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| DEAN AMBROSE VS KELVIN OWN |
The pressure is on WWE to get this year's Money in the Bank match right.
After Sheamus won the briefcase and guaranteed WWE World Heavyweight Championship match last year, the company booked him into a lame duck run with it on the lower end of the card. Usually, when the briefcase is out there, a title change can happen at any shocking moment — and WWE leveraged its innate suspense well with Edge, Randy Orton and Seth Rollins in years prior. But, at times, I sincerely forgot Sheamus even had the thing.
This year's Money in the Bank ladder match — Dean Ambrose vs. Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho vs. Sami Zayn vs. Alberto Del Rio — offers WWE two chances to redeem itself in Ambrose and Owens. Either could take the briefcase in compelling directions — if WWE chooses to book what should be obvious home-run angles.
In Ambrose's case, it's all about the man who holds the championship: his best friend and fellow roadhouse brawler in another life, Roman Reigns. In fact, with Reigns feuding with the recently returned Rollins, what better way for Ambrose to join the fray and make happen the Shield triple threat we've been thirsting for since the three split two years ago?
That'd require an honorable, advance-notice cash-in, and those have been few and far between in 10 years of Money in the Bank. More likely, Ambrose would cash-in on a vulnerable champion. And doing so to Reigns could trigger the Ambrose "heel" turn he needs to escape his cartoonish character and retool his underwhelming ring work. I put "heel" in quotes, however, because that'd be the way WWE presents it — Ambrose dethroning and betraying the widely hated Reigns would probably yield the biggest face pop of the decade.
Owens winning Money in the Bank, meanwhile, might make one say, "Well, he won't win the title, so who cares?" That may or may not be true — it feels like every week we hear a new rumor that Vince McMahon has changed his mind about the unkempt bruiser. However, the best use of Money in the Bank for Owens wouldn't be to put him over with a win. It'd be to put over his lifelong blood feud against Zayn with a loss.
I do want to see an Owens/Reigns series, and the prizefighting former NXT Champion surely deserves a run with the top prize in the company. But the more fun direction would be for Owens to win the briefcase — and for Zayn to prevent him from cashing it in at every turn. Then, once Owens pre-emptively incapacitates his former best friend and finally gets the timekeeper to ring the bell on his title match, Zayn takes his revenge and costs Owens the championship.
It'd produce week after suspenseful week of TV, it'd protect Owens in defeat to Reigns — and it'd heat up the WrestleMania singles match Owens and Zayn deserve. That kind of high-stakes storytelling, too, is what Money in the Bank deserves.----auburnpub.com
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