What’s up Diva fans and welcome to the Money in the Bank PPV Review with me, your favorite Jack in the entire world! The build-up to the Divas Championship match between AJ Lee and Kaitlyn has been tremendous, with this past week’s SmackDown segment being the best Divas segment we’ve seen since Michelle McCool and Layla held a leaving party for Mickie James back in 2010. Would the match live up to the hype? A lot of people loved it, where as a lot of people found it bland. Where will I stand? I just notice the last two sentences rhymed; that wasn’t planned! Oh it just happened again, stop it Jack or this review will get canned. Right, literally, I’m going to stop now. I had no idea where I was going with that. My lame jokes really should be banned. (Side note: that last rhyme was completely unintentional but I thought to leave it in!)
LET’S LIGHT IT UP! The Divas Division’s beacon of fluorescence AJ Lee is out first and unsurprisingly, she’s flanked by her ‘heavy’, Big E Langston. Big E’s presence made me once again ponder over how he and AJ know each other. I’m going with the story that they were Scrabble opponents at a club in Union City and as AJ was so good, Big E was secretly in love with her and devoted his life to defending her, effectively becoming a disciple of Ayjayism. Plausible, right? AJ kisses her Divas title before entering the ring and will this be the last time she can give that F-A-B-ulous butterfly a smooch? Only time will tell.
Out next to another great reception is Kaitlyn, who has her left elbow strapped up. She’s being accompanied by Layla. DAYUM Layla, you look fine! You would look even better if you took a photo of yourself and uploaded it to Instagram with the ‘Kelvin’ filter. Or perhaps Amaro? With the new upgrade, you can also post landscape images. Why are you not all over that, Layla? Quick, before it’s no longer fashionable! Remember Tout? Oh wait, that was never popular.
After a recap of SmackDown’s fantastic segment, the match starts with Kaitlyn awkwardly clubbing AJ in the stomach. AJ is already trying to flee the ring yet Kaitlyn dumps her back in and bludgeons the wind out of her with her patented Gutbuster. Kaitlyn then feels like it’s time to get rough and ready and she throws AJ under the bottom rope and out of the ring. Kaitlyn scoops AJ up and looks to ram her into the steel post yet it’s AJ who instead ends up doing this to Kaitlyn, sending her braced elbow first into the solid metal. AJ, like Lady GaGa, is a Heavy Metal Lover as she once again uses the steel to her advantage, pulling Kait’s elbow into the ring post.
Back in the ring, AJ goes for a cover, yet the damage done to Kaitlyn’s elbow isn’t enough to score a victory. AJ then works over the arm some more and the crescendo of this particular chain of offense is a beautiful bridging hammerlock – definite shades of Dolph Ziggler! Kaitlyn manages to get to the ropes to break the hold yet AJ doesn’t let that worry her and she then works on Kaitlyn’s bulls-eye bodypart in the corner. AJ then wraps herself around Kaitlyn in the middle of the ring, trash-taking her and she once again wrenches her opponent’s arm in a hammerlock. After a short time locked in the straight-jacket that is AJ, Kaitlyn gets to her feet and rams AJ back first into the corner. AJ tightens her spider-like body scissors yet… “HULK SMASH!” I couldn’t resist that throwback to SmackDown as it describes Kaitlyn’s backbreaker perfectly.
Momentum has shifted in the challenger’s favor now and you can bank on Kaitlyn dishing out some pain! Kaitlyn levels AJ with a back elbow, dropkick and shoulder tackle combination and then follows up those sweets strikes with a reverse-DDT. She goes for the pinfall, yet AJ kicks out at 2. Both girls make it to their feet and AJ’s hand makes it’s way to Kaitlyn’s face. AJ then does her best impression of a pair of knickers flailing in the wind as boom, she just got rocked with a clothesline! Kaitlyn then goes for a suplex yet AJ reverses it and blasts Kaitlyn’s elbow with a jumping armbreaker.
AJ then climbs to the top rope and is she going for a moonsault? If she does, cue all the Lita comparisons all over again! Luckily for all the Lita stans our there, AJ is thrusted from the top rope by Kaitlyn! Big E catches AJ before throwing her back in the ring, just as Kaitlyn is coming out of it. Kait and her “secret admirer” Big E have a stare down and that nearly costs Kaitlyn as AJ rolls her up for a two count. Then, out of nowhere, Kaitlyn hits a major Spear yet on the landing, she hurts her elbow yet again. Kaitlyn tries to make something out of the situation yet AJ kicks her in the elbow and wraps her up in the Black Widow. Kaitlyn quickly drops her knees and her fading resembles that of the Earlybird photos on Layla’s instagram account. Kaitlyn is forced to tap and AJ gets the win. Good night for AJ, then? Not quite…
Midway through Dolph Ziggler‘s match with Alberto Del Rio, AJ makes her way to ringside. Del Rio thrust kicks Ziggler in the exact same way that he did when he won the World Heavyweight title at Payback. Ziggler manages to kick out of the predicament this time yet Del Rio goes for a similar move again, this time with his knee brace exposed. As Del Rio charges at Ziggler, Dolph grabs Alberto’s leg and reverses the move! Unfortunately for Dolph, AJ had already planned to stop Dolph from getting his head caved in and she whacks Del Rio with her Divas Championship. Dolph is disqualified and AJ is distraught.
Thoughts: Have we traveled back in time to June 2013? I’m sure we’ve already seen this match at Payback. With the two outside factors in Big E and Layla, I was sure something controversial was going to happen yet instead, this match feel flat. I’ve loved the feud thus far yet after this match, I hope that it’s now over and AJ gets a new challenger. I can think of 1863593 different ways that this match could have ended and they would all have been less anti-climactic than this. The match itself was unmemorable and various elements were sloppy. AJ’s second hammerlock was lackluster and Kaitlyn’s transition into the reverse-DDT was really messy. Maybe I’m just being picky yet to me, the match felt slow and boring and the finish that we have already seen before didn’t help.
Now, onto Layla: WHAT IS THE POINT OF YOU BEING THERE?!?! Layla is so irrelevant right now and this was WWE’s chance to pull the plug and make Layla interesting again, yet they didn’t do that. What annoys me is Layla, regardless of her being a Face, could and should have made more of an impact at ringside. If she’s so much of a mentor to Layla, she saw Kaitlyn smack the taste out of Big E’s mouth of SmackDown, why couldn’t she have done the same when Big E was distracting Kaitlyn this time? Chant to the crowd to inspire Kaitlyn out of the submission, trash talk AJ. DO SOMETHING! Layla has apparently been Kaitlyn’s rock and to be quite honest, a rock would have had more personality and presence at ringside. WWE, please do something with Layla otherwise we may soon be referring to her as a ‘WWE Instagrammer’ and not a ‘WWE Diva’!
Match rating: 2.5/5
I think I have a headache after all of that. And with that, stay tuned, Jack will be back!
