Am I too late for the MITB discussion? I enjoy the concept as a 'you're never really safe/break glass in case of emergency' failsafe, but I can absolutely agree that the way it's been used has gotten very stale over the past years. The problem is that it never really seems like they plan it out, just throw it on a uppercarder they're fairly high on and either cash it in fairly quickly or arbitrarily decide 'y'know we don't want to deal with this cloud looming over things, sooooo laters.'
I can't believe it's been around for, like, 20 years and they still havn't gone down the route of 'overtly paranoid and picky MITB holder waiting for the perfect time to cash in, except the champion is a monster hoss and he's going to get absolutely murdered if he even so much as makes eye contact with him, so he's getting more and more desperate to cash in as the MITB case gets closer to it's expiry date but there's never the perfect scenario until whoops it's the last day, now or never my guy'. Like they always say 'it's good for a year' but never really put forth any story that takes into the account of 'yeah no it's good for A YEAR tops, expiry date is a thing.' Or a 'tag team guy wins it and cashes in on the tag titles with his partner, because FRIENDSHIP.' Just... More stories than the usual can absolutely exist and some variation would go a long way to making the concept feel fresher.
Buuuut we've kinda moved on from MITB, so, more to the point: The story of Priest being all 'ha I don't need the Judgement Day' then as it turns out he absolutely needs the Judgement Day but is too high on his own fumes to come to terms with it, is a fair story even if I feel like it's started to be stretched a touch thin. It's a story for himself, rather than a story for himself and the next PPV opponent, and his refusal to acknowledge his own inability to get the job done solo is tying in to the Judgement Day's own story of implosion. Does it make him seem weak or not suitable to be the world champion? Potentially. If that's the interpretation of the story, then that's the point, and that's how I'm reading it. A story of inadaquecy and fluking your way up whilst pushing away the people who got you there in the first place, is how I'm reading it.
Now the question is, should they be telling a different story, since this is the world champion and all? A story that makes the world champion feel more worthy of being a world champion? Shrug. That's up to you to decide. I imagine, as the next few weeks pass and Gunther injects himself into Priest's story more officially, it'll feel like slightly more of a world title story. Wether it does so to you at that point, is your call.
There we go, typed an extra few paragraphs to make sure this is still on topic.