John Cena Retirement, Drew McIntyre FAILS Cash In, CM Punk, WWE Money in the Bank 2024

4 months ago

What did you think of WWE Money in the Bank 2024?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3cepqdPdos | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POlv8PLvILE
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John Cena Retirement, Drew McIntyre FAILS Cash In, CM Punk, WWE Money in the Bank 2024 | WrestleTalk
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Transcript

00:00John Cena announces his retirement, CM Punk screws Drew McIntyre...again, and Solo Sokoa

00:08has pinned the WWE Champion. I'm Luke Owen and this is my review of WWE Money in the

00:14Bank 2024...in about 10ish minutes.

00:19As had been reported by PWInsider, the Men's Money in the Bank opened the PPV, which featured

00:24Drew McIntyre, Jey Uso, LA Knight, yeah, Andrade, yeah, he did return to WWE in case you forgot,

00:31Chad Gable and Carmelo Hayes. This was a tremendously fun sprint, about 16 and a half minutes, and

00:36was nothing but pure spot madness. Which was a lot like the women's match later, only

00:41this one felt safer. And that's not to say it wasn't gnarly at times. Andrade's springboard

00:46leg drop to Gable while he was trapped in a ladder, his springboard Spanish fly to Hayes,

00:51it felt like Andrade had a point to prove. Gable had a run of suplexes, even suplexing

00:55a ladder at one point, and in perhaps the wildest spot of the night, LA Knight pushed

01:00Andrade over the top of a ladder into a Sunset Flip Powerbomb to Hayes onto another ladder.

01:05Gable's suplex knight overhead to a ladder bridge on the outside, and then a wicked bump

01:08after hanging from the briefcase hook into an Uso spear. Jey nearly had the match won,

01:12but Drew, ironically, yeeted a ladder right into his face like it was a javelin, and won

01:17the match the absolute right winner. You could argue a predictable winner, but he is

01:23the right winner, and in many cases felt like the only winner. It also set up a great story

01:28for the next hour or so, as Drew had announced ahead of time that he would cash in on this

01:32show and walk out as World Heavyweight Champion. I am surprised we got no Wyatt Sixx stuff

01:36with Chad given that was part of the build going into the show, but I did prefer just

01:40having this be a straight match with no interference. Especially as the world title match and the

01:44main event matches had a bunch of interference spots. Perhaps more surprising than Drew winning

01:49Money in the Bank was Braun Breaker losing to Sami Zayn for the Intercontinental Championship.

01:54That is both fair and unfair to say. I spoke about this on our Money in the Bank prediction

01:58video for the WrestleTalk Podcast, but Breaker holding up the belt on the Go Home Raw made

02:02me think he was not going to walk out of Money in the Bank with the title. It was then a

02:06question of, well how do you get there? You could go through the Champion's Advantage

02:11route and have a justifiable DQ to lead to a rematch at Summerslam. You could do a lame,

02:15kicking too much ass DQ. You could even do a count out. What I never would have predicted,

02:20however, was Sami just winning clean. I should have done though, right? It's like Sami's

02:25gimmick. He gets battered, he gets bruised, he gets ragdolled around, but he gets back

02:29up and fights until the end, squeezing out a victory when it feels like all is lost.

02:35That was the story of the Gunther match, and was the same here as well. Breaker dominated

02:39for the majority of the match and never looked like he was in any form of trouble. He even

02:44learned from this past Raw where he didn't clatter into the steps after Sami leapfrogged

02:48his spear attempt, and hit a Steinlein from the apron over the announce table. He blocked

02:52one Huluva Kick attempt by just being a brick wall of a man, but Sami hit a second attempt

02:57from out of nowhere for the win. I know there are some who were upset about this, pitting

03:01Breaker clean like this when you've been presenting him as an unstoppable badass, because

03:05it means that he's actually quite stoppable. But Sami is the Intercontinental Champion.

03:12He should be winning matches, he should be presented as a top guy. And as Will Ospreay

03:17showed with his Forbidden Door match against Swerve Strickland, no one should be above

03:21losing to a top champion. If this loss had been against, say, Sheamus on a random episode

03:28of Raw, I might get some of the vitriol, but this was the Intercontinental Champion on

03:33a PPV in his home country. Moreover, this is Sami's character. I liked this a lot,

03:40but I was legit surprised that they just beat Breaker clean. Money in the Bank host Trish

03:44Stratus brought out a surprise for the night, John Cena, who announced that he will be retiring

03:49from WWE and 2025's WrestleMania will be his last. I'll have a full WrestleTalk News

03:55video about this as there is a lot to discuss, but this was a cool moment, a fine speech

04:00and a great surprise. As Filthy Tom Lawler put it on Twitter, John Cena's career has

04:05been compromised to a permanent end. Although they teased some involvement with Finn Balor,

04:09he was nowhere to be seen for Damian Priest's World Championship defence against Seth Rollins.

04:13The two told a really cool story in the match itself, which was, Drew was a looming shadow.

04:19Any time either of them was on top, they were looking down the ramp waiting for Drew to

04:23come down. He was a literal ticking clock. Both men kicked out of each other's finishes,

04:28and eventually Drew hit the ring to cash in his Money in the Bank briefcase. But not

04:35before Damian Priest didn't kick out of a pin attempt in what was clearly an obvious

04:39botch. Triple H spoke about this at the press conference, that it sucks that this will be

04:44the thing that people talk about. But it does need to be highlighted. Priest looked visibly

04:53upset after the match because he knew it was a monumental bollocks up. It also sucked the

04:58wind out of this hot crowd. But that didn't last for long, as Drew came out to cash in

05:04and made the match a triple threat. CM Punk made his presence felt early and took out

05:08Drew with chair shots and a belt shot, allowing Priest to hit South of Heaven and pin Drew

05:13on two straight PPVs, all because of Phil. I know there will be some angry out there

05:19at this being a wasted cash-in, but it has been done for very good storyline reasons.

05:25This isn't like Austin Theory, or Damian Sandow, or even John Cena's failed cash-ins.

05:30This was done for a good reason. And if you want to learn more about Money in the Bank

05:33and its history of cash-ins, both successful and failures, check out this clip from Oli

05:37Davis' The Cursed History of Money in the Bank.

05:41In WWE's defence, how can you elevate these Money in the Bank winners if they keep losing

05:45all the time? Oh yeah, you're in control of that too! During the 2010s, WWE would consistently

05:52book wrestlers to go on a losing streak after winning the briefcase. I guess the idea was

05:57to make the eventual title shot a surprise, but it mostly weakened them as credible champions

06:02when they actually cashed in. Bryan lost 55% of his matches when he had the briefcase,

06:08Ziggler lost 62%, Damian Sandow lost 60%, Seth 54%, Carmella 72%, Corbin 60%. If you

06:19want a wrestler to rise up the card, it helps to book them to win more matches than they

06:23lose.

06:24So we all figured this was going to happen, right? We all figured that Punk would be involved

06:29in one of the Money in the Bank finishes and screw Drew. But there was a secret bonus to

06:33this that became clearer in the post-match. Seth can now not challenge for the World Heavyweight

06:39Championship, and that is CM Punk's fault. In his focus to screw Drew, he's also screwed

06:47Seth. Corey Graves had to hold Rollins back as he berated Punk, which brought back all

06:51of those promos he did earlier this year where he said he didn't want Phil back, and that

06:56anger at Survivor Series last year. I really loved this and it adds a new level to what

07:02has probably been WWE's best feud of post-Mania 2024. It might actually be their best feud

07:08of the entire year, and they've not even had a match yet.

07:12As expected, Tiffany Stratton won the Women's Money in the Bank briefcase in another sprint

07:15of a ladder match, just under 17 minutes. That was all spots, and some of those spots

07:20were f***ing gnarly. Michael Cole and Corey Graves called this match a car wreck, and

07:25they were not wrong. I was legit scared over and over again from some of these bumps. And

07:30not just the big ones like Zoey Stark taking an EO Sky Tombstone onto a ladder bridge,

07:35or Chelsea Green crashing from the top of the ladder through two tables on the floor.

07:39But Zoey and Laira just landing awkwardly and clumsily onto ladders while attempting

07:43other spots. Everyone just kept landing hard on these ladders and most of them were not

07:48intentional. Naomi got a cool spot where she did the splits while standing on two different

07:52ladders, but it was Chelsea Green who stole the show for much of the match for me. She

07:56was so entertaining, and her huge ladder bump similar to that one she did in TNA was absolutely

08:02stunning.

08:03But it was Tiffy time, and she won the briefcase after being the one to push Green through

08:07those tables. She did a segment backstage where she seemingly set up a match with Trish

08:10Stratus, which sounds like a great idea to me. It was a bit clumsy, it was certainly

08:15messy, but in the best kind of way. And much like the men's match, completely the right

08:21winner.

08:22And as reported by PWInsider, the main event saw The New Bloodline take on Cody Rhodes,

08:27Randy Orton and Kevin Owens. A match which accomplished two things. Number one, Solo

08:32pinned the WWE Champion to set up a match at Summerslam, and number two, more importantly

08:37number two, it introduced the WWE audience to Jacob Fatu and highlighted why he is the

08:43new powerhouse of this group. It was so interesting watching Solo wrestle in the Roman role while

08:49Jacob filled in for the Solo role.

08:52They all worked your standard WWE six-man tag with two bills to the hot tags when it

08:57was beautifully elevated by a hot crowd who wanted to see the stars do your standard WWE

09:02six-man tag. Fatu just standing up from Orton's draping DDT to stare him down while he was

09:07doing his RKO setup was awesome. The referee got bumped, this is a Bloodline match after

09:11all, and even the ringside doctor got bumped when Jacob Fatu was backdropped by Cody Rhodes

09:15over the barricade. The referee got bumped a second time, which means he did not see

09:19Tonga Loa... sigh... botch his second big spot in WWE when he tried to do a low blow

09:26come on Tonga Loa.

09:28Randy hit a series of RKOs but got caught by a Solo spike, he then got the Crossroads

09:32treatment but Fatu broke it up, held up Cody for the spike and then woke up the ref for

09:36the pinfall.

09:38Solo has pinned the WWE Champion. It capped off a very fun Money in the Bank, but I do

09:45have one small complaint. This show was 3 hours and 15 minutes long. A fine run time.

09:52But there was less than 90 minutes of wrestling. That means that over half of this show was

09:58commercials, video packages and entrances. There's the Cena promo in there, but even

10:03if you remove that, it's still half the show. I am begging WWE and AEW to find the balance,

10:11but it cannot overly take me away from my enjoyment because Money in the Bank was a

10:155 out of 5 show. Now go and watch Oli Davis' cursed history of Money in the Bank.

John Cena Retirement, Drew McIntyre FAILS Cash In, CM Punk, WWE Money in the Bank 2024 | WrestleTalk

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