Glass Hand Disolving: Money Inc.

Vs The Natural Disasters (Superstars Taping 7/20/92)

This is a title change. A team like Money Inc as champions, because of their act and the way they wrestle, will always have some buy-in when there's a possibility of them losing. I think the heat here is a bit lackluster, mostly because I don't think either IRS or Dibiase do enough real cheating to make them dominating Earthquake for any amount of time seem believable. The finish is typical slip-on-a-banana-peel heel stuff, but the crowd goes nuts seeing Money Inc lose.

Vs El Matador & Virgil (Prime Time Wrestling 9/28/92)

This was good. I think a lot of that is on Tito, who is certainly past his prime here, but was still a great seller and could still get sympathy from the crowd. Tito can build to the tag with Virgil, which has its own history in this match, and everything works. This is the sort of match that just works. Money Inc are very specific sorts of heels, against a face team that is purpose-made to be a great fit, and they do everything you would expect to make the match perfectly fine.

Vs The Beverly Brothers (Raw 4/12/93)

This is a heel vs heel match with no real build, so we're sort of already working uphill from the jump. There's nothing offensive here, which is about what you'd expect from Money Inc, but I would say that the Beverlys are the better team here, at least the more impressive and interesting of the two. Those are never going to be the words you use to describe Money Inc, and that's their role, so it's not a bad thing, but it isn't the sort of thing that is ever going to make for great matches.

Vs The Steiner Brothers (Superstars 7/17/1993)

This is an interesting match. We're in the early part of this feud, and here we get a false title change. It is, again, pretty good, but nothing to write home about. I keep saying something along these lines, but Money Inc's role is be disliked, to fill up minutes of TV, and to make the face teams look good. They do all of that here. At one point, Rick Steiner is just punching Dibiase in the head a bunch, and the finish is really pretty strong.

Vs The Steiner Brothers (SummerSlam Spectacular 1993)

I would say that this is the match you would point to if you were making a case for Money Inc. Going through these matches, I might say it's actually the Virgil/Tito match, but this match has pretty much always had some hype behind it. There are a whole lot of opinions about cage matches, and I mostly don't care. I don't think they have to have blood; in fact, I think that's just a lazy criticism. People fight in cages every weekend, and most don't bleed. I think escape-the-cage matches are perfectly fine too; they can be done right and they can fail, like anything else. I actually think tag-team escape-the-cage is a pretty great match format. It's got a built-in dilemma where escaping the cage is good, but it leaves your partner in there by themselves, which is certainly a bad situation for them. IRS and Rick Steiner both come back into the cage at different parts to prevent that in this match. The thing with this match is, other than telling that story, a story almost inherent to this kind of match, I don't think they do much else of note. The finish is clever, but the story does a lot, it really is all you need, and again, that's Money Inc's MO, but it pretty much always leads to nothing ever standing out too much.

Verdict

I'm not saying that I'm sold on Money Inc, but I have a greater appreciation for them than I did before. Are they a Top 25 team? No, I can't imagine that. Top 50? Highly unlikely. Top 100? Possibly.