7 Ups And 9 Downs From WWE Money In The Bank 2019

4. Shoddy Refereeing

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WWE.com

“This is the worst night in the history of WWE officiating.”

Corey Graves was very clearly speaking the truth Sunday night. If the horrid refereeing at Money in the Bank isn’t part of an angle this week, it’s the stupidest, most insanely awful storytelling WWE has done in some time.

We first saw a referee count Samoa Joe’s shoulders down for a three count when the left shoulder was clearly almost a foot off the mat. Then Shane McMahon avoided a three count by getting his foot on the rope in a steel cage match – where there are no rope breaks.

Later, the ref in the Raw Women’s Championship match wouldn’t count a Lacey Evans rollup before Becky Lynch grabbed a Disarm-Her for the tap-out. Then the ref in the SmackDown Women’s Championship match missed Lacey interfering, and then he started Bayley’s cash-in while Charlotte Flair was unconscious on the mat. As Graves noted, the match can’t start until both participants are up and able to acknowledge the ref’s commands.

If this is all part of an angle, then so be it. But if WWE’s 87 writers came up with all of this on the same night without it being anything other than coincidence, then someone should be fired.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.