-- The World Heavyweight Title match at the recently completed WWE Money in the Bank featured some major developments with Damian Priest overcoming both Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre after the latter won the men's Money in the Bank and then promptly decided to cash it in. During the initial Priest-Rollins match, there was a sequence that raised some eyebrows when Rollins had Priest pinned and the ref simply stopped counting at two despite the fact that Priest never kicked out or got his shoulder up.
-- As WWE CCO Triple H confirmed during his post-show press conference, Priest was supposed to kick out of that but for some reason didn't do it. Triple H stated that "human beings in the ring, mistakes happen and it is what it is" when asked about it while deflecting any blame away from Priest saying that he had a great performance despite that snafu.
-- A fightfulselect.com reports that there is no heat on Priest or referee Rod Zapata, who coincidentally was the same official who was involved in the Ronda Rousey controversy at WrestleMania 35 where he counted three despite the fact that Rousey got her shoulder up; Zapata was actually later fined for his actions as WWE at the time felt that referees needed to call the action as a "shoot" rather than stick with a script. The fightful report added that "times have changed" and that's why Zapata wasn't in trouble for staying with the original plan and not counting the win.
-- Perhaps one of the biggest reasons he went ahead and broke his count is because a pin in that scenario would have had far reaching consequences as it would have led to Seth Rollins winning the title and then the subsequent Drew McIntyre cash-in being a one-on-one match, rendering the no-DQ rules void as well and making Punk's attack illegal. Finally, as per the stipulations of the match, Priest would have had to leave Judgment Day.
-- As for why it happened, several theories have been floated around with some people suggesting that Drew McIntyre's music was supposed to interrupt the count but that a production timing error prevented that from happening while others feel that Priest may have been disoriented and missed his kickout. The fightful report did stated that one WWE source shot down the McIntyre music theory saying that someone's entrance theme should never interrupt a count any way and pointing out that Triple H's post-show comments seem to pain a picture of simply an "unfortunate situation" unfolding.
