WWE Money in the Bank 2017 Recap
The show is over. The final match made the PPV, but the rest of the show was very, very, strange. A lot of odd finishes, and the finish to the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank match was outright terrible. Just terrible.
The other thing is, it’s SmackDown, despite a solid roster, it is still the #2 Show and I’m sure for some, it did not have such a big feel of main eventing as this show normally does. Keep in mind, this is the MITB for the WWE Championship, which is rightfully so.
At least I predicted the main event finish correctly!
Preshow sees The Hype Bros defeat The Colons in a decent, but easily forgettable match. Lots of promos for the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank match.
James Ellsworth wins the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank match for Carmella
Yep. Reading this correctly. I’m all for pushing an uber-heel and creating drama, but this came off as taking a massive dump on the Women’s Division. The match itself was great, with Charlotte, Tamina, Natalya, and Becky Lynch all performing really well. I leave out Carmella, because this match portrayed her to be just horrible. No moves, just the annoying one to stop the others from climbing. Tamina was the force, clobbering everyone. But to have Ellsworth actually climb the ladder, unhooking the briefcase, and dropping it to Carmella for the win? So much for making an impact in Women’s Wrestling. Made history? No doubt, but a poor choice for a conclusion.
Crowd initially cheered for Ellsworth to grab it, but once he dropped it to Carmella, the crowd seemed to die out, as the referees were bickering like morons on the outside.
Daniel Bryan took to Twitter to show his dismay calling it “unacceptable and cheap” and will rectify it on SmackDown Live. Whatever man, what’s done is done.
Really though, if Shane McMahon or Daniel Bryan were unhappy with the outcome, wouldn’t they just come out from the back? Right… Or, we script in how Shane doesn’t come to SmackDown PPVs. Bet no one else thought of that.
The New Day defeats The Usos by Count Out, the Usos retain the Tag Team Championships
Fantastic match, and one near fall appeared to be an actual pinfall but the ref waved it off real fast. A lot of near falls, and a tone of big moves. Usos looked sharp, New Day looked great, I have no complaints about the duration of the match. The action was non-stop, no slow downs with rest holds, and for these teams, this plays to their strength to keep the match moving, which keeps the crowd into it. The ending of the match saw Jimmy and Jey Uso up and walk out of the match, getting themselves counted out. Bad, because we don’t get a real finish, however this is good, giving this feud a special main event feel and something to give fans to look forward to.
Naomi retains the SmackDown Women’s Championship against Lana
As expected, slow paced match, however Lana did show some skill, but overall needs a lot of training time. She appeared to know what she was doing, but came off very cautious. Carmella came out to tease a cash-in, but this wound up distracting Lana, allowing Naomi to defeat her by submission. Meh.
Backstage: The Fashion Police go Fashion Vice and discover who is stalking them.
The Debut of Mike and Maria Kanellis! They are here to educate everyone on the power of love! That’s it! Instead of being Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellls, they gave him her last name, and we get a really strange promo and even the announce team has no idea what in the hell just happened. Neither do I. I half-expected them to cut this promo instead:
Prepare for trouble…
…and make it double!
To protect the world from devastation!
To unite all peoples within our nation!
To denounce the evils of truth and love!
To extend our reach to the stars above!
Maria!
Mike!
Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!
Surrender now or prepare to fight!
There is a great promo package prior to the WWE Championship Match, featuring the rise of Jinder Mahal. Again, if anyone would have told me this guy would one day be WWE Champion and have promos like this, I would have thought a field trip for electroshock would be in order.
The St. Louis Legends: Greg Gagne, Larry “The Ax” Hennig, Baron von Raschke, Sgt. Slaughter, Cowboy Bob Orton, and “Nature Boy” Ric Flair. JBL shouts out to Harley Race who was scheduled to appear but unable to.
Jinder Mahal retains the WWE Championship against Randy Orton
Orton goes on the attack early, and the St. Louis crowd sounds firmly behind their hometown hero. Shortly into the match, the tables turn and Mahal is seen brutalizing the former WWE champ in and out of the ring, and it looked good. Kudos to Orton for taking some heavy bumps and selling the injuries. Mahal did a good job of making it personal with a number of verbal jabs towards Cowboy Bob, and locking Orton into the figure-four with Flair looking on. Orton has to power-up and hit his signature consecutive moves, then hitting the RKO. However the Singh Brothers interfere, and Orton pleads with the ref not to DQ Mahal, but instead throws them out of the match. The Bollywood Boys attempt to go after Bob Orton, but Randy makes the save and beats the hell out of them. Uh, didn’t he accidentally drop one on his head at Backlash? This time, it was no accident, putting one through an announce table. This was great demolition, but as soon as Orton re-entered the ring, Jinder Mahal struck with the Cobra Clutch slam to retain. Nice match, Mahal looked main event to me.
Breezango defeat The Ascension. Not much to this one. Filler.
WWE Championship Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Winner – BACON RORBIN
For starters, this ladder match gets 30 minutes, while the women’s match got less than 15. I was hoping the women would come out and steal it. Starts with Bacon Rorbin beating up Shinsuke Nakamura before the match starts. This match suits Bacon Boy, since he’s more of a fighter/brawler than wrestler. This was one hell of a demolition derby. Lots of big ladder moves, smash and crash galore. Zayn powerbombs a busted open Ziggler off the ladder, then launches Kevin Owens onto the ring apron with the half-nelson suplex. Styles took some serious bumps, Corbin took the role of brute with the hard hits. Zayn took the role of near-wins and had a lot of great offense throughout the match. Every time it seemed Zayn had the match won, someone stopped him. One of which, featured Owens lodging his foot into Zayn’s groin. AJ Styles had the briefcase in hand, until Ziggler pulled the ladder out. Styles dangles for a minute, and then splatters face-first into the mat. Bacon Rorbin goes for the win, but Nakamura returns! He levels Corbin and knocks out Ziggler with two Kinshasas! Zayn gets taken out, Owens is taken out, but comes face-to-face with AJ Styles on opposite sides of the ladder. They move the ladder aside and begin the battle! Styles eats mat with a reverse exploder, but rebounds with a counter to the Kinshasa! The crowd is erupting. It is a race up the ladder, which is interrupted by Bacon Bits Rorbin, who dumps both off the ladder, and claims the briefcase for himself.
