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Which WWE Superstar turned in the greatest Money in the Bank cash-in of all time?
While far from the most pressing “GOAT” question in the WWE Universe, what with talk of Mount Rushmore and championship reign supremacy perennial hot topics within the fandom, the question of who best turned in the briefcase, inserted themselves into a match, and came out of it with a new championship is as contested a question as Austin Theory's failed cash-in on Seth Rollins‘ United States Championship is universally considered the worst cash-in of all time.
Fortunately, a superstar with real, tangible experience winning the briefcase and cashing it in for a massive win actually weighed in on this very topic and let it be known that his cash-in was by far the best: Dolph Ziggler. Sitting down with Chris Van Vliet on his YouTube show, Ziggler explained that, while his cash-in may not be the first or the most notable, it was special in its own way.
“A bunch of people make other arguments, but here's why mine's different than if you want to say Seth’s at WrestleMania, or like the first ever one or whatever,” Ziggler said via Fightful. “I mean, the first one was pretty cool. I didn't understand the idea, it was Edge, right? And Vince is there and like, it's, whoa, you know. But here's why mine is better, because of what I just said. I lost every single match. Vickie talked for me, I got Vickie, and then we go on to AJ and Big E. So I now have a group of three. And I'm losing every single match, except for the ladder match, which was so fun. There's a great gif of Tensai throwing me into the chairs and I fly around on my head. I win, and I win that and I go how are we going to build on this? Because I can't just lose 900 matches in a row when this one and then lose 900 in a row again, and the boss goes now you're gonna lose even more, and not in a devious way, he goes because you have this briefcase, and when that contract gets cashed in, everything is erased. And I go, Okay, that's a fair point.”
While Ziggler certainly makes a compelling case for his run, it's hard to see fans putting his cash-in over Seth Rollins' decision to cash-in on Brock Lesnar and his The Sheild faction mate Roman Reigns to become the WWE World Champion at WrestleMania 31. Still, good on the proprietor of the Zig Zag for believing in himself and making a case for one of the most under-appreciated MitB cash-ins in WWE history.
Dolph Ziggler details how he was almost fired from WWE in 2008.
Elsewhere in his interview with Van Vliet, Ziggler decided to share the story of the time in 2008 when he believed he was going to be fired from WWE in 2008 after a less-than-prolific early run in the company.
“So, a lot of people think that’s the debut, but that’s when I come back,” Ziggler said via Fightful. “I wanna say I wrestle R-Truth as Dolph Ziggler, I think I have a double count-out or I roll in and beat Truth… and then I’m not on TV for a month or month and a half, and then I come back, and it’s against Batista, and I go ‘Oh, this is my last day at work.’ If you were a new young guy, you don’t know what’s going on… I don’t have a legacy, I don’t have friends in the meeting, I don’t know what I’m doing. They gave me this weird name that I tried to fight them on, and my debut was a count-out win against R-Truth, who is beloved, especially by me. If you’re debuting and you’re fighting Triple H and winning, they’ve got plans for you. When you’re debuting against R-Truth, who wasn’t on TV at the time, and you’re barely scraping by, and then you go away for a month, and they tell me that it’s you and Batista and it’s one segment… Lucky for me, Batista is not just a sweetheart, he’s great and wanted to have a good match. So, I just saw that, and I go, ‘Oh, this is it.’ Instead, we have a really fun match. It was like eight or ten minutes, but it was kind of a good match, but he’s going on to a pay-per-view in a world title match, so he definitively beats me, totally get that. But I don’t have to check the wanted ads next Monday.”
While he maybe doesn't always get the credit he deserves for his in-ring efforts, Ziggler is sneakily one of the more prolific superstars of the last 15 or so years of WWE history, with 15 different title reigns with darn near every championship the promotion has sanctioned since 2018. Even if he's seldom used now and may eventually join his brother in AEW in the not-too-distant future as Nicky Nemeth, for now, it's nice Ziggler is getting a chance to get some love while he's still kicking it at a high level.
