Money In The Bank (July 14th, 2013)

Predictions:

Shield b. Usos
Ryback b. Jericho
AJ Lee b. Kaitlyn
Axel b. Miz
Ambrose to win World Title MITB
Bryan to win WWE Title MITB
Ziggler b Del Rio
Cena b Henry

I agree on all but Ambrose. I think it'll be Sandow or Cesaro.

Predictions:

Shield b. Usos
Ryback b. Jericho
AJ Lee b. Kaitlyn
Axel b. Miz
Ambrose to win World Title MITB
Bryan to win WWE Title MITB
Ziggler b Del Rio
Cena b Henry

Agree except for 2. I think Cesaro or Swagger is winning MITB. Hopefully Cesaro. As I don't see Ziggler beating Del Rio until Summerslam. This match is gonna try to get him some sympathy, so the kids in the mid west US start liking him, too.

Shield b. Usos - Uso's arent over enough to take down the hounds of justice.

Ryback b. Jericho - This is going to be interesting. After last night I feel like they are going to continue this run til Summerslam. Ryback is going to win dirty and Jericho will come after him and they will have a gimmick match at SS.

AJ Lee b. Kaitlyn - AJ is head and shoulders above all the other divas right now. She already pulled a good match out of Kaitlyn once, I can see her doing it again. AJ wins.

Axel b. Miz - Talk about a bad way to start a push. Throwing Axel in with Miz and giving them almost zero tv time to promote this feud is just horrible booking. Axel is obviously going over as Miz can afford the loss and Axel can't.

Barrett to win World Title MITB - I find it very telling that every entrant into this ladder match is a heel. That just bascially says at some point soon, Ziggler wins the title as a face and starts a program with whoever wins this. I just don't see either Rhodes or Sandow as viable options. They are going to need a heel that can generate heat to help Ziggler in his face transition. Swagger and Cesaro can do it with Colter as the mouthpiece but I see them arguing over who should get the case and it will cost them both. That leaves Fandango, Barrett, and Ambrose. I think it is way too soon for any Shield member to go after the WWE or World title as they just won the second tier titles. So we are down to Fandango and Barrett. Fandango is Vince's pet project but he is completely unproven and if they go with him to win, they are running a huge risk of killing Ziggler's face push. Then there is Barrett. I think he should win because he is proven. He ran a very good main event program with Cena and an entertaining, yet extremely physical run with Sheamus. He can work the mic and gets great heat as a heel. Plus Barrett fits the booking of MITB winners. He loses all the time now, so we can erase all that just by having him win the case.

Bryan to win WWE Title MITB - If they don't hook onto the Daniel Bryan train now, they are just as dumb as I thought. Even so, I don't think you can have any other outcome. Bryan has to win.

Ziggler b Del Rio - I can see them dragging this out til Night of Champions only if Fandango wins the MITB match. Ziggler wins back the title here and has a successful defense next month at Summerslam.

Cena b Henry - I think this match depends on if Bryan turns heel or not. If he is to stay a face, Henry should win and they can keep the underdog story with Bryan and Henry. If they are turning him heel, Cena wins and then drops the belt to Bryan. Either way, we need to end the year with Daniel Bryan holding the WWE Title. I can just see the plates on the belt now. Yes! on one side and No! on the other.

Barrett to win World Title MITB - I find it very telling that every entrant into this ladder match is a heel. That just bascially says at some point soon, Ziggler wins the title as a face and starts a program with whoever wins this.

I disagree. MITB lasts a year, there's no need for such a quick cash in.

The way WWE does these dual gimmicks is to make them as different as possible. The two chambers usually consist of one guy owning the first, then a more even second, with one spreading eliminations throughout and the other waiting until all six guys are in. Similarly, the MITB matches are generally one fast paced spotfest, and then one with Kane, Show and/or Henry involved with lots of power moves and maybe that giant ladder set up the whole time.

Point being, they don't like to have both guys cashing in early or both guys hanging on for a long time. One will do it quickly (Kane, Del Rio, Cena) and the other will wait (Miz, Bryan, Ziggler). The rumours for the last couple of months have been that they want Bryan challenging at SummerSlam, so it would make sense for him to do the early cash in as a face, meaning the SmackDown heel win would be the long wait.

I agree that there isn't a need for a quick cash in but if they want people to take Ziggler seriously as a face, they are going to need to do something better than this stupid shit with ADR and only a couple guys fit the bill. I don't seen any heel talent on Smackdown that is going to do the job well enough to help Ziggler get over. If Ziggler beats Del Rio at MITB and then again at Summerslam, he will be solidified as the champion but the whole point is that he is a face now and he needs to have a good heel to go against. It can't be We The People because it doesn't make any sense. Ziggler is American. I guess if Ambrose won, The Shield could torment him every week but I still think it's too soon for any of them to be going for the top belts. I don't know. There are so many ways this could go that I feel like my thoughts are contradicting themselves.

What about Randy Orton or Sheamus? I'm not totally convinced that Dolph is full face, it does seem that they are pushing them that way, but why rush it? Let him transition from loving himself to loving the fans. But after Money in The Bank, all the heel-face dynamics are going to be flipped.

Also note: Who is a face/heel? Daniel Bryan, Kane, Orton, and all of them are learning towards heel turns. Then you have CM Punk who is a recovering heel, barely. I think the lines are VERY blurred right now.

But i'm rooting on Wade Barrett for the WORLD, and then... Ummm. I don't know. RVD for the WWE.

I don't think Bryan is leading to a heel turn. I think he's playing the character well who's lets be honest a bit nuts. But the fans love him so he'll stay face. If anything, it's leading to a Kane turn.

I couldn't agree more on the possibility of a Kane turn. Here's how I see the All-star MITB playing out. Heyman somehow costs Punk the match at some point, furthering their storyline, Orton has a chance to win, but Kane stops him, and then when Kane is about to win, Bryan will foil him and win the match. This will lead to a Kane heel turn. The tough thing will be playing out the turn with Bryan's angle leading to him vs Cena at Summerslam in a face vs face match while keeping Kane out of it. It could be assumed that Bryan gets a victory over Kane on Raw on the road to Summerslam and then moves on to Cena, possibly in a match for the briefcase after Kane calls him the weak link or something, and then Kane can have a feud with Orton for Summerslam.

As far as the other matches, I would love for Dean Ambrose to win the heel MITB match, but I doubt that he does. My other two personal favorites would be either Cesaro or Sandow, but I think that the guys that have the legit best chance based on how they're pushed and what management has been doing with them lately would be Sandow, Cesaro, and Fandango in that order.

Mark Henry has been one of the three best characters on television over the past year along with Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, but unfortunately he will not get a WWE Title reign out of that. He probably should, because he's great, and THAT'S WHAT HE DOES, but Cena will retain against yet another monster to lead up to Summerslam against D-Bry.

Don't care about Divas.

Curtis Axel will beat the Miz possibly clean, possibly with some help from Heyman. All that I can think about with the Miz was his victory over Cryback based on a forfeit. Possibly the worst booked finish to a match on Raw this year, and that's really saying something when we've had No DQ matches end by countout.

Dolph Ziggler should get the title back. The PPV is in Philly, so he'll have mammoth crowd support which will help cement him as a babyface immensely. All that I can say about Ziggler's face turn is that I will miss the headstands. I still like ADR, but the guy is just never pushed down the card. When Daniel Bryan dropped the title, he had a little further program with Sheamus, then the title feud with Punk, then he moved onto a comedy tag team. That's the way you move a guy down the card when he's not the champion and when you're wanting to push other guys in the main event slots. It doesn't necessarily always follow that same path of being in a comedy tag team certainly, but when a guy is always being pushed in main event spots, the fans will tire of him very easily. Cena and Orton, who internet fans have tired of, are exceptions to that rule certainly with the casual fan since they continue to get huge reactions despite always being in main event feuds, but Cena is the clear cut alpha dog in the entire promotion, so that's understandable, and even with Orton, he's not constantly in title feuds. I can't even think of the last PPV that featured Orton in a one on one world title match. It's probably going on two years now.

Apparently The Shield vs the Uso's is going to be on the pre show. Seems wrong having the Shield on the pre show.

Its almost like The Shirld have been pushed back recently and have gone kinda quiet with not much to do.. i mean there was never much said on Raw etc

Yeah, I guess they didn't want to have them quite so prominent while the Wyatts are being established. I'd still have put the tag match on the main show over Miz v Axel though.

Ok I may have to stream this now and start watching Raw.....just so I can chat with you dorks about wrestling again

Ok I may have to stream this now and start watching Raw.....just so I can chat with you dorks about wrestling again

You don't watch Raw? Did you at least see the Wyatt stuff?

I did watch half of Raw and saw his debute. I only ever try to watch again when 4CW is alive

MITB is going to solidify its reputation as the best WWE PPV of the year after this show.

I like this card alot yeah, I've watched the last two episodes of Raw after taking a break from the WWE since Wrestlemania. All Star Money in the Bank match is the match that mostly interests me though. I don't know who i want to win, every choice seems logical in some way or another besides maybe Christian. Everyone seems to think Bryan is going to win, so that pretty much means he won't!

This Curtis Axel guy isn't going to go far, every time I've seen him he just screamed bland to me. Like does he have any charisma or intensity? How long can you be a Paul Heyman guy before you need to spread your wings and fly?

I feel sorry for Ryback, his popularity came at a time when they couldn't give him the belt or do anything special with him. So he just kept losing until he lost all his momentum and then turned to one of the worst heel characters ever. It's a shame because I liked him a lot when he was a face and he was getting over like no ones seen before.

I get the feeling that once things 'die down', Ryback will get the (WCW/Smackdown) World Title for a while. What I don;t understand it that when he first became Ryback, he was a fae and DESTROYED IC champ Miz in under 3 minutes, now, he has to cheat to win - and even stop his own matches cuz he's hurt?

They think we forget EVERYTHING.

Makes sense to stop a match on Raw if you are hurt though, dont want to do any permanent damage or risk missing the PPV. Looking at it in a kayfabe point of view. Its just a match on Raw, it isn't a PPV match.

if it was legit, i'm not against it, but i felt that it was part of a storyline, which i hate, cuz when someone really DOES get hurt, in respect to the tole they put on their bodies, i don't want the seriousness/realness lessened.

It wasn't legit.

No shit it wasn't legit. Lol.