Ric Flair always said "To be the man you got to beat the man." Well back in 2007 WWE had three top titles; The WWE Championship, The World Heavyweight Championship and The ECW World Heavyweight Championship. So unlike decades past when a promotion would be dominated by a single man WWE had two or maybe three claiming to be top dog.
So Mr. Shaun Webb decided to step in and create a "Unofficial World Championship." Much like when Ric Flair was "The Real World Champion" in WWE or when Taz was FTW Heavyweight Champion in ECW our Unofficial World Champion would have a claim to be "The Man" wither he or she held a promotion's top title or not.
They hype machine that is WWE of late often calls The Money In The Bank title shot holder a unofficial world champion. The thinking is that a majority of the men who cashed in their title shots have been successful. In fact only John Cena has not won a title with his title shot. Perhaps this was the thinking when Shaun declared Mr. Kennedy the first ever Unofficial World Champion after he won The Money In The Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania 23. Plus there was loads of hype behind the man at that period.
The title since then has gone through a lot of changes. Here's what Shaun laid out for the rules when he started this:
From Wrestlemania, every match Mr Kennedy competes in will be a Championship Match, and his reign will continue until he loses to somebody. Then that somebody will be crowned the Unofficial World Champion! The title will change hands on any kind of victory, be it pinfall, submission, count-out, or disqualification. It will also count for eliminations, so if you eliminate the champion in the Royal Rumble match for instance, you become the champ. In tag team matches, the belt will only change hands IF the champion is pinned, made to submit, counted out, or the one directly responsible for the DQ. If their partner is pinned, the champion retains.
In the event of a 'title vacated' situation. The previous champion will have the oppurtunity to earn the title back in their next match.
Of course there's been changes over the years. I changed it so that a champion does not have to directly loose a match to loose the belt, so it can be lost if a partner takes the fall in a tag team match. Also it's been switched around between WWE and ROH after I took over. Now it's currently in TNA.
Now what I wanted to do for some time is go through the history of this title and detail each championship reign and defense. Understand that some matches will be unavailable but I'll comment on anything I can find. So let's begin with the match that crowned our first champion!
1. Mr. Kennedy defeated CM Punk, Edge, Finlay, Jeff Hardy, King Booker, Matt Hardy and Randy Orton in a Money In The Bank Ladder Match at WWE WrestleMania 23. April 1st, 2007.
All of WWE's Money In The Bank ladder matches have been fun to watch. Highlights include Jeff Hardy jumping off a ladder onto Edge who was laying on a ladder to take both men out of the match. Booker T grabbing a mini ladder for some comedy. Booker saving his wife from Matt Hardy to cost him the match. Hornswoggle interfering to help Finlay only to have Kennedy give him a Green Bay Plunge from the top of a ladder! Mr. Kennedy won the match of course. It was fun to watch but nothing really you need to go out of your way to see. I give it three stars.
Despite being big losers tonight a majority of the men in this match would go onto win the title, the exception being Booker T and Finlay, though both got a chance to win in after this match. Mr. Kennedy and Jeff Hardy would be the only two who would go onto hold the title in both WWE and TNA. Also so far this is the largest crowd to ever see an Unofficial World Title match.
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