abstract
| - Money in the Bank is a professional wrestling pay-per-view event, produced annually by WWE. It is named after the Money in the Bank ladder match, which previously only took place at WrestleMania. The Money in the Bank ladder match debuted at WrestleMania 21 in 2005, and the first person to grab a briefcase hanging from the rafters won and was guaranteed a world championship match at any time for the next twelve months. The Money in the Bank match was held at the next five WrestleMania events, after which a pay-per-view was created and centered on the match. Each Money in the Bank pay-per-view up until and including 2013 featured two ladder matches. One was contested for a contract for a WWE Championship match, with the briefcase colored red, and the other was contested for a World Heavyweight Championship match contract, with the briefcase colored blue. Originally, these colors represented the two components of the WWE Brand Extension which was still in effect at the time; Raw featured the WWE Championship and had a red color scheme while SmackDown featured the World Heavyweight Championship and a blue color scheme. Shortly after the 2011 Money in the Bank event, the Brand Extension was discontinued. However, WWE kept conducting separate Money in the Bank matches in 2012 and 2013. Starting with the 2014 Money in the Bank PPV, the single contract for the now unified WWE World Heavyweight Championship was placed in a gold briefcase. Money in the Bank is the only WWE pay-per-view event with a regular theme song, as all but the first event have used "Money in the Bank" by in-house WWE composer Jim Johnston as its theme song. This is in stark contrast to other pay-per-view events, which use songs sponsored by mainstream recording artists, which was the case with the first event using "Money" by I Fight Dragons. Before the advent of the pay-per-view, the "Money in the Bank" song was used as the entrance music for Donald Trump for his numerous guest appearances on WWE television.
|