Money in the Bank VS Royal Rumble

[James Greiga]

There is a difference between Royal Rumble winners and Money in the Bank winners. Think of it this way. If MITB were around in 1997 and Stone Cold won it instead of winning the Royal Rumble he would be viewed completely different. We wouldn't have had that badass build and his reign of terror leading up to/during the Royal Rumble. Plus it would have made him kinda look weak. Same for guys like Batista, Undertaker, Yokozuna, Hulk Hogan, etc. Not to mention a RR win has historically been a much bigger boost than a MITB win. Certain guys are RR winners and some are MITB winners. Not to mention MITB winners haven't had the best of luck career wise after winning. Let's face it, for all with the exceptions of Edge, Cm Punk, and Daniel Bryan the MITB may have well been Pandora's box as it has historically been all downhill from then on (Cena and Orton don't count). It hasn't accomplished what it was initially meant to do which was build new stars with the exceptions of those three and even that's debatable considering they took the belt off Edge after 2 weeks and he wasn't taken seriously as a main eventer until after his Foley feud. He would have been a main eventer without winning the briefcase anyway. Punk wasn't taken seriously as a true main eventer until after his famous shoot and Daniel Bryan wasn't taken seriously until after his partnership with Kane so each of the three were built by events completely unrelated to the MITB

While the Royal Rumble hasn't done that either in recent years there's a big difference. The reason the RR hasn't built any new stars yet is that we keep getting guys who are already established winning them. When was the last time we had a fresh guy win the Rumble? Some may argue Del Rio in 2011 but apparently he was already a well established star in latin promotions so he technically doesn't count. Historically the Rumble has made careers but recently has been used as a way for old guys to take spots from younger guys by winning or entering the rumble just to be eliminated while guys who are there every week aren't even in them. Meanwhile MITB acts as its complete opposite. MITB mainly has fresh guys winning them but it essentially destroys careers and when you really think about it, it hasn't launched that many either going back to what I said about Bryan, Punk, and Edge's careers taking off after completely unrelated events.

While it seems MITB has replaced King of the Ring and likely isn't going away, what do you think WWE should do to redeem both the MITB and the RR? The MITB is a bit tougher to answer but I think all they need to do with the RR is have a fresh guy who has never won the belt before win the match. Although a guy like Roman Reigns has main eventer written all over him, which is better? Him winning the title, losing it then winning the rumble to win it again or him building up to that one moment after winning the rumble?

 

[Jack-Hammer]

While it seems MITB has replaced King of the Ring and likely isn't going away, what do you think WWE should do to redeem both the MITB and the RR? The MITB is a bit tougher to answer but I think all they need to do with the RR is have a fresh guy who has never won the belt before win the match. Although a guy like Roman Reigns has main eventer written all over him, which is better? Him winning the title, losing it then winning the rumble to win it again or him building up to that one moment after winning the rumble?

I don't see that WWE needs to do anything to redeem Money in the Bank. For quite a while, the biggest complaint was someone ALWAYS cashed in the contract, won the match and that it needed to be shaken up. John Cena became the first to cash in his MITB contract and while he won the match, he didn't win the title. The next step was someone cashing in the contract and losing altogether, which Damien Sandow late last year. Now that the aspect of MITB being an automatic guarantee is pretty much finished, a bit of a new element is added. When you consider the reaction that MITB matches generally get and the energy of the crowd whenever an attempt to cash in takes place, there's still a good deal of life left in the concept.

As far as the Royal Rumble goes, not much that can be done to keep it fresh without altering the formula to a significant degree. The Royal Rumble has been around for more than a quarter century and when a concept has been around that long, there's not much that can be done to keep it fresh without some major alterations. When there was talk of unifying the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships at WrestleMania, I had the opinion of having two different Royal Rumble matches with each match being made up of 15 men. In each match, the titles would be defended with the champion automatically being #1. Whoever was left standing at the end of both matches would be champions. Whomever was champion after the Elimination Chamber would then face off at WrestleMania XXX in an Iron Man match to unify the titles.

For next year, I was thinking that they could still have two Royal Rumble matches in which the winners of each would face off at various points on the Road to WrestleMania in a best of series of matches to ultimately determine who would face the WWE World Heavyweight Champion for WrestleMania XXXI. So that the champion doesn't feel like a bit player in things, he'd have a lot of interaction with both wrestlers. They could also compete in the WWE WHC Elimination Chamber match as a means of building heat between all three of them.

 

[Dagger Dias]

While it seems MITB has replaced King of the Ring and likely isn't going away, what do you think WWE should do to redeem both the MITB and the RR? The MITB is a bit tougher to answer but I think all they need to do with the RR is have a fresh guy who has never won the belt before win the match. Although a guy like Roman Reigns has main eventer written all over him, which is better? Him winning the title, losing it then winning the rumble to win it again or him building up to that one moment after winning the rumble?

I definitely agree with having someone new win the Rumble, or at least someone who could benefit from the push. Using the Rumble as part of the path to someone's first world title win taking place at Wrestlemania is as big of a deal as it gets. Winning the belt, losing it after a lackluster reign, then getting another shot due to winning the Rumble? Eh, no thanks. That's not as interesting as using the Rumble to set up a career defining moment. Sadly that cannot be said for nearly a decade's worth of Rumble winners. Looking back on the last several years worth of Wrestlemania winners, it could be argued many didn't really need these wins.

Batista didn't deserve his win this year but there's already plenty of discussion on that. Cena last year didn't exactly need it but it brought prestige back to the Royal Rumble win in that he went on to WIN at WRESTLEMANIA in the CLOSING MATCH. Sheamus the year before didn't quite need it and I won't start on the 18 second OPENING match. Del Rio is the worst aftermath of a win in Rumble history. He went on to OPEN the show at Wrestlemania and LOST. Edge didn't need it in order to feud with Jericho for the belt. Orton benefited from his win despite having already held world titles but we all know what happened at Wrestlemania 25. Cena using his original win at No Way Out and still made it into the Triple Threat match at Wrestlemania 24. Undertaker VS Batista at Wrestlemania 23 would have been fine as a non-title match. Then there's Rey Mysterio in 2006, yeah I'm not even going there. Which brings us, ironically (given what happened this year) to the last guy that can be argued as having needed the Rumble win, Batista in 2005. This helped elevate him a great deal for his showdown with Triple H at Wrestlemania 21. Each of these years other than 2005 could have seen someone who actually needed the push win the Rumble. Then lastly the winner of the Rumble that took place a decade ago, you know, that guy who doesn't exist according to WWE. He benefited from the win and needed it at the time.

Moving forward, I'd want to see wrestlers who have yet to win the Royal Rumnble but also deserve the honor to win it, get a chance to add that to their list of accomplishments. WWE hopefully plans on never replicating their mistake with Batista this year. One can only hope that more deserving wrestlers will win it in the coming years, let alone anyone who might win it for the 2nd time. Now that there's only one world title there is all the more reason in the world for the Royal Rumble win to be used to help future stars realize their potential and get to that prestigious spot on the Wrestlemania card's world title match, and to close the show.

Money In the Bank could do with a bit of an update. There's only one world title now, so will we only see one briefcase? Will the red one be used for the world title while the blue one gets used for the Intercontinental Championship? Or maybe they add a tag team briefcase? A pink briefcase for divas? It will be interesting to see what they end up doing. The MITB winners have better odds of getting their world title while the Rumble winners have better odds of remaining in the world title tier. Changing up the formula for MITB would help it regardless of how many briefcases there are this year. Let's do away with the opportunistic heel cash in this year. If a face wins he should cash it in fairly when an opponent is at 100% able to put on a great match and then win it. If a heel wins, I'm drawing a blank, but would prefer for it to not be yet another opportunistic cash in.

Some change would do some good for both the Rumble and MITB.

 

[James Greiga]

I don't see them a doing a tag briefcase considering theres not enough tag teams for that to happen. If this were 2001 then sure. Also with the divas, I don't see WWE doing a divas ladder match. And even if it's not a ladder match and just a battle royal that kinda defeats the purpose of the Money in the Bank to begin with. I wouldn't mind seeing them bump the MITB down to a midcard briefcase though. I think it would be much more entertaining that way. It won't devalue the titles anymore by having guys who never deserved the belts or weren't ready carry them and it won't hurt the wrestler by having him go from main event card to mid card again. It would also elevate the midcard by making it something the wrestler aspires to achieve. And considering we have two midcard belts it also adds to the surprise factor of who he'll cash it in on and when. I've thought of the 2 Royal Rumble thing that Jack Hammer mentioned only I thought it should be 20 man rumbles each. I've also thought of them having to vacate the world title and have the winner of the rumble be champion like they did back in 1992 but I never thought of your MITB idea. Now that I think about it I think thats the only logical way to go to keep the MITB matches around since they are an attraction and are well received by fans but also gets rid of a lot of the cluster of guys who get their careers ruined by the case. I wouldn't make it two different briefcases though (one for each midcard title) I would keep it as one.

 

[Sexcellence of Sexecution]

Since we finally have one true World Champion, it's going to benefit MITB. MITB was at its best when there was just won winner, as soon as it expanded to its own PPV and they had two MITB matches it got way more lame, having two guys with briefcases is overkill. The MITB cash-in is still exciting, so I agree that the concept has legs, they just need to be more logical when it comes to booking the MITB winner. Often the guy who wins MITB doesn't get a push afterwards and loses a bunch of matches which makes no sense, they need to be primed for that main event spot and built up. Another problem is the selection of who wins, because they often give people the MITB case before they're ready to be main event players. This would be more acceptable if they actually pushed the winner after he got the case, but like I said they don't seem to do that for whatever reason.

The Royal Rumble has lost a lot of its lustre, and really doesn't feel all that exciting anymore. I think the big reason why is because the Rumble winner rarely headlines WrestleMania nowadays, in fact in some cases they actually were in the WrestleMania opener. There are certain exceptions(Hogan/Rock, Rock/Cena, Cena/Taker if they ever do it), but for the most part I think that the Title match should main event, and therefore the Rumble winner should main event. Like MITB, having one belt will likely help the Rumble, because now you can just throw your Rumble winner into the World Heavyweight Title match, which by the end of its time was nothing more than a midcard belt.

I wonder if it would add some more interest into next year's Rumble if they were to do a different kind of gimmick for it. Maybe have the WWE World Title on the line in the Rumble, something that hasn't been done since Flair won it. Another idea I had was to have the Royal Rumble determine who would challenge the Undertaker's streak, which would be a perfect set up to a Cena/Taker main event at WrestleMania.

 

[ajdb]

I would love to have the belt defended in the Royal Rumble. The belt has never been "defended" in the Royal Rumble.

Obviously though, that almost guarantees a championship change unless WWE wants someone to go super over (like Ric Flair over).

I guess you could also use that idea to put the belt on a heel so that he can headline WrestleMania and drop it to a face.

 

[Softcore Holly]

I don't see them a doing a tag briefcase considering theres not enough tag teams for that to happen.

I disagree, there's plenty of teams that would put on a great MITB match. Besides you only really need 5 teams max since that's already 10 men and more would be overkill

NAO would be the champs since they obviously shouldn't be in a MITB match, which leaves

Rhodes - Great team where Cody can once again shine in a MITB enviroment
Los Matadores - Dumb gimmick sure but these guys would do great in a match with ladders in it
The Usos - More high flying fun
Wyatt Family - Big power team
Ascension - Surprise entry. If they're not ready to be brought up yet then Miz+Ziggler would be a good choice as well. And if that just doesn't happen then I guess RybAxel would be decent filler

Teams I wish I could add

RA - I know they won't last until the next MITB, but they already have experience working together in 1 and would definitely help make a tag MITB amazing
Shield - Again don't see them being together come MITB, but Rollins would do some amazing spots and Reigns would make another impressive performance

 

[Pedigree1]

I would agree that the RR could use a tweek here and there,but in reality what would occur? This is just an idea,but the RR winner would face off with the EC winner that following monday night raw! That winner would then face said champion at WM!! Its an interesting idea,IMO keeping both venues relevant! The MITB is no longer a guarantee and I think the MITB match itself,should be at WM especially with the title being unified..

 

[d_henderson1810]

I definitely agree with having someone new win the Rumble, or at least someone who could benefit from the push. Using the Rumble as part of the path to someone's first world title win taking place at Wrestlemania is as big of a deal as it gets. Winning the belt, losing it after a lackluster reign, then getting another shot due to winning the Rumble? Eh, no thanks. That's not as interesting as using the Rumble to set up a career defining moment. Sadly that cannot be said for nearly a decade's worth of Rumble winners. Looking back on the last several years worth of Wrestlemania winners, it could be argued many didn't really need these wins.

Batista didn't deserve his win this year but there's already plenty of discussion on that. Cena last year didn't exactly need it but it brought prestige back to the Royal Rumble win in that he went on to WIN at WRESTLEMANIA in the CLOSING MATCH. Sheamus the year before didn't quite need it and I won't start on the 18 second OPENING match. Del Rio is the worst aftermath of a win in Rumble history. He went on to OPEN the show at Wrestlemania and LOST. Edge didn't need it in order to feud with Jericho for the belt. Orton benefited from his win despite having already held world titles but we all know what happened at Wrestlemania 25. Cena using his original win at No Way Out and still made it into the Triple Threat match at Wrestlemania 24. Undertaker VS Batista at Wrestlemania 23 would have been fine as a non-title match. Then there's Rey Mysterio in 2006, yeah I'm not even going there. Which brings us, ironically (given what happened this year) to the last guy that can be argued as having needed the Rumble win, Batista in 2005. This helped elevate him a great deal for his showdown with Triple H at Wrestlemania 21. Each of these years other than 2005 could have seen someone who actually needed the push win the Rumble. Then lastly the winner of the Rumble that took place a decade ago, you know, that guy who doesn't exist according to WWE. He benefited from the win and needed it at the time.

Moving forward, I'd want to see wrestlers who have yet to win the Royal Rumnble but also deserve the honor to win it, get a chance to add that to their list of accomplishments. WWE hopefully plans on never replicating their mistake with Batista this year. One can only hope that more deserving wrestlers will win it in the coming years, let alone anyone who might win it for the 2nd time. Now that there's only one world title there is all the more reason in the world for the Royal Rumble win to be used to help future stars realize their potential and get to that prestigious spot on the Wrestlemania card's world title match, and to close the show.

Money In the Bank could do with a bit of an update. There's only one world title now, so will we only see one briefcase? Will the red one be used for the world title while the blue one gets used for the Intercontinental Championship? Or maybe they add a tag team briefcase? A pink briefcase for divas? It will be interesting to see what they end up doing. The MITB winners have better odds of getting their world title while the Rumble winners have better odds of remaining in the world title tier. Changing up the formula for MITB would help it regardless of how many briefcases there are this year. Let's do away with the opportunistic heel cash in this year. If a face wins he should cash it in fairly when an opponent is at 100% able to put on a great match and then win it. If a heel wins, I'm drawing a blank, but would prefer for it to not be yet another opportunistic cash in.

Some change would do some good for both the Rumble and MITB.

The reason that no new guys win the Royal Rumble is that the winner fights in the main event of Wrestlemania.

An up and coming talent shouldn't be given a main event at the biggest show of the year in their first title reign. They should be built first.

For example, take Roman Reigns. I wouldn't have had him win it this year, like some asked for. I would break him up from the Shield, have him win the U.S. Title, and maybe a year or two down the track, when he has shown us what he can do, and is a main event player, then have him win it.

It seems that people are prepared to just their fave win it, even if they are not ready, because they want their fave to be in the main event at WM. Everyone carried on about "Goatface" not being in, (even though he has already been a champion before, so that hardly makes him new), and some were calling for Dolph Ziggler to win it in 2013. DOLPH F....ING ZIGGLER!

Keep MITB for building up new guys, as it can have the new big thing win the belt, while building them for a year. But having some NXT rookie win the Rumble would be a complete joke, and would piss on the importance of the Wrestlemania main event, which is already been hijacked by Daniel Bryan fans.

 

[Eyebrows]

For me the issue with the Rumble in recent years hasn't been about the actual match but with how they've gone about booking the lead-up. The best Rumbles have been when the build to the match reflected that years winner. When Benoit won in 04 they ran the storyline of Heyman keeping him down. When Batista won in 05 they'd already planted the seeds for the Triple H/Batista feud. When HHH won they ran the return from injury angle. '98 was a poor Rumble but the build focused entirely on Austin. Lesnar's win in 2003 had him screwed out of a title shot in the preceeding weeks and planted the seeds for his feud with Angle. '95 already built up the Michaels/Diesel feud for months before Michaels won the Rumble.

I'm not saying that the winner should be totally signposted as it does ruin the idea that 'anyone can win' but there should be several strong angles starting in earnest before the Rumble event and the Rumble match itself should be used as the catalyst for those angles.

In the Rumbles where people have most been disappointed, in recent memory Sheamus' and Del Rios' wins, there was nothing leading up to the event that indicated that they would win. It didn't seem like there was any real gameplan for them, as if they'd decided "we're going to have Sheamus/Del Rio win the Rumble and then we'll work out how to get to Mania from there".

I'm not disagreeing with the winners themselves just the fact that there wasn't much story for them heading into the event. The winner of the Rumble should be in some kind of angle prior to the match and that angle should continue after the event and be the MAIN angle heading into WM, not opening the show. That's why people expected Bryan to be winning this year, because his feud against The Authority is the top angle.

MITB should be used to build new stars. The Rumble IMO shouldn't be. It should be won by either an existing top name to launch a red-hot Mania angle ala Austin, or by guys right on the precipe but still massively over and involved in the central feuds, such as Benoit and Batista (2005).

 

[iammikerodriguez]

The RR has been a mainstay for over 27 years now in the WWE. It will continue to be the first stop on the road to Wrestlemania. The Royal Rumble should never change. In my opinion, it's the one event a year that you can showcase a young up 'n comer (Like Roman Reigns this year) and have an red-hot over wrestler or a top main event guy win it. thus the beginning of a legitimate buildup to the WrestleMania main event. The Elimination Chamber in my opinion, has no purpose in between the RR and WM.

Now, MITB is an awesome idea and I think it should stay in the WWE for many years. Do I think it should have it's own PPV? Absolutely not. I think the MITB match should be held at WrestleMania. That would be the only change I would like to see made. It was awesome when it was apart of the WrestleMania attraction, just like the Streak match is. I was always a big supporter of the KING OF THE RING tournament. I think they should bring it back. Money in the Bank can be done at WM and can be used at anytime throughout the year. King of the Ring should come back and should be the new/upper midcard to lower main event guys competing for a title shot at SUMMERSLAM. King of the Ring should be to SummerSlam as the Royal Rumble is to WrestleMania!!!

Money in the Bank can build a new star. King of the Ring can showcase and elevate stars as well. Bring back KOR and make SummerSlam more significant. Move MITB back to WrestleMania, and have that new star have a MITB WM Moment and cashing in MITB later on in the year.