Into the Great Wide Open: WWE Money in the Bank 2011 Preview

All about the briefcase, two times
Photo Credit: WWE.com

I get a lot of inspiration for blog posts from people saying smart, dumb or otherwise in between things, and me agreeing, disagreeing, replying, retorting, building upon or just plain making fun of those statements. When it's someone like Razor of House Kick-Out!! saying it, you can bet I'm either agreeing with it, or if not, retorting civilly because he's a sharp guy. This is one of the times when I'm in full agreement:

I think MITB is one of the least predictable PPVs in recent memory. I can see every match going either way and the MITBs are wide open.

Think about it for a second. You might jump and say "WELL, I KNOW WHO'S GOING TO WIN! HE'S WRONG!" but then you think, and it's quite possible that the only match on the card that's even close to being easy to predict is Big Show taking on Mark Henry. I mean, Henry's gotta win that match, right? Right?

Well, no, because what if it's the blowoff, and Show gets to give Henry his comeuppance here before both men move onto threats on their respective brands? See what I mean? This has to be the first WWE PPV in a long time with so much mystery surrounding what the matches themselves are going to produce in terms of results.

That's not a bad thing, by the way. In fact, it probably makes this the most appetizing event on the schedule for WWE so far this year. People by and large don't want to tune into foregone conclusions. They want drama, intrigue, suspense and some kind of struggle or conflict to go with their potentially happy ending. The way WWE has built up the top matches for this PPV has been superb, especially for the nominal main event, John Cena defending his title and his job against a potentially exiting CM Punk. For the first time in a long time, the story isn't being framed to make Cena the obvious victor. There is drama, coming from all kinds of outside sources. There's Vince not having faith enough in Cena to get the job done. There's Punk's recent winning streak against The Champ. Everything's so perfectly staged and virtually anything can happen.

I mean, there are also two Money in the Bank matches, spectacles in and of themselves, with no clear favorites going into the frays beforehand. I mean, yeah, I handicapped both matches on here, but let's be real; the whole point behind Money in the Bank, why it exists anyway, is to be able to throw a curveball and have someone who isn't in the picture suddenly get into it. That's why it's ends with a briefcase being taken off a hook by means of climbing a ladder, something fluky and attainable by anyone, whether they were the aggressor or just picking the scraps from a spectacular car wreck, and not a pinfall or submission.

Oh yeah, and Randy Orton and Christian get to wrestle again in what's certain to be a damn good match. This angle has been brushed off to the side in the gigantic wake of Punk/Cena, and rightfully so in a way. Any feud that goes three PPVs in length with this much of a one-sided tilt to it is going to induce groans when it continues. But Christian has done his best to drag great matches out of Orton, and who knows, maybe fourth time is the charm.

But that's the fourth-most intriguing match on the card at best. If you get this event, you're getting it for two car crash ladder matches and to see whether CM Punk is going to walk out of Chicago - and WWE - with the title. And if you're like me, you have no fucking idea where to start forecasting what's going to happen.

If that doesn't give you butterflies - the good kind, that is - then I don't know what would.