Money In The Bank 2026: WWE must prove it still values beloved match stipulation

Ahead of this year’s WWE Money In The Bank event, the company must prove that it still values the stipulation in 2026.

This year’s WWE Money In The Bank event is set to take place next weekend in New Orleans, the latest in the calendar year the event has ever taken place.

With the event usually taking place in June or July, WWE has recently put up a less than stellar record when it comes to winners in an attempt to use the briefcase solely as a plot device.

Fans like to see the briefcase be used to elevate new stars to the main event scene, and over the past few years, it really seems as though the briefcase has been seen as an afterthought.

“Wasted” Recent Money In The Bank Briefcases

While there have been some good winners in the years since, the first signs of WWE losing interest in the stipulation came in 2017, when Baron Corbin won the briefcase.

Corbin winning the briefcase at the time felt no different to prior years, a new star with a chance to win his first world championship.

However, Corbin’s run with the briefcase would last just over a month, with him losing his cash in to Jinder Mahal on SmackDown ahead of SummerSlam, and then going on to lose to John Cena at SummerSlam too.

The following year, Braun Strowman won the briefcase, only to cash it in ahead of time against Roman Reigns for Hell In A Cell 2018, a match that ended in a no contest after Brock Lesnar interfered.

Speaking of Lesnar, the following year he himself would end up winning the match as a late addition after Mustafa Ali had been planned as the initial winner.

With Otis also losing his briefcase to The Miz in 2020, only for Miz to cash in for an 8 day WWE Championship reign, the briefcase had already taken a hit by the time Big E won it in 2021 before cashing in to become WWE Champion.

The pièce de résistance for the downfall of the Money In The Bank briefcase came in 2022, when winner Austin Theory wouldn’t even opt to cash his briefcase in on the Undisputed WWE Championship, instead choosing to cash in on Seth Rollins’ United States Championship, and even then he lost!

Drew McIntyre’s failed cash in the same night in 2024 also came under a lot of scrutiny, as a lot of fans felt like the case had been used simply to further his rivalry with CM Punk.

As for the Women’s briefcase, outside of Carmella’s victory in 2017, IYO SKY in 2023 would become the first woman to even hold the briefcase for two weeks, with the case gone within 24 hours in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, so that has never really felt like something the company has cared about.

No Former World Champions In Current Line Ups

While the match itself and the follow up to the victory is what matters most, this year’s Money In The Bank is on course to be very heavily focused towards the future.

Currently, none of the six names to have qualified for this year’s matches (Bron Breakker, Je’von Evans, Trick Williams, Sol Ruca, Lola Vice and Jacy Jayne) have held a world championship in their WWE career.

While this won’t remain true at the time of the show, as one of Finn Balor, Gunther or CM Punk is guaranteed to qualify for the men’s match, it gives a lot of hope to those fans that have waited to see Money In The Bank return to what it was initially used for.

If the women’s match goes on to have no former World Champions involved, it will mark the first time in the history of the stipulation that no former World Champions have featured in the match.

With the match taking place in October, WWE is also able to extend a run with the case beyond WrestleMania where they haven’t typically had time in the past, so hopefully this year it won’t feel as arbitrary of a stop gap on the calendar as it has in years past.

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