How will Money in the Bank 2020 be impacted by the lack of an audience?

How does Money in the Bank suffer from a lack of crowd? And what else should WWE do to adapt to it? 

Money in the Bank will air tonight on the WWE Network, and will be the second PPV to not have a live crowd in attendance.

The changes brought on by the lack of a live audience are many and significant, but two to take note of for the purposes of this article is the complete lack of crowd reaction and a decline in wrestling TV’s ratings (as a part of falling ratings during this virus overall). Having recently watched all the Money in the Bank matches and cash-ins in preparation of an article that I ended up not writing, I feel somewhat qualified to talk about the impacts the lack of a live audience will have on Money in the Bank.

These two aforementioned effects will undoubtedly serve as a great hindrance to Money in the Bank’s impact. Part of what makes Money in the Bank so effective, both in its matches and its cash-ins, is the giant crowd reactions, as well as the briefcase win, and subsequent cash-in, serving as a major event for a company whose product often feels like it’s drifting without direction.

Arguably the biggest reason why Money in the Bank cash-ins are so successful is that they can reliably generate huge pops, both for the briefcase holder’s music hitting (or otherwise them making their presence known), any near-falls that occur during the cash-in match, and when a new champion is finally crowned. This is true even for cash-ins by briefcase holders without a ton of momentum, like Sheamus or Carmella, the crowd goes wild for pretty much every Money in the Bank cash-in.

With no crowd, obviously, this goes away. And if the most iconic part of cash-ins, the reaction it generates, is gone, is there still a point to doing a cash-in?

Well, it could be argued that the best long-term benefit of Money in the Bank is that it serves as a career-cementing, even company-changing, event. It’s cemented the careers of the likes of Edge and Seth Rollins, served as a worthy peak for the likes of Dolph Ziggler and Rob Van Dam, and even for the less prestigious winners, such as the likes of Jack Swagger, it gives them the prestige of being a former Money in the Bank winner and a former world champion.

But it’s hard to truly have a major event when ratings plummet deeper into record-lows, and with no crowd to lose their mind over a cash-in happening. We’ve already seen at Wrestlemania, with the crowning of Drew McIntyre and Braun Strowman as champions, that even with a good build (as McIntyre had), it’s hard to deliver a momentum-shifting event with no crowd to notice it.

So what is to be done? They’re off to a good start by using a cinematic approach to this year’s Money in the Bank matches, but they need to stick the landing with the match itself, the cash-in and who they choose to win and cash-in. I think the best thing to be done is to lean into the remaining primary strength of the Money in the Bank cash-ins, and choose wrestlers who can thrive in a non-crowd environment.

A third strength I did not mention, and that is actually more prevalent without crowd reactions, is that Money in the Bank matches and cash-ins do not drag, and particularly with cash-ins, are as short as they need to be. Making sure a quick pace remains, and that Money in the Bank doesn’t resemble the Edge/Orton Wrestlemania match that felt like it would never end, is crucial to making the match as much of a success as it can be. With both matches happening at the same time, this shouldn’t be an issue, but with WWE, who knows.

The other crucial aspect that I think they need to get right is choosing the right briefcase winner, and the correct eventual champion.

For the women’s match, it’s indisputably Asuka. She’s been a former champion but can still be elevated, and she’s been one of the, if not the, best parts of quarantine-era WWE. As for the men’s match, there’s no perfect answer, but I would choose Aleister Black. I think his hard-hitting style carries over well, and most importantly, he’s the one competitor in this match who both can and should be significantly elevated by winning the match, and later, a world championship.

WWE is in uncharted territory. It’ll be interesting to see how the company adapts Money in the Bank for an audience-less show.