Courtesy of WWE Home Video, Matthew Roberts takes a look at their latest DVD release, Money In The Bank (MITB) 2022.
As much as I rail against “themed” PPV’s/PLE’s at least Money In The Bank offers something slightly different beyond “oh it’s June so we must stick someone in Hell in a Cell”. MITB can happen whenever (like the Rumble) because it’s a set prize and at least there is a “guarantee” that the winners will do something.
We kicked off 2022’s version with the Women’s MITB match. At the time, watching live, I wasn’t all that impressed with the bout but a second viewing reveals a decent match. Sure there are a few “errors” but that’s probably to be expected in this kind of match where the possibility of “things going wrong” is quite high. In the end it won’t be remembered as one of the all-time classics but it was a good enough effort that, at the time at least, gave the fans a result they wanted. And the finish was pretty cool.
I wasn’t that enamoured that the build for the United States Championship seemed to revolve around Theory thinking he was in better shape than Lashley but it did seem to have the required effect in terms of people looking forward to Lashley kicking some ass. The match itself was perfectly fine and a clean win for Lashley was most welcome.
This was followed by the Raw Women’s Title match, the first of two women’s title matches I had no real interest in at all. Carmella was never going to defeat Bianca Belair so this was pure filler. Belair did what she could and it wasn’t an awful match or anything like that but it’s nothing you need to see twice.
The Tag Team Title match between the Uso’s and the Street Profits promised more and, eventually, it delivered. Indeed the last half of the match was very exciting indeed. It was just a pity that the opening ten minutes seemed at times to be contested at a snail’s pace – a sure fire indication that this was going long. A good match that could have been even better if they’d shaved five minutes off.
The second women’s title match I had no interest in pitted Ronda Rousey against Natalya. It was only really the sight of Ronda putting her opponent in the sharpshooter whilst simultaneously doing the “HBK” pose that woke me up. Ronda won whilst working an injury angle to set up the subsequent cash-in from Liv Morgan. Again showing that the WWE has no patience for the women cashing in their prize. Ronda clearly mouthing “sh*t” as Liv’s music played was a nice touch. Her calmly handing Liv the belt after her shocking loss wasn’t so much.
Things finished off with the men’s MITB match and that kicked off with the late addition of Theory to the list of participants. Again the match was fine, without ever being close to making it’s mark as one of the best examples of the genre. Still it got you a few times with false finishes towards the end and it gave us an interesting winner. Like or loathe Theory, it would be churlish to criticise the WWE getting behind a “ new” name.
MITB was a strange show in the sense that individually it never really hit the heights you might have liked but at the same time was a solid entertaining show overall. The ladder matches both had enough of the traditional bumps and insanity to just about win the day.
6 out of 10.
Photographs courtesy of Fetch and WWE. Thank you to WWE Home Video for our review copy of WWE Money In The Bank which is out Monday 15 August on DVD. You can buy your copy from WWEDVD.co.uk by clicking here.