The SmarK Rant for WWE Money in the Bank 2025 – 06.07.25

Originally written 06.12.25. I’m gonna try to get into the habit of adding that again moving forward.

Live from Los Angeles, CA, which sadly was once a great city but is now burned to the ground completely according to the sitting President of the United States.

Anyway, I was going to do this show on Saturday night after I got home from a ZZ Top concert here in Saskatoon, but it was a late night and we nearly got run over by a drunk driver in the parking lot so I wasn’t in the mood at that point.

Your hosts are Michael Cole & Wade Barrett

Money in the Bank: Alexa Bliss v. Roxanne Perez v. Naomi v. Stephanie Vaquer v. Giulia v. Rhea Ripley

The veterans clear the ring right away and they all head to the floor and is it me or is the arena REALLY empty on the hard cam side here? Vaquer runs wild back in the ring, but Naomi necks her on the side of a ladder and sends Rhea to the floor with another ladder shot. Alea with a somersault senton onto the ladder to take out Naomi, but Giulia takes her out and we get a showdown with Giulia and Vaquer for a bit. Rhea dropkicks Giulia into the corner and then hits Roxanne with a running knee and dumps Naomi onto a ladder. She tries a Razor’s Edge on Roxanne, onto a ladder, but it’s a weirdly awkward setup where they wouldn’t have hit the ladder because they needed to have Roxanne reverse the move into a rana and bump Rhea onto the ladder. Didn’t really work. Finally the ladder gets set up as this one has taken quite a while to get going, and Rhea gets sandwiched in a ladder after some ladder malfunctions. To the floor as Giulia and Roxanne bury Rhea under some ladders. This allows Stephanie to beat on Naomi in the corner and take out her knee. Vaquer climbs even while Guilia hangs onto her back, but she gets brought down and Alexa goes for the climb next. We get a second ladder and everyone climbs, but Bliss pushes them both over. So Giulia teams up with Roxanne and they suplex Bliss onto the ladder side to take her out. Rhea finally emerges from the ladder pile and takes out Roxanne on the floor before running wild in the ring again. Guilia gets dropped on a ladder in the corner and Rhea makes the climb, fighting off Vaquer in a tease of what would be a pretty big match. And they set up a ladder bridge, allowing Stephanie to do the Devil’s Kiss on Rhea’s face on the ladder for a big pop, but she can’t get to the briefcase. Everyone fights on the ladders again and they kind of take forever setting up a stereo Code Red spot. I don’t care about it being contrived but they just took way too long getting everyone all positioned for it. So everyone is out and that leaves Giulia to climb, but Perez saves and Rhea hauls Giulia down for a Riptide. Bliss and Ripley fight on the top, but Naomi pushes them over to save, and she’s left alone and climbs for the briefcase at 25:20. I dunno, this really felt like the crowd desperately wanted Vaquer to win it and I would have been fine with that. Match was too long for me, with too much cutesy “we hit our moves at the same time” stuff, but they worked hard, in particular the Vaquer and Perez pairing. ***1/2

Intercontinental title: Dominick Mysterio v. Octagon Jr.

I literally had no idea that this was a match on the show. Octagon with a rana to put Dom on the floor for the moonsault. Speaking of which, I recently learned that the Mexican wrestling obsession with Octagon/Pentagon/etc is because of the Chuck Norris movie “The Octagon” from the 80s, which sadly has nothing to do with Chuck becoming an MMA champion but is more like him being a ninja. It’s also a tremendous terrible movie so I can’t blame the Mexican wrestling world to be honest. Dom ties up the mask on the ropes and slugs Octagon down. Octagon with a takedown, but Dom slams him for two as the crowd isn’t really that invested here. Dom misses the 619 and Octagon slingshots onto him with a senton for two. Junior goes up and Dom crotches him to set up a second 619, and Dom finishes with the frog splash at 4:50 to retain. Felt like a preshow match more than anything. **. Now that Dom has fought off Pentagon and Octagon, are they any further geometric shapes in Mexico that he can beef with?

Women’s Intercontinental title: Lyra Valkyria v. Becky Lynch

Becky tosses Lyra right away and beats on her back in the ring, but Lyra backslides her for two. Becky with an inverted DDT for two, and she drops elbows on her and a legdrop gets two. Lyra comes back with a neckbreaker for a double down and powerbombs Becky for two. Cole meanwhile claims that Valkyria had a “five star match” at Backlash, which is certainly his opinion. Becky with a DDT for two. She goes up and Lyra brings her down with a suplex for two. Lyra fights back, but Becky takes her down with an armbar and Lyra rolls her over for two and then goes for Becky’s leg. To the floor for a railing guillotine from Lyra, but she springboards back into the ring and Becky catches her in a powerbomb for two and a double down. They fight to the top and Becky brings her down with a Manhandle slam off the top, but it only gets two. That would have been a good finish but we get SHOCKED TWO COUNT FACE instead. Back to the floor and Becky runs her into the post in frustration and slams her on the floor, but Lyra hits Nightwing out there for another double down. To be fair, Lyra’s butt is not nearly impressive enough to pull off “Nightwing”. Back in the ring, they slug it out and trade rollups for two, but then Becky reverses again and gets the pin and the title at 15:20. Another good match between them, although I liked the Backlash one more. ***1/2. So then Becky makes her raise her arm for the fans and strap on the title, which is fair, but then Lyra turns on Becky and lays her out with a german suplex. Hey, she lost fair and square and that’s a sore loser move, I agree with Wade. Let poor Becky have her moment!

Money in the Bank: Seth Rollins v. Penta v. El Grande Americano v. Andrade v. LA Knight v. Solo Sikoa

Everyone attacks Solo to start and Andrade dives onto the pile outside, followed by Penta, but El Grande Americano and his distinctive nipples attack everyone with a ladder. Ack in the ring, Penta chops on Americano while Michael Cole slanders him with Wikipedia. But Americano slams Seth on a ladder, and then Solo stops a potential climb and slams Americano on a ladder in the corner. LA Knight attacks Solo and gets taken out, but comes back with an inverted DDT on the ladder and we triple ladders as everyone climbs and slug it out. Seth brings everyone down, leaving a showdown with Solo, but Solo misses his spike and Seth superkicks him a few times to put him down. Seth makes the climb but Americano somehow anklelocks him up there while Andrade tries to climb over them both and then takes Americano down with a powerbomb off the ladder. And then Penta suplexes Seth off the ladder to bring him down and slugs it out with Andrade. They fight onto a ladder bridge and Penta gives him a destroyer onto that. LA Knight returns and gets some shine, but he tries to powerbomb Penta out of the ring and Penta reverses to a rana and makes the climb. Americano saves that and hits everyone with suplexes while the crowd argues about his identity, allowing Americano to retrieve the FIREBALL LADDER from under the ring. That is a gigantic ladder. He climbs and Penta saves, but Seth cuts Penta off and they slug it out while Americano loads up the mask with an apparent antihistamine patch. Penta climbs again, but Americano uses two ladders to run up and make the craziest save ever, headbutting Penta off the ladder before Knight suplexes Americano down as well. That was like one of the Kofi Rumble saves. That leaves Seth alone to climb the giant FIREBALL LADDER, but Andrade and Penta team up to save. Andrade can’t quite unhook the case, so Heyman calls out Bron and Bronson to take care of everyone and they destroy the field. But then that brings out the Samoans to even things up, with Fatu taking everyone out and leaving Solo to climb very slowly. But then Fatu turns on him and goes babyface, moonsaulting Solo as I feel like I’m watching a TV show where they suddenly do an entire episode about some unrelated plotline before the season finale. So with THAT hopefully out of their system, Seth sets up the FIREBALL LADDER and climbs again, with Knight making the save this time. But then Seth brings him down and curb stomps him, and claims the case at 33:51 in a really anticlimactic finish. I was really enjoying the direction with the wacky ladder spots rather than the “slam people on the ladder in dangerous ways” booking of other MiTB matches, but man they missed the peak here bigtime. This was 10 minutes too long, with all the run-ins at the end just piling too much onto the booking. Good, but not one I’d want to watch again anytime soon. ***3/4. Seth was the right winner, as they need to get him to a World title ASAP now that Heyman has heated him up again.

John Cena & Logan Paul v. Cody Rhodes & Jey Uso

So now we’ve learned that Cody cosplays as Homelander because he really does think Homelander was the hero of the story. Cody takes Cena down with a headlock and it’s over to Logan as the crowd gives us a VERY loud “We want Truth” chant. Cody with a delayed suplex, so delayed they should call it “Logan Paul’s karmic payback”, and Jey slugs him down before Paul hits him with a blockbuster for two. Cena comes in and runs Jey into the corner to take over, and Logan adds a gut wrench for two. Cena with shoulderblocks and the Five Knuckle Shuffle, but Jey reverses the AA into a sleeper before Paul cuts off the tag. Logan with a legdrop for two. We hit the chinlock and Paul slugs away in the corner, but Cody gets the hot tag and the heels squabble, before Cody tosses Logan for a dive. Back in the ring, Cena with an AA on Cody for two, but Logan saves. We get the run of big moves as Cena and Logan have some miscommunication again and everyone is out. Next up, we get a slugfest from everyone and Logan hits Cody with the wacky Paul-verizer DDT, but he goes up and showboats too long, allowing Cody to bring him down with a superplex via a clever drone POV, as the babyfaces hit him with a Powerplex in the process. Cena with the AA on Cody for two off that. Back to the floor as Cena clears the table, but Jey spears him and that table does not break. Should have used a Slim Jim’s table instead. They always snap. That leaves Jey on the table, and Logan puts him through it with a moonsault to finally break that damn thing. Back in the ring, Cena goes for his finish, using the belt, but then R-Truth comes out of the crowd and lays out Cena to make his return for the biggest pop for the match, and Crossroads finishes at 23:52 as Cody finally gets some revenge. Hopefully this sets up Cody winning the title back at Summerslam because this Cena heel run ain’t it, man. This was a good smoke and mirrors tag match thanks to Logan doing his crazy stuff and helping to disguise Cena’s obvious limitations. ***1/2

I’d call this a pretty easy thumbs up, with everything good and nothing bad. I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly memorable show or something you need to go out of your way to watch, but the Netflix edit in particular was VASTLY improved over the bloated live version filled with ads and it was a solid three hour show.