Welcome folks! Great to have you back with me this week. I definitely appreciate you guys and gals hanging with me once again. We are fresh off the heels of a very emotional past few days with the passing of "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, but we are also off the heels of this year's Money In The Bank pay per view, which truthfully was a pretty good overall event. Let's dissect the event from top to bottom.
From the onset, there was a melancholy vibe to the event, as the Kickoff panel gave recollections of the late icon himself. From there, it was a throwaway match between King Barrett, whose run as "king" has been nothing less than a joke, and R-Truth (speaking of jokes). Truth got the win in a shocker, but really, who cares? Then, the panel introduced a moving and fitting tribute video dedicated to The Dream, that by the end of the video even had Renee Young audibly in tears and her voice noticeably cracking with emotion. Very real moment.
The start of the event itself, after the kickoff, had all the stars from the company up on the stage, along with Hunter, Steph, and Vince himself, to give a ten second moment of silence with ten bell tolls. With stars like Paige, Steph, Ryback, and even Vince with tears in their eyes, it was a heartfelt yet classy moment. What was just as cool was the fans in complete and total pindrop silence as the bell was being rung out of respect, much like they've done with deaths of Warrior, Savage, Owen, and Eddie Guerrero. Afterwards, Rhodes' old music played with his epitaph on the video wall. Emotional moment and one that would reflect the rest of the evening.
Then it was off to the races as the MITB Ladder Match was first. I wasn't honestly looking too much forward to this simply because the match had mostly people we had seen in this match before, or people who have already been World Champions such as Shaemus, Orton, and Kane. The only first timer in the match was Adrien Neville, and what a great job he did. The match was primarily a spot fest, but was only an average match. It wasn't the most thrilling or captivating one ever, but it was also wasn't a bore of course. The end of the match came when Roman Reigns was on his way up when the Bray Wyatt montage came up on the screen and when the lights were back on, he was in the ring and tilted the latter over. Reigns fell off and in the hands of Sister Abigail. This made Shaemus and Neville fight on the ladder, and ultimately Shaemus got the better of the exchange and won his first MITB match, thus making him the only guy to win the World title, win the Rumble match, win the King Of The Ring, win the I-C Title, win the U.S. Title, and headline Wrestlemania. The only guys who have ever come close to that greatness have been Edge, Cena, and Orton. Pretty big stuff.
Next up was the Divas Title match between Nikki Bella and Paige. Not a very bad match, but honestly you won't get one out of Paige. Regardless, the match was pretty back and forth but Brie did a switch-er-roo with Nikki to pretend to be Nikki and tried to pin Paige but it backfired as Paige pinned Brie. Of course the ref was fooled as Brie quickly disputed the pinfall as showed herself taking tissue out of her cleavage area to state Paige pinned the wrong Bella. With the ref and Paige's back turned, Nikkie delivered a hard forearm to the face and Paige ultimately succumbed to Nikkie's "Rack Attack" finisher. It definitely appears that they really wanna troll all over AJ Lee's legacy as longest reigning Divas Champion by consistently stating how long Nikkie has been champion. She's still a little over a month away from being the longest reigning champion.
Next was the Inter-Continental Title match between Ryback and Big Show. This was Ryback's first match defending as champion, but this was nothing spectacular, and I wasn't going to expect much from it. Miz was at ringside commentating and not long afterwards got involved, costing Big Show the title. Ryback lost the match but retained the title. Blah!
However, next up was the huge rematch between John Cena and NXT Champion Kevin Owens. Although no title was on the line, this was every bit as awesome as their first encounter, if not better. This match had the same intensity and passion as their fantastic first meeting a couple of weeks ago at Elimination Chamber. A key point in the match was when Owens mimicked all five moves of doom from Cena, including the Attitude Adjustment. Cena, later, botched a hunancunrata which was a tad scary considering he landed on his neck and shoulder. After over thirty minutes, Cena emerged victorious in this epic rematch. Afterwards, Cena respectfully tried to shake the hand of Owens, to which Owens attacked him and canvas powerbombed him, which lead to Cena getting helped to the back by referees and officials. In any event, an exceptional match and definite Match Of The Year candidate for the company.
The next battle was for the Tag Team Titles, as The New Day, represented by Xavier and Big E (Kofi was injured during the MITB match) faced off against the Prime Time Players. It was very hard following the instant classic Cena and Owens put on so to no surprise the people were a little quiet for the match. However, Titus delivered his Clash Of The Titus set out powerbomb move on Xavier Woods for the three count, and we have NEW WWE World Tag Team Champions! After five years of being together, Darren and Titus realized their dream and hit the big time winning the gold, thus officially making them "millions of dollars".
Now we're at the main event with Seth Rollins defending the WWE Title against Dean Ambrose in a Ladder Match. This has been one of the more excellent rivalries the company has had concerning two of its brightest young stars. Although this has been signaled as the close out of the rivalry, this was a great way to end it. The big fight feel was in the air similar to Cena vs. Owens, and the from the word go, it was intense. Ambrose had his knee worked on in the match thus making it very hard to climb up the rungs of the ladder. Also, we saw Seth have a pronounced mean streak in this match. The end came when both men were on the ladder and had their hands on the belt, but when the belt was yanked off by both, the belt was in the clutches of Rollins when they both landed, thus making him the winner and still champion. After the grueling match, Ambrose made a speech that was eerily similar (likely on purpose) to the "Hard Times" promo Dusty Rhodes was so very known and revered for. Excellent moment for Ambrose and for any Dusty fan.
I must say, this was a better pay per view than I thought it would be. Of course I had high hopes for the MITB match, Cena/Owens II, and Ambrose/Rollins and they delivered. An amazing effort from most of the competitors in the event, and in the midst of somber and grief with the loss of a true wrestling folk hero, Big Dust would be absolutely proud, especially of his former NXT kids Owens, Woods, Neville, Ambrose, Reigns, and Rollins (whose hand Rhodes raised win Rollins won his first NXT Title). I give this event 4/5 and was a great way to introduce us into the summer season of pay per views for WWE.
Now the stage is set for Cena vs. Owens III: Street Fight Rules, as well as Seth vs. the returning Brock Lesnar for the title and Roman vs. Wyatt. We may have another pretty good event on our hands. Until next time folks, have a great week and another huge Rest In Peace to "The Common Man". We'll always love The Dream!
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