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WWE is gearing up for what could be its most exciting pay per view of the year, Money in the Bank 2013. The event is a few weeks away and thanks to Friday Night SmackDown we now have what appears to be the entire card.

As the show stands today we have an eight match card. Last year’s event saw a total of seven matches plus a pre-match so this should be it unless they somehow squeeze a Divas match on the show. The top matches are all ready to go barring any kind of injury or discipline suspension.

John Cena will headline with a WWE championship title defense against Mark Henry. It’s not pretty on paper but what I will say is that it’s a fresh Cena match and you don’t see that very often. The retirement angle was fantastic yet for some reason the follow up fell flat the next week on RAW. Given that the show is a few weeks away I’d expect to see more fireworks between these two in the next few weeks.

CM Punk vs. Christian vs. Kane vs. Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Rob Van Dam will compete for an opportunity to challenge the WWE champion in a Money in the Bank match. As I said before this is probably the most star-studded MITB match the show has had in a long time. I can’t imagine that this match would be anything less than very good if not excellent.

Dean Ambrose vs. Fandango vs. Damien Sandow vs. Cody Rhodes vs. Wade Barrett vs. Jack Swagger vs. Antonio Cesaro will do battle for an opportunity to wrestle the WWE world heavyweight champion in a Money in the Bank match. This certainly doesn’t have the star power that the RAW match has but this has some interesting potential. I do think it’s weaker on paper than recent SmackDown MITB matches. Unfortunately SmackDown lost all of its biggest stars to the RAW match so you’re stuck with the B-team so to speak. An early prediction here is Antonio Cesaro although to be fair that is more wishful thinking.

Alberto Del Rio defends his newly won WWE world heavyweight title against former champion Dolph Ziggler. Ziggler is clearly a babyface and he appears to be really getting over with the crowd in recent weeks. I like the edginess they are showing to his character as opposed to Cena who seemed to barely care whenever he’d get screwed out of a title. I expected a Triple Threat Match the way Chris Jericho has booked with Del Rio recently but nope, straight up singles here.

Speaking of Chris Jericho he will do battle with Ryback on the undercard. I like the match and I think the match has a lot of potential if they get time. They had a match on SmackDown awhile back that was real good and I’d expect this one to have more time. I am surprised not to see Jericho in one of the MITB matches although I’m sure his back will be grateful for getting skipped this year.

Curtis Axel will defend the WWE intercontinental championship against The Miz and The Usos will challenge The Shield for the WWE tag team championship. It almost seems like a step down to see The Shield vs. The Usos although there is potential here for a really fun match. I’d be surprised to see Axel vs. Miz anywhere but the pre-show.

So there you go. Not a bad card at all. The SmackDown MITB match looks fairly weak on paper but you never know. Money in the Bank matches are rarely bad no matter who is in them. With a strong undercard and a loaded MITB match this show could wind up as the best PPV of the year.

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