It’s been a while since I reviewed a WWE pay-per-view. So here’s a new one.

WWE Money in the Bank is the newest WWE pay-per-view and is built around (you guessed it) Money in the Bank ladder matches! Said ladder matches have previously been held annually at Wrestlemania since 2005, but now have a pay-per-view of their own.

For those unaware, a Money in the Bank ladder match is a lot like other ladder matches, only with several more participants (both of the matches at this event included eight wrestlers) and a winner is decided not by claiming a championship, but instead a briefcase which “contains” a “contract” that guarantees the winner a world title match of his choosing whenever he so desires. He can announce his match ahead of time, or go the route most have and just wait for the opportune moment and declare an impromptu match when the current champion is weakened. So, you see, money in the bank.

But does a pay-per-view based around such a match pay off (no pun intended)?

• The first match was Smackdown’s Money in the Bank ladder match. Talk about a strong opener. This match was fantastic! Ladder matches tend to be the most exciting WWE matches, and this was probably one of the best ones in a good long while. The match featured Kofi Kingston, Dolph Ziggler, The Big Show, Matt Hardy, Christian, Kane, Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre. One thing that really made this match standout was the length, the match lasted for a half of an hour. And within that time each wrestler involved put on a great showing. There were plenty of Hardy vs. Christian moments that were both technically impressive but also built some good suspense, it often times felt like one of those two were going to win. Big Show also brought out his own personal ladder (it had to be bigger because, you know, he’s the Big Show). Big Show had a bit of trouble getting the ginormous gold and black ladder into the ring (which lead to some brief profanity). The big ladder was greatly utilized in the match, with up to six wrestlers at a time doing battle atop it. One cool moment had Kofi Kingston do his patented “Boom Drop” off of a ladder onto McIntyre through an announce table. The match ended when McIntyre knocked Hardy and Christian off a ladder and was about to win (with boos from the fans echoing) when Kane came back into the ring, chokeslammed McIntyre off the ladder and grabbed the briefcase. Huzzah! Kane wins! Fantastic match!

• The second match was a Diva’s Championship match between current champion Alicia Fox and former champ Eve Torres. Who booked this to follow the Smackdown ladder match? The match got a little sloppy but it was short and mostly harmless. Alicia Fox retained by cheating.

• The third match was Unified WWE Tag Team Champions (seriously they have to shorten that) the Hart Dynasty defending their titles against the Usos. This was actually a really good match considering it didn’t last over six minutes. It was short but entertaining. Hart Dynasty retained their titles.

• Rey Mysterio then defended his World Championship against former champ Jack Swagger. The match was short for a world title match (about ten minutes), but it was actually a very, very good match (as is to be expected from a match involving Jack Swagger and Rey Mysterio). Only one move got a little sloppy, a powerbomb attempt by Swagger, but he still managed to find the best out of it (the announcers even acknowledged it by saying “it wasn’t pretty but it was affective”). It was a really good match that told a (get this) believable WWE storyline of Swagger trying to further injure Rey’s ankle with Swagger’s Ankle Lock submission. The match ended when Swagger went for his umpteenth Ankle Lock when Rey, with a nod to Eddie Guerrero, had loosened his boot to get out of the hold and reversed it into a pin.

Rey Mysterio won the match, but afterwards Swagger locked in his (you guessed it) Ankle Lock for a good while, only to have Kane come out save Rey. Immediately following this, Kane came back out, briefcase in hand, and announced he was cashing in his Money in the Bank contract.

• Kane hit Rey Mysterio with a chokeslam followed by a tombstone piledriver in about half of a minute to win the World Championship. Huzzah! Kane wins!

• The next match saw Layla defend the Women’s Championship against Kelly Kelly. Another sloppy WWE divas’ match, but it was even shorter than the last one at least.

• Next was the RAW Money in the Bank Ladder match between The Miz, Ted DiBiase, Edge, Chris Jericho, Evan Bourne, Mark Henry, Randy Orton and John Morrison. It wasn’t as long or quite as good as the Smackdown match, but it was still pretty fantastic. Evan Bourne and John Morrison of course stole the show in this match. There were a lot of interesting uses of the ladders here, and again up to six different wrestlers were fighting atop a ladder at once for the briefcase. I was expecting the predictable RAW ending with Randy Orton winning, thankfully that didn’t happen. The Miz ended up winning the match and the briefcase (and showed genuine emotion with the victory) and gave a small speech about how awesome he is afterwards. Another incredible ladder match.

• The final match was defending WWE Champion Sheamus (no last name) against the constantly-in-the-title-picture John Cena in a steel cage match. The steel cage stipulation was added so that the WWE’s current renagade group, the Nexus, could not interfere. The match was pretty good, but it dragged on for a while and had some slow parts. The match ended when the Nexus came out and tried to climb into the cage to attack both competitors, which allowed Sheamus to escape the cage and win during the confusion. I liked the match overall, but it was a bit longer than it needed to be, especially considering the predictable ending (c’mon, we all know saying the cage is there so the Nexus won’t show up is another way of saying the Nexus will show up). It was good, but I wish some of the excess time from this match were used for the Swagger/Mysterio match or the ladder matches.

So all in all, I thought Money in the Bank was a great pay-per-view. One of the best non-Wrestlemania or SummerSlam WWE pay-per-views I’ve seen for a while. I still hope they have Money in the Bank matches at Wrestlemania, but I am very much looking forward to next year’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view.