By the grace of god, a close friend of mine gave me his WWE Network access, so I’ve actually kind of been able to play catch up with wrestling, since I haven’t really watched any televised shows in nearly two years. I ditched cable television in this span, so although I still can’t watch any RAW or the supposed renaissance of Smackdown that I’ve heard so much good things about, but at least I can watch NXT and pay-per-views as they come out.
And speaking of which, I was able to catch the latest WWE ppv, Money in the Bank, which I like to often describe as the storyline bailout show, since the sheer mechanism behind a one-time, unpredictable title challenge is a blessing for both fan anticipation and Creative, and can easily bail out any bad storyline choices, or add drama to existing ones.
Unfortunately, as much as things change throughout the years, some things never change either, in the world of professional wrestling. Such as the ideal that if a ppv isn’t Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series or the Royal Rumble, it’s basically a glorified bonus episode of RAW or Smackdown. Money in the Bank is definitely on that B-tier of annual shows, but at least it gets to have a consistent name, and not something random and thoughtless like Great Balls of Fire (really?).
Needless to say, I was excited at the prospect of having a relatively free evening where I could watch MITB, but after the show was over, I was left with this unimpressed taste in my mouth, like when you drink a Pepsi MAX which tastes good going down, but leaves a lingering, slightly acidic and bitter twinge in the back of your throat whenever you swallow afterward. Except the difference between Pepsi MAX and MITB is that I actually find Pepsi MAX to have been enjoyable, and was mostly meh about the rest of MITB as a whole.