10 Best Money In The Bank PPV Matches
Rich Pickings
Now a pillar of WWE's pay-per-view calendar, Money In The Bank is often planned and executed as a transparent one-match-show.
The gimmick Chris Jericho devised in 2005 is perhaps the most significant creative innovation of the modern era. Pushes are plucked out of thin air with a successful cash-in, top titles are won and lost in an instant and all-too-rare surprises remain perpetually possible with a Mr. or Ms. Money In The Bank waiting to strike every time a Champion hits the deck.
Even the matches to decide just who will lug a toy briefcase through airports over the next 12 months are almost always excellent. Bodies fly, wrestlers nearly die, and a quest for arguably the company's legitimate secondary prize carries an evocative heft to match the brutal physicality on show.
But what of those that have to follow or even top all that? With crowds typically hyped to see the multi-person car wrecks and little else, wrestlers working the shows have arguably an even harder job - entertaining them with the mere act of actually just wrestling.
Stealing the show on any given night is a badge of honour (or in Dolph Ziggler's case, a flagrant lie on a t-shirt), but leaving audiences in awe on these events? Now that's money.
10. John Cena Vs. Mark Henry (2013)
Much like the incredible and fondly-remembered 'salmon jacket' segment that set up 'The World's Strongest Man's last ever high profile shot at a top title, the gripping clash between Mark Henry and John Cena required 'Big Match John' to sell as if he had absolutely no chance against the tenured behemoth.
Unlocking rage unseen since he'd carried the World Heavyweight Title in 2011, Henry exerted a Lesnar-like dominance over Cena for much of the clash with a relentless and supercharged power assault.
Though the match guiltily succumbed to a SuperCena superman comeback at the very end, the remainder of the battle played brilliantly on those exact expectations - helped as usual by a crowd desperate to see 'The Champ' dethroned. Cena's brief flurries were persistently countered by his monstrous challenger, with Attitude Adjustments, STFs and various escapes completely undone by Henry's sheer size and power from the off.
Committing almost ten minutes to a virtually unchallenged beating, Henry even mixed up his arsenal, with suplexes throws and an eye-popping leapfrog body guillotine. Robbing him of rest after a giant swing to the floor, Henry continued the torture on the concrete until Cena's head collided with the ringside barricade.
The inevitability of Henry's tap-out after Cena countered the World's Strongest Slam was irrelevant. It followed form and logic either side of the match, but shock and shook within the body of it.