WWE has their “Big 4” (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series) events during the calendar year, but Money In The Bank’s growth has quickly made it so that you almost have to turn “Big 4” into “Big 5” soon. This is a big, big show that is newsworthy every year. How will the 2022 edition end up? Let us find out together, shall we?
Are you ready?
Because I’m ready.
Well, if you’re ready, and if I’m ready, then there’s only one thing left to do. I need you folks to say it with me…
LESS DEW EET!!!
(0:00) There are six matches on the card tonight. Three men’s matches and three women’s matches. When was the last time you could say a WWE pay-per-view had the same amount of men’s and women’s matches on the same show? Outside of Evolution in 2018, of course. Thanks, Roman. He really is Head Of The Table.
(0:05) We’re getting things started with the Women’s Money In The Bank Ladder Match. Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Asuka, Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez, Lacey Evans, and Shotzi are all looking to earn themselves a title shot, any time and any place, for up to a full calendar year.
(0:08) It is worth pointing out that Liv Morgan already looked to be on the verge of tears during her entrance. If she wins this, she might flood the streets with her tears.
(0:14) We’re very early in the match, and there have already been three or four different spots between Asuka and Becky where their timing was slightly off.
(0:14) Becky and Liv are the first women to land on a ladder, courtesy of a double suplex by Raquel Rodriquez. Both of them went SPLAT. Ouch.
(0:16) Shotzi loves living dangerously, and that continues in a ladder match situation, where she fell off of a ladder as she attempted to run up the damn thing. Hardcore!
(0:17) Our first “this is awesome” chant of the night. A little early, but hey, go nuts, Las Vegas!
(0:19) Asuka is all alone and sets a ladder up underneath the briefcase. Instead of climbing right away, she dances and plays to the crowd. Sure enough, this allows Lacey Evans to get back into the mix and prevent Asuka from climbing to the top. Sigh. I really hate how stupid people tend to look in these matches. It never fails.
(0:20) More people looking like morons in these matches. Lacey Evans is at the top, touching the briefcase. Raquel climbs up underneath her and has Lacey sitting on her shoulders. What does Lacey do? Lets go of the briefcase and slides down on her own. Then, Lacey merely has to reach out and grab the briefcase, but she half-extends her arm and “misses” it.
(0:21) As I’m typing that, Shotzi botches… something… and clumsily drops Alexa Bliss, tipping a ladder over in the process. This match is off to an ugly start.
(0:26) Becky climbs almost to the top of a giant ladder. Asuka is draped across another ladder that is bridged from the ring apron to the announce table. Becky flies off and hits Asuka with a butt bomb and basically bounces off of Asuka. Fucking OUCH.
(0:27) Another “this is awesome” chant. Low standards tonight.
(0:29) Liv Morgan is Ms. Money In The Bank! To the surprise of nobody, she is crying as she celebrates atop the ladder. Nice spot to end it. Becky Lynch was climbing a ladder, and Liv started to climb a second ladder next to it. Becky kicks Liv and the ladder over, but Liv sticks her leg out and uses the top rope to propel herself back up, knocking Becky down. That was an ugly match. Sometimes it was ugly in a good way, but far too often, it was ugly in a bad way. I’m not expecting a technical masterpiece in these types of matches, but there were just too many spots where it looked like people had no idea what they were doing, not to mention those aforementioned spots where people love to look dumb in ladder matches. I’ll give it 2.5 stars. Maybe I’m being harsh. I’ll watch it again later with fresher eyes and see what I think. Even with all that may not have gone smoothly here, the crowd was into the match. I do think that the right woman won, though. Liv Morgan has put in so much work when it comes to getting better in the ring, and she is one of the most over performers on the roster. There’s a lot of intriguing television to be had with her carrying the briefcase around.
(0:35) Next up, Theory defends the United States Title against Bobby Lashley.
(0:43) LOUD “Bobby” chants from the crowd as we hear the opening bell.
(0:45) lol @ Theory running into the ring and yelling “COUNT HIM OUT! COUNT HIM OUT!” after he sends Lashley into the barricade with a tackle.
(0:48) Pat McAfee name dropped Michael P.S. Hayes on Smackdown commentary. Now, Corey Graves also name drops P.S. on commentary. I don’t know what it all means, but I think Michael Hayes is going to win Money In The Bank.
(0:51) Man, this crowd really loves them some Bobby Lashley.
(0:54) Lashley slips out of an A-Town Down attempt and reverses it into a Hurt Lock. Theory taps out almost immediately. We have a brand new United States Champion, who is bleeding heavily from the mouth after slamming his face into the middle turnbuckle. This should… maybe… add a lot of prestige to the United States Title. Decent match, but it was more about telling a story than showing off moves. It seemed like half the match was Theory trying to avoid getting murdered. 2.75 stars.
(0:57) Liv Morgan cries during a backstage interview. We’re going to get a lot of that, me thinks.
(1:00) Up next, Bianca Belair will defend the Raw Women’s Title against Carmella. This would’ve been so much better as Bianca vs Rhea Ripley, but we can’t have nice things and Rhea isn’t medically cleared to compete here.
(1:06) Bianca knocked the sunglasses off of her head during her entrance. Oh, no! Bad sign! Title reign over!
(1:08) Look, Carmella is far from the worst woman on the WWE roster, but the only reason this match should take more than a couple minutes is if Bianca needs to be “injured” for a Liv Morgan Money In The Bank cash-in.
(1:12) Even with Bianca Belair involved, there is nowhere near the same level of crowd heat for this match than what we’ve seen in the first two matches.
(1:15) K.O.D. picks up the win for Bianca. The champion retains. We’re not off to a great start tonight when it comes to really good matches. Three acceptable matches, but nothing really stands out. 2.5 stars. We can get that on any random episode of Raw or Smackdown.
(1:16) Carmella attacks Bianca after the match, but not anywhere near enough to make the crowd excited for any sort of Liv Morgan appearance. That was pretty pointless.
(1:20) In case you missed it, Logan Paul signed a WWE contract and says he’ll be kicking The Miz’s ass at SummerSlam. Logan Paul vs Bad Bunny at WrestleMania or we riot.
(1:22) LMAO @ a backstage segment with Alexa Bliss and Lilly turning into a WWE credit card commercial and the crowd booing it.
(1:23) Next up, The Usos vs The Street Profits. It’s a Unified Tag Team Title match. On commentary, Michael Cole says that The Usos have been champions for 348 days. I could write millions of words and still not be able to properly convey to all of you just how much I fucking hate the idea of WWE combining both World Titles and both men’s Tag Team Titles. This is so, so, stupid. At least I have hopes that this will be the best match of the night so far.
(1:28) WWE continues to talk about the “rumors” that Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins don’t get along anymore. Clearly, a split is being set up for some point. I’ve said it before, but Montez Ford has what it takes to be a major singles star for the company, so we’ll see how it goes.
(1:32) The crowd is in favor of the Profits, but there is a very audible portion that is cheering and chanting for the champions here. It makes sense to me. The Polynesian community is very prevalent in Las Vegas. Vegas is nicknamed “The Ninth Island” because of how many Hawaii residents have moved there or go on vacation there.
(1:36) Oddly slow pace to this match when you consider who is involved. It’s really physical, though, especially when Jimmy and Jey are on offense.
(1:43) Even more odd is the fact that the pace picked up when Angelo Dawkins, the biggest man in the match, tagged in.
(1:44) A “this is awesome” chant breaks out, and it happens to be the first of the night that is even remotely deserved.
(1:45) The crowd REALLY thought we were about to get new champions there, but Jey Uso kicked out at 2.99999 after an assisted Blockbuster from the top rope.
(1:47) Another 2.99999 count, this time with Montez Ford kicking out of a double superkick. That leads to another “this is awesome” chant. Good, good stuff here.
(1:49) ANOTHER 2.99999 count, with Jimmy Uso saving his brother after Jey took a picture perfect Frog Splash from Montez Ford.
(1:51) After hitting Montez with 1D, The Usos get the pin and the win to continue their epic reign. That was so good. My goodness. 4.5 stars.
(1:52) On the replay, we see that Montez Ford’s shoulder was up off the mat during the pin. Are we going to get yet another match between these two teams now? A Ladder Match at SummerSlam, perhaps?
(1:57) An interesting teaser vignette aired. We didn’t see who it was for, but there was a dark and ominous theme to it, and we saw lots of crosses and what appeared to be a gold medal. GABLE STEVESON IS A RELIGIOUS VAMPIRE.
(1:59) Ronda Rousey defends the Smackdown Women’s Title against Natalya next. They’ve had quite the build to this, taking tons of personal shots at each other on social media and doing a better job promoting the match there than what we’ve seen on Smackdown.
(2:03) As is tradition, Ronda’s makeup artist hates her guts.
(2:07) There might not be a more awkward person in all of wrestling than Ronda Rousey. All of her movements, every word she speaks… none of it seems natural, and she just seems completely uncomfortable with everything she does.
(2:08) Both women have called the other one “bitch” on multiple occasions already. I was not aware that I had tuned in to an AEW show.
(2:10) Social media detectives have noticed the earlier vignette showed Bubba Ray Dudley’s glasses, Hardy Boyz armbands, and a “LATINOHEAT” license plate to go with the aforementioned crosses (probably for Christian) and the gold medal (probably for Kurt Angle). Okay then. Edge, perhaps? That’s considerably less interesting than Gable Steveson being a vampire.
(2:13) Not a lot of crowd heat for this match so far, keeping with the tradition of Natalya matches throughout her career.
(2:13) Ronda locks Natalya in a Sharpshooter and performs the Shawn Michaels flex pose as she does it.
(2:17) Natalya goes for her own Sharpshooter, but it is blocked, and she gets locked in an armbar. She taps, and the champion retains. Meh.
(2:18) Liv Morgan is cashing in!
(2:19) Wut. Da. Hale. Liv IMMEDIATELY gets trapped in an Ankle Lock for like 30 seconds, then breaks out and rolls Ronda up for the win. I mean, at least she broke out by kicking Ronda’s injured knee. Still… that was dumb. Liv Morgan is the brand new Smackdown Women’s Champion, and yes, she is crying. The Ronda vs Natalya match was a thing that happened. I’ll give it 2.5 stars to be nice. Very nice.
(2:22) “You deserve it” chants as Liv celebrates with the title. For the sake of entertaining wrestling, I hope Ronda Rousey is leaving to be a mom full-time now. She has been atrocious since making her return to the business after a really good first run.
(2:23) Is it safe to assume that Charlotte Flair will be back soon to make this a short title reign for Liv Morgan?
(2:29) During a video package for the SummerSlam match between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar, it is heavily mentioned that this will be their final match against each other. We’ll see about that. Lord knows the company keeps breaking the glass on the matchup when they’re in trouble.
(2:30) Main event time. Men’s Money In The Bank Ladder Match. Riddle, Seth Rollins, Omos, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, Madcap Moss, and Sami Zayn.
(2:39) Right as the match was about to begin, Adam Pearce makes his way out. Uh-oh.
(2:40) Pearce takes ALL the air out of the building by announcing that Theory is now involved in the match. We have an eight-man field here.
(2:42) LMAO @ everyone fighting at ringside, but Sami Zayn is trying to stand behind the turnbuckle like the world’s worst hide-and-seek player.
(2:43) Claymore to Omos sends the big man out of the ring, but he lands on his feet.
(2:45) Sheamus goes to give Theory Ten Beats Of The Bodhrán, but Drew McIntyre interrupts it and starts to deliver the move himself. Sheamus interrupts that and gets some shots in, but McIntyre interrupts THAT and lays some more in. Theory’s chest looks like raw hamburger meat now.
(2:48) Whole lot of “Wrestler A takes one move and spends four minutes on the outside” in this match.
(2:49) Omos climbs the ladder slower than any human being in the history of ever has ever climbed a ladder, and he gets knocked down by Drew McIntyre and Madcap Moss.
(2:50) Omos is sent to the outside, where he is literally buried beneath what looks like a dozen ladders.
(2:52) Moss powerbombs Zayn through a bridged ladder, but the back of Sami’s head is what makes contact. OW.
(2:55) RIDDLE WITH A FLOATING BRO FROM THE TOP OF A LADDER, CRASHING DOWN ON EVERYONE. Well, crashing down on Sheamus mostly, but still. That looked awesome.
(2:58) Everybody is taking turns hitting their finishers on Omos, and it ends with all of them teaming up to carry Omos in the air and LAWN DART him onto and through the announce table. Holy shit.
(3:01) As McIntyre climbs a ladder with Sheamus stuck underneath it, Butch sprints to the ring and locks Drew in a chokehold to get him down. Well, that works, I guess.
(3:02) Holy shit part deux! McIntyre gets pinned beneath a ladder as Sheamus climbs it, but McIntyre bench presses the ladder up and knocks Sheamus off. That looked incredible.
(3:05) RIDDLE WITH A SUPER RKO TO SETH ROLLINS FROM DAMN NEAR THE TOP OF A GIANT LADDER!
(3:07) Theory is your new Mr. Money In The Bank, knocking Riddle down and unhooking the briefcase. Wow. That was the expected outcome as soon as Theory was added to the match, but damn, people aren’t happy. That was a really fun match. 4 stars. Lots of highlight reel spots.
(3:08) We go off the air with Theory taking selfies atop a ladder with the briefcase. Man… a few years ago, I said that once Vince McMahon would lay his eyes on Austin Theory, he would see his next John Cena and look to make him a World Champion. Here we are, potentially on the verge of the Theory Era in WWE.
Thank you for joining me yet again for another Running Diary. I’ll be back on Wednesday in my usual spot. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, folks.