WWE Money in the Bank 2015 Live Blog

We've done most of these, and I got some time before watching the Silicon Valley/Veep season finales, so let's do this until I get bored.

1. Wade Barrett vs. R-Truth

ER: Seems like almost anybody who ends up winning KOTR, and then starts dressing like a king, always ends up just completely dead as a character in mere weeks. I think King Regal was the only one I actually enjoyed. I think he's the only one who played it with the proper gravitas. I mean just look at how far this crown has gotten him! He has the honor of appearing on the kickoff show of arguably the 8th most important WWE PPV of the year! Feuding over a crown feels not quite as important as feuding over a really nice parking space, or an upgrade to a first class plane ticket. Those feel like things that the crowd would get more invested in. I can't imagine people caring about a fake crown, but I can see people thinking "Man, more leg room would probably be sweet on a long flight".  That's already getting me interested. But this match felt exactly like a match that took place on a kickoff show. Short match with a commercial break in the middle, literally nothing of note happens. I mean I *just* watched this thing, and remember nothing about it. Great start to the night!

2. Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Randy Orton vs. Neville vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I wish they had Cena and Owens in this match. Seems like that would have more interesting story potential than just immediately rematching them 2 weeks later. This whole briefcase gimmick does nothing for me anymore. It's silly to put it on a face as it makes them look like opportunistic weenies if they cash it in while a guy is weak, but makes them look stupid if they don't. And it's beyond played out to use it as a device to get over a heel. Early on and they might have set the record for "earliest time 5 guys all lie around outside the ring selling death so 2 guys can fight easily inside the ring". Seems like we hit that around the 3 minute mark, just everybody lying around the ring as if they had been through a war. Some people had hardly even taken a bump at that point! This whole thing is one giant mess of 5 people death selling and two people slow climbing. Kofi at one point was selling on the floor for 7 minutes! Cool he put over a nasty powerbomb, but jesus get the doctors after minute #2! Just not enough logical ways to put a guy out of commission for that long. Michael Cole screaming "WILL THIS BE THE BEGINNING OF THE NEVILLE ERA!?!?" made me laugh. "The Neville Era". That sounds so fucking stupid. Eventually Sheamus shows that HE is the greatest climber of them all!! Man this was bad. A couple of good spots, liked Orton pulling Neville off the ladder into an RKO, Kofi getting tossed onto the group looked good, but the amount of selling on the floor was absurd when you think of what moves each individual actually took in the match. Cole is BAFFLED after the match, cannot think of ANY reason why Bray Wyatt would attack Roman Reigns. Yeah, it's a total mystery. These guys have worked together for so long, after all.

3. Nikki Bella vs. Paige

ER: This is pretty easily the best match of the night so far. Paige appears to be working over Nikki's tits as I've seen more than one back elbow straight to a boob. Also dug Paige's weird over the shoulder single leg takedown out of the corner. Nikki has fun offense which she's actually good at executing, and I liked some of the knees and stomps in this. Brie tossing out her boob padding was amusing, and Nikki's KO blow on Paige looked great. Clearly a much more interesting and better laid out match than the MITB match. Who the hell is even laying out their gimmick matches now? Between that ladder match and all the horrible Chamber matches, somebody is badly fucking up.

4. Big Show vs. Ryback

ER: Fairly fun match until that completely bankrupt finish. Miz is one of the most fast forwardable guys in wrestling. I'm surprised he's still wrestling after those concussion years ago, as ever since he came back from those he has never been able to take offense, especially strikes. He holds his arms out extended almost completely whenever taking anything to the head or face.

5. Kevin Owens vs. John Cena

ER: After Elimination Chamber, Phil talked about how Cena may have become the best indy dream match worker, and after this match I'm with him. It's too much fun seeing Cena pull out all sorts of new offense in his late 30s, and work reversal heavy indy matches. It's also kind of crazy just how much offense they're letting Owens do. I mean they have made every single wrestler reel in their arsenal, and Owens is wrestling almost exactly the same as he would in PWG. I can't totally wrap my brain around it. Has their been any worker of the last decade who they have changed LESS? This rematch is a little overly long, but if you're working a PWG tribute match than obviously you HAVE to go too long. That is of utmost importance. It did get a bit move-tradey which isn't my favorite, but it was balanced out by seeing Cena break out a Code Red and a nice rana and take shit like rotating superplexes and a powerbomb into the apron. Steen stealing all of Cena's offense and doing it better was a nice touch; loved his fist drop. Steen also did a good job covering for the potential Code Red blunder, acting like he was attempting to reverse it and do EZ Money's old Money Bag finisher. This was all super fun but I will repeat that I wish these two would have been in the MITB match instead, so we wouldn't have Cena getting his win back just two weeks later.  At least Steen got to be a total shithead postmatch, people will remember him killing Cena after more than they'll remember his loss.

6. Xavier Woods & Big E vs. Prime Time Players

ER: Good tag and nice to see PTP get the belts. Hopefully they get to hang onto them for awhile. Young played FIP most of the match and Titus is a great hot tag guy. Great clothesline over the top, great backbreaker followed by tossing Woods aside, nice Pounce. This guy has major star potential and it seems like they may be realizing that. Big E takes a nice missed shoulder into the post, and then breaks out a CRAZY suicide dive/spear while Young was on the apron. Also loved Big E locking on an abdominal stretch while slapping the New Day Rocks chant on Young's ribs. Nice little touch. Nice tag match.

7. Ladder Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Man I really dug this, my favorite singles match between these two. I mean jeez I'm not sure any match needs 35 minutes. I wonder what was the last WWE singles match that went 35. Still this was plenty brutal and there were some just lunatic spots, the kind of things you expect to see when you go to an indy show that takes place behind a bar with untrained workers. I loved how most of this wasn't a climbing contest like that shitfest of a MITB match. Instead it was more of a fight that used ladders as weapons, and only for climbing when necessary. Focusing on the asskicking instead of the climbing is a simple but HUGE difference. Ambrose was great at getting his knee worked over. I don't recall the last time I bought into a figure four that much, I bought into the pain, and Rollins was killer with his "How ya gonna climb the ladder, Dean!? How ya gonna climb!?" The knee couldn't be sold the WHOLE time but I thought he was good at going back to it. Rollins took some manly shots, getting annihilated with a clothesline off the top rope, getting knocked ass over elbow off the rebound lariat (which was nicely countered a couple times). All of the nasty bumps onto ladders, over announce tables, into the barricades, it was nutty fucking stuff. The big stuff looked great, the small stuff like Ambrose's shots to the ribs and Rollin's shit talk all worked, and I actually enjoyed the shitty finish. Not sure where this leaves Ambrose though.

Overall a good show. The actual gimmick match the PPV is named for was atrocious, but everything else was inoffensive at worst, all the way up to really good. So that's not a horrible night of wrestling right there.