Money in the Bank participants reportedly didn’t know about Brock Lesnar’s involvement

WWE really wanted to keep Brock Lesnar’s presence a secret at Money in the Bank in Hartford, Connecticut last night (May 19). And it wasn’t just the usual “keep him in a bus until showtime” tactics, either.

According to reports from both PWInsider and Fightful, none of the seven wrestlers in the main event knew Lesnar was there, or going to get involved in the ladder match. In fact, they, and almost everyone else backstage, were told Ali would be winning the briefcase - and they were allowed to believe that until “right before the match”, according to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp.

Even once Ali and the others learned he wouldn’t be winning, they didn’t know who would. Mike Johnson of Insider writes the seven “were told there would be a spot at the end where Ali would be standing on the top of the ladder and be tipped over but was not told who would be coming out to do the spot.”

If true, the reaction we saw from the Chicagoan when “Next Big Thing” hit was probably real. Major props to Ali for not letting any of the disappointment he surely would have felt after allegedly being worked by his employers show while he was literally sacrificing his body during the match.