Finishing up this year’s fantasy booking for extra Money in the Bank briefcases, let’s focus on the question “What if 205 Live had a ladder match?”
Since there are no women on the brand, nor tag teams, this is a much simpler one to break down in terms of how many ladder matches to account for. However, 205 Live operates somewhat differently from the other rosters, in that WWE has a true roster, but allows anybody under the 205 weight limit to appear at random.
Therefore, the field of competitors wouldn’t be limited to just the handful of stars signed “exclusively” to 205 Live, but people from NXT, NXT UK and the main roster, too.
Keeping all that in mind, I present to you my breakdown of how I personally think this would go down, and I invite you to do the same in the comments below!
List of Competitors
I tried to keep this to eight men and incorporate a little bit of variety.
- Akira Tozawa — Former cruiserweight champion.
- The Brian Kendrick — Former cruiserweight champion and the veteran of the match.
- Drew Gulak — You all know I’m picking him to win. Let’s not even wait to spill those beans.
- Gentleman Jack Gallagher — If we can get babyface Gallagher back with the umbrella and have him jump off the ladder with that as a parachute, that would be great.
- Humberto Carrillo — I’m not the biggest fan of him, but he’s there.
- Lio Rush — If he isn’t going to be on Raw, he needs to be either in NXT or in 205 Live, and here, he can be a bigger deal.
- Mike Kanellis — Kanellis would have to be a frontrunner, especially with Maria trying to help him get the advantage.
- Noam Dar — Crossover between 205 Live and NXT UK.
A notable exception to this is Ariya Daivari. I ruled him out because he’s the current No. 1 contender, so he and Tony Nese would theoretically be otherwise involved without needing this.
I also really wanted to put Chad Gable in here, but he’s never once wrestled for 205 Live, so I felt like that would be a cheat. Obviously, I also ruled out WWE putting in someone like Xavier Woods, too, and I have most of the NXT and NXT UK guys used elsewhere.
I also felt like it would be too much of a step back to put Cedric Alexander or Buddy Murphy in here, as they have moved on to better things.
With that being the field of competitors in the match, which one of them would more than likely walk out with the briefcase?
Winner and Plans
As I mentioned, I think the one and only real option here is Drew Gulak.
He is not only the best wrestler to be the next champion, he’s also the best talker AND with his previous gimmick, I could totally see him walking around with a briefcase and having a lot of fun with it. Maybe he would make it very subdued and do a PowerPoint presentation about how gaudy a purple briefcase would be, similar to how Damien Sandow had the brown briefcase?
I definitely want Gulak to take the belt off Tony Nese and whether it’s a straight-up normal match, or a cash-in, the end result would still be the same. Gulak for a better 205 Live!
Those are my thoughts on the issue, but how would you imagine WWE would do this if it were to happen? Tell us your fantasy booking scenario in the comments section below!
