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DID WWE RUIN THE FIRST-EVER WOMEN'S MITB MATCH? YOUR FEEDBACK!

By Mike Johnson on 6/19/2017 12:25 PM

Last night, based on email and social media responses PWInsider received to the finish of the first-ever Women's Money in the Bank match, PWInsider asked for feedback on the decision to go with James Ellsworth's interference leading to Ellsworth unhooking the MITB Briefcase and tossing it down to Carmella.  Here is a sampling of that feedback.

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First, I'm not one to tweet.  Nor one to comment.  Yet I've made more tweets about the MitB match today than I have all year, and here I am responding to a request for comments from a website.  Oh, the things WWE will make us do.

I tried watching the Money In The Bank show tonight on the WWE network.  I shut down the stream after the Women's MitB match.

The reason is my 12 year old daughter.  She is a wrestling fan, and I love it.  We watch pay per views together, go to indy events together and even shell out for Smackdown Live when it comes to town, and plan on attending the Summerslam Heatwave event when it's in town in August.

The reaction from both of us when Elsworth unclipped the briefcase was pure disbelief.  For a match where the women worked as hard as anybody in the company, where so much emphasis was placed on this being a First Ever event, to have the ending play out as it did was heartbreakingly disappointing.

Yes, I get it, Carmella is a heel, and should do heelish things.  Yes, I get it, Elsworth is perfectly in his character by interfering in the match and helping Carmella win.  We are both fine with Carmella cheating to win -- it's expected in wrestling.

But the lasting image of the match is not going to be one of a woman triumphing over her rivals by any means and securing the contract for herself.  It's going to be of a woman being handed her opportunity by her boyfriend.  This is absolutely the wrong message WWE should be sending.  And I don't mean "sending to women and girls", I mean sending, at all, to anybody.

The First Ever Women's Money in the Bank match should have ended with a strong woman beating adversity, by hook or by crook if necessary, and standing tall at the top of the ladder, retrieving the briefcase and securing the victory.  WWE will never have another chance to do this match for the first time, and to see them handle this so spectacularly poorly is a travesty.

This is different from heel heat.  This is different from X-Pac heat even.  This is "I should reconsider remaining as a WWE Network Subscriber heat."   I subscribe in part for her, and if we are unable to enjoy the shows together my incentive to continue paying each month is drastically diminished.

WWE is at risk of losing my daughter as a fan, and as she goes my interest will wane.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Dean M.

***

I'm not sure how anyone can see this as anything but a slap in the face of women everywhere. They managed to severely damage the 'revolution' with one stupid finish. Whoever came up with and approved this finish had ZERO foresight.

Wonder Woman is the biggest grossing movie out right now. You'd THINK that might have crossed someone's mind when they were planning this out.

Andrea M.

****

Carmella/Ellsworth are HEELS.

Heels always CHEAT.

They didnt ruin MITB.

They stick to the script.

Jeremy P.

****

Uhhhh, it's pro wrestling, you do know that, right? This pissed people off, those people, no matter how much they say they won't, WILL turn smackdown on come Tuesday. Mission accomplished. Don't like it? Cancel the network and support real women's wrestling. subscribe to STARDOM, maybe order some SHIMMER DVDs, its 10 time better believe me. This isn't Bobby Riggs vs Billie Jean King. It's a work. No one "ruined" anything.

Jesse M.

****

To people saying this didn't ruin the match because they are "heels". If this were any other match , I might agree with you. But this was a history making match, the first-ever women's MITB stemming from a revolution of women wrestler's intent on being known for their in ring work, instead of looking and acting like bikini models, that also saw the first Women's hell in a cell, where instead of a screw finish we got something amazing.

However, now when people look back towards this moment, people will see that a man had to get the case for a woman, which I guarantee you later down the road, will be looked at as a bad move and perhaps even a step backwards. ANY OTHER TIME, them being "heels" in doing this would work, but not when the women are getting their first ever shot at showing they can put on just as good as a match as the men. After all they have had to overcome to be taken seriously, they at least deserved that respect for just one damn match

Johnny S.

****

Interference in a ladder match is nothing new. Ellsworth knocking Becky Lynch off the ladder is nothing new. It’s been done before. Ellsworth climbing the ladder to hopes of helping Carmella win is nothing new. It’s been done before. Ellsworth actually retrieving the case to secure the win that’s new. I can’t recall another time that a ladder match was won in that fashion. It was something that was bound to happen eventually. In strict terms of the ladder match I have no problems with any of this. I even liked JBL selling the fact that Ellsworth did not break any rules of the match. One can complain about another WWE match ending with a non-clean finish. It’s very frustrating to see the lack of clean finishes in WWE today but that's a rant that can take us way off topic.

I’m not buying the “it’s a step back for the women” line. I actually see this as a step forward. The finish for the match is exactly like something WWE would have planned for a men’s match. The women have already had a lot of successful step forward since the start of the women’s revolution. Each one of those steps was celebrated as a special monumental occasion. The problem with it though is it’s celebrated as being special and not normal. To continue to treat everything as special will only delay the final objective of women and men being viewed equally. I see the finish as a step to remove the special label and transition to the normal label.

About the one thing I didn’t like with the finish is I felt Ellsworth did something out of character. After tipping the ladder to knock Becky off, Ellsworth never checked on Carmella. I feel that Ellsworth character would have checked on Carmella first and tried get her back in the match. For me Ellsworth taking the initiative to climb the ladder is a move his character wouldn’t make. Not checking on Carmella and worrying about winning the match felt more like  a d-bag move toward Carmella as to say the match is more important than her.

Charles B.