WWE Bragging Rights 2009

The idea to finally get behind and promote the Smackdown vs Raw series of video games by the WWE is to be applauded, as in this time of diminishing pay-per-view returns, the video game tie in remains lucrative - a point demonstrated by even Sabu managing to get a check for $125,000 for his involvement in one of the series. So with in mind we had the PPV debut of Bragging Rights, a battle for brand superiority between Raw and Smackdown

With JR unavailable we had King, Cole and The Grish on commentary (but sadly no Striker) who revealed that the winning brand would receive the Bragging Rights Cup for winning the best out of 3 tournament, a prize that will no doubt sit alongside Davey Boy Smith's Royal success in the Royal Samavagh trophy at the Battle Royal at the Albert Hall in the annuls of crappy WWE trophies.

The opening match saw the battle between the former tag team champions of The Miz and John Morrison. As it was the first time these two had met in the ring since their split in the draft and on the back of an entertaining build featuring some excellent verbal jousting and an appearance from Marty Jannetty, this match actually had quite the big match feel to it - but whilst the in ring action was good for a pay-per-view opener, it feel slightly like a bit of an anti-climax after all the great work put in before it, lacking the memorable moment to take it to the next level. The Miz picked up the win pushing Morrison off the ropes and blocking the Starship Pain and should ensure plenty of material for his ace gloating promos over the next couple of weeks.

Next up was Divas action with Melina, Gail Kim and Kelly Kelly from Raw taking on Smackdown’s team of Beth Phoenix, Natalya and Michelle McCool, who now has hooded entrance gear that suggests The Undertaker has some weird AJ Styles fetish going on. With Raw going 1-0 up in the opener the result was a foregone conclusion but surprisingly it Melina who took the fall for the Raw team and not Kelly Kelly. Beth Phoenix got the pin which makes sense in building her up a strong challenger for McCool's title back on Smackdown. The match itself was good with some nice bits between Gail and Beth which echoed the similar chemistry between Gail and Awesome Kong in TNA and further highlighted the missed opportunities since Kim returned to the WWE.

The fatal four way for the WWE title was next as The Undertaker defended against former champions CM Punk, Rey Mysterio and Batista. The match set off at a fast past and kept it up for the entire match, with near falls all over the place. The finish came when Batista seemingly had the match won till Rey broke up the pin, Batista then proceeded to clean house but turned into a Tombstone piledriver from Undertaker who got the pin.

After the match Josh Matthews was in the ring with Big Dave, Little Rey for the not at all obvious heel turn as Batista proceeded to beat the hell out of Mysterio for costing him the title and touching all those small children on the way to the ring. I may have made the last bit up though.

Unsurprisingly the tournament came down to the 7 on 7 tag match to decide who would take home the prestigious Bragging Rights Trophy. All the wrestlers were wearing their respective colours aside from those rebels who won't wear their school uniform DX - sadly we didn't get a vignette of them smoking behind the bike sheds, but there's always next year!

The match maintained the high standards of what had come before, with plenty of action giving all the competitors a chance to shine, hopefully the Harts don't have to wait too long to get another chance on PPV as Tyson Kidd is probably my favourite wrestler in WWE at the moment, with a style that stands out from the usual homogeneity of the WWE style. The finish was one of those turns from the wrestler that really insults the intelligence of the viewer when the commentators play it up like its the most shocking event in the history of wrestling. This time to the surprise of no-one Big Show helped his tag team partner win, and not Raw! OMG!

The fact that Raw lost was a bit of the turn up for the books as I thought they would've rammed home the fact that Raw is the A-show and possibly furthered the build to a tag title match between DX and Jericho/Big Show by having them pick up the win. It may be as likely as hell freezing over, but I'd like to think this result will allow them to attempt to push The Miz again after they messed it up last time, as he now has the ammo to say he is better than the entire Raw locker room on a regular basis - and seeing as he's proved he's not the next Marty Jannetty, how about a feud with Shawn Michaels somewhere down the line?

The main event was the moment I'd been dreading. John Cena. Randy 'Chinlock' Orton. 60 minute Ironman match.

Despite my pleas, they didn't start the clock before the ring entrances to eat up at least half an hour of the match so we had the usual Cena fanfare and an even slower Orton entrance than usual to conserve energy. The main problem I had with the match wasn't the quality of wrestling, it was just that they did everything they would do in a normal WWE title match, but over the course of an hour with lots of lying down and hastily added rest period rules to pad it out.

The big moments came halfway through when that old staple of the Ironman match was used - attempting to murder your opponent by setting off a load of explosive pyrotechnics under his prone body. You knew this was meant to be a grave situation as King put on his serious voice and started calling him John but it looked a bit farcical as Orton appeared to be playing one of those fairground Whack it games as he randomly started hitting comedy red buttons waiting for an explosion to come. All that was missing was the mallet to complete to complete the image, but I guess Triple H wouldn't lend him his for the night.

Cena would go on to launch his usual heroic comeback, fighting out near death, a Legacy run in (with the help of Kofi Kingston, who hopefully is getting a push) to win back the title 6-5 with an STF in the dying seconds of the match and save him from the fate worse than death that is going to Smackdown.

I'm probably in the minority, but I actually think the Bragging Rights event is actually a pretty good idea by WWE, and with some tweaking would be a welcome return to the PPV calender next year.

Firstly, the event needs a longer build to hype up the issues surrounding the main events as teams of 7 wrestlers who couldn't get along the previous week are suddenly transformed into loyal servants of the Raw and Smackdown brands. Secondly it could do with being moved a bit further away from the Survivor Series event as they both seem to step on their toes and dilute the unique selling points of both events. I'd also like to see the return of War Games in the main tag team match and it would really add a sense of occasion and really put over victory in the tournament as a big thing, making the match something special, standing out from the usual multiman matches on TV that are designed to fill two hours of programming.

The PPV should also be applauded as it made several steps to put the spotlight on new talent, giving Rhodes, R Truth and Kofi Kingston chance to establish characters in backstage segments as well as giving them plenty of ring time in the final match. Hopefully this will continue moving on to Survivor Series at the end of the month, as this events usually opens up plenty of spots for new talent to show their stuff in front of a wider audience.