what I missed because of the feed, but from what I saw, that was 4.5 stars. We’ll see how much seeing everything else changes that rating, if it does at all.
(2:28) In a backstage interview, an irate Seth Rollins says that he needs a new plan, and then declares himself “next in line” for the winner of tonight’s Universal Title match. Oooh.
(2:29) Speaking of tonight’s Universal Title match, it is up next. Roman Reigns vs Edge, one-on-one for the first time ever.
(2:36) After a huge face pop for Edge, Roman Reigns gets a huge level of heel heat… which seemed to die out quickly. That was weird. Unless, of course, WWE is altering crowd reactions, as they’ve done in the past. I don’t know why they would do that for a heel here, but hey, I don’t know why WWE would do a lot of the things they do.
(2:40) Reigns is so fucking good at this. As the crowd pops for Edge’s ring introduction, the camera cuts to Reigns, who looks at the crowd with a mixture of humor and disgust, almost ready to start laughing.
(2:42) The crowd is electric at the sound of the opening bell, giving loud dueling “Let’s go Ro-man/Let’s go Edge” chants.
(2:47) Such a big fight feel for this. Both men only have to do one thing, and the crowd erupts.
(2:50) Edge doesn’t get the credit he deserves for the shape that he is in at damn near 48 years old, a full decade after retiring from wrestling and thinking that he would never wrestle again.
(2:54) Edge appears to be bleeding ever-so-slightly above his left eye. Looks like it came after receiving several strikes in mount from Reigns a moment ago.
(2:56) As Edge has a chinlock placed on him, the crowd claps for him to try and motivate him. What does Roman do? Says “Don’t clap. Shut up.” and then locks it in even harder. Fantastic.
(2:58) This match is moving at a very methodical pace. Purposely done, of course. The crowd is still into it all, at least.
(2:59) Roman will dominate for a stretch, but then the crowd will go ballistic for an Edge comeback, even if it’s nothing more than a surprise pin attempt. Even with the super slow pace, the crowd is fully invested.
(3:06) WWE has really spammed the hell out of the spot where Wrestler A runs at Wrestler B and either they both go crashing through the gimmicked section of the ringside barrier, or just Wrestler A crashes and burns. With that said, it’s still cool to see. Reigns just crashed and burned going after Edge. Then, as an added bonus, Edge hit a Spear on a different section of the barricade, sending them both crashing through. We got both outcomes!
(3:08) Ref bump! Reigns hits Edge with a Superman Punch, but Edge crashes into Charles Robinson’s knee. Of course, because he’s a referee, Robinson is selling the knee like he was fucking shot.
(3:10) Roman, with welts and bruises on his temple, breaks off a piece of a steel chair while Charles Robinson fights death off. Edge breaks free of the shenaniganery, though, and he locks Roman in the chair piece-assisted submission. There’s no referee, though, so The Usos make their way to the ring, only to be intercepted by Rey and Dominik Mysterio.
(3:12) Seth Rollins is here! Rollins hits Edge in the back of the head with a superkick, breaking up the submission. Rollins leaves, and we still have no referee.
(3:14) Reigns goes for a Spear, only to be met with a Spear from Edge. Edge goes for the pin, but Reigns kicks out at the count of 25 after a new referee finally makes his way to the ring.
(3:15) As Edge lines up for the kill, Seth Rollins returns to the ring for a distraction. It is just enough to allow Reigns to hit his own Spear. One, two, three… Roman Reigns retains the title. After the match, Rollins enters the ring and starts beating the hell out of Edge. Rollins tells Reigns that he (Rollins) is the only reason Edge didn’t win the title. Before Roman can respond, Edge attacks Rollins, and they brawl into the crowd.
(3:18) Roman gets on the mic and says that the whole world can now acknowledge him. John Cena’s music hits, and the fucking roof blows off of the Dickies Arena. Holy shit, what a crowd pop!
(3:20) We don’t even get an actual interaction between the two. Cena soaks up the crowd reaction, delivers the “you can’t see me” hand gesture in Roman’s face, and then climbs the turnbuckles to soak in more crowd pops as we go off the air. What a moment. The main event was very entertaining. Another match with a very slow start, but things definitely picked up in the second half. I’m going to give it 4 stars, but I’m also going to need a second viewing where I can focus a little bit more on everything going on.
That was a very solid show. There wasn’t a match that I gave a bad rating to. Sure, there were some moments that needed to be picked on, but overall, Money In The Bank was definitely worth checking out if you didn’t already do so. SummerSlam is 34 days away, and it already looks like it’s shaping up to be a great show. Until I see you all again in my usual Wednesday slot, be good to each other.