The Miz def. John Morrison
Surprised that Miz got the win. I predicted Morrison as I figured they'd want to open up the ppv with a face winning, AND that Raw would win the divas match to even it out. Very, very solid from top to bottom. This was a great match. If you saw this and you still think that both the Miz and Morrison aren't the future of the WWE...then, I don't know what to tell ya, because these guys were great and are just ready to break out into what their full potential has. With Miz winning by a real cheap method (but still, nonetheless, winning without interference or anything), it helps BOTH these guys out. Now you may think, "how does Morrison benefit from this?" Think about it this way: if Morrison would have lost in a different way, he'd have looked weak, unless it were a DQ or whatever, in which case Miz would look weak. Both guys came out of this situation looking strong.
Backstage Segment: R-Truth, Cody Rhodes, & Big Show
Rhodes tells Truth that Smackdown sucks, Truth tries to remember his lines, and Big Show reiterates that Raw is better. Necessary type of build, but could've been done better. Any time you put R-Truth in a segment, it downgrades it lol.
Smackdown Divas (Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, & Natalya) def. Raw Divas (Melina, Kelly Kelly, & Gail Kim)
McCool is taking the hooded entrance from AJ Styles as well as one of his moves? Lol. McCool needs to show off her body, as it's one of her high points. Nice to see Natalya get some ppv time, as she's one of the few divas that can actually do some moves correctly lol. Ugh, Melina and Kelly with their screams. They need to knock that shit off. What else to say about a women's match?
Backstage Segment: R-A-W, Rah Rah Rah
Swagger asks, "do we really need this little rah-rah speech"? Meh, you sort of do on a ppv like this. Plus, it was kind of fun. A reference to Mark Henry's angle with Mae Young (with Henry saying "nobody still thinks of that"...shot at the IWC?), explaining how Kofi isn't going to be Jamaican anymore (which is ok), telling Hornswoggle to wash his face which we've all been thinking. HHH and HBK did a good job acting as the captains of their team, and it made perfect sense that they'd use the phrase "are you ready" for a rallying up segment.
World Heavyweight Championship (Fatal Four-Way Match): The Undertaker (c) def. Batista, Rey Mysterio, & CM Punk
Oh yeah, didn't I say that we'd have Taker retain and Batista attack Mysterio afterwards? SO obvious that that was going to happen. And you know, I'm ok with the way they did it. Normally, if you put the mic in front of Mysterio or Batista, I have to groan. However, I think them having that little mic section post-match helped the heel turn so much more than it would've been if Batista would have just attacked Mysterio afterwards like they do so often. The post-match beat down was forceful enough looking that it succeeded in turning Batista heel. Match itself, let's see what notes I wrote down...oh, here's one, why does Punk say "it's clobbering time" on the way to the ring? CM Thing? Lol. I like it better when he says "it's nap time" as it works with his GTS finisher. Sounds like the crowd was completely behind Taker, which was to be assumed anyway, as he's the man. Throughout the match, I felt Mysterio was used rather well. Instead of trying to give him some domination, he was merely used for little spots here and there. Essentially, if the entire match can be summed up as a sentence, he was the accent marks and apostrophes. That's how Mysterio works best. He takes lots of brutal moments where he looks weak, hits some quick things out of nowhere, and then leaves. Pretty decent job of keeping it a multi-man match with the offense, including Batista spearing Taker while he was busy with Mysterio. Plus, Batista launching Mysterio was fun to see lol.
Team Smackdown (Chris Jericho, Kane, Matt Hardy, R-Truth, Finlay, & The Hart Dynasty) def. Team Raw (DX, Big Show, Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry, Cody Rhodes, & Jack Swagger)
Team Smackdown has 58 championships compared to Raw's 59...how? Oh yeah, Jericho lol. The fans that they interviewed ahead of time were so lame haha. Still, that was kind of fun to do something out of the box and have their predictions, so it's ok in my book. DX's pyro was fucked up. Why was HHH the only person not wearing their team's shirt? Special treatment again? Lol. I do have to point out that I liked how they filmed the two teams from the reflection of the trophy. That was a very, very nice touch that will go unnoticed (or unappreciated) from most. Nothing really amazing about this. You had to know that Big Show would screw Raw out of it. Again, it was so obvious. This gives DX more of a reason to challenge JeriShow for their tag titles.
Backstage Segment: Cody Rhodes Attacks Kofi Kingston
Rhodes says Kofi was the weak link and attacks him. They starting a singles feud between the two? I'll watch.
WWE Championship (Iron Man Match): John Cena def. Randy Orton (c)
I'll admit it. I thought they'd put on an absolutely horrid match, but they weren't too bad together. Though, even fans of this match and of Cena have to admit that Cena was extremely limited here. It was not only obvious that Orton was calling the shots in the ring but there is also more steam for the "Cena only knows 5 moves" argument. How many times did he repeat the same offense instead of trying something new? I mean, hell, he won FOUR (five if you count the double count RKO thing) out of his SIX decisions by using just the STF and the Attitude Adjustment. The other was a roll-up. Give me a break, man. You're the top guy in the company and you can't learn some variety? Have Jamie Noble teach you something...lord knows he's not too busy lol. Cena gets busted early on but then it stops. What, he doesn't even sell BLEEDING anymore? Haha j/k. Since when was this a Falls Count Anywhere match as well, instead of just being no-DQ and no count out? Idk, but it helped the match greatly. Why did it take so long for Legacy to come down instead of having them show up at the very beginning? Then again, its WWE, you're not supposed to think of that. Good to see Kofi come out though, as that gave him some more time on this pay-per-view, and it'll burn into the minds of the fans, which will upgrade his status on the WWE hierarchy. Dreamstreet gives Orton a pinfall, so I'm thinking maybe DiBiase can say something along the lines of how he gave him an extra decision but Orton still lost the match, so it clearly wasn't Ted's fault, but it was solely Orton's. The pyro stuff was pretty stupid. Sure, if it were real, it would be devastating, but they never do a good job rigging those things to look realistic. You can always tell how fake they are, and that hurts the angle each and every time they try to pull it off. Orton's DDT on the outside was a good way to utilize a pinfall as that looked rough. But then I thought, again, why wouldn't Orton just take advantage of Cena being down and punt him? If that apparently puts people out for months on end (unless you're Cena or HHH of course...allow me to roll my eyes) then why not do it and get a few pinfalls? Not supposed to remember that, either lol. A bit unnecessary having the referees taken out, unless they want to say that Orton had another pinfall on Cena but screwed himself by taking out the ref. Cena wins, as expected, with the STF in the final moments. Meh. I really hope they don't talk about this match too much as it certainly wasn't great by any standards - it was just better than I had thought it would be.
Overall thoughts on Bragging Rights? Well, I liked the nice touches of having the ring ropes as both the colors, and it makes perfect sense to have a trophy, but I doubt that they'll have Smackdown showcase the trophy for the rest of the year or something, so it most likely will be about as prestigious as the king of the ring scepter and throne lol. So, did you notice that in all the brand matches, the heels won? I mean, sure, you can say that Team Smackdown wasn't a full on heel team, but who got the pinfall? Jericho. Smackdown had 4 heels and 3 faces, with 2 of those heels being captains, compared to Team Raw which had only 3 heels and 2 face captains. The Miz and Morrison had a great match, the divas had...well, a divas match, the fatal four-way was kind of fun, the tag team match was ok, and the Iron Man match was ok. That balances out to a massive "meh". About as C+ or B- as you can possibly get, I think. Still, the next pay-per-view is Survivor Series which is always something to look forward to.
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