Hermanstyne’s Money in the Bank PPV Aftermath: An in-person perspective on Sunday's show featuring C.M. Punk defeating John Cena to win the WWE Championship

By Marv Hermanstyne

The Money in the Bank PPV was the icing of the cake of an excellent weekend in the middle of the summer. From going to Indianapolis for 48 hours for the Black Expo to coming back home to see one of the best “B” level PPVs in a very long time. The crowd experience was definitely a factor and if I were to give a rating from 1-10, the rating would been astronomical. Money in the Bank had a WrestleMania feel to it because Chicago always brings a hot presence to the table (no hometown bias intended).

The Smackdown version of MITB undoubtedly was the second best match of the night. To be honest, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in this match because of the lack of star power. These young guys tore it up for the hot crowd. Even though the guy I had winning didn’t win, my top darkhorse Daniel Bryan showed why he was the most talented out of the eight competitors.

Having an excellent mix of cruiserweights and heavyweights showed why Smackdown has a pretty underrated number of guys who can present a quality match. The promotion and marketing of Smackdown is so generic and being a business guy, it bothers me because they can do so much better. But kudos to all the guys in the SD MITB match for working hard and getting the crowd hot. Sin Cara getting powerbombed by Sheamus was nasty (but I guess now we know why).

After watching the replay at home, The Divas match proved why I took the time to buy the exclusive C.M. Punk T-shirt. The shirt was sold out by the Raw MITB match started! I usually don’t carry a lot of cash, but once I knew the shirt cost $30, I went to the line immediately. The Big Show and Mark Henry was a big man match that I didn’t have a lot of expectations for so I took the time to buy some more beer and watch the match on the TV.

The Raw MITB match was good but not great because I expected more because of the starpower. SD MITB definitely trumped this match on all levels. The spot heavy fest with Kingston and Mysterio brought the heat to the match and The Miz leaving to sell an injury was actually stupid if you ask me. Its disappointing because its like The Miz is reverting back to the mid-card, chickenshit heel who no one cared about three years ago. The fact that he sold an injury and came back in the end of the match showed why the crowd started to groan about him last night.

Chicago has become pretty Anti-Mysterio over the years and I don’t blame them. Like I mentioned in my Confidence rating editorial, Rey is past his prime the spots he performed were not bad...its just the hardcore fans are grown tired of him. Can you make Rey a heel to freshen him up for this last run? Probably not because the masks are cash cows and WWE makes dinero of the sales. I don’t know how things will be since he was unmasked, but we will just have to wait and see.

Alberto Del Rio was the safe yet predictable winner of this match and it disappointed me. WWE continues to have no faith in their babyfaces on the Raw brand and they wonder why people are groaning about Cena. God forbid if Cena gets injured, who the hell carries the Raw brand as the top babyface? Mysterio? Do you get desperate and bring over Orton from Smackdown? Do you get desperate and bring back Triple H? Sigh. WWE has to create some main event babyface stars because some of these veterans have a lot of mileage on their legs.

Christian winning the World Heavyweight Championship in the manner he did was definitely a face-palming moment. Don’t get me wrong, Christian becoming world champ again was cool, but kicking Orton in the nuts Eric Cartman style was ludicrous and childish. Where does this feud go now? It was fun for the last three months, but this feud has ran its course. I expect this to end at Summerslam and have some fresh feuds lined up for both of these guys.

The match wasn’t bad, just the way it ended baffled me because Orton kicking Christian in the nuts (knowing he has a DQ stipulation) makes him look like a total idiot. Christian being a chickenshit heel with all these stipulations essentially makes him a weak champion. Prospectively speaking, we are looking at Edge 2.0 when it comes to these title reigns and I sense that Christian will have another transitional run as the World Heavyweight Champion. If I made Edge fans mad with the last statement, here’s a Marvo Shrug with a straight face.

The main event brought the heat to the Allstate Arena...hell it was already hot as hell outside, but inside it was hotter. This had to be one of John Cena’s greatest matches in his career. Having someone as skilled as C.M. Punk carrying Cena throughout the match kept me in and out of my seat.

There was some debate with fans about having this as a possible Match of the Year candidate. This match is easily in the top five best of 2011...Punk getting the hometown love and Cena getting MEGA heel heat was amazing. Cena is not the best wrestler in the world, but damn I have to give him all the credit in the world for putting in some hard work for over 30 minutes. Punk winning the WWE Title definitely sent the crowd home happy and Cena fans were pissed!

They took the loss like adults which was surprising because from experience, when Cena loses...grown men are ready to fight. The kids were on their best behavior tonight too and when the kids in our section were pro-Punk, I damn near shed tears. I jokingly said on Twitter that “Kids who boo John Cena are gifted”....the reaction was priceless and got a lot of laughs in person and on Twitter.

Overall, for a “B” level show....this has to be one of the better PPVs in wrestling if not the best PPV in 2011 so far. The live crowd was hot all night, it sealed my entire weekend during the dog days of summer and hopefully on Raw tonight, Punk will get a proper send off before he takes his hiatus. Raw will return to Chicago on December 26th and I will be looking forward to attending. To all my readers, thanks for taking the time to read and I’ll drop back later this year with more special editorials....