Money in the Bank | |||
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Promotion | WWE | ||
Brand(s) | Raw SmackDown | ||
Date | July 18, 2021 | ||
City | Fort Worth, Texas | ||
Venue | Dickies Arena | ||
Attendance | 14,541 | ||
WWE Network event chronology | |||
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Money in the Bank chronology | |||
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The 2021 Money in the Bank was a professional wrestling event produced by WWE. It was the 12th annual Money in the Bank and took place on July 18, 2021, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The event aired via pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming and was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. This was the first Money in the Bank to livestream on Peacock and the first Money in the Bank event to take place in the state of Texas.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 to July 2021, WWE had presented their shows behind closed doors, first from the WWE Performance Center, then moving in August 2020 to a bio-secure bubble called the WWE ThunderDome (excluding WrestleMania 37 in April 2021, which was the company's first major event to have live ticketed fans since the pandemic began). With declining cases and the availability of vaccines, WWE left the ThunderDome and returned to a live touring schedule in mid-July 2021, marking Money in the Bank as the first WWE PPV with a full crowd, and the first PPV held outside of the state of Florida since Elimination Chamber in March 2020.
Seven matches were contested at the event, including one on the Kickoff pre-show. In the main event, Roman Reigns defeated Edge to retain SmackDown's Universal Championship. Additionally, Big E and Nikki A.S.H. won their respective men's and women's Money in the Bank ladder matches. In other prominent matches, Bobby Lashley defeated Kofi Kingston to retain Raw's WWE Championship and Charlotte Flair defeated Rhea Ripley to win her record-tying fifth Raw Women's Championship and 13th overall singles championship in the women's division. The event also saw the surprise return of John Cena, appearing for the first time since WrestleMania 36 in April 2020.
This event is also notable for marking the beginning of the Usos' fifth reign as SmackDown Tag Team Champions, which currently stands as the longest reign in the championship's history, and the longest Tag Team Championship reign of any kind in the history of WWE at 622 days, in which started on the Kickoff pre-show.