WWE Heat Index of the Week: SmackDown's first-ever women's Money in the Bank ladder match
Welcome to another edition of WWE Heat Index, where one of the biggest stories in the week is examined under a microscope and picked apart for analytical purposes.
This week, one of the biggest stories in sports entertainment—or at least, in WWE specifically—was the announcement that SmackDown’s women’s division will be represented in the first-ever women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.
WWE loves to throw out the word “historic” as often as possible, even if it isn’t necessarily applicable to the situation, though this is one of those instances where it certainly does fit the bill.
As of the posting of this article, there have been 17 Money in the Bank ladder matches with over 50 participants, but not a single one of them has ever included a woman, let alone had a women’s championship on the line.
This was the standard operating procedure for decades, where every gimmick was exclusive only to the men. However, the past two years, in particular, have seen major changes for how WWE approaches the use of the women on the roster.
This first-ever Money in the Bank for the women’s division follows in the footsteps of the other recent historic firsts such as Sasha Banks and Charlotte main eventing Hell in a Cell.
Even if this ends up being a horrible match as opposed to a great one, it still opens up another door to the women’s division that was previously shut.
Time and time again, it is proven that if the creative team in WWE simply allows something to happen instead of being close-minded, the company is opened up and free to experiment with many more options.
With this in place, what is the next milestone going to be? We know we’re getting the Mae Young Classic in a few months, but will 2018 give us the first-ever women’s Royal Rumble match or Elimination Chamber?
The possibilities are endless, as are the options for how to book this particular ladder match set to happen on June 18th.
At its core, this match has five potential outcomes: Becky Lynch, Carmella, Charlotte Flair, Natalya, or Tamina will walk away with the briefcase unless a sixth contender is announced beforehand.
Right now, it doesn’t appear that will be the case, as Lana has yet to make her in-ring debut on the brand; Nikki Bella doesn’t seem poised to return just yet and it wouldn’t make much sense for anyone to be called up from NXT for this event, rather than post-TakeOver: Brooklyn.
Out of the five women in the match, all of them stand a chance to win it as there can be decent storylines to spawn from any of them having the ability to cash in a title shot at a moment’s notice.
Charlotte Flair seems to be the obvious choice, front and centre in the graphics and the top focal point of SmackDown’s women in a general sense, too.
However, that seems a bit too easy. Charlotte has multiple title reigns and has been booked as the absolute most important thing in not just the blue brand’s roster, but the entirety of the female talent in WWE as a whole.
At any point in time, Charlotte can not only challenge for a title, but win it, and nobody would blink. Giving her the briefcase would be a complete waste.
To a lesser extent, the same applies to Becky Lynch, who is SmackDown’s top babyface with the exception of Naomi, and only because the latter happens to be the champion.
A downside to Becky obtaining the briefcase is that her babyface character would rather boringly just cash it in for a generic title shot in advance for an honest fight. That is, of course, assuming Becky wouldn’t turn heel, but that would be an overload of villains, so that is unlikely to happen.
The three members of The Welcoming Committee all feel they’re entitled to be the rightful No. 1 contenders and in this scenario, all three of them stand on virtually even platforms.
Natalya is the spiritual leader of the trio, Carmella has a few wins over Naomi and Tamina is the most imposing of the three, so all of them pose a threat to Naomi’s title reign.
If one of them stands out to me, it’s Carmella, as she’s undoubtedly the underdog. With the least experience of the five and the most boisterous character, she could be the perfect choice to wield such extreme power.
Plus, she doesn’t even need to do the work of carrying the briefcase around all the time, as she can give that responsibility to her lapdog James Ellsworth!
Carmella comes off as the least seasoned in-ring performer as she’s still learning quite a bit, but if she were to have a Money in the Bank cash-in as the impetus for a title win, it wouldn’t go against the flow.
Everybody would know that she couldn’t do it on her own, but that she only became a champion from the loophole advantage of being able to take a champion down when they are their most vulnerable, sneaking in and stealing the belt away.
Natalya and Tamina have it in them to just earn a regular title shot and fight for the belt at any given event, but Carmella’s character would be the one to get the most use out of the gimmick.
Billi Bhatti even reported several weeks back that the word around the water cooler was that WWE is very high on Carmella and considered giving her the SmackDown Women’s Championship at WrestleMania just to drop it quickly to Naomi.
This would line up perfectly with the ladder match’s functionality, so Carmella is the safe bet if those rumours are true.
The only real downside to this women’s Money in the Bank match is that Naomi won’t be defending her title for the second pay-per-view in a row, as no other contenders have been established to fill that void.
This is either a random oversight on the creative team’s part or they simply decided the ladder match having five women was much more important than the title being defended and pushed Naomi aside.
Since she won’t be fighting on the card, one can assume that whoever wins the briefcase won’t be cashing it in that same night as the champion will be fresh while they’ll be bruised and battered—the complete opposite scenario they should aim for.
However, that threat of a cash-in will start looming as soon as one of these women retrieves the briefcase, and it will be interesting to see how the story unfolds.
Who do you think should win the Money in the Bank ladder match and how should the title scene be booked going forward? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!