WWE Money in the Bank 2018: Results, Highlights, and Grades

Who showed up at WWE Money in the Bank 2018? Photo Source: WWE.com via Twitter

WWE Money in the Bank 2018 features two ladder matches, each for a guaranteed championship opportunity. There’s also a Last Man Standing Match for the WWE Championship between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura.

On Sunday, June 17, WWE Money in the Bank 2018 takes place in Chicago. Since the titular match was expanded into its own pay per view event, Money in the Bank has slowly become as big a show as the classic “Big 4” WWE PPVs — WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. Perhaps it’s because of the importance of the namesake ladder matches, and the prize for winning one.

This year, there’s a pair of MITB matches, one for the men and one for the women. Each one will feature four superstars from Raw and four from SmackDown Live, and the prize is a briefcase. Inside the briefcase is a contract for a world championship match at any time or place within one calendar year. The first superstar to grab the briefcase has the chance to change the course of their career in an instant if they can successfully cash in their opportunity.

On the men’s side, Braun Strowman, Bobby Roode, Finn Balor, Kevin Owens, The Miz, Rusev, Samoa Joe, and an as yet unidentified member of New Day will compete. The women’s match features Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Lana, Naomi, Alexa Bliss, Ember Moon, Natalya, and Sasha Banks.

But who will the winners be able to cash in on? Universal Champion Brock Lesnar is still MIA, but WWE Champion AJ Styles defends against Shinsuke Nakamura. This time, it’ll be a Last Man Standing Match. Will this rivalry finally be put to bed?

Two Women’s Championship matches will determine the target for Ms. Money in the Bank this year. For SmackDown Live, Carmella — the winner of the first (and second) Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match — defends her title against Asuka. As someone who successfully cashed in, Carmella will be on the lookout — if she can retain.

As for Raw, champion Nia Jax has challenged Ronda Rousey to a title match at MITB. Rousey is known as The Baddest Woman on the Planet, but can she hang with Jax?

There’s a total of ten matches on the card, including a SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match on the Kickoff Show. Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass will go down, as will Roman Reigns vs. Jinder Mahal and Sami Zayn vs. Bobby Lashley. Plus, Seth Rollins defends the Intercontinental Championship against Elias.

Related Story: Staff Predictions for MITB

Be sure to follow along with all the action on the WWE Network at a special start time of 7 p.m. ET. The Kickoff Show, featuring the Bludgeon Brothers vs. Gallows & Anderson, gets under way at 6 p.m. And join us for our live review right here!

Photo Source: WWE.com

SmackDown Tag Team Championship Match

The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson

Result: The Bludgeon Brothers defeated Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson via pinfall

Rating: 2.75 out of 5 stars

Full disclosure, folks: I spent most of the Kickoff Show eating dinner with my family for Father’s Day. If I’m going to subject myself to four hours of something that has equal potential to be awesome or disappointing, I want to do it on a full stomach. From what I can tell, though, Kevin Owens was trying to work out a strategy for the Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match, and Peter Rosenberg was his usual insufferable self. So I didn’t miss much.

I sat down to really pay attention when the matches started, and this Tag Title match was just what you’d expect, for the most part. Harper and Rowan ran roughshod over the Good Brothers for much of the contest — really, it was Anderson who took the brunt of the punishment. But both tandems had their chance to show off why they’re one of the best tag teams in WWE.

The Luke Gallows hot tag is a thing of beauty, because he’s a big man with some agility. The kicks to the head shouldn’t be possible on the Bludgeon Brothers. I will say that I appreciate Gallows still doing the Kane strikes to the throat, even after all these years.

The finish was pretty good, too. Gallows is a big boy to go up for that assisted powerbomb, but Harper and Rowan made it look fairly easy. I think a title change here would have just been for the sake of doing something different, and the Bludgeon Brothers should hang on to the titles for a bit longer. Even if Gallows and Anderson are the ones to take the titles (they won’t be), it’ll mean more if there’s more of a struggle.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass

Result: Daniel Bryan defeated Big Cass via submission

Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

The time between the opening bell and the first tie-up was more time than the whole match should have lasted. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but Bryan should have won this via submission after about six seconds. Drop toe hold, heel hook, tap, move on.

Instead, we got house of fire Daniel Bryan for about 90 seconds, then Cass dragged the pace way down for a while. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but we’ve seen “Daniel Bryan, Undersized Underdog” before. If rumors of his possibly leaving in September have any truth, why would you waste the last few months he’ll be around by rehashing the same old story — multiple times, at that?

In fairness, though, Cass looked really good tonight. Most of the real good stuff came after the initial Bryan comeback, which was really good (as usual). I mean, a fallaway slam from off the turnbuckles that threw Bryan halfway across the ring? A torture rack into a quasi-Burning Hammer? Sure, a Burning Hammer is the last move Bryan should be subjected to, but Cass brought it tonight.

But the end result of this match just had to be Bryan picking up the victory. So a second comeback led to a brutal looking running knee and a heel hook, which is such an underrated alternate finisher. And with any luck, this is the end of Bryan/Cass.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Sami Zayn vs. Bobby Lashley

Result: Bobby Lashley defeated Sami Zayn via pinfall

Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars

You know, I’ve run out of things to say about this rivalry. It’s been poorly thought out from the beginning — if it was even thought out at all. Every week on Raw, the segments building to this match were, in my humble opinion, a dumpster fire. The worst part of it was knowing that the match would probably be pretty good, but it would be overshadowed by the trash build.

And hey, look what happened! The match was basically good, but it just felt like it meant absolutely nothing. Based on everything we had seen leading up to this, the only possible result was a Lashley victory. Think of what Zayn had done in previous weeks: a transphobic prank regarding Lashley’s sisters; questioning Lashley’s documented military service; dedicating tonight’s match to Lashley’s father.

Honestly, things were mostly fine right up until the finish. That’s when Lashley decided to just spam his two big moves: the Dominator back breaker, and the stalling vertical suplex. I get that Sami was a real jerk leading up to the match, but I guess taking the high road isn’t a very babyface thing to do anymore.

So we get Lashley just toying with his opponent, and Zayn gets his well deserved comeuppance. But other than that, this was a total waste of time more worthy of an episode of Raw than a “Big 5” pay per view event.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Intercontinental Championship Match

Seth Rollins (c) vs. Elias

Result: Seth Rollins defeated Elias via pinfall

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

In 1985, Queen played what has been called the greatest performance in rock music history. At Live Aid, the band revitalized its career with a perfect storm of crowd, concert, and atmosphere. Over 30 years later, it’s still brought up in conversation as the epitome of showmanship.

Now, to say that Rollins/Elias at WWE Money in the Bank 2018 will be seen as a Live Aid kind of moment for either superstar, but it could be that for the Intercontinental Championship itself. The match told one of the simplest stories out there — über-popular babyface suffering from nagging injuries, gutting it out against a rival out to exploit said injuries.

But how the two superstars told the story was practically perfect. Rollins sold both injuries — the neck and the knee — without wavering. Elias focused the attacks on both body parts with laser precision. The modified Cobra Clutch early on where Elias just dragged the champ around the ring was a great focus on the weakened neck.

In fact, the only thing that keeps this match from being totally perfect was the finish. Why, oh why, would you have your immensely popular top guy on Raw and fighting champion so blatantly cheat to retain the title? It’s mind-bogglingly stupid, and that’s putting it nicely. There is absolutely zero reason for Rollins to hold the belt to score a pinfall, bad knee or not.

Take that idiocy out of the equation and this is a clear match of the night without question. But now there’s room for one of the remaining matches to outshine what could have been a seminal moment for both superstars and the Intercontinental Championship.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch vs. Ember Moon vs. Lana vs. Natalya vs. Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Charlotte Flair

Result: Alexa Bliss retrieved the briefcase to become Ms. Money in the Bank

Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

It didn’t take long in this one for things to get chaotic. Once the first ladder came out, I think every competitor bounced off of it within like two minutes. Ember Moon practically put herself through the ladder when she took out Sasha Banks, but Lana hit Moon with a facebuster that should have been the worst looking spot. But then came Naomi who went down hard in a split, and OWWWWWWWW.

Becky Lynch took a beating at the hands of Moon and Naomi, and it looked like the ladder cracked her in the skull on the way down. But the real craziness happened when all eight women started climbing the ladders together. Powerbombs left and right, Sasha hitting nasty looking meteora knees on the way down from the ladder, and Chekhov’s Ladders proving important in the end.

The match was great, with equal parts chaos and great action. But it did suffer from the usual multi-superstar match problems of “when two competitors are in the ring, the rest need to be out on the floor out of the picture.” Overall, though, it was exactly what it needed to be.

Alexa Bliss winning the briefcase is admittedly out of left field. I can’t think of anyone who predicted Little Miss Bliss to be victorious. Is she going to feud with Nia Jax again if she retains the title? No one really enjoyed that rivalry. And what kind of feud would Bliss/Rousey be?

It’s time to wait and see, but for tonight, at least, we got a great match.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Jinder Mahal (w/ Sunil Singh) vs. Roman Reigns

Result: Roman Reigns defeated Jinder Mahal via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

The irony of Roman Reigns being in a de facto cool down match is staggering. After the women tore down the house in the ladder match, out comes the supposed “chosen one” to give the WWE Universe a chance to catch their breath. Maybe it’s a tactic to try to avoid boos — which didn’t work — or maybe it’s just realizing that there were so many other more high profile matches on the card.

I wish WWE had the guts to do a kind of social experiment regarding Reigns. Like, I want to see two other superstars do literally the same match as Reigns and his opponent for the cycle. Beat for beat, same pacing, same layout, everything — only special moves and finishers would be different. If this Reigns/Mahal match was, say, Rollins/Elias, would the crowd react the same way? Or is it just because they see The Big Dog and the Maharaja?

But instead of paying attention to the story being told, just because they’re disinterested in the superstars involved, we get the wave, and (I’m assuming) beach balls. No one cared that Sunil Singh was faking most of his injuries and didn’t need the wheelchair. No one cared that the match itself was, while nothing earth-shattering, wasn’t nearly as boring as their chants would indicate.

You can argue “But Chicago!” all you want, but the facts of the matter is this was a match between two former WWE Champions. It’s not worth the vitriol hurled at the participants, just because you don’t want someone to win a belt a month from now.

Photo Source: WWE.com

SmackDown Women’s Championship Match

Carmella (c) vs. Asuka

Result: Carmella defeated Asuka via pinfall

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Carmella may be the best heel champion WWE has produced in years. She’s not the first one to threaten to leave a match and lose via countout to retain the title, but she seems gleefully evil when she does so. And her taunting of Asuka while in the ropes (and theoretically safe from attack) is like a kid poking a sleeping dog with a stick three seconds before getting bit.

But what may be the most surprising thing to those who don’t really pay attention is that Carmella was able to hang with Asuka throughout the match. For a long time since the draft in 2016, Carmella was kind of like an afterthought in the SmackDown women’s division. With Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Nikki Bella, and Natalya at first, then Charlotte after the first Superstar Shake-Up, Carmella was never expected to carry the division.

A hard fought match ended in some controversy though, because JAMES ELLSWORTH IS BACK BABY. It looked like Asuka was about to finally put the champ away and win her first main roster gold. But a “second Asuka” appeared in the corner of the ring, distracting the Empress of Tomorrow before revealing it was Ellsworth. The confusion led to a big kick from Carmella taking out Asuka, handing the formerly undefeated superstar another in a series of losses.

I don’t know how Asuka goes from here, but Carmella reuniting with Ellsworth is a glorious moment that I want to put in a bottle and save for a rainy day. And the Princess of Staten Island being able to wrestle at such a high level could mean big things for her down the road, including a pretty lengthy run as champ.

Photo Source: WWE.com

WWE Championship Last Man Standing Match

AJ Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Result: AJ Styles defeated Shinsuke Nakamura

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

First thought when this match was announced as next: Holy crap, Ronda/Nia is main eventing tonight. Second thought: Alexa Bliss is cashing in tonight. Third thought: Wait, why is this match not at least the penultimate? It definitely seems a little early for the grudge match with a definitive stipulation for the top prize in your company. If not the main event, surely this should have gone after the Men’s MITB Ladder match to give the illusion of a cash-in, no?

Out of all 923 Styles/Nakamura matches in WWE (give or take a few), this was probably my favorite. There was a sense throughout that this one was the end. At WrestleMania, you knew it was just the first chapter. Greatest Royal Rumble and Backlash didn’t feel like final encounters. But the brutality in this contest seemed more akin to a last go before moving on to other opponents.

Take the sequence in the later stages of the match with the table. First, the suplex that put Styles rib-first onto the edge of the table. Adam Cole may say it’s nothing, but to the rest of us mortals that looks rough. To top it off, Nakamura launched Styles at about a million miles an hour into the table, causing it to disintegrate. Yikes.

Nakamura and his facial expressions made this match, too. There’s not many superstars with the kind of nonverbal communication skills Nakamura has. The switch he flips to go from happy-go-lucky to sad and depressed to begging for his life gets a lot of work.

It wouldn’t be a Styles/Nakamura match without a low blow or two. If we’re giving out grades on those, Styles wins in a landslide just based on the sheer brutality of his kick. But this one had everything you want from a big fight, or a main event. The Phenomenal Forearm to cap it off was brilliantly devastating.

It’s a little shocking to see Nakamura come up short again, because this one did have that feeling of finality. It’ll be interesting to see just where things go for both superstars from here. Looking at the match as a whole, though, it was a perfect cap to the rivalry — if it’s actually over.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Raw Women’s Championship Match

Nia Jax (c) vs. Ronda Rousey

Result: Ronda Rousey defeated Nia Jax via disqualification

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

So, everything I said about this one going on last? Whoops! Shows what I know…

More from Money in the Bank

• WWE Money In The Bank: Top 3 Moments from the PLE
• The top five WWE Money in the Bank cash-ins of all time
• Three major themes heading into the 2023 Money in the Bank PLE
• Ricochet vs Logan Paul for the MITB briefcase would be an interesting feud for SummerSlam
• A tale of two very different Money in the Bank ladder matches

You want an example of perfect booking to hide faults? Here it is.

The big fear most fans had coming in to this was that Rousey, while progressing and full of potential, wasn’t quite ready for a major singles match yet.

So how did WWE work around that? By having Nia just dominate the majority of the match. It wasn’t totally one-sided — Ronda managed to do a little bit here and there. But one of the first things you learn when you start pro wrestling training is bumping. That means if there’s anything Rousey is proficient at, it’s taking offense. It’s frankly a great idea.

And once Rousey got going on the offensive, everything was tailored to her strengths — judo, striking, and submission wrestling. For those who thought it was absurd for Rousey to get Nia over on the throws, judo is all about leverage. It doesn’t matter how big your opponent is if you position yourself right and use momentum and gravity to your advantage.

Of course, right when Ronda was about to cinch in her arm bar and win the Raw Women’s Championship, out came Ms. Money in the Bank with her briefcase to put a stop to things. Rousey picked up the win via DQ since Bliss hit her first, but she was neutralized quickly as Alexa cashed in her contract.

Raw Women’s Championship Match

Nia Jax (c) vs. Alexa Bliss

Result: Alexa Bliss defeated Nia Jax via pinfall

Rating: N/A

So it turns out the title change at WrestleMania was meaningless. Bliss is once again Raw Women’s Champion, Jax comes out with nothing, and Rousey — after a great performance — is probably in line for a shot at Bliss at SummerSlam.

Photo Source: WWE.com

Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match

Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Rusev (w/ Aiden English) vs. Kevin Owens vs. Bobby Roode vs. The Miz vs. Braun Strowman vs. Kofi Kingston

Result: Braun Strowman retrieved the briefcase to become Mr. Money in the Bank

Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

Right off the bat, having Kofi Kingston represent New Day in the MITB match is the right call. He’s been on WWE TV for a decade, and if anyone “deserves” a spot like this, it’s the guy who had to fake a Jamaican accent and see his push ruined by backstage politics.

The entire New Day is great, but I feel like Kofi being a part of the crew helped legitimize the stable in the eyes of those who matter because of his veteran status.

Perfect strategy from the get go, with everyone (except for The Miz, the smartest man in the match) turning their attention to Strowman. Get the most dangerous competitor out of the way, your odds of winning go up drastic.

And then, much like the women’s match earlier, everything devolved into chaos. Bodies were flying every which way, and Kofi and Finn Balor took the sky to the outside in a beautiful spot. Of course, that gave Braun time to recover and return to the match.

Strowman’s return led to the demise of Kevin Owens, who apparently was unable to convince everyone throughout the night to focus on eliminating Strowman early. You had to know KO wouldn’t be able to hit the bullfrog splash from the height of the giant ladder. But you also had to know that he wasn’t going to get off the ladder by climbing.

Braun’s rampage was excellent, as was Miz’s face upon realizing what was happening. I question the wisdom of Balor going for the Coup de Grace from the top of the giant ladder, but if he wants to break an ankle that’s his business.

Despite Raw winning the women’s match earlier, this one ended with Strowman grabbing the Red Team’s second briefcase of the night. And as much as I love Braun Strowman, uh, why? It makes no sense for a Raw superstar to have the opportunity to challenge a guy who’s never there. Plus, other superstars in the match were a better fit for the case, namely The Miz and Samoa Joe. Even Kofi Kingston would have given us a better story if he won the case: would it lead to friction within New Day, or greater unity as the trio worked together to become WWE Champion?

Don’t get me wrong, Braun Strowman is one of the guys who should have beaten Brock Lesnar last year when he challenged for the Universal Championship. But he’ll end up holding the case forever because we have to wait until Lesnar decides to grace the WWE Universe with his presence again. And that makes the case just something Braun will carry around for a few months instead of something important.

Next: WWE Super Show-Down Headed to Australia, Triple H vs. Undertaker to Headline

What are your thoughts on WWE Money in the Bank 2018?