8 Worst WWE Money In The Bank Cash-Ins EVER
'Future world champions' who have gone down in history for the wrong reasons.
There are few things that spark a bigger reaction from a live wrestling audience than a shock world title change. The unpredictability, anticipation, and realization that you are seeing something “historic” all add to the excitement, creating a buzz in the arena that bleeds through viewers’ television speakers.
WWE struck a bit of a gold mine in 2005 when they created the Money in the Bank ladder match to give a wrestler a guaranteed world title match that they could effectively “cash in” at any moment, ratcheting up the unpredictability for what essentially became a sure thing (the first ten cash-ins (and 15 of the first 17) were successful).
It really should be impossible to screw this up. With a bit of planning (something that late-stage brainworms Vince McMahon clearly lacked), there is no excuse for a groan-inducing cash-in that runs counter to the entire narrative of the MITB briefcase.
And yet, WWE has managed to botch several of their Money in the Bank cash-ins during the past 20 years. That’s not to say that a failed cash-in is automatically deemed a failure from a storyline narrative. John Cena being the first to fail to win a world title in 2013 proved to be extremely important because it showed that this wasn’t automatic, while also serving as the platform for CM Punk’s heel turn in the midst of his world title run.
Simultaneously, some successful cash-ins have fallen well short of expectations, leaving fans feeling empty rather than energized and overjoyed. Let’s dive into the worst of the worst of the 34 men’s and women’s Money in the Bank cash-ins.
8. The Miz (2021)
No, The Miz isn’t the first person to cash in a Money in the Bank briefcase that he didn’t win, but his situation was decidedly worse, as the briefcase moved from an experimental mid-carder to a pseudo-comedy act to serve as a transitional champion.
While Miz’s first cash-in back in 2010 was one of the more memorable title changes during the early days of the briefcase, his second was a lot more dubious.
In 2020, Otis was the surprise winner of the men’s MITB match, and it appeared that WWE was considering elevating a former tag wrestler to the main event. Instead, Otis defended the briefcase – and lost it – to Miz six months after winning it. Miz would hold onto the contract until the following February, when he conspired with Bobby Lashley to take the WWE Championship off Drew McIntyre at Elimination Chamber after the All Mighty attacked the Scottish Warrior.
Miz then served as the empty vessel to transition the world title to Lashley eight days later. At no point before or after that briefest of brief WWE Championship reign did Miz resemble even a remote threat to anyone outside a jobber. He and John Morrison lost to Damian Priest and Bad Bunny at WrestleMania 37, and he hasn’t sniffed a singles title since then.
If they were going to do this, they could have just let Otis hold the briefcase and allowed him to be the sacrificial lamb for Lashley rather than neutering him and making MITB a transitional plot device.