Re-visiting WWE history, Carmella is the only female talent to have won a Money in the Bank ladder match, twice. At the titular Premium Live Event back in 2017, James Ellsworth, who was the former SmackDown Women’s Champion’s henchman at the time, grabbed the briefcase and handed it over to Carmella.
This led to controversies, online as well as in the locker room, which went on to produce a second Money in the Bank ladder match just a week after the PLE was over to crown a new briefcase-holder that was again won by Carmella.
There had been speculations for a long time that the only reason the rematch took place on a weekly episode of Friday Night SmackDown Live was because WWE suffered a lot of fan backlash from James Ellsworth becoming the first person to retrieve the briefcase in the first-ever Women’s Money in the Ladder Match. However, that’s not the case.
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Recently, James Ellsworth took to Twitter to respond to a fan who reminded the above-mentioned rumor. The former WWE star then shared the fact that the rematch was always the plan from the get-go. Both Carmella and Ellsworth knew that there would be a Money in the Bank rematch even before the original PLE match went down.
“Actually not true. We always knew we were doing the second one before the first one happened; we did a rehearsal the next day for the second one. But you know “internet,”” Ellsworth noted in his tweet.
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Actually not true
We always knew we were doing the second one before the first one happened, we did a rehearsal the next day for the second one .
But you know “internet” https://t.co/Rptsx12MXb
— James Ellsworth (@realellsworth) May 15, 2025
History of first-ever WWE Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match
In the year 2017, WWE added another feather to the Women’s Evolution by hosting the first-ever Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match. Only five SmackDown Women’s Division superstars – Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Natalya Neidhart, Tamina Snuka, and Carmella were able to compete in that matchup, with the latter one etching her name in the WWE history books by becoming the first-ever winner in such genre.
Two days later on SmackDown, Carmella was stripped of the briefcase, and a second Money in the Bank ladder match was set by SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan for the June 27, 2017 episode. This time, the Princess of Staten Island herself managed to climb up the ladder and grab the briefcase on her own, thus becoming the legitimate possessor of the briefcase and the contract in it.