The 2017 Money in the Bank pay-per-view is scheduled for this upcoming Sunday night and it appears as though the card has been finalized outside of any last-minute additions, which means it’s time for another examination round of the superstars on the SmackDown roster who have been skipped over.
For whatever reason, these men and women from the blue brand weren’t deemed important enough to find a spot for at the event—at least as far as it’s currently being advertised. Some of those omissions might be justified, while others below are a bit more questionable. Let’s take a look at who will be sitting this show out.
Note: At the time of this article’s posting, no pre-show match has been announced. It’s expected that *something* will, and it should include some of the people below, but WWE has given no indication of what that will be in any capacity.
Aiden English
Aw, poor Aiden English. You’re not on the card. What are you going to do, cry about it?
Well, yes, unless they’ve ditched that character trait already.
You can’t be half of a jobber tag team and transition to a crybaby jobber and expect to start fighting in title matches, so it isn’t shocking to see English was kept out of the inner circle for Money in the Bank.
Oddly enough, he’s the only lower midcard heel at the moment where someone like Tye Dillinger or Mojo Rawley or even Sin Cara (more on those three later) could randomly beat, which makes me think SmackDown has a serious problem with needing to add a few more people to the roster.
English skipping this event isn’t a big deal. Nobody’s going to flip out over it.
Erick Rowan / Luke Harper
Every time it looks like Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are going to start having a decent feud, they drop off the face of the earth and we don’t hear from them for weeks.
Shane McMahon brought up Harper’s name to Mojo Rawley about how there are plenty of people not competing in this year’s Money in the Bank ladder match, but he gave no explanation as to why that was the case. Of course, we know the real reason must be “the writers don’t value him as much as the other men” but as far as an in-universe explanation, there isn’t any.
I’m probably not alone here in thinking that it’s an easy writing job and it makes sense storyline-wise to have qualifying matches for those spots, where we could have seen Harper lose to someone (let’s say Kevin Owens) and Rowan do the same (to Shinsuke Nakamura or AJ Styles or whomever) which would have at least put them on SmackDown in the meantime.
Perhaps, both of them could have lost their respective matches when the other man interfered, prolonging their feud and giving them a reason to fight each other somewhere on the card for this event, even if it’s the pre-show.
Instead, they’ll be doing nothing but wrestling on house shows (maybe), which is a shame, as Rowan was trying really hard to kick up some interest in his character recently, and it was working at least for me.
Mojo Rawley
Even Mojo Rawley admitted that he’s “been a ghost on SmackDown” by not appearing more than a handful of times after winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, which is crazy. Why would WWE give such an important victory to someone they had absolutely zero plans to use following WrestleMania?
He lost his attempt to get in the ladder match, which then at least gives us a reason to believe it makes sense why he wouldn’t be on the card as far as the storyline goes, but out of the realm of kayfabe, it just comes off as confusing how there’s nothing going on for him.
We saw this week that Zack Ryder returned (at least for a promo) and he said they have unfinished business as a tag team, which may indicate that WWE was stalling until Ryder could be cleared to get back in the ring. Maybe that means The Hype Bros will have a tag match against perhaps The Ascension just to give themselves a win, or it could be a harbinger of a heel turn for either Ryder or Rawley to start a feud between those two.
If nothing happens with Ryder’s return as a means to tie into using Rawley, it opens up a few questions. Did they have plans but just lost faith in him very quickly? Was Rawley’s battle royal win a call from up above (Vince McMahon perhaps) where the writing team didn’t quite want to do it, but were told to, and then the senior officials never had any follow-up plans so Rawley is left in limbo?
Rusev
Speaking of plans being in limbo, Rusev is in the complete opposite position I expected him to be just a few short weeks ago.
After the Superstar Shake-Up, Rusev was in two promos stating he wouldn’t return to the blue brand until he was given a title shot at Money in the Bank. It was such a specific thing to call out that it appeared to be a guarantee.
And yet, Jinder Mahal won the WWE Championship and that killed off the plans for Rusev, who now has nothing to do as throwing him into the Money in the Bank match means he either wins it or they have him lose his return, halting his momentum.
Post-MITB, I expect to see Rusev soon, as in the episode of SmackDown to follow. I imagine he’ll start a feud with Randy Orton whether or not the title is on the line—depending of course on whether Orton dethrones Mahal—but as far as this event goes, The Bulgarian Brute is better off not showing up and then being a bigger factor come Battleground and eventually, SummerSlam.
Sin Cara
Has Sin Cara even made a single appearance on SmackDown? If so, it was forgettable enough that I certainly don’t remember it.
He is in dire need of a repackaging, a heel turn, a new tag team member or perhaps a stint down in NXT just to freshen things up, as piggybacking off a dead character isn’t going to work.
Tye Dillinger
I hate seeing Dillinger on this list as it means they brought him up from NXT without really wanting to give him a ball to run with, and I think he’s good enough that he should be getting much more attention.
Of course, given the choice between focusing efforts on Nakamura or Dillinger, I understand where WWE is coming from, but that shouldn’t preclude The Perfect 10 from getting a little better treatment from time to time.
It’s been long enough that he should be in some kind of feud with somebody instead of just popping up a few weeks here and there for filler, but that might be a byproduct of the roster missing those midcard heels to go against someone like Dillinger.
We know he’s not going to be a priority for SummerSlam, but I do hope at Battleground, he has at least something to do and isn’t sitting that show out, too.
The Tag Team Division
I’m never shocked to see The Ascension overlooked. Their track record and history of being in that position makes it an easy guess well in advance. Spoiler alert: Konnor and Viktor will probably not be doing anything at WrestleMania 34 either, outside of the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. When it comes to Money in the Bank, their only hope is to lose to The Hype Bros on the pre-show.
Sadly, with the way they’ve been pushed aside the past few months, I’m not surprised about American Alpha, either. Are they being punished for not having as good of a title reign with the tag titles? It’s as if the writing team has no faith in them anymore or forgot they’re on the roster, and they’re better than that.
The Colons were able to turn some heads for a minute or two when they dropped the whole Shining Stars act, but unless they’re paired up with The Fashion Police for something on the pre-show, both of those teams could be the biggest oversight as far as people missing on the card who have a decent enough “in” to be reasonably booked.
The Regular Absentees
Eva Marie is still just a void of a roster member with an expiring contract, Kane is still running for mayor, Chris Jericho is still on tour with Fozzy, Nikki Bella is still out for however long of an absence she’s planning on being away and we know John Cena isn’t scheduled to return until July 4th. It’s possible Zack Ryder is ready to compete, but nothing has been confirmed.
Nothing new on that front from the past few events, outside of the Cena and Ryder news.
Technically Speaking…
If we’re going to split hairs, The Singh Brothers and James Ellsworth aren’t advertised for the card, but we do know they’ll be making appearances alongside Jinder Mahal and Carmella, respectively.
Do you think these men and women or any others not on this list should have been booked on the card in some fashion? How would you have utilized them if given the opportunity? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
