Baron Corbin Cashes in Money in the Bank Briefcase on SmackDown

Well, that was an interesting way to end SmackDown Live. Wise? Unsure. But certainly an interesting way to go off the air, for better or for worse.

John Cena and WWE Champion Jinder Mahal were main eventing the show in their advertised, non-title bout. Cena and Mahal were given the last 15 minutes or so of SmackDown, the match ended up going right around 10 minutes.

After a back and forth contest, Cena seemed to have Mahal beat. He gave the champion an AA off the top rope and went for the cover. At that point, Mr. Money In The Bank Baron Corbin ran out and interrupted the pinfall attempt, causing the match to end.

After attacking his SummerSlam opponent (Cena) with the briefcase, Corbin appeared to be leaving the ringside area. The fans were chanting and clearly wanted him to cash in on the fallen champion. Corbin thought about it and made his way back to the ring, instructing the referee to start the match. He was ready to cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase.

The match was started and almost immediately Cena jumped up to the ring apron. Corbin turned to fight off Cena and Mahal ran up behind and rolled up Corbin to get the pinfall.

So just like that, Baron Corbin became one of the very few stars to obtain the Money In The Bank briefcase and not successfully become champion with it. I’m not sure of the logic behind having Corbin cash in before SummerSlam if he wasn’t going to win the title on Tuesday night. At least having the intrigue that Corbin might cash in during the second biggest show of the year certainly gave fans something fun to look forward to during the PPV on Sunday.

I suppose the idea is that Corbin now has even more reason to be angered at Cena heading into their match, but I’m not sure this really adds much more intrigue into their match. Instead, the WWE title situation lost quite a bit of intrigue with the Money In The Bank briefcase being made irrelevant already.