WWE Bragging Rights PPV Review

WWE Bragging Rights Pay-Per-View Review

By Phil Allely

Bragging Rights should have been a good to decent WWE event, there was the honour of Smackdown and Raw on the line in many of the bouts and the general feeling was that it could do no wrong.

However one match only really stood out from the pack and that was the opening contest, the remainder of the card fell down and lost our interest too easily.

The previously mentioned opening match was between intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler and United Stated Champion Daniel Bryan. The pair worked very well together indeed to whip the crowd into a frenzy, exchanging wear-down holds and near falls before Bryan locked on his LaBell submission move to net himself the win, much to Vicky Guerrero and Ziggler’s annoyance.

In an impromptu match-up (which in my opinion don’t really work as fans tuning in don’t expect them and they’ve no real build up) chosen by the unseen Raw GM, Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre defended their tag team Belts against the Nexus duo of John Cena and Dave Otunga.

The bout itself saw Cena make another one of his one-man team showings, leaving Otunga very little to do as he decimated the cocky tag team champs. Rhodes and McIntyre proved no match for Cena here, Otunga looked like a waste of space too, which can’t be good for a man who is a member of the WWE’s latest heel faction. The end came as Cena locked his weak STF move on Rhodes to win the straps for his team.

Otunga celebrated with the gold for a short while before Cena decided to drop him with an Attitude Adjustment and walk off with them for himself.

Next up Goldust (in his first solo PPV match in 8 years) and Ted DiBiase had a reasonable brawl, both men’s seconds Maryse and Askana were involved too. The guys did well and put forth a spirited if unexciting fight. DiBiase got the win after Goldust got distracted helping Askana out of the ring. Post-match Askana and Goldust beatdown DiBiase and posed with the Million Dollar belt.

Outside interference stopped Natalya from getting her hands on the WWE Divas Title. Co-holder Michelle McCool taking all the help she could to finally put down the far superior hart Dynasty representative.

The Kane and Undertaker Buried Alive match had potential, but lost an awful lot of its appeal quickly. Perhaps it the overreliance on supernatural aspects to the characters or the PG rated action, but it really didn’t help that the two combatants have met on numerous occasions and need a breather from each other if possible.

The back and forth power moves, in and out of ring action and interference by Paul Bearer all led to a Nexus run-in enabling Kane to use the urn to blast his brother into the open grave. A shower of soil and a lightning bolt to a gravestone ending this one in Kane’s favour.

The Team Raw versus Team Smackdown Elimination match had its moments, but they were few and far between. Raw were represented by the Miz, John Morrison, CM Punk, Ezekiel Jackson, Santino Marella, R Truth and Sheamus.

Flying the flag for Smackdown were Big Show, Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger, Tyler Reks, Kofi Kingston, Alberto Del Rio and Edge, they were accompanied by their mascot Hornswoggle.

There were some swift elimination’s, annoying count-outs and of course a rapid trading of trademark moves before things got down to the nitty gritty and fans tuned in harder to witness the winning combination of moves.

Edge and Rey Mysterio proved to be the better tandem in the end, taking out The Miz to win for Smackdown.

The main event was Nexus main man Wade Barett taking on WWE Champion Randy Orton. The stipulation here was that if Barrett lost Cena would be fired from the WWE. Cena’s presence was a key to this one.

Barrett tried his best against the far superior Orton, netting himself a few decent near falls. Cena tried to hold back, but did get involved on a few occasions, the obligatory ref bump and nexus run-in (thwarted by their reluctant teammate Cena)left things a bit mental and Cena's Attitude Adjustment strike on Barett led to his DQ win. Post-match cena tried to do the right thing and present Orton with his gold, but ate an RKO for his trouble.

Bragging Rights was luckily on free TV here in the UK, our US comrades had to pay an awful lot to see this below par effort, that we know WWE can better. The opening match betwen Danielson and Ziggler was well paced and set us up for a huge fall, the in-ring action wasn't awful, but lacked something that a ppv should never do.

Perhaps it's now time for the WWE to return to their roots and forget about long-winded storylines and show us some real intense wrestling?