WWE Money In The Bank 2016 Review

WWE Money In The Bank has come & gone and the event that WWE kept hyping up as the “biggest MITB in history” lived up to expectation & was strong from top to bottom. We are writing about this now because we wanted to see what happened on the Raw afterwards that would explain some of the events that took place at Money In The Bank. Great move.

We are going to review some of the key moments of the event here. Some matches that don’t mean anything in the grand scheme of the storyline will be skipped because – well, we don’t want to bore you & lose viewers.

Dean Ambrose Cashes In Money In The Bank

This was very unexpected, but made the WWE universe completely happy. Ambrose has been one of the most consistent workers since he showed up in 2012 as a member of The Shield with Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns. While all of the guys have become stars in the company in their own ways, Ambrose had the personality & ring style to be a true brawler and could deliver this era of hardcore matches & can also talk people into the building.

The actual Money In The Bank ladder match was a strong one. While it wasn’t one of the greatest of all time, it was a solid match with all of the guys involved having a chance to show off their skills. Ambrose winning immediately made us think that he would be out teasing the contract for about 2-3 weeks & maybe have a cash in either on the night of the upcoming WWE Draft or shortly after that. With the rosters getting ready to be split up, we don’t know if each show is going to have their own world championship as it was back in the day, or if the champions are going to go between shows.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eukIRKaf2Nc%5B/embedyt%5D

Ambrose cashing in on Seth Rollins in the same night that Rollins wins the belt makes so much sense, especially with Roman Reigns having a suspension for 30 days due to a wellness policy violation, more on that later. With Ambrose as champion, he & Rollins can carry the bulk of the promotion for their triple threat match at Battleground in July, which would have been the case anyway due to Reigns being limited on the mic.

Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns Delivers in WWE Championship Match

Not knowing what we knew about Reigns going in, it was a bit of a surprise to see Rollins go over Reigns in this match. Reigns looked as though he was going to have the John Cena complex, in that he wouldn’t lose for a relatively long time, unless it happened at a major event like Summerslam, Survivor Series, Wrestlemania or Royal Rumble. Rollins winning the belt & having that time to enjoy his moment looked like a testament to his career & the hard work he has put in to get back in the ring and reclaim the belt he really never lost.

Obviously, Dean Ambrose beat Rollins to win the championship with the cash-in, but one of the coolest moments of the match was that a member of The Shield all held the WWE Championship at some point in the night, showing the depth of the NXT system & shows that WWE really knows how to cultivate the upcoming talent, all under the watch of Triple H.

The match itself told a great story, with Reigns actually looking as though he was working heel at times & chasing around Rollins. From a physical standpoint, Reigns definitely got in a ton of offense until later in the match when Rollins & Reigns traded excellent near falls that had the Vegas crowd at the new T-Mobile Arena on their feet the whole time.

Another interesting part of the match was that it didn’t begin until around 11:00 p.m. eastern time, after the Cleveland Cavs defeated the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Championship. The show didn’t end until shortly after 11:30 p.m., showing the power of the WWE Network & why it was put in place anyway – give matches time to really build up, promos to do well, & more talent has the chance to show their skills on a bigger stage.

A.J. Styles & John Cena Had Strong Match

This feud came together pretty fast in the last three weeks, but after MITB, it looks as though Styles & Cena could have a few matches to build up some great chemistry. Both men told a great story, one that saw that Cena was trying to get in some kind of normal power offense on Styles, but the “Phenomenal One” was just too fast for him & was running circles around him in the ring. Once that pace slowed down & more of the actual wrestling came into play, they really tore the house down & had a phenomenal match.

Seeing Styles go over, even with the help of Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson, was a great tone setter for this feud. It shows that WWE is showing faith in the new wave of superstars coming in. Cena didn’t need the victory because let’s face it – he is the face of the franchise no matter what happens, but it shows that WWE is going to put some serious money in to Styles & possibly the rest of the Club – formerly the Bullet Club.

It was too early in the feud for Styles to get a pure clean victory over Cena, and if Cena went over, all of the solid momentum that Styles has built up from his great matches with Chris Jericho & the New Day (as part of The Club) would have completely disappeared. Styles and Cena should be on pace to have a rematch at Battleground, most likely with some stipulation that would have Gallows & Anderson barred from ringside yet again. The possibilities for these two in the ring could be really interesting going forward, as long as WWE doesn’t waste a rematch on an episode of Raw or Smackdown.

Natalya Goes Heel on Becky Lynch

According to several websites, it was supposed to be Becky Lynch who was supposed to go heel on Nattie, but right now, it honestly doesn’t matter right now. Natalya could be leaving WWE at some point to take care of her husband, Tyson Kidd, who just can’t get over his injury situations right now to be a regular on the road, particularly after being injured taking a muscle buster finisher from Samoa Joe.

Becky Lynch desperately needs a good feud right now & on Raw, Sasha Banks returned and it looks as though she will be going after Charlotte’s women’s championship now. Lynch has an awesome look with the orange hair & the steam punk style. She has the rocker image, but is crazy hot at the same time. She is incredibly marketable, but right now, she needs more ladies to come up that she can have solid matches with, & Nattie is one of those women.

As for Nattie, with the rumors of her leaving at some point, she could be using this feud to push Becky over the top & give her the rub going forward with some strong matches in the next several weeks before the WWE Draft gets going. We don’t see this having a big match at Battleground, but some great TV matches could be coming up for these two, which just adds depth to the women’s division.

Going Forward

Having the suspension of Roman Reigns is going to be huge for the company for the next 30 days. Many guys mess up sometimes, but WWE went ahead with having Reigns in the main event at WWE Battleground, meaning that they knew about the suspension days ago going into the MITB WWE Championship match. He definitely had to lose the championship, but if he has to be away for 30 days, this was the best scenario for WWE right now to make sure he isn’t missing any big money time that the company has helped to promote, especially having the dynamic of all Shield members facing each other, probably for the last time for a bit.