BRM Reviews WWE Money in the Bank 2023

[Big Red Machine]

WWE Money in the Bank 2023 (7/1/2023)- London, UK


MEN’S MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH: Damian Priest vs. Santos Escobar vs. Logan Paul vs. Ricochet vs. Butch vs. L.A. Knight vs. Shinsuke Nakamura- 7.25/10
Lots of bumps were taken. The last few minutes were very exciting. Priest won, angering the crowd, who had been very solidly behind L.A. Knight.

WWE WOMEN’S TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler(c) vs. Raquel Rodriguez & Liv Morgan- 4/10
Liv Morgan’s Spice Girls tribute gear was good. Baszler’s random turn on Rousey was not. Morgan and Rodriguez won the titles as a result of this. The fact that they were stripped of the belts and never lost them in the ring means that they can still claim some legitimacy as champions, but this is not good.

KAYLA BRAXON INTERVIEWS DAMIAN PRIEST- bad
This was a waste of time. It was just Damian Priest explaining to us how the f*cking briefcase works, which the announcers already did (and which most people watching a PLE already knew before that). In the past, this would have been merely annoying, but having Priest actually contemplate cashing in for the US Title makes him seem like a dork with little ambition.

WWE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE MATCH: Gunther(c) vs. Matt Riddle- 8/10
Cole claimed that WALTER “began his career in the Electric Ballroom here in London.” This is very false.
This was exactly the kind of brutality and intensity you’d imagine when you hear these two names together. WALTER worked over Riddle’s injured ankle and made Riddle tap out clean. Excellent.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- great
DREW MCINTYRE IS BACK! And he wants the IC Title. Holy sh*t will that match be BRUTAL. WALTER showed Drew, so Drew knocked WALTER down with the Glasgow Kiss, then hit the Claymore and posed with the IC Title. The rest Imperium not coming out didn’t make much sense to me, but other than that, this was great.

July 30th is basically August. That’s way too late to have a Great American Bash.

CODY RHODES vs. DOMINIK MYSTERIO (w/Rhea Ripley)- 4.5/10
There was good heat for this, but the match wasn’t very interesting. Dominik ran away a lot and got some help from Rhea, but Cody overcame it and won. Yes, I realize that they weren’t trying to do too much here, but there is a way to have a more exciting version of this match.

Michael Cole noted that WWE’s video game was “the highest-rated wrestling game available.”

JOHN CENA PROMO- weird and bad
Cena cut a very weird promo blaming the “decision makers” in the company for PPVs not happening in the UK. It was very weird and very non-kayfabe, but without using any words that actually broke kayfabe. Then he said he was here to advocate for a WrestleMania in London… so I assume that is actually happening, or else this would be cruel.
Grayson Waller came out and continued the non-kayfabe-ness of things, saying that the crowd “booed the people they’re supposed to like and cheered the people they’re supposed to dislike.
This should have been a short announcement that WrestleMania in London was happening, and that’s it. Instead, we got a long and weird promo segment that took me out of the show because it all but broke kayfabe, and only resulted in someone who is supposed to be an up-and-coming star being made to look bad just for the sake of an extra pop.

WOMEN’S MONEY IN THE BANK LADDER MATCH: Iyo Syk vs. Bayley vs. Zelina Vega vs. Becky Lynch vs. Trish Stratus vs. Zoey Stark- 77.5/10
They did a good job with the personal dynamic in the match (Becky vs. Trish and Zoey, and the contrast between Zoey’s willingness to subordinate her own desires for Trish’s while Iyo would not do the same for Bayley). The stuff they did with the handcuffs was creative and worked very well, and the fact that Bayley betrayed Iyo first made and Iyo getting Bayley back in the end to win the match that much sweeter, and will make Bayley more of a hypocrite when she inevitably turns on Iyo because of this.

WWE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Seth Rollins(c) vs. Finn Balor- 7.75/10
This was an excellent match that was made frustrating by Damian Priest coming out to ringside and eventually distracting Balor. This felt like it was on its way to being something amazing, and then they do this stupid finish. If the idea was that Priest was thinking about cashing in and he didn’t mean to distract Balor, Priest is an idiot, because why would you cash in right then and create a three-way when you could wait for Balor to hit the Coup de Grace, get the pin, and then cash in so that you only have one opponent. If the idea is that Priest purposely distracted Balor as revenge for Balor doing the same to him on Raw a few weeks ago, that’s petty bullsh*t and thus it’s not a good way to set up a babyface turn.

KAYLA BRAXTON INTERVIEWS KEVIN OWENS & SAMI ZAYN WAY UP IN A SKY BOX- fine
Owens talked about how great it was to be in London. Zayn cut a promo to build up the main event, saying he was anticipating seeing Roman getting what is coming to him.

THE USOS vs. THE BLOODLINE (Roman Reigns & Solo Sikoa) (w/Paul Heyman)- 9.25/10
This was the usual awesome bloodline intensity, emotions, and trash talk, layered on top of a great babyface in peril story with Jey as Ricky Morton. Throw in a hot crowd and some wonderful spots (like Jimmy getting out of a pin with the low blow that Roman used to use in that same situation, or Roman going to stack both Usos up and pin them both and them both getting a shoulder), and you have a fantastically memorable match, with the cherry on top of it being Jey Uso handing Roman Reigns his first pinfall loss in over three and a half years.

They zoomed right in on Jimmy after the pin, with his head in his hands. What he delirious with disbelief and overjoyed that his brother pinned Roman? Or was he disappointed that he made the decision to tag Jey in instead of going for the pin himself?


This show was a bit of a mixed bag. The MITB matches themselves were less spectacular than usual and even the higher end of stuff wasn’t quite on the level the higher end of stuff is usually on for a truly great show…and, of course, there were the two throw-away matches that weren’t PPV quality… but it was good enough that the top-notch main event was able to pull it up there to being a good-to-great show. The crowd was hot all night long, the announcing (especially Wade Barrett) was excellent, which also helped matters. Next month is SummerSlam… and Roman possibly losing his title?