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Steve Austin Not Happy With Women’s ‘Money In The Bank’ Finish

By Chris Featherstone
Published on: 14:49 PST, Jun 24, 2017

There is no question that the first-ever women’s Money in the Bank match was not well received. While most viewers liked the match quality, the finish was severely controversial. At the end of the match, not only did James Ellsworth tip the ladder to make Becky Lynch fall, but he also actually climbed the ladder, grabbed the briefcase, and dropped it in the arms of Carmella.

The following Tuesday on SmackDown Live, Carmella cut a poignant promo to defend her case of remaining the women’s Money in the Bank winner. After stating that she did not have a notable pedigree like Tamina, Charlotte Flair, and Natalya, or the fiery “Lass Kicker” aggression like Lynch, she was able to defy the odds and win the case. She also argued that the rules state that the first women who physically claims the case is the winner. She added that there were other times that names helped a person win the case, namely Kane helping Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt indirectly helping Sheamus.

Despite this defense, General Manager Daniel Bryan made the decision to relinquish the case from Carmella and issue a rematch on the next SmackDown Live show, simply due to the fact that no person has ever climbed the ladder for another person and handed them the case.

On his recent podcast, The Steve Austin Show, Austin had a chance to share his thoughts on the conclusion of the match.

“With all due respect to [James] Ellsworth, I mean he’s done what he was told, I thought one of the women were gonna push the ladder match. Maybe he was gonna split the top rope with some kind of epic nut shot, or just take a bump, nonetheless. Or something safe where he’s the one eliminated but not grabbing the briefcase. The kid grabs the briefcase, Carmella, allegedly, wins, and I’m like, for trying to be an epic, first-ever, Money in the Bank match, and some guy climbs up there and wins it, what if they had a Money in the Bank match with the guys, and one of the guys had a female valet. And during the course of the match, she climbs up, and then drops the briefcase down to the guy? I don’t think you would [ever] see that, you never have seen it, you’ve never seen anything close to that. So, all of a sudden for this to happen in that match, it rubbed me the wrong way.”

Austin would add that one of the women should have grabbed the case, because they worked hard enough to be able to earn that achievement. Also, he did agree that it gave SmackDown Live a stronger rating, because the status of the case was one of the top stories on the show and it does not do much to help in the long run. Austin also agrees that if it was the third women’s Money of the Bank match, it would have been a different scenario. However, since this was a historic, first-ever match, it should have had a clean finish.

Of course, this controversy does not mean much, because Carmella is still favored to win the MITB match for the second time. The biggest difference, though, is that Ellsworth is predicted to be ineffective early in the match, giving Carmella a clean victory this time around. On a more positive note, Austin was a big fan of Carmella’s promos on both SmackDown Live and Talking Smack. Moreover, he is a proponent of her winning the case for a second time, because the spotlight will be shined on her properly.

[Featured Image by WWE]

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