Credit: WWE.com
I'm trying really hard not to be that fan that is constantly complaining about wrestling. I love wrestling. I think a lot of wrestling fans really hate wrestling and couch it in "I hate the booking" and they need to stop watching and get another hobby. So. I think the Money In The Bank concept peaked almost 4 years ago when Seth Rollins cashed in at Mania. Thusly, I am of the belief that it should be retired. Funny thing is, it never lived up to its full potential.
The most fun part of the Money In The Bank is the rules: "you can cash in at anytime!" The first thing that pops in my head was how heated I was when they did a heat check/pump fake with Daniel Bryan on Mark Henry on an odd episode of SmackDown. Teddy Long came out and said that it didn't count because Henry wasn't medically cleared to wrestle. The rules don't say "you can cash in anytime the opponent is medically cleared to wrestle" they say "ANYTIME" so, in a way, this was the beginning of the downslide of the briefcase.
I am not a fan of this era of participation trophy championship wins we are in. An argument can be made that the MITB facilitates people who are otherwise unworthy of winning a world heavyweight championship winning logically. I was talking to my best friend about this last night and brought up that when you really think about it, most of the people who have won the briefcase... you would not have them go over on The Undertaker at Mania, Bruno Sammartino in the sold out Garden, Hogan in his prime, Austin, Cena during his LOL CENA WINS peak etc. I would argue, that if you are not trying to have a guy be AT that level... THEY SHOULD NOT BE WORLD CHAMPION. Your world champion should always be one of your top draws, and booked accordingly. They should not be constantly doing jobs and have a record anywhere NEAR under .500.
When Braun Strowman won the briefcase, my question was "Why?", because look at him. This is not a guy who needs a briefcase to win a world title. Names like John Cena, Randy Orton, and Sheamus had already won multiple world titles and been established as top talent, so they didn't "need" the case. Again, I am diametrically opposed to the idea of people using a cheat code to win a world championship... the idea becomes even more unpalatable to me when you are giving the cheat code to guys who could very easily just brute force their way into a title. Braun Strowman shouldn't have failed to capture the title so many times while being presented as some kind of monster amongst men. A novel concept is: keep people you don't want winning the championship... away from the championship and just keep having them win.
The most fun thing they could have done with the MITB rules that they didn't do... is have someone cash in "anytime". I think back to the 24 hour Hardcore championship era. That was fun. I would have loved to have seen someone cash in that briefcase in the airport, at a restaurant, at a bar, at the hotel, just walking down the street. Because it would be different. The way they have done it, all the cash ins have been the same, with the exception of Seth Rollins. He is the only person to cash in DURING a match, and the only person to cash in at Mania, the biggest show of the year which automatically raises the prestige of this cash in. I am very conflicted here. Because honestly, if WWE displayed such creativity as to have it TRULY be cashed in "anytime" I might not be saying I want it gone, even though I think they change champions too often.
Earlier I was thinking about how a lot of people prefer the parity of the NFL and other "major" sports to how in the NBA, the same two teams played in the Finals four years in a row. You can look at the NBA rosters and pretty much guess who will meet in the Finals before the season starts. In other sports, there might be one juggernaut team that makes it, and the other team is a team that not even their own fans would have called it. In baseball a lot of teams that have been perennially sorry for as long as I have been alive are now champions. I, of course prefer the elitism of the same teams winning all the time. I like dominance. I like greatness. Beating that team, not having them break up via free agency and injuries and retirements, but, taking down THE top team at their peak? That means something. I wish world championship changes in wrestling were like that, and not "oh it's so and so's turn now".