Last night was what’s usually the third best “monthly show of significance”, Money in the Bank. Did it live up to its considerable reputation?

Instead of “getting your money’s worth”, we’ll be focusing on “how much does having access to something like this make me want to renew my subscription” or, more succinctly, “how ‘special’ was this event/match, really?”. Which means that instead of just taking into account things like: major character shifts, definitive conclusions (which are different from clean finishes) and moves that don’t make their way to Raw, it’ll focus more on “how many times would I rewatch this”, “would I show this to non-fans as a reason why wrestling is worth watching” and “how different was this historically?” 

Each match is rated plus or minus on a sliding scale between 1 and -1, with matches worth multiple rewatches being +1, a match you may watch or skip 0,  and things that make me reevaluate being a fan earning up to a -1 score. The scale is arbitrary, of course, but it’s based around the idea that a match will be fundamentally watchable, repeatedly so.

For those who are still confused, check out our Payback review to get a better idea of what the basic format was and will be going forward. To be clear, the difference is in the criteria, not the final result. Oh, we’ll also be including the Kickoff match. Because we can. And we’ll also be changing the graphic below sooner rather than later. 

As for the scale, it’s not particularly complicated but here are the basic levels (on a per-match basis):

As (almost) always, we’ll be using what I said  during yesterday’s What’s the Worst That Could Happen? to see how close I was to “predicting” what unfolded,  how that stacked up to my beliefs of what they were “trying” to do and whether or not I got what I wanted out of the show. Enjoy!

Tag Team Championship Match

THE USOS (C) VS. BRAY’S DUELING BANJO BAND

What Nick Wants to Happen: This lives up to half the expectations I have in my head for what these for can do, with special emphasis (for your correspondent, at least) on how strong the Usos have been as champions, so even if they lose they remain at or near the top of a rapidly developing division.
What Will Happen:  A well-worked match where everyone looks good, but nothing really happens, and the Usos retain. Such is mango.

While the match of the night was clearly the Briefcase ladder match, this was absolutely the best non-gimmick match of the night and one of the better match of either team’s career. Given that the scuttlebutt on the dirt screens is a long-term feud between these two teams, we could be looking at a historically great feud, of which this — easily the best non-ladder match of the night — would be the least good.

Match .65

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