10 WWE Money In The Bank Firsts You Need To Know
5. First Defense Of Briefcase
Why a wrestler would willingly put a guaranteed world title
shot on the line is beyond explaining. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yet, it
seems like putting the hard-earned, guaranteed title shot up for grabs has
happened quite a bit.
Of course, Mr. Kennedy put his title shot up for grabs and lost. Dolph Ziggler put his briefcase up against both Chris Jericho and John Cena, winning both matches. And Rob Van Dam put his MITB briefcase up against Shelton Benjamin’s Intercontinental Championship and came away with both.
But the first defense of a MITB briefcase was also the first winner of Money in the Bank, Edge. The Rated-R Superstar was six months into his period with the briefcase when he put it on the line against Matt Hardy in a Loser Leaves Raw ladder match. This was during the phase when Edge had an affair with Lita, Hardy’s girlfriend, and WWE turned it into an angle.
Edge would win the match and banish Hardy from Raw, then go on to lead a Hall of Fame career that included 11 world titles, the first of which came via a cash-in three months after he retained his briefcase.