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CHICAGO — Seth Rollins is a self-professed fighting Intercontinental Champion who has lived up to the moniker, but he didn’t have an answer for Elias at WWE Money in the Bank — that is, until he used a time-honored (if slightly underhanded) tactic to pin his most dogged challenger yet.
That Rollins resorted to chicanery is a surprise for a champion who has made constant competition the founding principle of his reign. However, it’s also a fitting end to this particular cycle, which has seen Rollins and Elias trade sneak attacks and the occasional exchange in tag team action, albeit little to no one-on-one confrontation. Elias took advantage of Rollins’ unfamiliarity throughout the match, catching The Kingslayer with a clothesline in the opening moments that landed him neck-first on the apron. The pain from the impact rendered the champion helpless against a mugging from the guitar-slinging challenger, to say nothing of a rolling Cobra Clutch that seemed as though it could end the match in a submission.
Even as The Architect slowly but surely began to rally, the lingering damage to his neck took something out of his high-risk, high-reward offense, with additional damage also sustained to his knee (tweaked off a leapfrog) and ribs (off a blocked Frog Splash). Superplex-Falcon Arrow combo aside, Rollins was fighting firmly from underneath, and when Elias attempted to finish the job by pulverizing the rest of Rollins’ body in a brief scrap on the outside, The Kingslayer was forced to operate on instinct and adrenaline. The champion reversed Drift Away into a roll-up that was quickly countered and countered again, and when Rollins finally found himself on top, he grabbed a handful of Elias’ pants, using the extra leverage to get the most hard-gotten pin of his title reign.
Elias was understandably frustrated that the decision was allowed to stand. After all, he had more than proven himself as a worthy challenger, but he forgot the one founding rule of a fight that Rollins learned long, long ago: When it comes down to it, win by any means necessary.