Money in the Bank ladder match

The Money in the Bank ladder match is a multi-person ladder match held by the professional wrestling promotion WWE. First contested at WrestleMania 21 in 2005, a separate Money in the Bank pay-per-view was established in 2010. The prize in the match is a briefcase containing a contract for a championship match, which can be "cashed in" by the holder of the briefcase at any point in the year following their victory. If the contract is not used within the year of winning it, it will be invalid, but this has yet to happen. From its inception until 2017, ladder matches only involved male wrestlers, with the contract being for a world championship match. Beginning with the 2017 event, women also have the opportunity to compete in such a match, with their prize being a contract for a women's championship match.

The first ever match was contested in 2005 at WrestleMania 21, after being invented by Chris Jericho. At the time, it was exclusive to wrestlers of the Raw brand, and Edge won the inaugural match. From then until WrestleMania XXVI, the Money in the Bank ladder match, now open to all WWE brands, became a WrestleMania mainstay. 2010 saw a second and third Money in the Bank ladder match when the Money in the Bank pay-per-view debuted in July with WrestleMania no longer featuring the match. Unlike the matches at WrestleMania, this new event included two such ladder matches—one each for a contract for a WWE Championship match and a World Heavyweight Championship match, respectively.

Before the establishment of the annual Money in the Bank pay-per-view, wrestlers were allowed to use the contract to claim a match for any of the 2 world championship in WWE. With the unification of the WWE and World Heavyweight titles into the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in December 2013, there was only a single championship and this went into effect beginning with the 2014 event. The brand split returned shortly after the 2016 event along with a new world title (WWE Universal Championship) and the Money in the Bank ladder match was moved to WrestleMania again. The Money in the Bank PPV event returned as a SmackDown-exclusive show in July 2020 but the contract winner(s) were not ruled out of the possibility of going to Raw to cash in on the world championship. The 2020 event also included the first-ever women's Money in the Bank ladder match, with the winner receiving a contract for a women's championship match.