One year ago today - MITB 2021

[Jindrak Mark]

A pretty eventful show as it was the first PPV with a full capacity crowd since Elimination Chamber 2020. It's a bit of a trip looking at that EC card actually and seeing how much things changed in a year and a half. Shayna won the main event and crushed everyone in the match. Aleister Black won a near 25 minute match with AJ. Andrade was still being pushed as US champ. Drew Gulak had a competitive PPV match with Daniel Bryan. Rollins was still with Murphy and AOP. Zack Ryder worked the pre-show. And I remembered the trio of Sami/Cesaro/Nakamura but I forgot their name was The Artist Collective and they won the IC title from Braun in a 3 on 1 match. Anyway, back to MITB:

Bianca/Bayley in an i quit match was scheduled but Bayley tore her ACL a couple of weeks before the show so the match was cancelled and as of today she still hasn't returned.

The Usos won the tag titles from the Mysterios on the pre-show so their reign is at the one year mark now.

Nikki A.S.H won the women's MITB and ended up being one of the worst booked MITB winners/world champions ever and is arguably in a worse spot today than she was before winning either.

AJ and Omos beat the Viking Raiders and Omos was actually getting pretty over at the time.

Lashley was in the middle of his dominant WWE title run and completely destroyed Kofi.

Charlotte flipped off the crowd which won them over and she ended Rhea's title reign.

Big E had one of the most feel-good MITB wins, winning a stacked match (E/Rollins/Drew/Owens/Riddle/Nakamura/Morrison/Ricochet).



Roman and Edge finally had their first singles match and the top 2 matches for Summerslam were set up when Rollins cost Edge the match and Cena returned from Firefly Funhouse purgatory to confront Roman and received one of the biggest pops of recent years.

[Deleted]

Cena's return was the only thing I really remembered. f***, that pop was massive.

[Citizen Snips]

So in one year, Big E:
-Won the MITB
-Won the WWE Title in a historic match where he became the first Black challenger to unseat a Black champion
-Had a terrible title reign
-Went back to The New Day after losing the title
-Was nearly paralyzed and the future of his career is still uncertain

What a year.

[Error]

Was there live, it was a weird show. The women's match was good but no one cared until Charlotte lost her cool, Alexa was over as hell and Nikki was winning was a feel good moment, Big E winning was huge but nothing tips that Cena return. That was ear shattering.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Wow, Nikki ASH is women's champion! What's next??

[Instant Classic]

Crazy to think that Nikki ASH won. Looking back then to now Alexa Bliss hasn’t done didly squat.

[J is Justice]

I still haven't gotten over how awful Nikki's reign was. They couldn't have done a worse job even if they tried. What exactly were they going for?

[ThankGodForSidJustice]

Jul 18, 2022 18:05:16 GMT -5 J is Justice said:

I still haven't gotten over how awful Nikki's reign was. They couldn't have done a worse job even if they tried. What exactly were they going for?

I think it was probably just a result of them not really knowing who to go with. When you look at who else was in that match there isn't a really clear cut choice. Asuka and Alexa it was been there done that. Liv made the most sense story/build wise but probably wasn't ready and in hindsight it was probably for the best to hold off until the next year to pull the trigger on her. Zelina had just come back and imo was maybe even less championship material then Nikki. Carmella's was fully cemented as a midcard glue piece at that point. Natalya and Tamina I don't think I need say anymore.

So they just went with Nikki and gave her a half assed run with it. I mean I thought the gimmick was super dumb and not going to get over to begin with but they really didn't try either. I don't think she should've been champion but if you are going to put the belt on her at least maybe try a little bit to see if maybe you have something. Looking back they probably should've had either Carmella and Natalya win and fail the cash in. Would've got it out of the way and it would be at the expense of a heel who isn't going to be main eventer again anyways so it wouldn't have mattered. Have Carmella try to prey on a hurt Bianca and act cocky only to eat a quick KOD. With her character and role on the card she would've easily been able to take it and you could spin off another story for her with it.