We’re a week removed from the Women’s Money in the Bank controversy. For those that missed it, James Ellsworth, a man, was the first Women’s MITB winner. Many saw this as an insult to women’s wrestling, Including SmackDown General Manager, Daniel Bryan.
So when Bryan booked a MITB rematch for this Tuesday’s SmackDown, the world rejoiced in the name of social justice. But the decision has its detractors.
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More: Daniel Bryan Publicly Questions WWE’s MITB Decision
One of them is former WCW boss, Eric Bischoff. On a recent episode of his podcast, Bischoff on Wrestling, the former RAW GM torpedoed the idea of a MITB re-match.
“I think it’s a bad move. It’s a mistake I’ve made in the past. Sometimes you learn from your mistakes. At least, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. When you build up to a big event on PPV and you build up the stakes and you build up the expectation and you basically deliver a screwed finish and then re-match it on free tv… it diminishes the long-term expectation of future big event matches on PPV when that happens. I think it’s a really bad idea. By the way, I’ve done it and the results were always negative.”
Bischoff makes some interesting points here. By WWE scheduling a pay-per-view re-do for SmackDown, it dilutes a big moment for WWE. Instead of getting one big special moments, we’re just going to get 2 smaller episodes. Not only that, but it incentivizes people to not treat pay-per-views as rare occasions, because people may think they can catch a similar show for free on regular television.
This is logic that WWE surely considered, but this may be an exception to Bischoff’s rule. People are excited to see this rematch and WWE is armed with several compelling options. As long as WWE doesn’t make this a habit (pay-per-view rematches on TV), it’s hard to truly challenge this concept.
The MITB saga has garnered a lot of attention as of late and at the absolute minimum, more people care about women’s wrestling. WWE has an opportunity coming on Tuesday, let’s hope they nail it.
