WCW 2001: The Shane McMahon Era

Starrcade 2001 to debut new 'Shane's Money in the Bank Ladder Match'


On Nitro it was announced by WCW CEO and Chairman, Shane McMahon, that to celebrate his first Starrcade event there will be a new match called a 'Shane's Money in the Bank Ladder Match'. The concept seems to be that a briefcase instead of a title belt will be hung from the top of the arena and at least 6 WCW stars will compete to try and retrieve the briefcase in a match that may well rival WWF's crazy Tables, Ladders and Chairs tag-team matches often seen at Wrestlemania in the last few years.

The most interesting part of the match is the stipulation that whoever wins the match will get a 12 month opportunity to "cash-in" the briefcase for a WCW World Heavyweight Championship match at any show at any point that they wish as long as it's before Starrcade 2002. We're not sure exactly how this will work in principle, whether it will be like WWF's Hardcore Championship or whether the WCW star would need to give some level of notice for WCW to promote the match or not. 

What we do know is it's sure to be a spectacle at Shane McMahon's first Starrcade event in Miami, Florida in just a few weeks. Curt Hennig and Tommy Dreamer have already qualified for the match and looking at WCW's roster there's certainly a few more guys on there that fans are speculating and hoping will be in that match come Starrcade itself!




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I did question how "fair-game" it was to bring Money in the Bank matches into play early on and to WCW rather than WWF/WWE, but I kind of like the idea that Jericho would have pitched this to Vince/Shane etc and Vince blew it off for a few years in real life, whereas Shane is more willing to put it out there when he takes over WCW. I feel like 'Shane's Money in the Bank' just works and fits the kind of Shane McMahon type theme/gimmick well enough that I had to run with it. 

I also think that the 'Feast or Fired' concept that TNA came out with after MITB is actually a perfect replacement for WWF/WWE to use in the wake of WCW debuting the Shane's Money in the Bank Briefcase match. Vince always has the "well we'll just do it BIGGER AND BETTER" mentality and I feel like Feast or Fired being the same concept but with a bit more opportunity for more guys in the match, more title shots and the threat of being fired really adds to it (although I still personally always preferred MITB matches to Feast of Fired matches). 

The idea of the Feast or Fired briefcases getting opened the next night live on Monday Night Raw with the prospect of Vince McMahon coming out and shouting "YOU'RE FIRED!!!" to whoever gets the pink-slip as well just seems to work on so many levels too! 

I've already roughly booked Wrestlemania X8 so I think I will wait until Wrestlemania XIX to debut the Feast or Fired matches in WWF/E especially as if they went with it within a few months of MITB it looks even more like they're ripping it off.