Guess who’s back?
One of the top stories of last week was the sudden dismissal of R-Truth exactly one week ago. Fans were upset, wrestlers were upset. Everyone seemed to be down on WWE and TKO for releasing someone everyone enjoyed having around. Chants of “we want Truth” were so loud on both Raw and SmackDown that John Cena even addressed the chants on the latter show, just one day before Saturday’s Money in the Bank in Los Angeles.
Then, lo and behold! WWE listened to the fans and did a 180, bringing Truth back in the main event. John Cena was in control, blasting Cody Rhodes with the WWE title as their partners were out of the ring. Wearing a hood, the returning Truth speared Cena and once he unmasked, the crowd erupted. Truth’s help allowed Cody Rhodes to pin Cena, setting up their likely SummerSlam rematch.
TKO, WWE’s parent company who decided to cut more contracts one week ago, applauded on social media. Yay!
Truth’s return is great for both the wrestlers and the fans alike that wanted him back. But at the same time, it would be nice if WWE didn’t pretend this was all by design. When a reporter asked Triple H at the post-show press conference what led to Truth’s return, Triple H provided no details and in fact revealed, hey man, it was just part of the show. Great.
Tribalistic fans online both before and after Triple H’s response declared everything was a work, that Truth really wasn’t released, and this was all an elaborate worked shoot masterminded by Triple H. That’s great. So when is Carlito returning? Or Valhallah? Or the 17 wrestlers who were cut last month? Can’t wait for their returns!
Further into the night, R-Truth tweeted that it wasn’t a work. So that settles that. Right?
The main event overall wasn’t much and was overshadowed by the big angle at the end. In fact, all anybody wanted to talk about after the show was the big return. But it served its purpose of setting up Cena’s future opponents and capped off a show that, overall, was fine and easy to watch.
The men’s Money in the Bank was pretty good, though nothing really got going until all the interference startted. The big storyline point wasn’t so much in who won it, but who didn’t. Solo Sikoa did not win thanks to Jacob Fatu, who finally did the big turn and put his former Bloodline associate through a ladder after taking out Seth Rollins’ new associates Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed. It only makes sense that these two are destined for a big match at SummerSlam, but may have a match sooner than that, maybe at Night of Champions or Saturday Night’s Main Event.
Seth Rollins ended up winning the briefcase, so let the countdown begin as to when he cashes in. Could be as soon as this Monday, when Jey Uso defends against Gunther. Or it may not be for months. All I know is the usual formula is one of the briefcase winners cashes in quickly, another teases it for the next 10 months until they pull the trigger.
The women’s Money in the Bank ladder match opened the show, and I thought this was also a solid match. The newest members of the main roster like Roxanne Perez, Stephanie Vaquer, and Giulia all looked good here. In the end, Naomi won the briefcase, continuing her momentum following her heel turn several months ago. She will likely be tailing WWE Women’s Champion Tiffany Stratton for some time, or maybe just a week. See above.
Becky Lynch defeated Lyra Valkyria to win the Women’s Intercontinental title in what I thought was a very good match, better than their first encounter. Lynch grabbed the tights for the sudden pinfall. A distraught Valkyria lived up to her end of their deal and raised Lynch’s hand, but then laid out Lynch after she demanded Valkyria put the title around her waist. This will lead to a third rubber match, maybe SummerSlam or sooner than that. One thing for sure, this feud is doing wonders for Valkyria’s career as she’s been a strong promo and people are getting into her feud with Lynch.
Dominik Mysterio quickly retained the Intercontinental title over Octagon Jr in a match that was set up during Saturday afternoon’s Worlds Collide event. I wondered why they added this so late and my only guess was that they had some big angle planned. But then the match happened and Mysterio won in four minutes. Octagon got some stuff in but I am not sure what the point of him losing so quickly was unless they’re building to something involving Mysterio working Triplemania Regia or Triplemania itself.
Or maybe after a show where more WWE guys won than AAA, they wanted to get one more win for the road. Seems counterproductive, but I’m not WWE.
