Former WWE Star reveals innaugral Women’s Money in the Bank Match controversy that led to a second match on SmackDown was planned.
WWE received major backlash for the way their first ever Women’s money in the bank match ended. Many had joked that James Ellsworth would be the first woman to unhook the briefcase. To their horror that is exactly what happened when Ellsworth grabbed the briefcase and handed it to Carmella.
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Fans were livid and believed that Ellsworth’s involvement overshadowed what was a historic moment for Women wrestling. A second MITB match was soon announced and this time Carmella hooked the case by herself. However, it appears that this was WWE’s plan all along.
Former WWE Star reveals innaugral Women’s Money in the Bank Match controversy was planned
James Ellsworth, who was involved in the Money in the Bank controversy, recently appeared on the It’s My House podcast. He revealed that the second women’s MITB ladder match in 2017 was all part of Vince McMahon’s original vision and not a consequence of fan backlash.
“It worked. And what I mean by work is people, maybe your self included, think that they did that second Money in the Bank ladder match two weeks later on SmackDown because they got so much backlash; which is not true at all. They knew they were going to do the second one before we ever did the first. It was Vince’s idea. Vince goes, ‘We got to get some heat on Carmella and Ellsworth,’ because, at the house shows we were getting cheered.
“So the way we get the heat was Ellsworth climbs the ladder. He gives her the briefcase, and then we’ll get a lot of backlash for it. But then we’ll pop a rating on SmackDown because we’ll have another one, where she kind of grabs that herself, but this will be like her big moment. And he [Vince McMahon] was right. He was right about it all. That was the most talked about moment from that pay per view. And then the Smackdown, that we did a week or two later, and that second one 600,000 people more watched that Smackdown than the week before. He’s a genius whenever he feels like being a genius.”
Ellsworth also revealed that Vince told him that he was going to sign him immediately after his match with Braun Strowman.
“Once I did the Strowman match, and it’s funny you bring up the internet wrestling community and the memes and all the support which I appreciated. That’s not what did it. It’s that day when I wrestled Strowman, after I was done in the match Vince McMahon was looking for me. And when he found me he shook my hand, he said, Great job out there I’m going to hire you. And I thought he was kidding. I was like oh thank you, he said I’ll be in touch. He thought for a while. What am I going to do with this guy. He thought I cut a good promo, I sold well he thought I looked different. Six weeks later he hired me.
“It worked out for all of us. I mean he hired me, my T-shirt was the number one seller for a month, and I feel where whatever they put me in worked. Like I always tell everybody I had such a great time and I appreciated the opportunity that he gave me.”
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