A former WWE writer has revealed the original idea behind the Money In The Bank Ladder Match.
The first-ever Money In The Bank Ladder Match took place on April 3rd 2005, at WrestleMania 21. In the match, Edge, Chris Benoit, Kane, Chris Jericho, Christian and Shelton Benjamin competed for the chance to win a shot at the World Championship at some point in the next 12 months.
The match was eventually won by Edge, who famously cashed-in his Money In The Bank contract at New Year’s Revolution in January 2006 defeating John Cena who had just retained his WWE Title inside the Elimination Chamber.
The Ladder Match continued as a WrestleMania staple until it branched out into becoming it’s own pay-per-view in July 2010.
However, it has now been revealed that the original plans for the match were very different. While Chris Jericho is widely credited with coming up with the concept, in a new interview with ESPN, the AEW star said that he “co-wrote” the idea with Brian Gewirtz who was WWE Head Writer at the time.
Jericho went on to explain that the idea was thought up as an alternative to a pitch involving a Three-Way Submission Match between himself, Edge and Chris Benoit. This plan was given short shrift due to the complexity of putting such a match together, as well as the fact it left the likes of Kane and Shelton Benjamin still without a match.
Sharing the ESPN feature on social media, Gewirtz added his own little nugget to the story. The writer revealed that the match was initially intended to be used as a vehicle for Rob Van Dam to bring back ECW.
The first ECW event to be held under the WWE banner was One Night Stand, just two months after WrestleMania 21. Due to the success of the event, it was brought back in 2006, after it was announced that ECW would be returning as a stand-alone brand alongside Raw and SmackDown.
As it transpired, Rob Van Dam won the Money In The Bank Ladder Match at WrestleMania 22 in 2006 and used his contract to face WWE Champion John Cena at One Night Stand the following June. In a match that went down in history owing to the anti-Cena crowd, Van Dam was crowned WWE Champion with Paul Heyman counting the pin-fall.
Fun article (even with a certain egregious last name spelling error) What’s funny is the ORIGINAL idea was to use this match as a way for RVD to bring back ECW. The tweaked version had slightly more staying power. #MITBhttps://t.co/clJh9HfTpq
— Brian Gewirtz (@bfg728) July 2, 2022
Money In The Bank 2022 is set to take place on July 2nd and will feature both men’s and women’s Ladder Matches.
The men’s match will be contested by Drew McIntyre, Seth Rollins, Sheamus, Riddle, Omos, Sami Zayn and Madcap Moss. While the women’s match will feature Liv Morgan, Alexa Bliss, Asuka, Shotzi, Becky Lynch, Raquel Rodriguez and Lacey Evans.
You can follow all of the action from Money In The Bank live at itrwrestling.com