Money in the Ranked part 1 (22-11)

All 22 WWE Money in the Bank ladder matches ranked. Listen, I thought the title would work better than it does, just go with it, OK?

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The Money in the Bank (from hereon in referred to as ‘MITB’, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do and I am a very, very lazy man) ladder match is the best idea that WWE have had since Steve Austin’s turn to the dark side at the end of Wrestlemania 17 in 2001 signalled the end of the Attitude Era and drew the curtain on the last period which wrestling seemed in any way relevant or widely notable. It’s arguably the only good idea they’ve had in that 18 year period. Save perhaps having The Miz replace Ted DiBiase jnr. as the lead actor in ‘The Marine’ franchise from ‘The Marine 3: Homefront’ onward. Yeah, WWE make movies now. And yeah, they’re all terrible.

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There have seriously been 6 of these fuckers

The premise- 5-10 wrestlers battle to use ladders to reach a contract swinging over the top of the ring which allows them a shot at any title they choose at any time they want over the next 12 months- is simple but ingenious, and allows for great storytelling potential and the chance to quickly promote a wrestler into the main event picture. Of course, this potential is more often than not completely squandered, because WWE are generally incompetent and we’re not allowed to have nice things.

Ranking the matches is difficult, because save a handful of amazing bouts and a smaller, Jeremy Beadle sized handful of slightly poorer ones, they’re almost always a similar level of ‘alright, pretty good, I suppose’. However, I am perhaps the greatest blogger of my generation- the ‘Heart Blog Kid’ Blog Michaels, or ‘Stone Blog’ Steve Blogstin, if you will- so I knew I had the ability to do it. I had initially planned to write this list in the build up to the 2018 Money in the Bank pay per view, back when there had been exactly 20 matches, and it would have made so much more sense. Alas, now there are 22 and, to be completely honest, I can’t even promise to finish it in time for 2019’s event exactly two weeks from today. But it’s a cash cow that the WWE are unlikely to put down for a long time yet, so there’s always the chance of a top 24 in 2020. Or perhaps a top 26 in 2021. I mean, I’ve started it now and I’ve already realised it’s going to have to be two parts…

Let’s see how long this takes!!

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26 Public Service Broadcasting: Every Valley

The Mining Industry’s Colapse is Unfortunately Not Always Super Entertaining

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I don’t think any widely used (and often misquoted) maxim gets me more riled* than the one that supposes all the world’s problems could have easily avoided if people just payed a little more attention in history class.

History’s great: the past was fucking mental and studying quite how bananas it was is always fascinating. In fact, I’d say that out of all the school subjects history was definitely my favourite ‘ry’, better than chemistry, carpentry and podiatry (my school was very weird). But to say that knowledge of it would prevent making similar mistakes in the future just completely misunderstands human psychology: when you hear of past logistical failures, you don’t wisely choose to avoid making the mistakes, you do it all exactly the same because, deep down, you know that it’ll work when you do it because you’re frickin’ awesome. Do you think that in late 1942 some bespectacled nerd Nazi soldier (a ‘nazerd’? A ‘nerdzi’? Yeah, I like that second one) hurried to the front of the battalion encroaching on Russia with his school history text book shouting at the admiral “Hey, mate, hey! I’ve just read up a bit on this whole ‘invading Russia’ lark, and it turns out it might not be a good idea…!”

No. Hitler knew all about his history. He just assumed that he would be able to get it done right. Because he was Adolf fucking Hitler and he didn’t give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuck, yo.

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(…)

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10 ANOHNI*: Hopelessness

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As a culture, we westerners are still not 100% ‘OK’ with transgendered people

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I mean, obviously: we’re not even close to 100% accepting homosexuality. We pat ourselves on the back every time a country legalises gay marriage, but it speaks volumes that every country bar Ireland didn’t dare put it to a vote, and you have to wonder how much bigger that 38% opposition would be if the people of Britain and America were polled

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