Few moments during the WWE calendar year provide more intrigue than when a new Money In The Bank winner is crowned.
With the high success rate over the years in the winner eventually becoming world champion, there’s a certain air of inevitably surrounding the match. As in: here is your next world champion.
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This year, while the match is packed with several main event calibre stars who could easily go on to become world champion, one name rises above the rest as the man whom the brief case gimmick would fit perfectly at this point in time: The Miz.
Miz is of course no stranger to the Money In The Bank match. He’s competed in several and even won the contest in 2010, which lead to his first WWE world championship run when he cashed in against Randy Orton on the November 22, 2010 edition of RAW to win the title.
Fast forward to 2018 and there’s arguably been no better heel in the company over the last two years. Add in the fact that Miz has a reality show launching in the near future and a tailor made, main event feud with Daniel Bryan still waiting to be cashed in upon, and you’ve got the recipe for a winner.
Examining the rest of the roster of men in this year’s Money In The Bank match, many of them can seemingly be eliminated right off the cuff due to either not needing the brief case gimmick or out of common sense.
For example, Braun Strowman simply does not need to win Money In The Bank. The “Monster Among Men” does not need to rely upon winning a brief case for an eventual world title run and it might even diminish his character if that was the background for him winning the title for the first time. The Money In The Bank winners trend heel over the years and the contract is generally used in a sneaky fashion. If Strowman were to win, you have to imagine he would announce his intentions ahead of time to cash-in rather than relying upon surprise.
Samoa Joe is another name that, like Strowman, is a dominant competitor who one would think would not be considered for a Money In The Bank victory. He simply doesn’t need the gimmick attached to his character.
Other names eliminated right off the bat include Rusev, Bobby Roode, and whomever from the New Day participates. They will certainly add some excitement to the match, especially if it were Kofi Kingston who gets the nod, as he would seemingly be relied upon as one of the chief characters responsible for high spots in the match. But winners they are not.
This leaves us with Finn Balor and Kevin Owens. Balor would seem to have an outside shot of winning. After all, he’s still never followed up much on the fact that he never lost the Universal title. Across the ring from him, Owens is the type of character who has won the match in the past, just like Miz. It just seems the stars are aligned more for a Miz victory this year.
There are several scenarios we can imagine playing out if Miz were to win and all of them are, well, awesome. We’ve got to eventually get to this Bryan vs. Miz match that everyone is anticipating, and frankly, it really should be for the WWE championship. Best case scenario there is we see Bryan chasing for the belt.
So how do we get there? Imagine two scenarios, each dependant on how long WWE wants to draw out the Miz vs. Bryan storyline.
Scenario number one is our short term scenario. Suppose Miz wins the Money In The Bank match at the PPV, and then later in the show, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura go to war in the Last Man Standing Match. This is the perfect scenario for The Miz to cash-in, on the same night he won the brief case, as both competitors should be nearly wiped out after a Last Man Standing Match. So Miz cashes in and wins the WWE title.
This is then parlayed into a Bryan vs. Miz championship feud which headlines SummerSlam. Who wouldn’t love that?
There’s also a longer term scenario where Bryan vs. Miz is saved all the way until WrestleMania 35. This time, Miz wins the Money In The Bank match but saves his cash-in for SummerSlam. At SummerSlam, it’s Styles or Nakamura defending the WWE title against Bryan (note: both scenarios have Bryan in a main event match at SummerSlam, which he absolutely should be). Bryan wins the title, only to have Miz cash-in immediately after the match to take the title from him.
This leads to a long term scenario that culminates in Bryan vs. Miz at WrestleMania. Once again, a very intriguing story that makes a lot of sense.
Either way you shake it, The Miz is the best candidate to win Money In The Bank this year. It makes all too much sense and gives WWE the best long term story arc surrounding one of their world titles.
This isn’t to say that Miz will win, it’s to say that he should.
