WWE Money In The Bank - Women's MITB Ladder Match

[Jack-Hammer]

When you look at women's wrestling in WWE over the course of the last 6 months or so, it's been all about Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey. Even though there was an entire division full of other talented women, they barely qualified as background players. One potentially good thing about that, however, is that it does leave the winner of this match wide open as there isn't anybody in particular who has any true momentum right now. Nia Jax is out injured, so we also don't have to endure seeing her plodding around inside the ring. At the same time, the lack of real focus on any other women except Lynch, Rousey and Flair doesn't make this match all that interesting.

As to who'll be in this match, I'm not sure that WWE will use any of its female tag teams to compete here. Given that the division is so new and, again, the teams need to establish cohesion, pitting them against each other in a ladder match sort of defeats that purpose. At the same time though, look at how often Vince sacrifices logical booking and continuity for the short term picture. Off the top of my head, I could picture Alexa Bliss announcing that she'll be in this match. I could also see them going the route of adding Ember Moon, Bayley, Carmella, Ruby Riott, Tamina and MAYBE Sasha Banks. Sasha's a bit of a long shot at this point but if she doesn't show up to work off her contract, she'll probably just get time added to it like poor Luke Harper. I figure they might put Tamina in there because they have to have a powerhouse, though I'd go with Beth Phoenix, if she's interested, as she's someone with actual talent and people give a shit about in the first place.

So yeah, I'm not really expecting a whole lot out of this match but maybe that's a good thing this time around.

[Y 2 Jake]

The problem with the women's revolution is that they now only have two credible women. Three if Rousey returns.

I'd say Asuka if she wasn't going after tag gold. As for who it will be it certainly won't be anybody you can believe in unless they rehab them for nearly the duration of the year long contract.

[Jack-Hammer]

Rumors abound regarding Sasha Banks' future in WWE. Last thing I heard was that talks between the two sides had hit a standstill and that Sasha wants to just sit out the rest of her contract. The potential problem with that is that WWE could add more time onto Sasha's contract in order to make up for however long she decides to sit out. Depending on how much time is left on her current deal, she could had substantial time added onto her existing deal in order to delay her from going to work for anyone else. If she legitimately said she wanted to sit out the rest of her contract, you wouldn't think that she'd have more than 5 or 6 months left but that's how much Luke Harper had left and WWE has extended his contract to make up for the 6 months or so he was out with an injury. So instead of leaving in September, it'll probably be around this time next year before he's able to leave unless both sides mend fences.

What's this have to do with the women's MITB match? The possibility of WWE sort of "giving in" to Sasha's demands. If you read between the lines, Sasha very much wants to be back on a level similar, or even greater, as when she was having her historic feud with Charlotte back in 2016. With participants from both the men's and women's MITB ladder matches being named on Raw tonight and, I believe, SmackDown tomorrow night, Sasha may well be the odds on favorite to win the match if she's announced as one of the participants. Luke Harper's a good hoss guy to have around but he's probably not going to get much bigger in WWE than he already is. He's been definitively cast as a tag team and mid-card guy, he'll be 40 by the time his extended contract ends and he's probably not going to be "the next big thing" no matter where he goes. Reports suggest that Harper actually wants to be used rather than working a dark match every so often but it's a different story with Sasha. Sasha Banks has been high profile among WWE's women's division since she hit the main roster. She's 4 time Raw Women's Champion, half of the first Women's Tag Team Champions, is regularly on TV and has had matches against the top women in the company since her arrival. Also, you have to take into account that Sasha's only 27 years old and considering how well established she is, how young she is, how prominently WWE has featured her and Vince's determination "not to lose anyone", this gives Sasha some degree of an advantage.

If they added an additional 6 months to Sasha's career, it'll only guarantee that Sasha will leave as soon as it's over and probably pop up in AEW. AEW will be able to offer her the sort of money I'm sure she wants and I have little doubt she'd be the centerpiece of their women's division as she'd easily be the biggest female star they'd have, and one of the overall biggest stars they'd have male or female. So yeah, I could see Vince giving in to Sasha, as much as it'd gall him in some ways but, at the same time, Vince is a weird duck; I've read reports, don't know if they're true though, where Vince has stated that he's disappointed if stars have an advantage over him and don't use it. For instance, I've read that Vince, for the most part, quite happy that Daniel Bryan was playing hardball when it was getting down to the wire for his current deal. Bryan, no doubt, got a lot of money and a legitimately significant degree of creative control over himself all because Vince didn't want him going somewhere else.

At any rate, if Sasha Banks' name is announced as part of the MITB ladder match and/or if she appears on Raw tonight, then I'd say the briefcase is hers, she'll eventually cash in and win the title and embark on a long awaited heel run.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Alexa, Dana, Naomi, and Natalya. Raw women's division is not very good.

[Jack-Hammer]

So, the eight women making up this bout are Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Natalya and Dana Brooke from Raw while Bayley, Ember Moon, Mandy Rose and Carmella represent the blue brand.

So yeah, considering that Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair have gotten 95% of the attention given to all women in WWE over the last 7 months or so, none of the women in this match really has any momentum to speak of. Naomi, Natalya, Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke have just been there hanging about, doing whatever. Alexa Bliss has spent most of the last 6 months out injured and has only wrestled a few matches in all that time, Ember Moon just got back from injury, Bayley is in a bit of a weird place regarding whatever is going on with herself, Sasha and the WWE brass and Carmella has been R-Truth's sidekick. As a result, this match is pretty much wide open though Alexa Bliss' past success obviously makes her an odds on favorite. I could also see Mandy Rose picking up the win as she's just the sort of blonde sex pot that Vince McMahon loves to see succeed in WWE.

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Sheâ??s actually my current front runner. But thatâ??s only because Iâ??m hoping Becky wins her matches and gets cashed in on immediately after beating Charlotte. Currently, Mandy is the only true heel from Smackdown in there.

And yes, she is hot as hell.

[Jack-Hammer]

It was announced earlier today that Alexa Bliss has been pulled from the women's MITB ladder match due to suffering another concussion and has been replaced with Nikki Cross.

Alexa has competed in only a small handful of matches since late last year due to concussion issues and my guess is that she's suffering long lasting, lingering issues from the concussion she first received and/or has become prone to suffering them. Reportedly, her last match was against Naomi on April 29th so yeah, her in-ring career in WWE might be in jeopardy. It'd be a shame if she, like Paige, had her in-ring career cut short while she's still so young but, on the bright side, she'd make a great heel valet/mouthpiece like she was for Blake & Murphy in NXT or like Zelina Vega is for Andrade now.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

It is, and it will be a better match without Bliss.