WWE MONEY IN THE BANK 2023
JULY 1, 2023
THE O2
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK

MEET YOUR REVIEWER:

Suit Williams: Apologies for the delay with this review. A hectic weekend kept me from seeing the entire show until now. WWE hit London for more ladders, surprises, and ACTING than you can shake a stick at. In the words of legendary hardman Vinnie Jones, it’s going to be emotional! Follow me on Twitter @SuitWilliams and find my weekly reviews of AEW Collision and ROH on Honor Club on F4WOnline.

One of the big notes coming from this show stemmed from the surprise appearance of John Cena.

He made a public plea for WrestleMania to come to the UK, a clear attempt to stir up public support for a chance to beat whatever AEW’s All In attendance record will be at Wembley Stadium in a few weeks. (According to WrestleTix, they’re just shy of 75,000 tickets distributed without a single match announced.) It’s a splashy, if not wholly see-through, move by the company to suppress the massive success of All In.

But will they follow up?

Martin Bushby of POST Wrestling brought up a great point about this.

WWE CEO Nick Khan has previously talked about receiving subsidies from countries around the world to host these major events, with Wales and Puerto Rico paying for Clash at the Castle and Backlash, respectively. (Wrestlenomics reported a $1.5 million payment from the Puerto Rican Government for Backlash, while the Welsh government declined to disclose the value of their payment.) Meanwhile, AEW hasn’t noted any type of government funding for their All In show, with Tony Khan rumored to have gotten a substantial discount to rent Wembley from his connections in the NFL and Premier League. All of which leads to this question: If AEW is willing to run a large-scale event in England without government money, why would the British government pay WWE to run a large-scale event? Would WWE bring Wrestlemania to London without a bid when American cities would pay to host the event? It will be interesting to see if WWE’s predatory nature gets curbed by their business sense. Now, onto the wrestling.

MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH
DAMIAN PRIEST DEF. BUTCH AND LA KNIGHT AND LOGAN PAUL AND RICOCHET AND SANTOS ESCOBAR AND SHINSUKE NAKAMURA

I will give these guys credit. They worked hard, and the hot London crowd reciprocated all their effort. But I cannot pay attention to these multi-man plunder matches anymore. It’s through no fault of the performers, but my eyes just glaze over. If there were two or three big mayhem matches a year, or if Money in The Bank still put guys in the main event mix, this would hit a lot harder. But between WWE, NXT, and wrestling in general, there’s been too many of these. Between the Austin Theory’s and the Otis’, there have been too many bombs as Money In The Bank winners. If you’ve seen less of them than I have, you will undoubtedly enjoy it more than I did. But I just slap ***1/2 on it and move on with my day.

The crowd was into LA Knight, as he’s getting a somewhat random groundswell of support lately from that fanbase. I mean, I like him. But he’s not gotten any sort of big-time push in his main roster run, and he didn’t get a jumpstart here. Logan Paul looked good, except for the Spanish Fly off the ropes that Ricochet gave him where he didn’t get his footing. An ugly crash through two tables gave him a scar on his shoulder, but other than that, he was as good as usual. Knight cleared the ring, but Priest cut him off at the top of a ladder and dropped him with a Falcon Arrow. Priest then climbed the ladder and won the briefcase. Priest is a new face in the top mix, and the Judgment Day are a top act on Raw, so this is a fine choice. ***1/2

WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH
LIV MORGAN & RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ DEF. RONDA ROUSEY & SHAYNA BASZLER (C)

This was, in fact, a nine-minute match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles. The only thing of note here is Baszler turning on Rousey at the end. It’s been reported that Rousey’s contract has a hard out date, so this is setting up Baszler getting the “rub” from sending her out of the company. The problem is that this second Rousey run has been so entirely non-descript that I don’t think Baszler really gains anything from beating her. Plus, the company has shown no interest in pushing Baszler as a singles act, so all of this may be for naught anyway.

After Baszler choked out Rousey, Rodriguez and Morgan hit their moves on her, with Morgan pinning Rousey for a third time this run to win the titles. **

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH
GUNTHER (C) DEF. MATT RIDDLE

Michael Cole said that Gunther started his career in the Electric Ballroom, and I was ready to put my shoe through the TV. But it wouldn’t be a Riddle/Gunther match in the UK without awful commentary, so it comes with the territory.

While this was a callback to the heyday of Progress Wrestling, this wasn’t the same quality of match as Gunther and Riddle had back in those days. The main reason why is that Riddle is not the MMA hybrid athlete he was then. Now, he’s the local fool, in the vein of Perry Saturn and Festus. He’s not someone to be taken seriously, and he isn’t. This was nothing more than another defense for Gunther in his stellar reign, which is now a month away from passing Macho Man Randy Savage’s reign for the second longest in history. Gunther worked on the already bad ankle of Riddle, chopping it before locking in a knee bar for the submission win. ***1/2

After the match, Drew McIntyre made his return after a few months away to a very big reaction. He laid out Gunther with a Claymore kick before standing tall with the Intercontinental Title. There’s been no report of him coming to a long-term extension with the company, so he could be playing out the string. Either way, if WrestleMania was anything to go by, McIntyre/Gunther should be a great match for Summerslam.

CODY RHODES DEF. DOMINIK MYSTERIO (W/RHEA RIPLEY)

I have never gotten in a wrestling ring before. I have never taken a bump. I have an honest respect for the hard work that goes into being a successful professional wrestler. With that said, I truly believe that with 30 days of training, I could do everything Dominik Mysterio did in this match. Unlike Dominik Mysterio, no one is being asked to watch me burn 10 minutes of PPV time.

This was a standard issue trainee match. Rhodes won with the Cross Rhodes. *1/2

MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH
IYO SKY DEF. BAYLEY AND BECKY LYNCH AND TRISH STRATUS AND ZELINA VEGA AND ZOEY STARK

Copy and paste my review from the men’s match here. Worked hard, too many of these, etc. This one wasn’t as good as the men’s, but nothing decidedly bad. Stark and Stratus brawled with Lynch, Bayley knocked Sky off of a ladder when the coast seemed clear for her to win. But Sky still won when she handcuffed Bayley and Lynch together through the rungs of a ladder, then climbed over Bayley to get the briefcase and win. ***

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH
SETH ROLLINS (C) DEF. FINN BALOR

This was such a generically “good” match. They went out there, Balor worked over Rollins a little. Then Rollins came back, they countered each other’s moves, then they went to the finish. That’s a tried-and-true match structure, but it just felt so soulless here. There was no real thought behind what they were doing, they just did it because it’s what you do in a “World Title” match.

Damian Priest came out with the briefcase to tease a cash-in. He distracted Rollins, allowing Balor to hit two Coup De Grace’s on the outside. When Balor went to hit a third in the ring, Priest stood up and distracted Balor. Rollins avoided the foot stomp and hit the Curb Stomp to retain. Nothing special. **1/2

THE USOS DEF. ROMAN REIGNS & SOLO SIKOA (W/PAUL HEYMAN)

On December 15, 2019, Baron Corbin pinned Roman Reigns at the TLC PPV. I reviewed that show. Let’s see what I had to say about that match.

From the Voices of Wrestling TLC 2019 review:

Tables, Ladders, and Chairs Match
King Corbin def. Roman Reigns

Suit: Dogshit. DUD

Ah. Well, that was the last time Roman Reigns was pinned in a wrestling match. That changed here, as Jey Uso pinned Reigns in this here main event. It makes sense for the story that they’re going with. Roman’s position in control of the family – the Head of the Table, if you will – is in question, possibly along with those belts Roman carry around. What are those for again?

As far as the match goes, it was about 10 minutes of content in a 30-minute match. This was a fine house show match that these guys forgot to tune up into a proper PPV main event. As much credit as I want to fairly give them for the callbacks to Roman’s title reign – the double stack pin not working, Jey low-blowing Roman on a kickout – I want to take as much credit away for wasting so much time in the name of “giving the people their money’s worth” in the main event slot. After kicking out of a Samoan Spike/Spear combination, the Usos fired up. They superkicked everyone before laying Roman out, allowing Jey Uso to hit the splash and win. **1/2

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