PWP Nation’s Bruce Hart examines the concept of WWE Money In The Bank.
Greetings.
Back in the day the WWE used to have only one major pay-per-view, which was WrestleMania. WrestleMania was wrestling’s equivalent of the Super Bowl game and was the big blow off – the culmination of whatever hot angles, compelling story lines and whatnot, such as the Andre “The Giant” and Hulk Hogan showdown, which had been nurtured and hyped for months leading up to the event.
WrestleMania would prove to be such a resounding success that the WWF decided to expand into four major pay-per-views — those being SummerSlam, Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble, in addition to WrestleMania, kind of like the four majors in golf or tennis. Each of those pay per views had a distinctive format and they were spaced out on the calendar, about every three months, which seemed to work extremely well insofar as sustaining fan interest and effectively utilizing the talent.
My dad, who was one of the most astute and savvy promoters I’ve ever come across, used to have a saying: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” – which is something the WWE should keep in mind. In recent years, I’m honestly not sure if it’s due to greed, megalomania or whatever else, but the enlightened despots in Stamford have deviated from the four pay per views grand slam format which was such a good fit and have adopted this more is better mindset, which has resulted in them having a damn pay-per-view every month.
In most cases, there’s no discernible pretext for having them and, if so, it’s often unwarranted, gimmicky and contrived. Making matters worse, as far as I’m concerned, is that back in the 80’s and 90’s, the WWF had a hell of a lot deeper roster to draw from, as well.
Of all the many pay per views that the WWE now has, probably the most contrived are: the TLC (tables, ladders and chairs) and this week’s charade, WWE Money in the Bank. TLC tends to be an ill-conceived and excessive orgy of high spots and extremism, often between guys who don’t even have any perceptible issues with each other and features little or no actual wrestling and is designed mostly to appeal to the jaded, “holy shit” mark types who are subliminally hoping for some type of catastrophe (such as my brother Owen’s free fall) to ensue; The Money in the Bank ladder match format is equally contrived and hard to justify.
The ladder match concept, I might add, originated in my father’s Stampede Wrestling promotion back in the 70’s and if and when we had ladder matches back in the day, such as the epic encounters between my brother Bret Hart and the Dynamite Kid, it was always for some discernible purpose and served to resolve some compelling issue or conflict.
As such, I have no problem or issues with ladder matches themselves, but the whole Money in the Bank concept itself, in which whomever wins the match has the right to challenge the reigning world champion, at whatever time he chooses is, in my candid opinion, a bunch of illogical horse shit, which doesn’t serve to get the new champion over and mainly cheapens the perceptible legitimacy and integrity of the world title.
Can you imagine, for example, if, at the end of his grueling “Thrilla in Manila” world title slugfest, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, if Ali had then been made to immediately defend the title against, say, George Foreman, who had cashed in a supposed Money in the Bank contract; or, if, at the end of this year’s Super Bowl game, the Denver Broncos had suddenly been challenged by a rested team, such as say, the New England Patriots. I certainly can’t imagine anything like that transpiring and, if it did, it would be justifiably met with outcry and condemnation.
It’s contrived and ill-conceived crap like that which invites derision and ridicule upon our sport and also serves to diminish the image of wrestling’s world title, which, correct me if I’m wrong, is still our sport’s Holy Grail and, as such, should be treated with due respect and consideration.
Truth be known, I have no particular favorites in this year’s field that I’m touting to win the Money in the Bank contract, mostly because, as I said before, I find it exceedingly hard to endorse or defend the whole, illicit pretext.
Having said that though, I sincerely hope that whomever the WWE deems to put over at Money in the Bank is a deserving and plausible candidate – unlike, say, Zack Ryder winning the Intercontinental title in the ladder match at this year’s WrestleMania.
Beyond that, I hope they see fit to have whomever goes over, win in a plausible, relatively straight forward fashion with a minimum of extraneous bull shit attached to it. I’m not really anticipating that to be the case, but in my humble opinion, it would be what’s “best for business,” which Hunter and whomever else should keep in mind.
On that note, I’ll call this a wrap for now, but will look forward to catching up with you all next week with postmortems on Money in the Bank and whatever else is hot or not on the wrestling scene.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to wish all the dads out there, myself included, a Happy Father’s Day!
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