Smark Out Moment

This pay-per-view has the possibility to be very important and interesting, but equally the chance to be a bit of a mess. Hopefully, it's the former.

Intercontinental Championship: Dolph Ziggler (c) vs. Kofi Kingston
Vickie Guerrero comes out with Kaitlyn to introduce Dolph Ziggler. I'm hoping they go through with Kaitlyn stealing Ziggler away from Vickie...though right now, Ziggler has what looks like a dog collar around his neck. Symbolizing being owned by Vickie, perhaps? Vickie sends Kaitlyn to the back, unfortunately. There goes any chance that she becomes a distraction or costs Ziggler/Kofi the match. After some reversals, Kofi hits the SOS, but Ziggler barely gets his foot on the ropes. Kofi goes for another, but Ziggler reverses it into a sleeper hold. Kofi breaks out of it and puts a sleeper of his own on Ziggler but only momentarily. Vickie prepares to slap him, but Dolph stops her due to the DQ stipulation. Kofi goes for the Trouble in Paradise, but Dolph has eyes in the back of his head and dodges it. Dolph hits the Zig-Zag and scores a pinfall.

WINNER: Dolph Ziggler via pinfall.
Decent match. I'm glad Ziggler got a clean pinfall as he was starting to look really weak being unable to beat Kofi all these times. I don't see any reason a heel shouldn't get a clean win over a face every so often that doesn't involve double-teams and cheating and so forth. Good result.

Backstage with Edge
Edge does the generic "I'm going to win" stuff.

CM Punk vs. Big Show
Being in Chicago, CM Punk gets a good pop. Naturally, to get rid of it, Punk gets on the mic, saying he loves Chicago, but despises the people that live in it. He even says Chicago should, for a second time, be burned to a ground to give him the chance to rebuild it as a utopia. Ouch haha. No pyro for Big Show tonight. Cole throws in a Knucklehead reference in a very, very cheesy way. As suspected, they've ignored all logic here and Punk is doing better against Show than when it was 3-on-1. Show lands his knockout punch and Punk loses consciousness.

WINNER: Big Show via pinfall.
This was short and really didn't seem like it deserved to be on the card, especially since it wasn't for a title. I guess they realized early on that it didn't fit and decided to give it a minimum amount of time for good reason.

Backstage with Chris Jericho
Jericho brings up beating Austin and the Rock in the same night, winning the title in the Scramble, and all his other qualifications, saying he guarantees he'll be the new champ because of his track record and because he's the best in the world at what he does.

United States Championship: The Miz (c) vs. Daniel Bryan
The Miz is showcasing a more versatile moveset as this match is really trying to be a grounded wrestling match. No real big or interesting moves are being hit. No real sense of tension in the match as of yet. Bryan goes for the LeBell Lock but Alex Riley jumps onto the apron for a distraction. The Miz tries to hit Bran from behind, but he takes a page out of Ziggler from earlier and moves, making Miz hit Riley. Bryan rolls up Miz and almost gets the pin, finally adding some tension to the match. Some reversals later, Bryan is able to put on the LeBell Lock and the Miz struggles, but eventually taps.

WINNER (and new United States champion): Daniel Bryan via submission.
I expected Bryan to win here, but I was fooled into thinking it would be a better match than what it was. I'm sure the Daniel Bryan fanboys will disagree with me, but I still have yet to see anything above mediocre from him. Hopefully, Alex Riley gets the US title soon and they give the Miz something to make up for this loss so he doesn't lose any momentum in his main event push.

Backstage with John Cena
Cena is introduced by Josh and is met with a chorus of boos.

Divas/Women's Title Unification [Lumberjill Match]: Melina (c) vs. Michelle McCool (c)
Michelle and Melina look like they want to prove their division is worth something, as they start off their match with quite a bit of energy. Sadly, it's predetermined that they'll fail, though this could definitely be the best divas match we'll see all year. Michelle for some reason slaps Eve Torres outside. It might not be a good idea to piss off the lumberjills. Oh wait, nevermind, when Melina plummets out of the ring, not a single diva does anything to her. I guess these girls are lumberjills in spirit only. Michelle then, again, for no reason, tries to attack Natalya. The ref gets distracted with Natalya and this costs Melina a pinfall. Michelle goes to the outside and some lumberjills attack her. Eve, poor girl, gets confused and slowly tries to elbow Jillian, who basically mouths that she's not supposed to hit her. Confused, Eve just turns around like a lost puppy. Michelle and Melina fall to the outside and Natalya punches Melina once while everyone else just stares. Layla attacks Melina while everyone else just starts attacking each other. Michelle kicks Melina and gets the win.

WINNER (and unified divas champion): Michelle McCool via pinfall.
If these two, the two overall best divas they have right now, couldn't even pull off a good match, then we might as well not bother watching the divas anymore, right? At the very least, it's good that the titles are unified and we'll see less of a focus on them.

Backstage with Wade Barrett
Interviewing all the participants is starting to give the main event an extra level of importance, so that's good. Wade says what you'd suspect, that he'll be the champ and so on and so forth.

World Heavyweight Championship [No Holds Barred]: Kane (c) vs. The Undertaker
Taker jumps the gun and attacks Kane on his way down the ramp. Time to give this ppv a shot of adrenaline before it gets too relaxed. As it should be, Kane for the most part is dominating the match, and with quite a bit more vigor than we've seen from Kane in the past few years. You give a guy something he finds fun and he works harder, time and time again. The consistent theme here is that if Taker does something to Kane, it sort of takes more out of him than it does Kane, since he's weak. Taker picks up some momentum and looks to be on the way to victory, but Kane reverses a Tombstone into a Tombstone of his own and wins.

WINNER: Kane via pinfall.
Good continuity with the story. Taker knows how to pretend to be weak, unlike a lot of people that wrestle kayfabe injured and just forget about it (cough*Mysterio*cough). Glad that Kane won, as it boosts his credibility and prevents him from looking like a jobber transitional champ. Expect to see a rematch at Hell in a Cell with Taker coming out on top.

Backstage with Randy Orton
Orton has nothing to say to his opponents tonight.

WWE Tag Team Championship [Tag Team Turmoil]: The Hart Dynasty (c) vs. Mark Henry & Evan Bourne vs. The Usos vs. Vladimir Kozlov & Santino Marella vs. Drew McIntyre & Cody Rhodes
Oh man, why couldn't they have advertised this? The Hart Dynasty starts off with the Usos. Tyson Kidd hits a nice springboard moonsault onto the outside/Usos. Tyson puts on the Sharpshooter but with a distraction, the Usos get the pin! Guaranteed new tag champs in this match. The next team out is Kozlov and Santino. Santino takes too long setting up the Cobra and an Uso (I think Jey but I'm not sure) hits a Samoan Drop, eliminating Santino and Kozlov. The next team comes out, Evan Bourne and Mark Henry. Henry hits a World's Strongest Slam. Evan Bourne hits Air Bourne and the Usos are eliminated. Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes come out (and you can safely assume will become the new tag champs).The normal "everyone in the ring" distraction comes into play and Cody hits Cross Rhodes to win the titles.

WINNERS (and new tag team champions): Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre
Well, this is better than if they just had Rhodes and McIntyre squash the Hart Dynasty alone, as it's been a long time since we had a tag team turmoil match. The problem with it I have though is that it made the Hart Dynasty look like shit champs especially in regards to how they haven't been on TV more than a few minutes in the past 3 months. I don't think Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre should be the tag champs necessarily, and I was hoping Cody would've been in the Intercontinental title picture instead. We'll see...but this was kind of a slap to the face of the Hart Dynasty and looks like they threw the titles on two random guys that they had nothing for, simply because they were tired of the current champs and wanted a change for the sake of a change.

Alberto Del Rio Promo
Haven't seen when they did these house promos a hundred times before? Well, now you're paying to watch them again.

Backstage with Sheamus
I'm going to retain the title. HHH I love you. Blah blah blah.

WWE Championship [Six Pack Challenge]: Sheamus (c) vs. Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho vs. John Cena vs. Wade Barrett vs. Edge
Cole and Lawler once again cover up the boos that Cena gets by using the excuse that he gets a big reaction and that's what matters. That's always so sad when they have to resort to that. "There's no such thing as bad press" = pitiful. Edge comes out with some of the only pyro of the night and oddly enough, am I the only person who has a feeling like he doesn't belong here? And not in the "Sheamus doesn't belong here" type of being out of his skill level and entertainment value, but that Edge just doesn't seem like he has any momentum behind him whatsoever. At least Jericho has the retirement stipulation working in his favor. Orton's out to the biggest pop, naturally. Roughly 3 minutes into the match, Orton hits an RKO on Jericho and eliminates him. The match stops and everyone stares as Jericho walks back to the locker room (with the crowd chanting Y2J). After Jericho makes his exit, Wade finds himself the monkey in the middle of the other four competitors. Cena dropkicks (I think...if it was a dropkick, he botched it) Edge and the typical stare down between Orton and Cena takes place. Orton tries his off-the-rope DDT. Sheamus, Edge, and Barrett split things up. Sheamus works on Cena and starts an alliance with Edge. This ceases to exist and Edge eventually spears Sheamus, then Orton. Cena comes in, gives Edge the Attitude Adjustment, and gets the three. Edge is eliminated. Cena locks the STF on Sheamus and for some reason, when he reaches the ropes, the ref tells Cena to break it. It's a no-DQ match, so this makes no sense. Nexus comes down and causes a distraction, allowing Wade Barrett to hit the Wasteland on Cena and eliminate him. They turn their attention to attacking Orton. Again, if there's no DQ, why did Cena have to break the STF hold? RKO should be coming up soon to eliminate Barrett. Cena gets a chair and starts fighting off the Nexus members out of spite. Orton RKOs Barrett and eliminates him. Sheamus hits the bicycle kick, but Orton kicks out and follows it up with an RKO and the win!


WINNER (and new WWE champion): Randy Orton via pinfall.
Thank GOD Sheamus isn't the champion anymore. Good match. The eliminations were a little bit easy to predict, but it was still entertaining, and I'm very pleased with the final outcome.

Overall, the ppv was about a C+/B-. It was still better than SummerSlam and although not everything was a hit, the misses weren't as numerous.