10 Radical Ideas To Save WWE Money In The Bank

A final storyline-based notion: but what if the heel champion decided to become pro-active, and take out the Money In The Bank briefcase holder before they could cash in their briefcase?

Have the babyface holder of the briefcase be honourable and name the time and place of his cash-in, just as John Cena did: the next big pay-per-view event. The champion knows he’s on borrowed time, and - just as heel champions used to back in the day - offers a bounty on the head of the babyface challenger.

In the old days of the WWF, the APA might have taken it on - and in more recent times, The Shield. But let’s say there’s no easy rent-a-goons for the champ to bring in, no enforcers on the payroll: that means he’s got to offer out the contract to anyone who wants it.

Let’s say the hit ends up creating a loose faction - a one time only deal where, like the bounty hunters that hunted the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back, a group of disparate, mercenary heels kind-of-sort-of band together to take out the briefcase holder. We’re talking about the likes of Baron Corbin, Rusev, Sheamus and The Vaudevillains.

When NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race took out a hit on Ric Flair in 1983, it was a big deal. Race was one of the most intimidating figures in the history of the sport: if he was that worried about Flair, it meant that Flair was someone.

The angle benefits the babyface challenger in two ways: i) it puts them over as being someone to be reckoned with, given that the champion is this afraid of facing them, and ii) it means that the briefcase holder has to remain elusive and outsmart his opponents to avoid being taken out, which puts them over as the kind of babyface the crowd should root for.

Best of all from the point of view of someone who watches RAW and Smackdown on a weekly basis, it gives the WWE audience some highly entertaining skits over the ensuing weeks, as the heels quarrel and pretend to work together while trying to outdo and betray one another to get the money for themselves.

It’s almost the 24/7 rule meets the Cannonball Run. This is, after all, a roster who are almost constantly on the road, travelling by plane and by car the length and breadth of America every single week, staying in hotels and riding together to save money.

All you’ve got to do is have them take a couple of cameras with them, Total Divas/Ride Along style, and you’ve got yourself more original WWE Network content, as once a day a new scenario opens up between WWE shows, and the heels try to take down our hero once again when he’s on his way around the house show loop.

All this, and we haven’t even got to the point where the guy (or girl) cashes in the briefcase yet. You’ve made actually holding the briefcase a money angle, never mind the match it’s supposed to represent.

I’d follow that angle all week, all month - as long as it ran for.