The Disturbing Truth Behind WWE Money In The Bank
Crucially, Edge wasn’t meandering in the midcard ahead of his breakout moment as the hottest heel in all of pro wrestling. Protected by WWE ahead of that moment, Edge had refashioned himself as cuckolding sh*theel and wig-wearing, manic bird-man in his priceless impersonation of Ric Flair. Edge was an upper midcard entertainment machine. WWE told us, all along, to take him seriously as a main event proposition.
Outside factors affected WWE’s similarly grand plans for Rob Van Dam and Mr. Kennedy, the face of a new brand and WrestleMania headliner, respectively. CM Punk’s victory at WrestleMania XXIV wasn’t part of a grand plan. His Hail Mary pass was bookended by two horrendous babyface plays: a cowardly cash-in and a forfeit.
A year later, Punk’s second consecutive cash-in absolved WWE of its carelessness—the Punk vs. Jeff Hardy feud was so tremendous in its build, its authenticity, its everything—but his reign ended at the remonstrative hands of The Undertaker in an appalling storyline. Establishing a permanent main event act was no longer the goal. The briefcase, once a ticket, was by now a trope with which to drive episodic television, not the star vehicle.
Jack Swagger’s victory formalised the backwards change in mentality. WWE lazily deemed the briefcase itself a magical, star-making property. WWE didn’t tell us, all along, to take him seriously as a main event proposition. In qualifying for the match by defeating Santino Marella in 25 seconds on the 1 March Raw, Swagger took more time unhooking the briefcase from the karabiner than WWE did to present him as a force.
He won the World Heavyweight Title very quickly, and almost as swiftly did jobs for Randy Orton and The Undertaker on TV. The former made sense in that nonsensical WWE way, but that ‘Taker loss felt less unnecessary: a sobering reality check for the performer that bemused the audience.
Looking at this statistically—specifically to the winners that were not already established as headline talents or bulletproof veterans—yields an eye-watering data field.
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