By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The following matches are advertised for the WWE Money in the Bank event that will be held on July 1 in London, England at the O2 Arena.
-Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa vs. Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso
-Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor for the World Heavyweight Championship
-Men’s Money in the Bank ladder match (Entrants: Ricochet, Shinsuke Nakamura, LA Knight, Santos Escobar, Butch, and Damian Priest)
-Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match (Entrants: Zelina Vega, Becky Lynch, Zoey Stark, Bayley, Iyo Sky, and one wrestler TBD)
-Cody Rhodes vs. Dominik Mysterio
Powell’s POV: WWE advertising a start time of 2CT/3ET in North America. The Reigns and Sikoa vs. Usos match was billed as the Bloodline Civil War when it was announced on the Smackdown Lowdown today. Bayley is putting her spot in the MITB ladder match on the line in a match against Shotzi that will take place on Friday’s Smackdown. There’s been no indication as to how the sixth spot in the women’s match will be filled. Update: Trish Stratus vs. Raquel Rodriguez has been announced as the final MITB qualifier.
It would have made so much more sense to book Roman to lose against Cody at Wrestlemania. They could have done the whole Bloodline thing with the tag matches, and they wouldn’t have needed a meaningless extra world title because Cody would have been defending his championship on the big events.
Roman still draws the highest quarter hours and Cody is getting even bigger reactions than ever. Nobody in their right mind is still complaining about WWE making the right call at WM.
Whether anyone is complaining about the booking of Wrestlemania or not, I maintain that it does not really make sense to keep the title on Roman when he has been involved èxclusively in storyline-driven tag team matches since Wrestlemania.
The logical thing would have been to do absolutely everything they have done except with two major changes. Firstly, have Cody beat Roman at Wrestlemania. Secondly, don’t muddy the water with an additional world title (which would have not been needed anyway if Cody was the champion).
If they wanted different champions on different brands, they could even have found a creative way for Cody to lose one of the two belts he won from Roman while keeping the other.
I’m not a Cody fan, and I think the Bloodline story has been very good. I still feel though that it would have been logical, with no drawbacks and a few additional positives, to have booked a Cody win at Wrestlemania.
Can you honestly say that Roman being the undisputed champion has been a factor in his direction since Wrestlemania? If he no longer had the title, wouldn’t that actually have benefited the Bloodline angle?