World Wrestling Entertainment is currently churning out premium live events and other special pay-per-views at a rapid fire pace recently. WWE Backlash only just took place on May 10th, and already, this weekend will host WWE Saturday Night's Main Event as well as NXT Battleground 2025—both taking place at the Yuengling Center in Tampa, Florida. But even still, the build is already underway for the next event following that, which will be another double-feature with AAA crossing over for the Worlds Collide event and more importantly, on the same day, the annual WWE Money in the Bank 2025 show will go down.
This is one of WWE's most important nights of the year, as it will again feature both a women's and men's ladder match for a briefcase which contains a contract that allows the winner to "cash in" for a title opportunity whenever they want. Anywhere, any time, whether it's mid-match or right after a champion has been injured, the winner can capitalize and effectively steal whatever championship of their choosing they want.
While the success rate is not 100% across its 20 year history, it's overwhelming the case (no pun intended) that whoever holds the contract will most likely become a world champion within a year—sometimes, even just a few weeks, days, or even minutes.
When it comes to who will become Mr. Money in the Bank and win the men's match, a lot is still unknown, but one name stands out as a prime candidate: Sami Zayn.
Current Men's Money in the Bank Participants
At the moment, only one WWE Superstar has qualified to compete in the men's match, Solo Sikoa. Another match has been announced for the May 23rd edition of Friday Night SmackDown, which will be between Aleister Black, LA Knight, and Shinsuke Nakamura. There will likely be one more Triple Threat match on SmackDown to fill another spot, while the three qualifying bouts to come from Monday Night Raw are still completely unknown.
With that in mind, anyone from the Raw roster is a potential participant in this match, leaving the door open for over 30 possible wrestlers to even qualify, let alone potentially win this year's briefcase.
Even when narrowing that field down to account for injuries (like Ilja Dragunov and Bronson Reed), lower-card talent that won't likely even be involved in qualifying matches, let alone win them (such as Carlito or Tyler Bate), Superstars already holding titles (like Jey Uso and The New Day), and wrestlers busy doing something else (Gunther, for example), that still leaves around a dozen people who could realistically win.
Penta, Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, CM Punk, AJ Styles and more will most likely somehow be vying for the briefcase, and there isn't any guarantee Sami Zayn will even be in a qualifier. So why call attention to him above everyone else?
Why Bet on Sami Zayn?
In the past, Zayn has been one of the top picks to win from every bookmaker across pro wrestling websites and even Alberta casinos and odds-makers thinking now is the time the Quebec-born star will capture the briefcase and eventually cash it in to win his first world title.
Every time, though, that's been wrong. It makes it hard to believe that this year will be any different, especially since he's not yet even confirmed for a qualification match, let alone has he secured a spot to compete for the contract.
However, despite it being a slow progression, Zayn does continually advance higher up on the roster with each passing year. Every time he takes a step forward, he gets closer and closer to winning one of the top two championships in the company.
For example, at WrestleMania 39, Zayn took part in the first WWE Tag Team Championship main event of The Showcase of the Immortals and defeated The Usos to win the belts alongside Kevin Owens. The following year, a storyline was rushed, but revolved around Zayn's quest to prove himself worthy of becoming a champion again. Out of everyone who could've done it, Zayn was the one to dethrone Gunther and end his history-making Intercontinental Championship run.
It keeps being brought up that Zayn has never won "the big one" and that has even recently come into play, with Seth Rollins specifically calling attention to Zayn's inability to win a world championship. That might have been done as just a dig to upset him for the purposes of their current feud, but the overall storyline remains the same: Zayn needs to cross that off his bucket list.
One of the best ways to do that is with the Money in the Bank briefcase, which can give him an advantage to offset what's been stopping him from winning it in his legitimate title opportunities. It's also a great tool to have Zayn beat someone and spawn a story out of that.
Jey Uso will defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Logan Paul at Saturday Night's Main Event. If Paul were to win, he has history with Zayn, who could get a massive pop for cashing in and quickly beating the social media star, which would be a means to take the title off him while still having the history books say Paul was a former WWE world champion.
The winner at SNME will face Gunther on the June 9th episode of Raw. Given their history, Zayn cashing in on The Ring General, if he were to win the title on that show, would reignite their feud in a different dynamic than we've seen before.
Assuming Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Paul Heyman execute their plans to get the title on The Visionary, that can also be a setup for Zayn to cash in on Rollins and steal the title from him, effectively making Zayn the smarter strategist of the two and giving Rollins his comeuppance for belittling Zayn.
But while Zayn is a babyface at the moment, that doesn't mean he's going to be one forever, and the even more intriguing scenario is that Jey Uso could still be holding the title when Zayn can win Money in the Bank and cash in on his friend on June 9th or sometime in the future. Turning on one of his biggest allies would be the best means for Zayn to go back to being a villain, and using the briefcase as a shortcut to winning the title would paint him as a desperate man who bought into the words Rollins was saying about him not being good enough.
This could even be part of the plan from Rollins, manipulating Zayn into doing some of the dirty work for him. The idea of the title going to Rollins next could just be a misdirect, as WWE does pull that trick with certain storylines from time to time.
Zayn vs. Uso would then be a headlining bout for the June 28th WWE Night of Champions event in Saudi Arabia, as "Main Event" Jey would have to fight his now former best buddy to try to win back the World Heavyweight Championship.
Of course, that's all just speculation for now. Zayn has to even be announced for a qualification match, let alone win that, enter the Money in the Bank ladder match, and take the briefcase down before even having a chance to cash it in for a world title shot. But it may be now or never for The Underdog from the Underground.
