FINAL THOUGHTS
Rating: ****
Money in the Bank is always a must-see event. In 2011 CM Punk won the WWE Championship and walked out of the company. In 2012 Dolph Ziggler won the briefcase and Daniel Bryan faced Punk for the gold. This year, about a dozen different angles played out and set up a ton of story options for the next few months.
Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes are going to help get each other over. It will probably be the only reason I watch Smackdown for the next few weeks.
CM Punk and Brock Lesnar is definitely going to happen, and I'm excited to see the promos involving Heyman. That begins tonight on Raw.
Dolph Ziggler is going to end things with AJ Lee. Then he's going to dust himself off and become world champion, again.
Randy Orton is the new #1 contender, and his title match gets to happen at literally any moment he wants it. That means every week for the next three or four months, WWE is probably going to put John Cena in spots where he is left helpless, and tease the cash-in just to pull the rug out from under us at the last moment. Brace yourself.
This is probably going to be drastically undervalued because it happened so early in the night (and on the pre-show) but The Shield isn't done with The Usos yet. Philly about had a heart attack when they made the save in the opening match. WWE could remake a tag team division, and get everyone over simply but putting them up against The Shield.
Tonight's Raw is also must-see. I haven't felt that way in months, so they are definitely taking a few steps forward. Good to see a pay-per-view with good-to-great wrestling and a slew of story advancement. That's really all I ask from any WWE event they make me pay to watch. Too many pay-per-views are either cut and paste wrestling from start to finish, or stupid gimmicks and long winded promos that go nowhere. It thought WWE walked that line perfectly with Money in the Bank.
