WrestleMania 28: Money in the Bank Needs to Happen

There has been a lot of talk about the lack of booked matches for WrestleMania thus far.  

While the matches that have been announced have the potential to completely steal the show no matter what else is booked, there does seem to be a lack of talent being used so far. 

Rock vs. John Cena has been the match everyone has been talking about for the better part of a year, and it is almost guaranteed to bring the goods when the time comes for that match to finally take place.

Undertaker vs. Triple H, while being the third encounter between these two at the show of shows—and some are still a little pessimistic about it—will certainly live up to the hype now with Hell in a Cell being added as a stipulation to bring an end to an era. 

CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho for the WWE Championship has been a match we've all wanted to see since the videos marking Jericho's return first started to appear.  These two combined have some of the best wrestling skills in the entire WWE, and they certainly will be able to add hype to their match with the coming weeks of great promo work between the two.

Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship is great to see on the card because just last year, these two were scheduled to have a United States Championship match at last year's show, but that bout was relegated to a dark match that turned into a battle royal won by Great Khali.  These two superstars have worked so hard in the last year to get where they are today and deserve to be on this year's card with something on the line. 

That's four matches announced so far, with four of the competitors being regular talent and four being legends to help add some buy rates for the biggest show of the year.  After last year's disappointing 'Mania, it's no wonder why Vince McMahon wants to pull out all the stops for this year's show.

If, in fact, Vince is willing to go all in with this year's show in Miami, he needs to add the Money in the Bank ladder match to the card for a number of reasons.

For one, last year's WrestleMania was expanded to a four-hour show to help fill all the time taken up by Rock's hosting responsibilities.  While it was a fun idea, that extra hour was pretty obsolete because of random backstage segments, which caused the main event for the WWE Championship to only get about 10 minutes of actual work.  Obviously, this year, matches need to get the appropriate amount of time and not be subject to time crunches by promotions and such nonsense.  Having four matches does open the door for better, longer matches, but there is still some time to be filled in on the card. 

Second, with there being all these slots taken up by older stars (not a complaint, just an observation), there is a number of talent that has nothing to do right now.  Sure, there are a number of injuries that could throw a wrench into the Money in the Bank match, but it doesn't mean that it has to be taken off the table completely.  

Finally, with there being such a lack of interest in the mid-card and tag team titles, why force together a random title match or two that doesn't have a whole lot of background to it and let eight to 10 guys fight for their lives in one of the most exciting and intense matches the WWE has to offer. 

Right now, it would appear that Big Show and Cody Rhodes are headed towards some sort of feud over the Intercontinental Championship.  While that match has some merit to it, after Rhodes' great showing last year with Rey Mysterio, it doesn't seem right to make him feud with Show right now.  Especially since Rhodes hasn't defended the title enough over the past couple of months to make the feud seem logical.  Throwing together this feud could work, but it doesn't seem right when you could have both of these two guys in the ladder match and bring their feud to a head at Extreme Rulez, or whatever pay-per-view they are actually going to put after 'Mania. 

Jack Swagger is the United States Champion and, logically speaking, has only wrestled in one match since winning the gold—a random title defense against Justin Gabriel at Elimination Chamber over a spat with Vickie and Hornswaggle.  Zack Ryder would be a nice opponent for him, but since we're not really sure when Ryder will come back from "injuries" suffered at the hands of Kane, why not throw him into the match as well?

In the realm of reality, Christian and Alberto Del Rio would be great additions to the match, but it's unclear at this point whether their appearance at Elimination Chamber was a show-up-and-go-back-to-rehabbing deal or if they are legitimately back.  If they are 100 percent healthy, they would clearly be in the match, bringing us to Rhodes, Show, Swagger, Christian and Del Rio in the match.

Then there's Kane.  After his great feud with John Cena, he appears to be in no-man's land with his character path.  With the work he did to get fans back on the side of John Cena—which was his real purpose for feuding with him, not to get him to turn heel—he needs to be rewarded with an appearance in MITB in what could possibly signal his final run with the company.  

Kofi Kingston and R-Truth have been teaming up in tag team matches this past week, so it would appear the current angle is to get them to join forces and challenge Epico and Primo for the Tag Team Championships.  Problem with that is, with all the great work Kofi and Truth have been doing as of late, why subject them to being victims of failed tag team experiments and pit them in a match that few fans would be interested in?  Give them their shot in MITB as well. Since we know about Truth's fear of ladder spiders and Kofi's willingness to put his body on the line, they would fit the mold for the contest to a T.

That gives us Rhodes, Show, Swagger, Christian, Del Rio, Kofi, Truth and Kane with great possibilities to be put into this match.  That leaves us with two spots left to fill. 

Dolph Ziggler.  Come on, how can you leave this guy out of the match?  He's been doing so great as of late and unless he would get added to a world title match somehow (not going to happen), he deserves to have his own spotlight as well, bringing us to nine.

Question is, who could take the 10th spot now that Wade Barrett is out of action, presumably until after 'Mania is over.  Logically, a good answer would be the Miz, but since nobody really knows how deep his backstage heat actually runs, he could be left off the card altogether.  While I don't want to see that happen, as I am a big Miz fan, it's quite possible he becomes an afterthought this year.  

Rey Mysterio would fit into this match perfectly if he finally comes back, like he recently stated he would, in time for WrestleMania. Overall, if it did in fact come down to Mysterio or Miz, Mysterio would get the nod because of his Latino roots and, being in Miami, he would be able to connect with the fans much better than another heel would.  

There you have it, the Money in the Bank field is set.  Ironically, even though it would appear that there would have to be some major back stories to make this work, the great thing about MITB is that there doesn't need to be this elaborate scheme to set up a 10-way feud.  Just putting these guys into the match together would make the sparks fly as easily as it is to cut water with a spoon.  

Now WWE just has to look at their roster and determine that this is the only logical use for all these superstars to be put onto the WrestleMania card.