A cash-in history of Money in the Bank

If you write about WWE for long enough, articles written a year before can still hold weight. I’m sure if you went back and looked at your own predictions for the 2011 event, you’d have a fairly good blueprint for this year.

WWE wants to remind us that Money in the Bank is a night of surprises, but I’d like to remind you of something cooler: Money in the Bank is the second-most exciting show of the year.

Me, last year:

In the narrative, Money in the Bank winners have cashed in to win almost as many championships as winners of the Royal Rumble. What’s more impressive is that no MITB winners have cashed in and lost, which is something you can’t say about the Rumble. In fact, the last person to win the Rumble and win at Wrestlemania was the Undertaker, over four years ago.

Half of this isn’t true anymore. Sheamus, the 2012 winner, won the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania, but both Alberto Del Rio and Daniel Bryan cashed in the Money in the Bank briefcases last year in post-match, cheap, bastard victories (the way one does). That brings the tally of MitB winners to 10. How many people have won the Royal Rumble and subsequently won a title? 12, out of a possible 21.

But it’s not just the eventual result of MitB victories that make the event exciting:

And the Rumble itself, while exciting, is more or less the same match every year. If you’ve seen two (1992 and 2002), you’ve seen them all. Generally, the story of any Rumble is either a) a man going the entire distance of the match, or b) a dominating or surprising hero or villain enter late and decimate the remainder. But every MITB match has the potential to be completely fresh. Every match has used a different number of props, a different length, and a new, interesting finish. Some MITB matches have six guys, some have eight.

The 2011 event didn’t divert from this, as the Raw and Smackdown ladder matches were very different in style. There was also the added benefit of CM Punk vs John Cena, one of the most-anticipated and celebrated main events in years. Since nothing like that is on the horizon, this event defers entirely to the ladder matches. And I’m excited, as always, for the inevitable surprises.