It feels wrong to complain about anything related to WWE right now. 2024 was, by just about any measure, the best the product has been in a long time. Maybe you like The Attitude Era better. Maybe you like The Golden Era better. That’s fair. I’m not necessarily saying right now is the best fans have ever had it, but it’s certainly the best it’s been in a long time. Because of that, I’ve hesitated to put this negativity out into the universe. Some form of this article has been in my drafts section for months, but I just can’t take it anymore. We need to talk about the Money In The Bank Briefcase.
For those of you who might be newer fans to WWE or returning fans who haven’t watched the product in a long time, let me give a real quick recap. Every year since 2005, WWE has held a ladder match called Money In The Bank. Initially, it happened at WrestleMania every year. Now, it has its own dedicated PLE. In each match, a half dozen or so wrestlers compete to climb a ladder and retrieve a briefcase suspended above the ring. Whoever pulls down the briefcase gets a contract they can cash in at any time for a match for any title in WWE. They can announce their cash-in ahead of time, or they can do it in an unexpected moment, in theory when the titleholder is at their weakest.
With all due respect to The Elimination Chamber, it’s the best gimmick match not called The Royal Rumble that WWE has. Historically, it’s proven to be a fantastic opportunity to elevate a budding star into a centerpiece of programming. Give him or her the MITB Briefcase and they’re suddenly a threat to win the biggest titles the company has. They suddenly have a reason to deliver promos and work with the biggest stars on the roster. It’s like a cheat code to get ahead, and as such, who to give the men’s and women’s briefcases to each year is one of the most important decisions the writers need to make every year.
Unfortunately, holding the briefcase hasn’t necessarily been such a huge win since Triple H took over creative. We saw it with Austin Theory. We saw it with Damian Priest, and now we’re seeing it again with Tiffany Stratton. Rather than elevating these characters to the next level, all three have been used as pawns to manufacture cheap excitement on weekly programming, and it has not been to their benefit.
Let me explain. The Money In The Bank Briefcase is inherently exciting because there’s always that lingering sense of Is this the moment? Every time we see the briefcase in frame and there’s a champion around, there’s some anticipation that the cash-in could happen, and Triple H loves leaning into that drama. I get why. He’s a good storyteller, and it’s an easy way to get the crowd hyped every single time.
But every time a character hems and haws about whether to cash in, every time a character tries to cash in but slips and falls or doesn’t get to the referee quickly enough or gets stopped by another character, it makes the person holding the Briefcase look indecisive or even stupid. That can happen or once or twice without changing the way we look at the wrestlers, but when it happens every single week, it makes them look weak and stupid.
When Tiffany Stratton beats someone up and cockily says “It’s Tiffy Time” to the crowd, she looks arrogant and forceful and heelish. When she looks at the Briefcase and looks at the ref and looks back at the Briefcase and looks at the champion, Nia Jax, laying there on the ground and then looks back at the Briefcase and then grabs it and then hems and haws and then sees Nia get up and then bails on cashing in, she looks like an absolute moron. She doesn’t look powerful. She looks like a buffoon, a cartoon character that’s destined to lose in the end.
And the frustrating thing is I don’t think she’s going to lose. At some point, I think she’s going to successfully cash in on Nia Jax, but what damage will she have done to her character prior to that? Damian Priest, after months of whoopsies and missed opportunities, finally cashed-in at WrestleMania last year in one of the greatest cash-in moments in history. I wouldn’t change anything about that moment, but because he spent months running around like a dumb henchman, we all just assumed he was just going to be a temporary champion when he cashed in. It was honestly a shock he got a run with the title for a few months, and I say that as a shameless Damian Priest fan. If he would have just left the Briefcase in the back for months and then suddenly surprised everyone and pulled it out at WrestleMania, he would have come out looking so much stronger.
Austin Theory still hasn’t recovered from his mess of a Money In The Bank run. Tiffany Stratton right now looks weaker and further from a main event star than before she won. Damian Priest got his huge moment, but it came at the cost of how everyone viewed him as a character. Even Drew McIntyre's recent run with the Briefcase, which ended almost immediately, didn't sit well with some fans. Something needs to change.
I have no idea who is going to win MITB this year. There are a ton of high potential up-and-comers just waiting to take the next step. I’d love to see what they can do with the Briefcase, but only if Triple H changes up how he’s booking the winners, only if he's not going to use it as a prop to generate cheap excitement. If we're on the same path as before, then he should keep his most promising hopefuls away from the briefcase because it might not be good for their careers.
