10 Ways WWE Screwed Up At Money In The Bank 2017
9. Hometown Humiliation
When you’re a WWE superstar, there are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and falling in your hometown. It seems like every time WWE land in a wrestler’s native city, they’ll go out of their way to book said performer into a losing position, and it was Randy Orton’s turn at Money In The Bank.
This wasn’t just any old hometown loss, though. WWE put great effort into emphasising the show’s location by presenting a group of “St. Louis legends” to the crowd before the bell, with Randy’s dad, ‘Cowboy’ Bob Orton Jr., among their rank. As a result, ‘The Viper’s’ loss felt very much like WWE were trolling the audience with one of their most tiresome tropes, with the fact that show took place on Father’s Day reinforcing this idea.
It’s always heartening to see WWE acknowledge the heroes of the past, but what’s the point if they’re only going to be used as a tool to emphasise an active wrestler’s defeat? They played directly into the finish too, with the Singh Brothers harassing the group towards the end of the match, before Orton intervened, and ultimately fell to Jinder Mahal. A deeply contrived scenario, and one that nobody benefited from.