7 Match Star Ratings For WWE Money In The Bank 2021
1. Roman Reigns Vs. Edge - Universal Title Match
Your writer doesn't do this on purpose.
For evidence, please refer to the star ratings awarded for Roman's matches against Edge and Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 37 and Cesaro at WrestleMania Backlash. Both matches were excellent in different ways.
The Triple Threat was high-end, super-dramatic sports entertainment; a month later, Roman worked over a limb in an intricate slow-burn boasting some of the best pure selling you'll see anywhere in wrestling this year.
Roman Reigns Vs. Edge was not excellent.
Roman Reigns Vs. Edge was a painfully WWE match in virtually every clichéd way in which a WWE match can feel clichéd. With the assigned road agent acting in pure autopilot, this started slowly - very, very slowly - in a transparent and condescending bid to make it feel like a big match. In reality, it was just dull and static and never-ending. Both men lay on the mat for an eternity. It was the worst excesses of grapplef*ck only without any accomplished technical artistry. It wasn't poorly worked, not remotely. It was simply there. Roman Reigns moved his mouth more than any other body part for 20 sapping minutes.
When the pace finally picked up, a hailstorm of tropes fell.
Barricade spots.
Interferences.
Ref bumps.
Check the box, check the box, check the box.
The crowd did erupt for the final third, and it was dramatic in that things happened, but the action didn't explode into an amazing crescendo informed by what had preceded it. Basically, some activity, some clichéd activity orchestrated by a few of the rare, over acts in the company, was belatedly tacked onto nothing.
The timing was very good - Edge's out-of-nowhere Spear was so well done that it elicited a superb and convincing near-fall - but Roman neutered the effect of an earlier visual pin by kicking out at 2.9.
It was a match that broadcast a very clear and rather boring message: Roman is the top guy because he exerts his dominance methodically.
It was a match that told and did not show about as loudly as his obnoxious stan base.
Roman is great. This match was not.
These things happen.
Star Rating: ★★★