Tiffany Stratton winning the Women’s Money in the Bank briefcase may have caught fans off guard, but according to a new backstage report, that wasn’t always the plan. In fact, WWE had a very different winner in mind for months before changing course.
Speaking during a Self Made Session, Self Made Pro said people he’d spoken to within WWE had been consistently telling him for months that Roxanne Perez was expected to win the briefcase. According to him, the confidence came from the fact that creative had already mapped out a major storyline centered around Roxanne and Liv Morgan.
“Roxanne Perez, when I spoke to people in WWE—you know, these days when you talk to WWE, there’s not a lot of things you can get concrete answers on. But in the recent months, I’m talking like three, four, five months, when I would talk to them about certain things that they had planned down the line, one of the things that people seemed pretty certain about was that Roxanne was going to win Women’s Money in the Bank.
And the reason why they were certain about it is because they already had a whole story planned out with her and Liv Morgan and how they’re going to tease her cashing in on Liv Morgan as the champion.”
He said he even checked back in after Liv temporarily lost the Women’s World Championship, wondering if the plans had changed. According to Self Made Pro, he was told the Roxanne-Liv storyline was still expected to happen.
“And I remember when Liv lost the belt to Stephanie, I was like, ‘Is this plan out the window? What’s going on here?’ And all I could get was that, ‘We’re still going to do the Roxanne-Liv thing.’ And I was like, ‘All right.'”
That makes what happened at Money in the Bank even more interesting. After the show, Self Made Pro reached out again to find out why Tiffany ended up with the briefcase instead, and he says the answer had nothing to do with changing long-term creative plans.
“When I spoke to someone today about like, ‘Hey, what happened there?’ And, you know, why was Tiffany given the belt—sorry, given the briefcase—I actually was given some feedback on this.
I was told that too many people expected Roxanne and that Roxanne was a betting favorite, and our show made it too obvious that she was probably going to win.”
According to the explanation he received, WWE ultimately decided to pivot because Roxanne had become too predictable. Rather than giving fans the outcome they expected, the company felt Tiffany Stratton would create a bigger surprise while also creating sympathy for Roxanne.
“And so they said that they wanted to surprise the audience and also surprise the audience in a way that would make Roxanne a bigger babyface because the audience would feel that she was cheated.”
If that’s how things played out behind the scenes, it’s a pretty major late change. What had been the creative plan for months ended up being scrapped in favor of a swerve, making Tiffany a two-time Money in the Bank winner while leaving Roxanne empty-handed.
Do you think WWE made the right call by changing plans, or should they have stuck with Roxanne Perez winning the Money in the Bank briefcase? Let us know in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
