During the COVID-19 pandemic, WWE had to pivot because there was not an audience for their live shows. Wrestlers competed in an empty Performance Center, there were no cheers or boos for what was happening in the ring, and everything felt a little awkward. So how would WWE get viewers at home excited about wrestling during this difficult time for the world?
There was the Thunderdome, which allowed viewers to video call in and have their faces shown on screens in the crowd. However, WWE needed more to get the audience’s attention on the wrestling promotion, so they turned to cinematic matches.
By most accounts, the first cinematic match was the Ganryujima Island Death Match where Antonio Inoki defeated Masa Saito in an hour-long, grueling battle between the two. In 1995, there was WCW’s King of the Road match where Dustin Rhodes lost to The Blacktop Bully in a match that took place entirely on an 18-wheeler truck that was driving on the road, with the goal to honk the horn on the truck to win. And who can forget WWE’s Roddy Piper vs. Goldust Hollywood Backlot Brawl, which featured footage from the OJ Simpson police chase. Then, there was Lucha Underground, which featured a large portion of cinematic elements throughout the promotion’s run. However, the bout that truly popularized modern cinematic matches was none other than Matt Hardy fighting Jeff Hardy in The Final Deletion match in TNA. In 2016, Hardy and TNA created something wild, and the match went viral.
This type of match was the perfect fit for pandemic wrestling. WWE had experimented with these types of matches before, but they weren’t a hit, like House of Horrors and Wyatt Family Compound matches. However, the company found its stride in 2020 with Wrestlemania’s Boneyard Match between AJ Styles and Undertaker, which was WWE’s first real success with cinematic matches in the modern era.
For Money In The Bank, a few months after Mania, WWE tried its hand again with the exceptionally wild cinematic MITB ladder match for the highly-coveted contract for a championship match that the winner can cash in at any time.
There were a lot of weird moments from the match, so with Money in the Bank 2024 just around the corner, let’s look back at one of the most enjoyable cinematic matches in WWE history.
The setting
The actual MITB match took place at WWE World Headquarters in Stanford, Connecticut. Both the men’s and women’s matches unfolded at the same time. The matches started on the first floor, and the competitors had to get to the roof where there was a wrestling ring. Then, they had to climb a ladder to grab the briefcase hanging above the ring. Yes, there was a lot to take in for this match.
Each competitor got their own entrance and theme music, though they were merely entering rooms in an office building. The men began the match in the weight room, and the women started in the lobby. While the groups were separated, they eventually came together later in the bout.
The women’s entrances
Each female competitor came out to their entrance music. However, they walked in like they were performing for a crowd. Carmella moonwalked, Shayna Baszler raised her arms and stared toward the lobby entrance, Lacey Evans threw her skirt and hat in front of her, Nia Jax stared off toward the entrance with the camera centered on her, Dana Brooke did her flip and posed for no one, and then, there was Asuka’s entrance. Her music played, but she didn’t come out. Eventually, it was revealed that Asuka was on the second floor, dancing, and when the bell rang, she jumped on all the competitors.
As for the men, all their music played, but they just walked into the weight room and did some mild smack-talk to each other, which made more sense.
Asuka is the only one taking it seriously at first
The idea for this match was to get to the roof first. Right from the get-go, Asuka took out her competition, and she dived onto them. Then, she pressed the up button for the elevator and rode it up, while dancing and posing. When her elevator opened on the higher-up floor, she snuck around the women waiting for the elevator and ran. This also might have been the slowest elevator in existence, if the rest of the women beat her up a few floors.
Not shockingly, Asuka was the first to make it to the roof of WWE’s offices, with Nia Jax following.
Baron Corbin’s downfall begins here
This was the moment where King Corbin began to go through some major changes. During the Money in the Bank match, Corbin was involved in a fight with other MITB participants in the weight room. The wrestlers weren’t lifting said weights, though. They were fighting.
In a desperate moment, Corbin attempted to murder his first opponent during the evening: Daniel Bryan. Corbin was kicked by Bryan, who was hanging from a steel beam, then dropped to the ground, in front of a full-sized, wall mirror. As he stumbled, Corbin grabbed a large weight plate and tried to throw it at Bryan. Bryan moved out of the way, as the weight plate smashed through the glass and put a hole in the drywall behind it. For a moment, Corbin looks like he might be concerned for what he did. That didn’t last, though.
The weird cameos
There were a lot of elements in this match that didn’t make sense, but some of the strangest moments were a series of cameos. Some were fantastic little hits of nostalgia, while others just seemed to be in WWE’s offices for some reason.. Below, we’ve listed them all. It was weird and made no sense, so we’re not going to explain it all.
Rey Mysterio sees Brother Love come out of a stall in the bathroom, where he yelled, “I love you!”A guy dressed as Doink the Clown popped up from behind a chair and looked at everyone. No one noticed him. Doink went back down behind the chair, never to be seen again.After Brooke grabbed a case full of money that looked like the MITB briefcase in the conference room, Stephanie McMahon popped in and told Brooke the money case was not the actual MITB case.Paul Heyman sat at a table, alone, and it was filled with food. He didn’t want to eat a strawberry, but he was super into eating a sub sandwich.John Larenitus showed up in the cafeteria, said, “People Power!”, and took a pie to the face.Vince McMahon popped up when AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan were fighting in his office.
The conference room
Brooke, Jax, Baszler, and Carmella were fighting each other in the MITB conference room. There was a folding chair with the MITB art on it, but one thing that many people may have forgotten about was that there was a MITB briefcase, filled with $100 bills hanging above the table. After taking everyone out, Brooke grabbed the briefcase and celebrated before she was interrupted by Stephanie McMahon–as mentioned earlier. Also, McMahon asked Brooke to clean up the conference room.
Brooke gets a painting slammed on her head, and the money case was never mentioned again, like most of this match.
AJ Styles is scared of a photo and black lights
Meanwhile, AJ Styles was trying to find Rey Mysterio but kept trying locked doors. However, he was stopped in his tracks by a giant photo of the Undertaker. He had a legit look of fear on his face. Obviously, AJ was remembering his Boneyard Match against the Undertaker from the previous Wrestlemania.
However, the Phenomenal One then found a door opened next to the picture. Inside was a room filled with blacklights, an urn, and a coffin. Before he could close the door, a boot to the face from Aleister Black kicked him into the room, with the door locking behind him.
The food fight
As mentioned earlier, Paul Heyman was enjoying a buffet at a table, alone. Eventually, though, the male and female competitors all made their way into the room, yelling at each other for some reason. Heyman tried to calm everyone down. However, Otis freaked out for some reason and yelled, “Food fight!” Obviously, in WWE, wrestlers can’t be around food without throwing it at each other. Otis threw food onto Heyman, and then it was game on for everybody.
In the chaos, Baszler tried to choke out Mysterio but then he was sandwiched between Jax and Otis. Poor Rey never deserved any of this. To close out this particular section of the match, Jax put Carmella through the table of food. Then she and Otis stared at each other as Otis ate a sandwich.
Vince McMahon’s office
You know what door isn’t locked? Vince McMahon’s office door. AJ Styles and Daniel Bryan found themselves scuffling right into the office, not really taking much notice of their surroundings. At one point, Vince stood up–complete with his theme music playing–and told the guys, “Out!” Styles and Bryan left, but not before putting back the chairs that were knocked out of place during their fight.
Baron Corbin tries to fight Asuka for some reason
Up on the roof, Asuka wound up on the roof, at the top of the ladder, about to grab the MITB briefcase. Corbin rushed into the ring–the first man that made it to the roof–climbed the ladder, and tried to stop Asuka from grabbing the women’s briefcase. Asuka beat him up, knocking him off of the ladder, and grabbed the women’s case.
If Corbin didn’t interfere, he would have won.
Otis doesn’t know how to use a ladder
Otis finally made his way to the roof. He spent a good amount of time pacing back and forth, staring at the ladder. Eventually, he thought he figured the ladder mystery out. He held onto the sides and slammed his foot onto the bottom step, breaking it. He was confused by this action and tried again, slamming his foot hard on the bottom step. Before he climbed it, Corbin showed up and attacked him.
Baron Corbin kills two people
After Corbin attacked Asuka at the top of the ladder, a few other male competitors reached the roof. Aleister Black and Rey Mysterio were inches away from reaching the briefcase, but got knocked off thanks to Styles. Outside of the ring, Corbin grabbed Mysterio and threw him off of the roof. Moments later, Corbin did the same thing to Black. There was a sound that led the viewer to believe that Mysterio and Black didn’t fall that far from the ring and landed on a pad, but it was apparent that Corbin meant to murder them. The two may have appeared on WWE programming after the fact, but I like to believe they’ve been ghosts the whole time.
The weirdest MITB match finale
This leads to the weirdest MITB finish in history. Styles climbed the ladder with no one else around to stop him. As he climbed, though, Corbin popped up and the two exchanged blows. They both had their hands on the briefcase,battling for it atop the ladder.
Then, Otis appeared, hit Corbin with a guitar–a common item on the roof of a corporate building–causing the King to lose his hold on the briefcase. At that point, we were led to believe Styles won MITB. However, he fumbled the briefcase when raising it into the air, with it landing directly in the hands of Otis. Otis ended up winning the MITB match… even though Styles was the person who released the briefcase. He was the first wrestler to hold the briefcase on his own. This ending made no sense. And yet, we don’t care. Because, in the end, this is one of the…….
So, that’s what happened at Money in the Bank in 2020. It was a very different event that year, considering the pandemic, and while the ladder match had some wild and weird moments, it’s one of the more memorable matches during the pandemic era.
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