WWE Money in the Bank 2016 Retro Review: Every Match Rated and Revisited

Welcome to WrestleSeek. Today we are going back to WWE Money in the Bank 2016, which took place on June 19, 2016, at the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. It was WWE's first event at the new arena, and 14,150 fans were there. The show had eleven matches, two of them on the Kickoff pre-show, and it was the last pay-per-view before WWE brought back the brand split in July.

On paper this was one of the most loaded cards of the year. John Cena and AJ Styles met for the first time in a match WWE sold as a dream match "15 years in the making". Six of the best workers on the roster were in the Money in the Bank ladder match. And former Shield brothers Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins fought over the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, with a third brother holding a ticket for the ladder match. Michael Cole, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Byron Saxton and Mauro Ranallo were on English commentary. In this retro review we look at every match on the card, the ring work, the story and how the night holds up today.

The build

• Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins: Rollins gave up the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in November 2015 because of a knee injury. He came back at Extreme Rules on May 22, 2016, and attacked Reigns after Reigns beat AJ Styles. Shane McMahon gave Rollins the title match the next night on Raw. The odd part: crowds were cheering Rollins and booing Reigns, the opposite of how WWE was presenting them.
• John Cena vs. AJ Styles: Cena came back from a shoulder injury on the May 30 Raw. Styles welcomed him back, then attacked him with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, turning heel and putting The Club back together. On the June 13 Raw, Cena gave Styles two contracts: one allowing Gallows and Anderson at ringside and one banning them. Styles signed the one that banned them.
• Money in the Bank ladder match: Sami Zayn, Cesaro, Chris Jericho, Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens qualified on the May 23 Raw, and Alberto Del Rio qualified on the May 26 SmackDown.
• WWE Tag Team Championship: After Enzo Amore's concussion at Payback ended the number one contender tournament final, The Vaudevillains lost to The New Day at Extreme Rules. Gallows and Anderson then attacked New Day, and Stephanie McMahon made a fatal four-way with all four teams.
• Charlotte & Dana Brooke vs. Becky Lynch & Natalya: Charlotte turned on her father Ric Flair the night after Extreme Rules and made Dana Brooke her protegee. Natalya and Becky Lynch traded wins with them on Raw and SmackDown, and the tag match was set.
• The undercard: Rusev and Titus O'Neil had been fighting since Titus helped Kalisto escape the Accolade on SmackDown. Baron Corbin and Dolph Ziggler were still at war after Corbin's low blow win at Extreme Rules. Sheamus had been bullying Apollo Crews for weeks.

Match by match

Kickoff: The Golden Truth vs. Breezango

The pre-show opener was pure comedy. Before the show, on the Raw pre-show, Goldust and R-Truth had turned up Breezango's shared tanning bed and left Tyler Breeze and Fandango with bad sunburns. So the whole match was built on that. Every time Goldust or R-Truth chopped or slapped Breeze and Fandango on their burnt chests, they screamed and sold it like a gunshot. Breezango had a short spell on top by cutting R-Truth off from his partner, but Goldust came back in and turned things around. Breeze tried to get involved at the end, R-Truth stopped him, and Goldust hit the Final Cut on Fandango for the pin. It was the first win for The Golden Truth as a team.

For us, this is a match that only makes sense if you watched the skits. Without them, it is five minutes of two men screaming whenever they are touched. The work was basic, and the Las Vegas crowd did not react much while it was going on. Goldust's veteran timing kept it from falling apart and made it smooth enough for a pre-show opener, and Breeze and Fandango deserve credit for fully committing to a silly idea. But there is nothing here to go back for. As a warm-up for the crowd it did its job, nothing more. Our rating: ★½

Kickoff: The Lucha Dragons vs. The Dudley Boyz

The second Kickoff match was a standard speed-against-size tag match. The Lucha Dragons wanted revenge after losing to the Dudleys in April. Bubba Ray and D-Von, with their twenty years of tag experience, controlled most of the match, slowing it down and keeping one of the luchadores isolated. The crowd chanted "We want tables", which, given who the Dudleys are, added a bit of tension. Kalisto and Sin Cara waited for their moments and hit back with their high-flying moves, and the highlight was a double flying dive to the floor. The finish came when Kalisto hit the Salida del Sol on Bubba Ray, and Sin Cara followed with a senton from the top rope for the win.

This played like a typical Raw tag match, and we mean that in a fair way, not as an insult. It had a clear story, the heels did their job, and the Dragons got their big moments at the end. The execution was solid, and it was better than their first meeting. Neither team was anywhere near the title picture, so the stakes were low. You will not remember it a day later, but it did a better job of getting the crowd warmed up than the opener did, and nobody got hurt. Our rating: ★★¼

WWE Tag Team Championship fatal four-way: The New Day (c) vs. Enzo & Big Cass vs. Gallows & Anderson vs. The Vaudevillains

The main card opened with the tag titles. Before the bell, The New Day made fun of all three challengers, and the best line was calling Enzo and Cass "a broke-down Han Solo and a hairless Chewbacca". Then it was a fast, busy match with lots of near-falls. Enzo and Cass nearly won with the Rocket Launcher on Karl Anderson, but Luke Gallows pulled his partner out. The Vaudevillains nearly won with the Whirling Dervish on Kofi Kingston, but Gallows broke that up as well. Gallows and Anderson then hit the Magic Killer on Aiden English, and Big E broke up the pin by lifting Anderson onto his shoulders. In the end, Kingston and Big E hit the Midnight Hour on Anderson to keep the titles, with Xavier Woods in their corner.

All four teams brought energy, and Gallows and Anderson, brought some real physical edge. The run of near-falls had the crowd going, which you want from an opener. But it was messy at times. Some of the timing between the eight men was off, and there were moments where wrestlers stood around waiting for their cue. With four teams and under twelve minutes, nobody got enough time to tell a story. It was a fun, fast-paced opener, but not a great one. For us, The New Day were the best thing about it, both in the pre-match promo and in the ring. They were at the peak of their popularity, and their long title reign was still going strong. Our rating: ★★¾

Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler

This was a continuation of a feud that had already gone through Extreme Rules, where Corbin won a No Disqualification match on the pre-show with a low blow, and a Raw rematch where Ziggler got himself disqualified by paying Corbin back with a low blow of his own. Here they had a regular singles match. Ziggler did his usual outstanding job of bumping, making Corbin's power moves look like they hurt. The finish came when Ziggler was up on the top rope and Corbin tripped him, so Ziggler fell into the top turnbuckle. Corbin then hit the End of Days for the clean pin, and the commentators called the feud over.

The problem was the length. At twelve and a half minutes, the match was too long for where the feud was and for what the two men were doing. The middle part dragged, and the crowd lost interest. "Boring" chants broke out at one point, which is never a good sign on a pay-per-view. Things only picked up near the finish. The End of Days looked good, and the win was effective for building Corbin as a mid-card heel. Ziggler did what he always did in this era, which was make his opponent look better. But for us, the feud felt overexposed by this point, and this match did not give fans any new reason to care. It is a decent match held up mostly by Ziggler, and it would have been better at eight minutes. Our rating: ★★★

Charlotte & Dana Brooke vs. Becky Lynch & Natalya

This tag match was there to keep Charlotte moving forward as Women's Champion after she dumped her father, and to set up trouble between the two babyfaces. Most of the match was Charlotte and Brooke working over Natalya. Natalya eventually locked Charlotte in the Sharpshooter, but Dana Brooke broke it up by throwing Becky Lynch into Natalya. Charlotte then hit Natural Selection on Natalya for the pin. After the match, Becky tried to check on Natalya. Natalya blamed her for the loss and attacked her, turning heel.

The post-match angle was the main thing to take away. Natalya turning on Becky made sense on paper, since she had come up short again and again, and it gave both women something new to do. The match itself, though, was short and clunky. Seven minutes with four wrestlers did not give anyone room, and a lot of that time was spent on one long heat segment on Natalya. The crowd, coming off a long Corbin vs. Ziggler match, never really woke up. Looking back, it is a bit painful to see Becky Lynch and Charlotte in a throwaway tag match, given what they would do together later. This was our biggest disappointment of the night: four talented women, and not much to show for it except the turn afterwards. Our rating: ★★

Apollo Crews vs. Sheamus

The story here was simple: Sheamus had been bullying the newcomer. He attacked Apollo Crews in a backstage interview after losing his ladder match qualifier, and the feud built from there on Raw and SmackDown. In the match, Sheamus controlled most of the action with heavy, slow offence, while Crews showed his athleticism on his comebacks, including a moonsault from the apron to the floor. Sheamus hit White Noise from up high and thought he had it won, but Crews kicked out. Sheamus argued with the referee about the count, and while he was distracted, Crews caught him with a crucifix pin for the win.

For us, the finish was the smartest part of this match. It protected Sheamus, who did not really lose to a better man, while still giving Crews a big pay-per-view win and a reason to keep the feud going. The problem was that the match lacked heat. Crews was a great athlete, but at this point fans did not have much of a reason to care about him, and Sheamus was in a mid-card holding pattern. The match was perfectly fine to watch, and Crews' high-flying moments looked good, but it never felt like anything more than a TV match on a pay-per-view card. You can skip it on a rewatch without missing anything important. Our rating: ★★½

John Cena vs. AJ Styles

This was the first match in what became a legendary trilogy. WWE called it a dream match "15 years in the making", and the Las Vegas crowd was electric from the bell. Before it even started, fans split their chants between "Let's go Cena" and "Let's go Styles", which gave it a real big-fight feel. Styles out-wrestled Cena early with crisp counters, controlling the opening ten minutes and taunting Cena, asking if that was all he had. One nasty spot saw Styles block a superplex and drop Cena neck-first onto the top rope.

The second half was a run of big moves and near-falls. Cena caught Styles out of the air on the Phenomenal Forearm and went for the Attitude Adjustment, but Styles slipped out and locked in the Calf Crusher. Cena kicked out of the Styles Clash, Styles kicked out of an Attitude Adjustment, and neither man tapped to the Calf Crusher or the STF. Cena also got his knees up to stop a springboard 450. The audience stayed fully invested. Then Cena accidentally knocked the referee down. Cena hit another Attitude Adjustment, but there was nobody there to count. Gallows and Anderson, who had been banned from ringside, ran in, hit the Magic Killer on Cena and dragged Styles on top of him. The referee recovered and counted three. JBL was furious on commentary.

The match proved their elite chemistry. Styles looked like he belonged with Cena from the first minute, and Cena adjusted his power style to keep up. Our one big complaint is the finish. We understand why WWE did it: it protected Cena and gave them a reason to run it back. But for us, a clean win would have meant more, and it made the match feel like the first chapter of a story, not a classic on its own. Their later matches were better, but this one is still well worth a watch. Our rating: ★★★★¼

Money in the Bank ladder match: Dean Ambrose vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. Cesaro vs. Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn

This was an extraordinary ladder match packed with creative spots and real personal rivalries. Dean Ambrose came out last and got the biggest reaction of the six. Del Rio was the only man in the match who had won a Money in the Bank contract before, while Jericho was in his fourth one. The opening was a wild brawl, with Ambrose and Zayn diving onto people outside. Cesaro gave the crowd the Uppercut Train, hitting Ambrose, Jericho and Del Rio, until Owens stopped him with a superkick and threw him face-first into a ladder. Cesaro took some of the roughest bumps of the night, and he also swung Del Rio and then swung Jericho into a ladder.

The big spots kept coming. Ambrose dropped a big elbow off a ladder onto Cesaro, and fans chanted "this is awesome". Owens threw a ladder into Ambrose and frog-splashed him onto it. Zayn hit a Michinoku Driver on Owens onto the edge of a ladder, which got a loud reaction. Del Rio hit a Backstabber on Owens off a ladder. Del Rio and Cesaro then built ladder bridges, and for a moment all six men were up on the ladders at once, grabbing for the case before almost all of them fell. Ambrose hit Dirty Deeds on Jericho off the bridge, and Owens, who had a long history with Zayn, hit a pop-up powerbomb on him onto a ladder bridge. In the end it was Owens and Ambrose at the top. Ambrose pulled Owens into the ladder, sending him down onto the bridge, and unhooked the briefcase to a big pop.

For us, this was the best match of the night. Every man had a role. Jericho gave it veteran structure, Owens and Zayn kept their feud alive inside the chaos, Cesaro was the standout athlete, and Del Rio looked like a real threat. It did not have the most dangerous spots of earlier Money in the Bank matches, and that is fine: it was smart, fast and fun from start to finish. Ambrose was the right winner, and the crowd agreed. Our rating: ★★★★½

United States Championship: Rusev (c) vs. Titus O'Neil

This match was placed in the cool-down slot between the ladder match and the main event, and it was Father's Day. Titus O'Neil's children were sitting at ringside, and before the bell Rusev, with Lana, went over to them, which started a brawl on the floor. Titus fought with aggression and got some near-falls and escaped one Accolade attempt, but Rusev controlled the tempo for most of the match and wore him down. After a high kick and a superkick, Rusev locked in the Accolade and Titus tapped out. Afterwards, Rusev went back to Titus's children, told them their father was a loser and wished them a "Happy Father's Day".

The match took place in a dead spot. The crowd had just watched a great ladder match and was waiting for the title match, and they gave very little reaction to this one. Titus worked hard, but he was never a serious threat to the title, and the result never felt in doubt. The post-match moment with the kids was the most memorable part, and it did make Rusev look like a properly hateable heel. For us, though, it was an adequate physical match and mostly forgettable in terms of ring work. Rusev was a very good US Champion in 2016, and he deserved a better spot and a better opponent than this. Our rating: ★★

WWE World Heavyweight Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. Seth Rollins

Rollins had been out for seven months with a knee injury, and this was his first match with Reigns without The Authority or J&J Security around to help him. The match was structured masterfully. Reigns played the heavy-hitting bully early, with clotheslines, headbutts and a sit-out powerbomb, while Rollins countered with speed and precision: a turnbuckle STO counter to the Superman Punch, a dive to the floor, a Sling Blade, a buckle bomb, and a superplex into a Falcon Arrow. Reigns hit two Superman Punches, and Rollins kicked out of both.

Then the drama really started. Reigns went for a Spear on the floor, Rollins moved, and Reigns crashed into the barricade. Medical staff checked on him. Back in the ring, Reigns shoved Rollins into the referee, and when Reigns hit a Spear, the referee was too slow to count and Rollins kicked out. On the next Spear attempt, Rollins caught Reigns in mid-air with a Pedigree for a massive near-fall, then hit a second Pedigree for the clean pin. Seth Rollins was champion again.

At twenty-six minutes, it felt flat in places, mainly because the crowd was not invested in Reigns. But it got better and better as it went, and the last ten minutes were excellent. For us, this was excellent storytelling with smooth transitions and high drama, and the mid-air Pedigree counter is one of the best moments of Rollins' career. It also showed the strange position WWE was in: the crowd wanted to cheer Rollins, the supposed villain, and by the end they were doing exactly that. It is a match that holds up better than people remember. Our rating: ★★★★¼

WWE World Heavyweight Championship (cash-in): Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose

Rollins did not even get to finish celebrating. Dean Ambrose's music hit, and Rollins turned towards the entrance stage, waiting for him. But Ambrose appeared behind him instead, hitting him from behind with the briefcase he had won earlier that night. He cashed in on the spot. Rollins protested, the bell rang, Ambrose hit Dirty Deeds and pinned him. The whole thing took nine seconds, and the crowd went crazy as Ambrose held the title up.

This completed an iconic angle: all three former members of The Shield held the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the same night. Reigns started the show as champion, Rollins won it, and Ambrose took it from him minutes later. It also paid off something WWE had planted a year earlier, when Ambrose lost three straight pay-per-view matches to Rollins in 2015 and promised that one day he would be champion. As a match, there is nothing to rate here. So our rating is for the execution and the angle, and both were close to perfect. The timing caught the crowd off guard, the surprise entrance was clever, and the payoff felt earned.

For us, this is one of the best Money in the Bank cash-ins ever. Ambrose was one of the most popular wrestlers in the company at the time, and seeing him finally win the big one, against Rollins of all people, sent the fans home happy. Whatever came after, this moment still works. Our rating: ★★★★

Beyond the matches

• The arena and the crew: It was WWE's first event at the T-Mobile Arena, and the crowd of 14,150 was hot for the big matches. Lilian Garcia and JoJo handled ring announcing, and Tom Phillips was the backstage interviewer. Renee Young, Corey Graves, Lita and Booker T were on the pre-show panel.
• Jericho, Owens and Del Rio: Before the ladder match, Chris Jericho, sporting a black eye, made fun of Kevin Owens's chipped tooth and bragged about his own place in Money in the Bank history. The two argued until Alberto Del Rio interrupted, and Owens mocked Del Rio's Spanish and his habit of calling everyone "perros". It was a very funny segment, and one of the highlights of the undercard.
• Ambrose's interview: Backstage, Dean Ambrose was asked about Reigns vs. Rollins and said Roman would have a great time beating up Seth. Looking back, it is a nice bit of misdirection.
• The New Day's promo: Before the tag title match, The New Day mocked all three challenging teams, the kind of comedy that made them the most popular act on the roster at the time.
• Rusev and the kids: The Father's Day angle with Titus O'Neil's children, both before and after the US title match, was the nastiest heel moment of the night.
• Pacing: The show was long, and the early part of the main card dragged. Two long, slow matches, Corbin vs. Ziggler and the women's tag, hurt the crowd before the big three matches woke them up again.

The verdict: does it hold up today?

Yes. WWE Money in the Bank 2016 stands out as one of the best themed pay-per-views WWE produced in the 2010s. The undercard is mostly average TV-quality filler, and the first half of the main card is a slog. But the three marquee matches, Cena vs. Styles, the ladder match and Reigns vs. Rollins, delivered at the highest level, and the ending with all three Shield members holding the title on one night is still a great moment in modern pro wrestling. Our best performer of the night was Seth Rollins, for his work rate and story in his big return. Our best booking decision was Ambrose winning the briefcase and cashing in straight away; our worst was the dirty finish to Cena vs. Styles. If you have one hour, watch the ladder match and the main event with the cash-in.

• Best match: The Money in the Bank ladder match
• Worst match: The Golden Truth vs. Breezango (with the women's tag as the biggest disappointment of the night)
• Overall: 4 out of 5

Full results and our ratings

What happened next

• On June 27, eight days after the show, the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was renamed the WWE Championship.
• On June 21, two days after the show, Roman Reigns was suspended for 30 days for breaking WWE's Wellness Policy.
• Reigns and Rollins fought to a double count-out on Raw, and Shane McMahon made a triple threat match for the title at Battleground, with Ambrose defending against both of his former Shield brothers.
• In the 2016 draft on July 19, Ambrose went to SmackDown with the title, while Rollins and Reigns went to Raw. At Battleground on July 24, Ambrose pinned Reigns to keep the championship.
• It was the last Money in the Bank without a women's ladder match. WWE added one the following year.

More retro reviews

Our Crown Jewel series, rated out of 5:

• Crown Jewel 2025: ★★★★ (4 out of 5), the first Crown Jewel outside Saudi Arabia
• Crown Jewel 2024: ★★½ (2.5 out of 5), the first Crown Jewel Championships
• Crown Jewel 2023: ★★½ (2.5 out of 5), Rollins vs. McIntyre and Reigns vs. LA Knight
• Crown Jewel 2022: ★★★½ (3.5 out of 5), Reigns vs. Logan Paul and a Last Woman Standing match
• Crown Jewel 2021: ★★★★ (4 out of 5), Hell in a Cell and a loaded card
• Crown Jewel 2019: ★★ (2 out of 5), celebrities and the first women's match in Saudi Arabia
• Crown Jewel 2018: ★½ (1.5 out of 5), the first one, and the World Cup

Other classic shows we have revisited:

• WrestleMania XL: ★★★★½ (4.5 out of 5), two nights in Philadelphia, The Rock and the end of the Bloodline story
• WrestleMania 39: ★★★★½ (4.5 out of 5), two nights in Hollywood and Reigns vs. Rhodes, part one
• SummerSlam 2025: ★★★★ (4 out of 5), the first two-night SummerSlam and John Cena's last one
• WrestleMania 41: ★★★½ (3.5 out of 5), Cena's farewell year and a Heyman story in Las Vegas
• WrestlePalooza 2025: ★★★½ (3.5 out of 5), the first WWE show on ESPN, with Lesnar vs. Cena

See them all on our Retro Reviews page, and read our Crown Jewel 2026 preview.