'Just put it in a briefcase': The making of the first WWE Money in the Bank match

Edge: It was trying to come up with some really creative, innovative ways to highlight some people and I knew I was winning this thing so that was really the highlight for my character. And also my character was a bad guy, so I didn't really need to try and do a whole lot, except just hang in there and survive like that cockroach that keeps climbing.

I remember even in talking about it, Christian, Jericho and I, and we were like, got this idea, bet Shelton can do that. And then we'd get ahold of Shelton and go, 'Hey, can you do this?' And he'd be like, 'yeah, sure.' OK, great.

So Shelton's doing this and this and this and it became almost like this video game. It's like, OK, what can we come up with that Shelton can do. And luckily he could do it.

Benjamin: I was the young guy and just based on my abilities I would say Edge and Jericho kind of treated me like I was a videogame character. They would come up with a spot and they ask me 'Can you do this? And I'd say, 'Yeah, yeah, sure.' They were like, 'Can we see?'

I would real quick just do it cause we were in a practice ring. It was pretty effortless on my part as far as coming up with ideas. I was a young guy. I was just following the leaders. I felt like we were like kids on a playground, and we were betting who could do what. Only I was the only one doing any of these things.

Edge: I really thought that Edge just needed to do just enough to stay in the thing and then come outta nowhere at the end, really cheaply, and take the thing because then to me there's heat out of that. If I try and do all the really, really fancy stuff, A) I'm not gonna do it as good as Shelton, and B) Then, well, he kind of deserved to win that to me.

Hayes: Our job as producers, especially on a match like that is safety, first and foremost. Make sure everything is as safe as it can possibly be. And obviously there's a lot of variables there with those ladders. You just don't know what's gonna happen. People will go to do these unbelievable spots and all of a sudden they slip or the ladder breaks, or there's just so many variables that you have to be ready for. Your main objective when you're producing the Money in the Bank match, or any match, is safety for the competitors.

Edge: Ladder matches take years off your career. And I was in a lot of 'em, and they did take years off my career. So I was right about that.

Hayes: It's quite the challenge to tell some guy that's 250, 275 pounds, what you're seeing and what you want them to do with their body and their health. They have to be on board for it to work. The biggest thing is getting people on board and making them feel comfortable with what you're trying to achieve.

Christian: It's a risk-reward type of match, with the risks being the ladders and the unknown with different guys wrestling different styles and who are different sizes and speeds. Then you add in tables and whatever else might come into play. Another huge risk in a match like this is one wrong turn, and you could seriously end your career.

Kane: Those matches are not my forte. I'm not the Hardy Boys, I'm not Edge and Christian. I'm not gonna be able to go out there and do any high-flying stuff that people can be like 'Oh my gosh.' The best I'd be able to do is jump off the ladder or jump off the top rope or something like that -- choke slam someone off the ladder. That was kind of my concern is just my character and my skills in the ring did not translate to a match like that.

Christian: I wouldn't want to be a 400-pound guy falling off a ladder, that's for sure.

Hayes: You'll find a lot of mistakes in those kinds of matches because they're just too unpredictable. The ladders that may not be responding or doing exactly what you intended to do with them. A lot of times they'll break prior to you wanting them to be damaged, and you have to be able to work on the fly because no matter how great you lay one out, it's not going to go to script a hundred percent. There's no way.

Christian: With the TLC, you're throwing in tables and chairs, but you never know what things come into play with Money in the Bank. I think Money in the Bank is actually more dangerous because there are more bodies flying around.

Kane: The cool thing was that of course working with all the people that were in the match, they were able to figure out stuff that I could do that would make everybody look good and make sense.

Benjamin: There are serious danger elements involved. There's a reason why certain things go well and why they worked in that match. That was all Edge, Christian, Jericho, Kane. I was just the lucky recipient of their experience. I was high flying and doing all these crazy moves, so they played to my strengths.

Hayes: I don't want anybody to get hurt. I'm always sweating bullets because at the end of the day if somebody gets hurt, it's probably gonna be on you, or you at least have to answer for it. That's probably the biggest surprise is that nobody did get hurt.

The toughest part is keeping the truck ahead of the game. If you know you got a big spot coming, you can't tell it to 'em as it's happening, because then they're gonna miss it. You've gotta give them ample time to say, 'Hey, look here in a minute, this is gonna happen.' Make sure you cover all those great spots and that way they'll have all the great replays.

The Match

Introductions are made with Kane coming out last. As Kane makes his way down the entrance ramp, all of the other participants attack him.

Hayes: Kane did a remarkable job for somebody that shouldn't be in a ladder match. I thought we did really well by starting the match pretty hot, and everybody got something in as Kane made his entrance.

Kane: I was the big guy, the monster. A lot of it turned into keeping Kane down and finding different ways to do that. I think the action was really well done.

The bell rang as Jericho hit Christian in the face with a ladder. After a quick spurt of offense from Jericho, Jericho, Christian, Benjamin and Kane took turns jumping over the ropes or off the turnbuckle onto their opponents on the floor outside the ring.

Shelton: As a fan, when you watch that match, you see nonstop action. As a performer, you see me run in, do a spot and about less than a minute later, someone else is doing something; I'm on the floor. So, I watched more than half of that match. So the wear and tear was actually less, partly because there were so many participants.

Kane stopped Benoit's attempt to climb and slammed his arm in between a ladder repeatedly. He was then attacked by Christian and Edge.

Kane: Did Edge and Christian do a ladder conCHAIRto on me? That's probably what I remember the most. Just a cool and a different way of doing that and something that's believable to essentially incapacitate Kane.

Benjamin then became the star of the match.

Benjamin: I gave Edge a T-bone off the top of the ladder, and quite frankly, I just wouldn't have asked anyone to put their body on the line like that. That was his idea.

Jericho: When Shelton Benjamin runs up the ladder that he placed as a ramp and then clotheslines me off the top of the other ladder, which is a spot that I came up with, I took the bump to the floor. As I was on the floor, I looked up at Adam Sandler, who was with Rob Schneider. Sandler was cheering, screaming and yelling. And I said to myself, what a way to make a living and started laughing.

Benjamin: When I did it and the crowd went crazy, I remember landing thinking, 'Wow, that got a much bigger reaction than I expected.'

We built in certain safety precautions. There's a reason why Christian had gotten knocked down and was under the ladder, holding that ladder in place when I ran up it because obviously ladders bounce, they bend. It could have been bouncing under my feet, but there was Christian who was already under that ladder holding the ladder in place so that when I ran up it, it didn't slip, didn't fall. It didn't bounce out from under me.

So those are safety precautions that people don't see, but the way that precaution was put into place was doing the match. It was one situation that put him in a position to be a safety net for the next position.

Hayes: That was awesome. You cannot discount having those kinds of guys in that match. Christian has always been really, really good, but he's very, very creative, too. As is Edge, of course.

As Benjamin tries for the briefcase he's confronted by Christian, and then Kane. Kane chokeslams him and his leg becomes tangled in the top rope as he dangles suspended upside down.

Benjamin: That was not at all on purpose. I was supposed to go straight to the floor. And when we went up, I don't know how my foot got caught. Glenn was right there to try to get me free, but I had no idea what had happened. That was 100% an accident.

Kane: Often when you have stuff like all the ladders in the ring, the dynamic of the ring and your positioning changes. And things that normally wouldn't happen do, and you have to be very cognizant of that.

Benjamin: It happened in a flash. The only thing that I remember when I realized I was caught by whoever was on the floor, they grabbed the rope and started pulling it down, which they were pulling the wrong rope. They were trying to get me loose, but instead, because they were pulling the rope down, it was only making it tighter.

Hayes: Kudos to Kane for having the presence of mind and the awareness to call an ad lib and make it work.

Kane: What's really neat with someone like Shelton is something can get kind of messed up and he'll actually figure out a way to make it even better than would've been otherwise.

As Benjamin was untangled by the referee, Tomko became a key factor in the match.

Benjamin: People forget there was actually a silent seventh participant because Travis Tomko, who was Christian's bodyguard at the time, was involved in that match, and it kills me that people mention the guys officially in the match, but if you go back and watch, Tomko took a lot of bumps, and he did a lot in that match. So I think that he needs to be given the credit.

He put Christian on his shoulders and started climbing the ladder with him. That was a huge moment for him. And that was a huge moment for the match.

Edge: The good thing about that is you have six bodies that can keep the action moving and still sell everything properly. So I remember Christian getting pushed off the ladder, basically into this flying cross body to the floor and taking out Tomko. It was so high and crazy looking. But then you have five other talent to cycle through before he has to get back up. So you don't throw it away. So it still means something. That can make some really fun aspects to a match because it just keeps moving along without having to slow down.

Benoit, selling an arm injury, performs a headbutt off the top of the ladder onto Kane and stitches from his forehead pop out. According to Jim Ross, he entered the match with 25 stitches above his right eye. He starts bleeding profusely.

Hayes: It was just something that happened during the course of the match. He would get busted open a lot just because of his tenacity, and I guess his love of physicality. So that was nothing unusual.

Benoit climbs and knocks Kane off the ladder. With nobody else in sight, he reaches up for the briefcase. Fans are on their feet cheering ... then Edge runs in and hits Benoit's injured arm with a chair.

Hayes: We tried to paint the picture that Benoit had crashed and burned and would be out of the match only to rise from the ashes. And then for Edge to take a chair, which just seemed like a real s---ty thing to do, and pop him on the arm that we damaged during the course of the match and go off and win it. It worked really well.

Edge: What was very cool, I remember I was climbing up the ladder to grab the briefcase and I looked down and I saw Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Corgan, frontman for Smashing Pumpkins and music producer Rick Rubin, standing up in the front row. And I think they were beside Adam Sandler. They're all cheering, and I just went, 'What, what, wow!' For a music guy, that was pretty damn cool.

And it was kind of hard to get the briefcase off the hook.

Kane: When Edge used a chair to win the match, the idea was, you have all this stuff, and he still has to cheat to win. And I thought it was pulled off perfectly. And you had everybody working so hard, the good guys and the bad guys, but we're still kind of following the rules of the match. And then he basically cheats to win. Wrestling psychology wise, that's the best thing that could have happened. As far as his character and where that was going, he basically outsmarted everybody by taking a shortcut.

Edge: I want it to be at the end where you go, man, this guy did not deserve that. That to me is far more compelling than Edge running up the ladders and diving off and doing all of that stuff. Like you have to do a couple of things, don't get me wrong, but to me in order to really get some heat off of that, I had to come at it differently. I wanted them booing as that briefcase was being taken down.

Hayes: That is the funnest thing I do as a producer -- lead the audience one way and then shock the s--- out of 'em and go a different way. They really wanted to see Benoit get over the hump and be the guy. They really thought they were getting it here. And they didn't.

Part 4: Aftermath and Legacy

Hayes: You don't have to look over to see how Vince is feeling about the match. He'll let you know over the headset. I remember he was pretty impressed with it. He was kind of like all of us, just hoping that nobody got hurt because there were some unbelievable bumps that they took.

Shelton: When we came back through Gorilla, I believe they were like 'Good job' and shaking hands. I think even Vince might have stood up in Gorilla and clapped. But it was all a group celebration. And we were celebrating with Edge cause he got the win that night. Everybody was happy.

Kane: You had a bunch of people doing what they did best. No one had any idea what was gonna happen at any point. And of course you did have a lot of big bumps and a lot of great stunts and those sort of things. So I think that it brought everything you possibly could have for that show.

The overall feeling was the thing had been great and had been done about as well as we could have done it at the time. It was one of those things that at that point, you knew that it wasn't gonna be a one-off, that they were gonna keep on doing the Money in the Bank match, which was the coolest thing out of the whole deal.

Jericho: I take great pride because had that first match not gone as well as it did, the company and Vince might have said, that's enough of that one and let's move on to the next one. But it turned out great. It is something that I think people look forward to every year and there's been so many combinations of ways to do it. The women have one too now.

I think I've probably been in six or seven of the damn things. I don't think I've ever won one of them. I might even have the most appearances in the Money in the Bank match ever.

I just saw that New Japan Pro Wrestling had some kind of a briefcase thing, so it's not just a WWE thing. Now, it's kind of a worldwide pro wrestling trope, where if you want a briefcase, you must carry it with you for that year until you cash it in.

Edge: I think it was just one of those kinds of visceral reactions where you go, 'Wow, that really worked.' My character had been around eight years by that point, and that sell-by date could have already run its course. By eight years, if you haven't won the world heavyweight championship, chances are, you're not going to. So the fact that far into my career with the company I did, and did it with this thing, I feel like it was kind of my last chance to really try  and grab this brass ring they always talk about. And then when I heard the reaction and felt it, I was like OK, that was something special.

Kane: When we did the first one as a blank slate, the imagination was the only constraint that we had. The problem is as you go further along, it becomes harder because people have already seen it once. And I'm constantly amazed at how the WWE superstars are able to keep reinventing stuff and to do things that we would've never even thought of.

Shelton: I haven't watched it in a while. At the time, I probably watched it every other week. I've watched it at least 50 times.

Kane: I don't know if I watched it 50 times, but I could never -- and Undertaker's like this, too -- I can never watch matches with everybody else there because I critique myself way too much. I wouldn't have watched it immediately afterwards with everybody sitting around at catering or whatever. I would've had to watch it when I had some privacy.

Edge: I just don't really watch that much period. So it's one of those deals, like you did it, you lived it, there's only so much to watch it back. If I do it's to go, OK, what could I improve? But other than that, it's kind of like, OK, that's gone, onto the next chapter.

Jericho: It was a very successful night. It's always been my way, if something isn't working or you're not happy with something, well get off your ass and figure it out. I'm happy with the fact we created something out of nothing and we made something successful. And that's what you gotta do in wrestling, in all businesses. Create, think, be original, be unique and make it work.

Now it's become one of those things where it's not just putting a bunch of guys that don't have anything going on into this match. Now it's like, let's put some top guys in there. Let's make guys compete for it where there's a Money in the Bank qualifying match. It's always a lot of fun and you know, there is an art form to it. So, the more Money in the Bank matches you're in, the more different ideas that you have to keep it unique and original and exciting, which is the most important thing.

Benjamin: It was a new concept back then. It was an experiment being played out in front of the audience. So, we could have gone out there and had one of the worst matches in WWE history and they never bring it back. Or we could have gone out there and done exactly what we did, create something new and 15, 20 years, the match is still going on. When was the last time you saw a Punjabi Prison match?

Hayes: There's a reason for that. Let's pray and hope we don't see anymore.

Edge: I carried that briefcase everywhere with me. Like it was my carry-on, and I just started putting my passport in it. My pen, my laptop. They wanted me to carry it everywhere. I was like fine, I'm gonna use it for my stuff then.

And at first it was like this cheap leather one. But then pretty quickly, I think by the next week, they gave me the Halliburton.

It had dents all over it. There was one dent in the corner from Shawn Michaels' head. There was a dent across the other side from Kane's head. Like this Halliburton was beat up, and it was beat up from people's heads because you swing that thing, your hands are sweaty and slippery and it'd get outta control sometimes. And you'd end up whacking a couple people.

These days the briefcase is in the gym. Anything wresting related is in the gym. You wouldn't know Beth and I are both wrestlers from coming into our house, unless you walk in the gym.

Benjamin: I believe as a pro wrestler, yes, you want to win championships. Yes, you want to be successful. But whatever you do, you want to make an impact and you want to be remembered. And I think the first Money in the Bank and the ones after helped me make an impact. And it makes me remembered fondly by the fans. So, if I retired today, I can look back at my body of work and know that people really love this. People enjoyed this. And I had the time of my life doing it.

Jericho: When we created Money in the Bank, little did we know that it would end up becoming an annual event that has its own name. So, it is part of the legacy of WWE, and it's part of the legacy of Chris Jericho.

It's a match I created that never existed before. I take great pride in that. It's pretty funny because there's a Money in the Bank playset. There's also an Ambrose Asylum playset. There's also a Festival of Friendship playset. Three playsets that were written or co-written by Chris Jericho for gimmicks that never existed prior to that. I guess if there's a legacy -- at least the toy companies believe there is.

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The first cash-in

Edge held the Money in the Bank contact for 280 days before he finally found the perfect opportunity to cash in the contract. John Cena had just retained the WWE championship in an Elimination Chamber match in the main event of New Year's Revolution.

Cena's face was a crimson mask when Vince McMahon walked out and said,"Don't go anywhere. Nobody goes anywhere. This night is not over. Raise the cage."

The chamber was lifted as Vince announced "This individual is cashing in his Money in the Bank privilege." Suddenly, Edge's music hit, and he handed the briefcase to Vince before barreling toward the ring with Lita by his side.

Cena was still writhing around on the mat with blood all over his face when Edge attacked Cena with a series of punches before hitting him with a Spear. Cena kicked out before Edge hit him with one more Spear for the three-count and his first WWE championship.

Edge: I'm pretty sure John felt like he'd been in a few street fights after that 'cause I was pretty amped up. The only thing I thought, after having won the briefcase and having held it that whole time, as a heel character, it made sense to cash in in a very cheap way. And I love that it kept that opportunity open because I could get some serious heat off that. Because if you cash it in when the champ is beat down, now you're a vulture.

I just remember thinking this is what I worked for. Every year in the industry to that point, that's what I worked for.