WWE Bragging Rights - October 25th 2009

[Izzy]

One fall?

Thats horrendous

[Gnrfan]

So does anyone know if the RAW vs SD match is elimination or one fall?

Unfortunately, I found this @ wwe.com

Just as the name of the first-ever WWE Bragging Rights pay-per-view suggests, the Superstars of SmackDown and Raw will meet in a massive tag team confrontation to determine brand supremacy. In the midst of this 14-Superstar melee, only one pinfall will be needed to decide the winning team.

Rubbish!

Maybe they think its too close in the year to Survivor Series, but its only one match. This news makes that match go from a interesting and intriging match to a match that will probally be the worst of the night. It also means that guys like Escobar, Ziggler, McIntrye, Henry etc will get marginalised by the bigger stars. At least with the elimination format you could possibly get someone like Ziggler eliminating HBK or Maybe Big Show eliminating Jericho to add spice to their "tension". This way you can almost pick the the guys who will get the pinfall.

If history is anything to go by the finish will involve.

Jericho pinning Henry or Triple H pinning Escobar/McIntyre.

I suppose an interesting finish would be Jericho pinning Big Show or vice versa.

These matches to often become a match based on "Protecting" people, they ruined Classic Survivor Series matches back in the day attempting to protect people having them eliminated by count outs, dqs etc.

Yeah exactly and its pointless.

I can understand wanting to protect someone like Swagger with his "I won't lose again in 09" thing and guys who haven't lost yet like McIntrye and Escobar but i still think you can protect them in a Survivor Series match. Imagine if it ended up with D-X & Big Show vs Team SD with HBK having been battered. Jericho pins Big Show..... Big Show Gets angry and knocks out Jericho leaving HBK to pin Him... Leaving D-X vs Ziggler, McIntrye, Escobar, Kane, Cryme Tyme.... D-X get rid of Cryme Tyme with a SCM/Pedigree combo leaving it Ziggler, McIntrye, Escobar & Kane vs D-X.... Capitlising on HBK being beaten Kane chokeslams HBK behind the refs back and Ziggler pins him..... Leaving HHH vs Ziggler, McIntrye, Escobar & Kane. Kane starts to batter HHH and everytime HHH looks like getting the upper hand SD cheat to regain Kane's dominance. Out of nowhere HHH pedigrees and eliminates Kane. But he is so battered that Ziggler, McIntrye & Escobar gang up and all hit their finishers and Ziggler pins HHH.

Imagine the boost for SD and those three new guys. No one on RAW looks bad coz D-X has overcome alot... the Big Show/Jericho tension continues and Ziggler, McIntrye & Escobar all get their names and finishers out there.

i don't think it'll happen that way but it would be a nice change of pace with everyone expecting HHH, HBK, Jerishow to dominate

I suspect HHH or HBK will get the fall or some sort of ending involving Jerishow.

[Hammy]

I don't know whether its a "second theme" for this weekend, or they just used it for a one off video package, but I just saw a video package for Orton vs. Cena to the song Letters from the Sky by Civil Twilight,  heck of a tune used to perfection in Harper's Island and it worked for me for this match and feud, I'd forgotten how good WWE were at video packages, love Iron Man's so I'm looking forward to this a lot actually.

[BlowUpYourVideo]

I wonder what prompted the sudden change of Team SD? Or whether that was was always the plan....

[wayne42]

Its obvious that orton will win the iron man match, doubtless legacy will get involved. i would like taker to retain but sense another screwjob is on the cards, judging by the line-ups RAW should batter SD but you never know
dont care much for miz v morrison or the divas tag match, should still be a good show tho'

later people

[Gnrfan]

I'm still not decided on this PPV.

I'm looking forward to Miz vs Morrison and i'll be interested to see how Cena/Orton keep the match fresh for an hour... coz lets face it their arsenals are hardly huge. Maybe thats why its falls count anywhere.

The main tag match seems a little odd. As i've mentioned before team RAW just looks so much stronger than SD and the fact that they have kept Rey, Morrison, Ziggler & Batista away from the match suggests that Team SD might lose.

[BlowUpYourVideo]

The change to Team Smackdown at the Smackdown tapings this past Tuesday in Columbia, SC was decided at a production meeting on that same day as Vince McMahon saw the original teams together on Raw the night before and felt the Smackdown team looked too weak reports The Wrestling Observer Newsletter. There was said to be some joking among talent about the company changing their mind at the very last minute just days before the actual match on PPV after they spent a good amount of time the night before on Raw hyping it up. The updated Team Smackdown now features WWE Unified Tag Team Champion Chris Jericho, Kane, Matt Hardy, R-Truth, Finlay and The Hart Dynasty. Dropped from the previous team was Eric Esobar, Drew McIntyre, Dolph Ziggler and Cryme Tyme.


http://www.wrestleview.com/news2009/1256420658.php

[Izzy]

Ziggler doesnt even make the card?

Escobar's push comes to nothing?

R-Truth still employed?

Well done Vince

[Hammy]

^ Shame.

Who?

And, he's still K-Kwik to me dammit! Gettin' Rowdy! 

So Cena loses his match and then as the newest member of Smackdown helps them win the Main Event....

[Izzy]

Think you got it

...but what I'm hoping for is a Bret Hart run in for a team smackdown win

Never gonna happen....

[Hammy]

There is a Bragging Rights trophy 

If someone doesn't get hit over the head with it, I riot!

[nightrain]

A review of last night (or very early morning in UK).  Sums it up pretty well I thought.

I really hope it's the end of Cena vs Orton though but it's who else steps up I think.  I thought Dibiase may have turned face last night but no luck.  Will see what happens tonight on Raw.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/wrestling/2699599/WWE-Bragging-Rights-review.html

JOHN CENA may have regained the WWE title at Bragging Rights - but this was Randy Orton's finest hour.

Cena again proved to his many critics that he can rise to the occasion.

However, it was Orton who revelled in the spotlight of the Iron Man match main event in Pittsburgh.

Wrestling for 60 minutes in the modern era is a daunting prospect, so to help their top two Raw stars, WWE provided them with an 'anything goes, falls count anywhere' stipulation so they could fill their unforgiving hour with action.

And at one point, we had seen:

# More than one RKO, which was more than Attitude Adjustment, including one from the top rope

# An STF

# A monitor shot, which had Cena busted open

# Legacy interference

# Kofi Kingston running Legacy out of the building

# Orton and Cena brawling all over the floor, including through the lighting rig

# Orton trying to blow Cena up with pyro

There were also eight falls - and that was all after just 33 minutes!

At this point the match was 4-4. Orton began to dominate as it slowed a little, taking another fall to lead.

Cena made a comeback to put Orton through the announce table and then forced a tap out to an STF with seconds remaining.

Orton's performance was sensational. His timing, his posturing, his facial expressions were all so animated that he conveyed that he was losing his mind very convincingly.

The match itself never sagged. It had moments of high-octane action as well as inevitable lulls.

They had the sense to start reasonably quickly and then allow bigger gaps between incidents to sell the athletes' fatigue and to build tension.

If there was one criticism, it was that Orton could have passed out at the end and the ref could have been forced to make a call to give Cena the win.

Instead, Orton held on for nearly a minute, looking at the clock, but then gave up with only six seconds to spare. It didn't feel logical.

But that is a small point in the strongest WWE match in 2009, with the exception of Undertaker and Shawn Michaels' Wrestlemania masterclass.

Superb work by both men. Hopefully this really is the last chapter of their story because it is a fitting one. They will not top that.

The most newsworthy event elsewhere on the Bragging Rights card was the world title match involving four top Smackdown wrestlers.

Undertaker defended his belt against CM Punk, Rey Mysterio and Batista.

Although the last month or two has been all about Punk and Taker, it was Batista and Mysterio who were the focus of this one.


Mysterio and Batista worked together at times during the match but tension began to show when Mysterio broke up a pin after Batista powerbombed Taker.

Batista would soon after launch Mysterio to the outside, taking out Punk in the process, in what looked a huge bump.

From here, Taker would flip Batista 180 degrees and nail his signature Tombstone for the win.

Exeunt Punk and Taker at this point, leaving Batista and Mysterio in the ring.

Josh Matthews asked for their thoughts, and while Mysterio said "we were close" Batista declared himself irate at Mysterio hindering him.

This was followed by a huge clothesline and a severe attack.

It appears that Batista has now turned heel for the first time since he was a part of Evolution.

The Bragging Rights concept touted a battle between Raw and Smackdown, and as the show went on air we learned that it would be a best of three series.

Although this was a neat concept, the problem was you just knew the first two matches would see one Raw and one Smackdown victory, leaving the big tag match as the decider.

Miz and Morrison opened the show with a very solid effort. It is hard to fault the match but then it never really sizzled as a classic encounter.

It was a major moment for Mike Mizanin, though.

Having had a stop-start push on Raw, including cheating to win and getting squashed by Cena, he was allowed a clean victory over his former tag team partner.

Next up was a trio of divas from each brand, in what was the inevitable Smackdown equaliser.

Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool and Natalya bested Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly and Melina in a forgettable encounter, although the flurry of action involving Melina and Beth was eyecatching.

Seven men in red then emerged to face a similar number clad in blue for the big showdown.

It is hard in a match involving this many bodies to tell a story and to feature everybody, so this match felt like it lost a lot of people in the shuffle.

That said, it was nice to see the Hart Dynasty get some decent exposure.

When the match was over, it was Smackdown who celebrated and claimed Bragging Rights, with Jericho pinning Kofi Kingston.

It was thanks to Big Show, though, who betrayed his Raw team by chokeslamming Kingston and punching out Triple H.

Although Smackdown claimed the trophy with a 2-1 scoreline, it is undoubtedly Raw, and specifically Randy Orton and John Cena, who earned the Bragging Rights for the best main event.

We give Bragging Rights an iron-clad rating of seven out of 10.

[BlowUpYourVideo]

Some random thoughts (well-thought out and insightful musings be damned!):

- Didn't see the Cena and Miz victories coming. Thought Miz winning might be possible but predicted they'd go with Morrison to win, since he seems to be the bigger star of the two and the closest to becoming a main event guy....

- Although the Iron Man Match dragged slightly at times (IMO), the fact that both guys went for an hour is great. I guess you can't expect these kind of matches to be non-stop action for a whole hour. It's not like either of them are Superman or anything....

- Nice Batista heel turn. Probably should have happened a while ago but whatever. I think he'll work well as a heel. Liked how he quite casually told Mysterio he was going to rip his head off...

- I suppose the people who predicted Big Show to turn on Raw will be quoting their posts soon. I expected the 14 Man Tag to be last but now it seems obvious that the Iron Man was the main event. It was good for what it was I thought.

- The Raw Divas Champion being pinned by a Smackdown diva (who used to be on Raw until a few weeks ago) ? Alright then....

- Blood! Even if it disappeared as the match went on, we still saw it!

- Does Punk always say "It's clobbering time!" when he comes out? I thought it was quite amusing...

[Izzy]

I thought Batista's heel turn was one of the best heel turns ive ever seen

You really....felt it (and he sold that Tombstone for all he was worth)

This little **** costing you the title....

I totally marked for it - I took Batista serioulsy for the first time ever. I will be following him much closer going forward

This really has to be how a PG WWE works - with feuds you really feel - that are based on simple things like wanting to be the best and just honest to god Mysterio hate

God, i hate Mysterio so much....

[BlowUpYourVideo]

Batista always seems to have had a bit of a heel-esque character. The sort of "isn't it obvious I'm going to be champion?" stuff, the fact that he's a big, tattooed, musclebound badass etc.

But where does Punk go now??