FEEDBACK: WWE Money in the Bank 2011

Rewind-A-Wai #168 will be released this Thursday.

John Pollock & Wai Ting will be reviewing WWE Money in the Bank 2011 feat. John Cena vs. CM Punk in Chicago.

Leave us your memories of the show, feedback, and observations of how this show is remembered.

This show will be released Thursday to all members at the POST Wrestling Café.

WWE Money in the Bank
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Chicago, IL at Allstate Arena
*WWE Championship: John Cena (c) vs. CM Punk
*World Heavyweight Championship: Randy Orton (c) vs. Christian
*Raw MITB Ladder Match: Alberto Del Rio vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne vs. R-Truth vs. Alex Riley vs. The Miz vs. Rey Mysterio
*Big Show vs. Mark Henry
*Divas Championship Match: Kelly Kelly (c) vs. Brie Bella
*SmackDown MITB Ladder Match: Sin Cara vs. Wade Barrett vs. Justin Gabriel vs. Sheamus vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Heath Slater vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Kane

Jesse from the 6

Happy hallowe’en, gents! I’m looking forward to this very spooky edition of Rewind-A-Wai!

You lads first discussed this event when it happened in 2011. But you also dedicated an episode of Review-A-Wai to this show several years later. You reviewed it on Bloomsday, 2017, with the assistance of the inimitable Damien Abraham.

I wonder if today, as then:

  • You will begin the show discussing how the punk community never really embraced Nirvana in the early 1990’s.

  • Wai will mention that it was CM Punk’s Pipe Bomb Promo that prompted you two to review Raw live for the very first time, on Stickam.

  • Wai will question if, to be more sensitive, wrestler’s will stop selling by twitching, because of Daniel Bryan’s retirement.

  • You will discuss how awesome it would be if Daniel Bryan ever wrestled Brock Lesnar.

  • John will state that he didn’t dislike the Mark Henry-Big Show match and Wai will say he, “Didn’t mind it at all”.

  • You will discuss which of the Raw Money-in-the-Bank contenders might vape.

  • John will state that Cody Rhodes makes as much money now–if not more–as he ever did previously.

Take Care

I watched wrestling as a kid from 2002-2005, but was never allowed by my parents to order or watch the PPVs, so eventually I fell off completely from being a fan. After hearing the buzz about the Pipebomb promo, I got sucked back in to being a fan, and this was the first PPV I ever ordered or saw live.

The product was so unbelievably different in presentation and tone to what I remembered watching as a kid, but I was instantly captivated by the Punk angle, and that reaction in Chicago was one of the loudest I’d ever heard. I was also immediately a huge fan of Daniel Bryan and was excited to see him win Money in the Bank, and loved the new character directions of Christian and Mark Henry. Overall, this is a great pay-per-view, despite the Money in the Bank matches being overbloated with undercard guys that had no chance of winning. The follow-up leaves a lot to be desired, but the ending of this show, with Punk overcoming the odds and walking out with the title, is one of the best show closes in company history.

MITB ‘11 went down as one of the great B-level PPVs. The two ladder matches delivered. Mark Henry was in the middle of his Hall of Pain run. Randy Orton and Christian continued their string of great matches and an all-timer main event that erased the lines of what was real and what’s fiction.

The atmosphere was enhanced tenfold by whether Punk would back up everything he said about taking the title on his way out the door. “Away game” Cena is a different animal, the amount of vitriol made the reception he got at One Night Stand ‘06 look like kindergarten. Even though the follow up fell short of matching it. This match made CM Punk for life.

It’s the first match I’ve ever bought on iTunes (remember those days?)