The SmarK Rant for WWE Money in the Bank 2024 – 07.06.24

The SmarK Rant for WWE Money in the Bank 2024 – 07.06.24

Took the fam to see Despicable Me 4 today. That was certainly a movie which existed.

Live from Toronto, ON, which means that any MITB cash-in will only be worth 70 percent as much.

Your hosts are Michael Cole & Corey Graves

Money in the Bank: Jey Uso v. Andrade v. LA Knight v. Chad Gable v. Carmelo Hayes v. Drew McIntyre

Brought to you by the Boys! Hopefully there’s no spots with asparagus-scented pee. Like does anyone in the marketing department actually WATCH that show before making these deals? Knight and Jey chase everyone out of the ring, but then hit the heels with dives before they can finish their staredown. Drew grabs the ladder and smashes people with that, but then tries the climb and gets caught in an armbar by Gable. Carmelo saves with a springboard legdrop on Gable as he’s going for broke early, and he springboards into a clothesline to knock Andrade off the ladder. Here in this match filled with ladders, the crowd wants tables, which is like a line out of “Ironic”. Andrade hits Hayes with a spanish fly onto the ladder and they’re both out, and Jey slugs it out with Drew and spears him. Gable lays him out with a german suplex and then deadlifts Drew with another one and finishes with the Chaos Theory on Melo. However the crowd reminds Chad that he still sucks. I’m just impressed that he’s in the match after getting murdered. That shows real dedication. Gable fights off Knight and takes out the knee with a dragon screw before hitting him with a sick neckbreaker on the sideways ladder. Hayes takes LA to the floor for a fight on the table, and then makes the climb in the ring, but Gable saves and anklelocks him while standing on another ladder. Drew returns and smashes more people, powerbombing Gable on a ladder and then puts Andrade on the floor with the Claymore. Jey comes back in with a flying splash on Drew to deal with him, but he climbs and LA Knight follows for a “Yeet/Yah” slugfest. Hayes pushes them off and makes a comeback, clearing the ring and making the climb, but Andrade saves and sets up a ladder bridge. That ends badly for everyone with a sunset bomb for Melo onto the ladder, allowing Knight to climb, but Gable suplexes HIM over the top and onto another ladder bridge unrelated to the first ladder bridge. Gable climbs and Jey pushes the ladder out, leading poor Chad hanging in the air, but Jey waits for him to fall and spears him. That’s kind of a crazy spot. So this leaves Jey alone, and he has the case, but Drew HURLS a ladder at his face and knocks him off. And Drew claims the case at 16:35 to get one step closer to revenge. Aside from a couple of mildly suicidal spots this was a pretty safely worked MiTB match and I liked it more than the TNT ladder match last week. ****

Intercontinental title: Sami Zayn v. Bron Breakker

They still desperately need to do something about that name. Bron takes Sami down a few times, but Sami slugs back in the corner and hits him with an elbow before sending him to the floor. Sami with a moonsault that nearly went really badly, mostly catching Bron on the shoulder with his knee. But back in the ring, Bron accelerates on the ropes for a clothesline and slugs away on the mat. Bron beats him down in the corner and tosses him with an overhead suplex for two. Sami comes back with a tornado DDT for two. Sami clotheslines him to the floor and manages to run him into the post, but he tries the corner slide out there and Bron hits him with a clothesline for a double down on the floor. Back in the ring, Sami fights off a spear and hits the Blue Thunder Bomb for two. Sami goes up, but Bron brings him down with a rana for two in a great spot. Back to the floor and Bron misses a spear out there, but then clotheslines Sami off the apron and onto the announce table. Back in the ring, Sami comes back again with an exploder into the corner, but he charges and runs into a knee strike, before the snap powerslam sets up the finisher…but then Sami recovers with the Heluva kick to finish and retain at 13:17. That really felt like they should have pulled the trigger on Breakker there. Sami of course was able to get a really good match out of Bron by doing the underdog v. bully deal. ***1/2. I’m legit baffled at the booking decision there, though.

Trish Stratus joins us to introduce John Cena, who by the way was AWESOME on The Bear. I didn’t even know he was a guest star this season. Hopefully he was able to find the duck. And tonight he’s here to officially announce his retirement, complete with new merchandise made up commemorating his retirement. So he talks about how WWE is super hot now, but during the lean times, Canadians always showed up and carried the company. And he’ll be retiring at Wrestlemania in Vegas. But first he wants to kick some ass in Toronto, although no one takes him up on it.

Meanwhile, Damian Priest makes it clear that he doesn’t want any Judgment Day shenanigans out there tonight, although Finn Balor doesn’t seem so agreeable to that.

World Heavyweight title: Damian Priest v. Seth Rollins

They slug it out right away and Priest hits him with the falcon arrow and slugs away in the corner. Flatliner gets two. Priest with elbows in the corner, but Seth hits him with a sling blade and clotheslines him to the floor as both guys are very distracted by the potential cash-in. They fight to the floor and Seth dives into him as that poor announce table is taking a shitkicking tonight. Back in with a swanton from Seth and a lionsault for two. Priest comes back with a headlock driver, but he’s still distracted by Drew and Seth takes him down with a rana. Priest tries the edge, but Seth reverses out with a slam and goes up with a frog splash for two. Rollins goes after the knee while Corey declares himself a MITB winner via marriage. Priest goes up and Seth brings him down with a buckle bomb, but Priest powerbombs him for two. I like the little detail of them both being all distracted by Drew and deliberately being sloppy and rushing through the match. They get into another slugfest and Priest beats on him with kicks, but Seth comes back with the curb stomp for two. Seth lays the badmouth on him, but that just motivates Priest with a Razor’s edge for two. Man, why is this arena so DARK tonight? They’ve apparently got like 20,000 people there but it’s lit like a Collision taping in there. Very unlike them. They fight to the top and Seth does his superplex and falcon arrow deal for two. At this point, Drew comes out for the cash-in and it’s a three-way. Seth immediately counters the Claymore, but the Future Shock puts him down. Priest breaks up the Claymore, but Drew kicks him to the apron, and then CM Punk hits the ring and fucks Drew AGAIN, attacking him with a chair and beating on him like he’s a Young Buck. Back in the ring, Punk adds another shot with the title this time, and Priest chokeslams Drew to retain the title at 16:00. So now Seth is eliminated from title contention as a result of the loss due to Punk’s vendetta. This Punk guy is kind of an asshole, I think. Does he ever wrestle or just run his mouth and troll hard-working people? **** So add Drew to the ignominious list of failed cash-ins.

Money in the Bank: Naomi v. Zoey Stark v. Lyra Valkyria v. Tiffany Stratton v. Chelsea Green v. Iyo Sky

OK, having this be sponsored by the Boys and not calling it the GIRLS GET IT DONE match is just leaving money on the table. Corey rants about anyone from Canada getting acclaim in the country despite BC being a five hour flight from Toronto. I KNOW RIGHT. That’s why I was cheering against the Oilers! Also good fucking luck getting a direct flight from Victoria to Toronto or vice-versa these days. When I fly to Vancouver for work stuff it’s generally an 8 hour flight with layover in Calgary and I’m a lot closer than Toronto. Lyra suplexes Iyo onto a ladder and takes forever setting up a ladder, apparently unfamiliar with the operation of them, and Zoey dropkicks her away from it. Zoey slams her onto another ladder and almost completely misses it, grazing the side and hopefully not breaking any bones, and then she dives onto Lyra and smashes her own head into the ladder and probably knocks herself silly. STOP THE DAMN MATCH, THESE WOMEN HAVE A FAMILY! Even the announcers are riffing on how terrifying the match is, and Tiffany slams Naomi onto another ladder and then walks up a ladder on Iyo and dives onto the pile on the floor. Chelsea wants to climb but is unable to overcome her crippling fear of heights, allowing Iyo to save. But then Lyra suplexes her off the ladder and Zoey kicks Lyra off the ladder. Naomi gets a second ladder and battles Tiffany on that, before they head to the floor off a DDT and Naomi finds some tables. So those get set up at ringside while Zoey and Lyra continuing fighting with Navy rules (whoever dies first, loses) and more ladders get set up as Lyra goes for the case and Zoey slams her into a ladder bridge, thus justifying my Hot Shots reference. This match is scarier than the last 3 Saw movies put together. Naomi and Chelsea do some kind of fucked up spot on the ladder bridge and I literally can’t even tell what they were going for but it looked like it hurt. Zoey and Iyo fight for the case on top and Iyo hits her with some kind of stunner off the top and onto the bridge, leaving them both dead, and Chelsea makes an inspirational climb despite her terror, only for Tiffany to push her off and through the tables at ringside before claiming the briefcase at 16:57. Well at least I can breathe again. This was a terrifying car wreck of epic proportions. I don’t even know what to do with this one. Call it *** because it was never boring despite me watching it through my fingers in constant fear of someone dying in the ring.

Meanwhile, Tiffany wants some respect from Trish Stratus but none is forthcoming.

Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu & Tama Tonga v. Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton & Kevin Owens

This Bloodline team is like something out of my Samoan family tree nightmares. There’s probably a time machine involved too just to really mess me up. For those keeping track, Fatu’s son is Solo, Tama’s son is Fatu, and Haku’s son is Tama. There will be a quiz later. Solo opts out of starting the match and lets Tonga have the honors against Cody, and then KO comes in and beats Tama down in the corner. Cody comes in again with a delayed suplex. Orton slugs away in the corner, so it’s over to Jacob, who quickly walks into a draping DDT. But he no-sells it, because of Samoan science, and Solo comes in for a triple team on Orton in the corner. Tonga comes in with a slingshot splash and slugs away on Orton, but a back suplex turns the tide and it’s back to Owens. He runs wild and hits Tonga with a cannonball, but Jacob drags Tonga back to the corner and tags himself in. KO gets worked over in the Bloodline corner and choked out. Corey brings up the SST, which makes me wonder…does SAMU have a bunch of kids that are gonna get signed, too? This family tree is more unkillable than the lilac in my backyard that keeps growing over my garage roof. Tonga beats KO down while we get some Kevin Dunn camera cuts all of a sudden after blissful months without them. It’s really jarring when they go back to that shit after 3 hours of nice long wide shots. The beating goes on as this match is kind of dragging despite the crowd’s energy. I mean, it’s not like the Blue Jay are giving Toronto anything to cheer about this year, so they’ve got a lot of pent up excitement. Solo misses the blind charge, but drags KO back to the corner for more Samoan savagery from Fatu. He misses a corner splash and Cody gets the hot tag, diving onto any Samoan he says, but Tanga Loa sacrifices himself. Back in the ring, Solo catches Cody with a spear for two. Ref is bumped and Cody hits the Crossroads on Solo. So this sets up a frog splash from KO and an RKO from Randy, but Jacob Fatu attacks the babyfaces outside and the poor ref gets wiped out before he’s even recovered. KO puts Fatu through the table after a bottle of Prime to the head and goes after Tonga in the ring, but Tanga Loa gives him a low blow. So Orton cleans house with RKOs, but Solo hits the spike on him, only for Cody to come back with the Crossroads twice. Fatu with the implant DDT on Cody to break that up, and Solo revives for the spike on Cody to finish at 24:35, which was the only finish they could do given they want Sikoa to challenge for the title at Summerslam. I don’t think that’s a money match, like at all, but they need something for Cody while we get back to Roman and all the real main eventers again and that’s as good as anything I guess. Match ended up really good but I wish they would have gotten into the crazy main event brawl stuff 10 minutes earlier and skipped the endless heat segment on Owens. Everything else on the show was perfectly paced and this was kind of a drag for most of the match before the big finish. ***1/2.

I really enjoyed the show and most of it made sense (aside from the IC title) and I’m glad all the women made it out of the ladder match alive and hopefully no one suffered serious injury from it. Plus I was able to cut the show down to two hours by speeding through all the video packages and commercials so it made for a nice breezy evening. An easy thumbs up.