WWE Money in the Bank: All 16 Winners, Ranked
By Tim Sherry
credit: wwe.com
14. John Cena – Money in the Bank 2012
Well, it has to be this way, right? The only three guys to not successfully use the briefcase to win a world championship have to be the bottom three on this list. The only thing that makes Cena the best of these three is the fact that although unsuccessful with case, he’s still managed to win 4 world championships since the Money in the Bank 2012 PPV, the night he accomplished the feat. And also he was very valiant in his efforts, announcing that he was going to cash in the briefcase just 8 days later on RAW 1000 against CM Punk. He’d go on to win the match via disqualification and that was that.
So for all the good things that Cena portrayed as the MITB winner that year, what hurts his value is the briefcase match itself. It just wasn’t very good. The match on only included 5 superstars: Cena, The Big Show, Chris Jericho, Kane and The Miz. That was the first time with so few challengers and quite honestly, wasn’t the recipe for a great match. The match plodded along and if it wasn’t shockingly for The Miz stealing the show that night, it could’ve been a complete and utter dud.
There’s also a bit of hard feelings from this writer for the entire MITB 2012 show. Dolph Ziggler won the briefcase for the Smackdown brand in the opening match of the night, a match in which Smackdown was superior to the RAW one. And the WWE Championship was contested between two of the brightest talents of that time, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, in the 4th match of the night of a 7-match card. The fact that Cena’s win was spotlighted in the main event is an idea that I’ll never be able to understand and leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many fans.