Once again, the WWE has chosen to make this easy for me by only announcing five matches – one of which is going to be the pre-show match, streaming on YouTube.  So in practice, that’s only four matches announced for a three-hour show.

Now, granted, in practice, all four matches can be expected to be lengthy – but that’s still about an hour of mystery content for the PPV buyer.  There’s a school of thought that says this doesn’t matter.  In one sense that’s correct.  Nobody (or nobody who understands how these shows work, at any rate) ever bought a three-hour show because of the sixth match on the card, which was unlikely to run more than ten minutes.

But I still think it’s a mistake, for two reasons.

First, it’s about giving the impression that the whole card matters.  If you’re padding out the show with random matches then the audience will feel they’re not getting anything that they couldn’t have seen on free TV – and the WWE currently puts out four hours a week of free American TV, plus the weekly hour of undercard matches on Superstars (which is often surprisingly good, since it gives low-ranking wrestlers a rare chance to work longer matches), plus the international rookie show NXT (which I could spend a whole post on).  Tons of generic matches air every week.  If you want people to pay for PPVs, you can’t have a third of the show appearing to be filler.

Second, the build-up for these undercard matches ought to give lower card wrestlers a chance to do something on Raw or Smackdown, and a chance to get noticed by the audience.  We might get more of this in a few weeks when Raw moves to a three-hour slot on a regular basis – god knows they’ll have to fill that extra hour with something.  At any rate, it seems to me that even if these undercard matches don’t draw any more money, they can still be used to establish wrestlers with the core audience.  And they should be.

But what do we have on this show?

Well, this is the annual Money in the Bank PPV, built around two ladder matches – one for Raw, one for Smackdown.  (This is a bit odd in itself, since the brand division has been largely abandoned.  But they still have two separate versions of the world title, at least for the moment.)  Basically, the winner of the match gets a title shot – symbolised by a briefcase ostensibly containing the contract – which they can cash in at literally any time.  In practice, that means the winner gets the right to ambush the champion and steal the title.

Every previous MitB winner has gone on to win the world title when they cashed in the title shot, with two exceptions.  Mr Kennedy put his title shot up for grabs in a match against Edge and lost it – Edge then went on to cash it in and win the title.  And Rob Van Dam, being a babyface, sportingly chose to give his opponent fair notice of the match.  He still won.  Nobody has ever cashed in the MitB briefcase and lost.  It has to happen at some point.  But for now, it remains a gimmick that the company has protected well.  To all intents and purposes, the winners of the MitB matches are uncrowned champions of the future.

That could well be the not too distant future, since last year Kane cashed in his title shot later in the night (avoiding the company having two briefcases in play); plus, a week down the line is the 1000th episode of Raw, which is being pushed as a very big deal.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see somebody cash in their title shot there.

All that set-up being done, what’s on the show?

1.  WWE Title: CM Punk v Daniel Bryan.  This feud over Raw’s version of the world title is now onto its third show.  However, the story is still built around AJ Lee and her “crazy chick” gimmick.  For no particularly logical reason, the board of directors in its infinite wisdom has decided that she will be the guest referee for this match.  The basic set-up is that AJ, who is either playing mind games or is mad, appears to be fixated on CM Punk, the defending babyface champion.  Bryan, the heel challenger who jilted her and ignored her for weeks, is now desperately trying to get back into her good books.  And even Punk isn’t necessarily prepared to give AJ the level of attention she wants, since there’s a limit to even his tolerance.

So it’s a soap opera angle, but one the company evidently has great confidence in, given how hard they’ve been pushing AJ on TV.  She’s certainly been very good in the role, and personally, I don’t mind this storyline – though I can understand why it irritates people who’d rather just see Punk and Bryan have a completely straight technical match.  Mind you, the WWE already delivered that match two months ago.

The problem with a match like this is that it obviously can’t end until AJ becomes involved in the finish, and it’s difficult to build a whole match around an erratic referee.  (The smart way to do it is for AJ to play the first ten minutes or so dead straight so that the audience forgets she’s there.)  The obvious ending to this storyline would see AJ do a U-turn and align herself with Bryan again to give him the title; at any rate, a win for Punk seems to leave the storyline with nowhere to go.  My guess is that Bryan wins, with or without AJ’s deliberate help.

2.  World Heavyweight Title: Sheamus v Alberto Del Rio.  This is Smackdown’s version of the world title, and it’s a match that was originally promised for a couple of shows back before they panicked and decided to add some more people.  It’s basically filler and it rather suggests that Sheamus – who doesn’t have a strong title right now – is the more likely champion to retain but then lose his title to an opportunistic cash-in.  Del Rio could win, if the idea is for a babyface to win the title shot and immediately steal it from him, but I don’t see that happening.  Most likely, Sheamus wins an above average match.

3.  Raw Money in the Bank match: The Big Show v John Cena v Chris Jericho v Kane.  Traditionally, MitB matches have had eight or so mid card wrestlers, and the idea has been that one of them breaks from the pack and is marked out as a main event guy of the future.  This time Raw is taking a different route and just having four established former champions fight for the title shot.

This one could be a struggle.  There’s enough talent here to put together a solid match, but these four don’t naturally lend themselves to a strong ladder match.  Big Show and Kane are both giants, and a ladder match doesn’t need two of those.  John Cena is the established face of the company, and he’s not going to be doing anything stupid.  That leaves Chris Jericho to do the hard work to deliver the spectacle.  Good luck, Chris.

In terms of who might win: Kane can pretty much be ruled out, since he’s won before, and the resulting title reign wasn’t terribly successful.  Cena could win, but the MitB gimmick really sits better with a heel, or at least a babyface who’s going to turn heel, since the only sensible thing to do with it is ambush the champion.  Jericho, in his current run, has mainly been used as a veteran star who nobly loses to help build up his opponent.  That kind of leaves Big Show, who is indeed being pushed as the main heel on Raw right now.

On the other hand, if Bryan does indeed win the title, you need a babyface challenger.  So, tentatively, my guess would be that Cena wins the title, tries to cash it in against Bryan on Raw #1000, and gets screwed out of winning the match, setting up a rematch with Bryan at Summerslam.  It would make Cena the first person ever to fail in cashing in the briefcase, but I think he’s a big enough star to take it.

4.  Smackdown Money in the Bank match: Dolph Ziggler v Christian v Tensai v Santino Marella v Damien Sandow v Tyson Kidd v Sin Cara v Cody Rhodes.  In contrast to the Raw match, this is going to be midcard wrestlers trying to steal the spotlight.

Let’s run through the contenders.  Christian is the current Intercontinental Champion – the secondary belt on Smackdown – but they’ve done very little with him since he won the title, and it’s unlikely he’s suddenly going to be catapulted back to the main event.  He is, however, experienced in ladder matches, which is probably why he’s here.  Santino Marella is the US Champion, but he’s mainly a comedy act.  I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility of having him win for shock value – he’s very popular – but that would lead to Santino headlining Smackdown, and I don’t think they have that sort of confidence in him.  They might do it, but they’d regret it the next day.

Dolph Ziggler and Cody Rhodes are the mid card heels on the verge of promotion to the main event who’ve been stuck in that limbo for a little too long and have lost momentum.  They’re both likely winners here because they really could benefit from the win, and Ziggler in particular is still in a position where fans could be persuaded to take him seriously with the right push.  Give him the title shot, book him strong for a while before he cashes him in, and it could work.  Rhodes… well, the hardcore fans respect him, but I don’t think he’s really won over the casual audience yet.  I think there’s work to be done there before you could give him the title even in this backdoor way.  But rumour has it they’ve seriously considered it.

Sin Cara and Tyson Kidd are babyface wrestlers who are there to do some high flying and deliver some spectacle.  Sin Cara used to be a big star in Mexico under the name Mistico; the WWE doesn’t quite know what to do with him, and aside from a major feud against Hunico, he’s not had much to do.  Kidd is an excellent wrestler who’s been used as cannon fodder for years and is tragically wasted in that role; he’s not going to win, but he’s here to put on a show.  Hopefully somebody at least takes notice and decides to use him properly.

Tensai is the same guy who used to be known as Albert, and later as A-Train, a good few years ago.  In the interim, he’s been wrestling in Japan, hence the decision to repackage him as some sort of cult-like heavy with a Japanese aide in tow.  (The aide, Sakamoto, is actually a wrestler, but so far he’s just been used in a supporting role.)  The idea was to bring him in as a major star and push him heavily, but it’s all fallen a bit flat, and some rethinking is now going on.  I get the impression that he’s in this match to give him something to do, and to get a strongman in there somewhere.

Damien Sandow is an oddity.  This is actually his second run in the WWE – he was briefly on Smackdown in 2006 under the name “Idol Stevens” as part of a tag team managed by Michelle McCool during her “sexy teacher” phase (don’t ask).  He’s now been completely repackaged as a pretentious intellectual who claims to be here to save the masses, and does things like refusing to wrestle opponents who are beneath him.  His entrance music is the Hallelujah Chorus.  It’s a ridiculous gimmick but he actually does it rather well, and the company seems to have a tentative degree of faith in him.  I don’t see him winning here – there’s been little sign that they have that sort of confidence in him, and he’s essentially doing a comedy act – but stranger things have been known.

My guess would be that Ziggler wins in a spectacular match, and then holds on for a while before cashing in the briefcase, as they try to rebuild him as a main event threat.  (He’s been losing an awful lot lately.)

5.  R-Truth & Kofi Kingston v Hunico & Camacho.  This is the You-Tube match.  R-Truth & Kingston are the tag champions and they will presumably win here, because Hunico & Camacho aren’t even the top contenders for their title.  That would be the Prime Time Players, who have been politely waiting for the title shot for a while now.  (R-Truth is only just back from a broken foot.)  I can only guess they’ve decided to do that match at Summerslam.

Worth getting?  It’s airing on Sky Sports 2 in the UK, so it’s not a decision I have to make.  On the whole, I’d say Punk/Bryan is likely to be good (even with the soap opera angles), Sheamus/Del Rio should be fine, and the Smackdown MitB match looks strong.  The Raw one… I don’t know about Big Show and Kane making up half of a ladder match, frankly.  Looks to me like a classic case of booking the match before they’ve thought what it’ll look like.