CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into this show, Sheamus was the World Heavyweight Champion, the WWE Champion was CM Punk, the Intercontinental Champion was Christian, the United States Champion was Santino Marella, the Divas Champion was Layla, and the Tag Team Champions were Kofi Kingston and R-Truth.
Money in the Bank 2011 is widely regarded as one of the best pay-per-views in WWE history, but I'd never seen the next year's show. Our opening contest was one of two Money in the Bank Ladder matches and featured a cast almost entirely made up of young up-and-comers at the time - Dolph Ziggler, Santino, Cody Rhodes, Tyson Kidd, Sin Cara - rounded out by two veterans in Christian and Lord Tensai (aka Albert). This is a sleeper for being somewhere in the top 5 Money in the Bank Ladder Matches that I've seen. For starters, it really does feel like anyone's game as everyone involved could've theoretically won (even Tensai, who had come in just a couple months before this and held victories over Cena and CM Punk). Because there was no clear favorite, there's more suspense in this match than your typical Money in the Bank or even Rumble match (as there's usually only 1 or 2 wrestlers who could potentially win). I also liked how this match features not just a bunch of crazy, big bumps, but quite a few moments of "sloppiness." The fact that not every attempt at innovation is successful - that some of their moves aren't executed perfectly - lends itself nicely to what a ladder match should be (unpredictable, dangerous, messy). As with most matches of this type, there are some terrifically brutal spots in this match, but my favorite included Christian frog-splashing himself into a ladder, Ziggler delivering a Zig-Zag off the ladder, and an insane springboard sunset flip powerbomb by Kidd that looked like the kind of thing that you theorize doing in a match but wouldn't ever dare try. Again, it was imperfectly executed, but looked gnarly in the best way. I didn't like Santino's comedy bit or the slightly anti-climactic ending as I wish they would've built up a bigger final moment to put wrap this up. This was really, really good and I daresay a "must see" for fans of this type of match or this specific era of SmackDown. (4/5)
The Miz cut a promo before the next match, entering himself into the night's second Money in the Bank Ladder Match. Though the two ladder match concept is not one I often agree with, I like how they differentiated between the World Heavyweight Championship one and the WWE Championship one by putting the mostly younger, mostly unproven talents in the opener and then leaning heavily on established, former championships for the main event. By this point, The Miz deserved to be in the latter too.
The night's World Heavyweight Title match followed as babyface Sheamus put the title on the line against Alberto Del Rio. This match had psychology and good pacing, but was also underwhelming and unremarkable. Del Rio targeted Sheamus' arm throughout the match, which made sense because he was using an armbreaker as his finish, but Sheamus is a very unsympathetic babyface due to his size and, at the time, one-dimensional gimmick. Maybe they should've had Del Rio and his manager try to cheat more? This just wasn't a special match and shows that Sheamus, in 2012, had still not "put it all together" in terms of timing and pacing a match to keep the fans engaged. After Sheamus gets the clean victory, Del Rio and Ricardo beat him down...which leads to Dolph Ziggler running down with his new briefcase in-hand. Before Ziggler can cash in, though, Del Rio hits him with a Backstabber and then he gets knocked out by a Brogue Kick. (2/5)
The Primetime Players - heels at the time and managed by Abraham Washington - took on the The Colons in the next match. Kofi Kingston and R-Truth were on commentary, but didn't get too many words in as the audio was dominated by the normal commentary and Abraham Washington, whose gimmick was that he talked through his clients' matches on a wireless mic that (if I'm not mistaken) was also played over the PA system. The crowd was mostly dead for this, though they did pop for a questionable line from Abraham Washington (when he called Primo "Taco Bell") and for when his comments about Rosa Mendes led her to do a bit of dancing. Aside from that, this was a TV match (and when I say TV, I'm thinking more Superstars and less Raw). Titus O'Neill got a majority of the ring time for his team which I don't understand when he's so clearly better as the "hot tag" or the "heavy" of the bunch. Primo and Epico have some nice moves, but their gimmick was colorless so the crowd had no reason to care at all about them. The Primetime Players should've got the dominant win here to set them up for a fed with the champs, but instead, the Colons got a sneaky win that didn't really help them anyway. The previous match was for a title and featured relatively big names so one can understand why it was on the show. This match, however, was obvious filler that could've and should've been pulled in favor of something more unique (like, I don't know, a match featuring any of the talented women on the roster at the time). (1.5/5)
CM Punk defended his WWE Championship against Daniel Bryan in the next match. This was a continuation of the Love Triangle storyline involving AJ Lee, who was Daniel Bryan's ex but had been buttering up CM Punk in the build-up to this match to get under Bryan's skin. AJ Lee was terrific in her role, but after 2012, the writers really seemed to have lost the vision for what she could bring to the table and she became a somewhat forgettable Divas Champion rather than a key character in the main event/authority scene. The layout of this match was smart in that AJ Lee wasn't involved for the majority of its 25+ minute runtime, allowing Punk and Bryan to go ahead and wrestle a straight-up, physical and technical championship match...but because AJ had such a huge role in the build-up, its almost like there's an ingredient missing from the soup to me. Their match at Over the Limit 2012 is rightfully considered the better bout, but that's not to say that this still isn't a very good match and borderline "must see." For any other wrestler, it might even be a "career" match, but with these two, there are just too many better examples of their work. Punk is fine and over, but he's not quite as electric in his performance as he came off in the heel run that started not too long after this match. Bryan, subversively, was more entertaining when he became a babyface and had his major run a couple years later and, in terms of his heel persona, was better in 2018 too. In a sense, what everyone always wanted to see was "peak Punk vs. peak Bryan" and while we may have got the indie version of that in at least one of their ROH/IWA/FIP matches, I'm not sure we ever truly saw in the WWE as Daniel Bryan just wasn't fully actualized by this point and CM Punk, while having a spectacular year, might have been even more interesting a year earlier or a year later. (4/5)
Ryback squashed Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins in a 2-on-1 match. The crowd was not super into this and were still chanting "Goldberg" at Ryback at this point. I forgot what the turning point was for Ryback, but there was actually a time when he was getting over - maybe it was sometime around SummerSlam? This was fine for what it was and a good buffer between the bigger matches on this card. (2/5)
A six-diva match follows with Divas Champion Layla, Kaitlyn, and Tamina Snuka taking on Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and Eve Torres. A line-up like this doesn't exactly scream "great wrestling," but everybody puts in some effort even if there are some glaring miscues and lots of "teamwork among opponents" sloppiness. Layla and Beth are the clear all-stars for their team so their moments together are the best of the match, but this doesn't get enough time to really amount to much of anything. (2/5)
Main event time - the "elite" Money in the Bank ladder match - John Cena vs. Chris Jericho vs. The Miz vs. Kane vs. The Big Show. Cena comes out to a massive pop and one has to wonder if there was any chance at all of someone not named John Cena winning this thing? He's not only the most over guy in the match, but he was the sole true babyface (unless Kane or Big Show were babyfaces at this point, which they might have been but I'm not gonna bother researching). Big Show goes on quite a run in the beginning, pretty much taking everyone out and looking super dominant until he ends up on the outside of the ring and gets put through a table by a Cena Attitude Adjustment. Big Show gets buried under a bunch of ladders and things open up a bit as the remaining four duke it out. Speaking of Big Show, if I'm not mistaken, he held the WWE Tag Team Championships with everyone in this match except Cena at one point. There aren't too many creative spots, but this match is all about the star power so you don't necessarily need much by way of crazy innovation or even high-risk maneuvers. Some highlights include Miz and Jericho double-suplexing Kane, a crowd-pleasing double 5 Knuckle of Shuffle on Miz and Jericho, and an AA from Cena onto Kane on top of The Miz (who was already lying on a ladder). Jericho looks to have it sewn up at one point before The Big Show climbs out of the wreckage and stops him, sandwiching him in between the ladder legs before destroying the ladder itself. After taking out Kane and Miz, it boils down to just Cena and Big Show in the ring and Big Show dominates once more, drawing a ton of heat as he tosses ladders out of the ring (some of them landing rather brutally on The Miz). After emptying the ring, Big Show goes under the ring and grabs a super-sized ladder, which takes up quite a few minutes. If the ladder itself wasn't so impressive, it would make everyone look like goofs but it actually is such a spectacle to see that it doesn't take the audience out of the match at all. Kane climbs up but gets punched off, allowing Cena to spring up there himself (only to get head-butted off). Jericho grabs a chair and bashes Show in the back, drawing him down. Jericho bashes Big Show a couple more times for good measure and then he and Cena start to climb up the ladder...in slow motion. Dang. This was pretty good and somewhat realistic until Jericho and Cena decided to go super-melodrama as they climbed the ladder for no reason at all. Cena grabs hold of Jericho and looks like he may attempt an AA, but Jericho locks in a sleeper. Cena lowers himself a few rungs, but then somehow takes steps up the ladder with Jericho on his back! Cena reaches the top but looks to be losing consciousness. Cena looks completely out of it, but Jericho won't release the hold. The Miz sneaks up but Jericho punches him off the ladder too. Cena is back awake and he's going for the briefcase, but Jericho won't release the sleeper. Jericho finally lets go and Cena stumbles off the ladder. Jericho looks to have it won, but The Miz climbs back up and now they're both holding onto the case! Jericho hangs onto the briefcase and swings off the ladder. The Miz grabs hold of him and looks to suplex him off, but Jericho fights back. Big Show climbs up the ladder too now and knocks Jericho off with his WMD punch. Show knocks Miz off too, but Cena climbs up and uses the briefcase itself to take Big Show out. I liked some of the suspenseful minutes leading to the finish, but the finish itself fell flat because Cena the briefcase had come loose when Cena used it against Big Show, basically winning the match before he had actually "won the match." This wasn't as fun as the first match, but it was good enough for what it was. (3/5)
While not as great as the previous year's Money in the Bank, I'd still consider this one of the best pay-per-views of its era, not just because of the loaded roster, but because of the diversity and pacing of the show. The opening ladder match is wild fun, the WWE Championship match is a top notch title fight, and the main event delivers what it needs to. Unfortunately, the World Heavyweight Championship match is dull and the "filler" matches involving the Prime Time Players, the women's wrestlers, and Ryback are not just inconsequential and inessential, they're uninteresting (with the women's match showing the most promise due to the work of Phoenix and Layla but not getting enough time to develop). The Kwang Score of 2.5-out-of-5 may not seem too great, but the show's pacing makes it more digestible than the numbers indicate. Minute for minute, this show is mostly good stuff.
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
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