Jules: Hello everyone and welcome to another extremely untimely edition of the J-Team Presents. It is our solemn duty in this edition to review the latest WWE PPV offering, entitled Bragging Rights. On this event, two shows engaged in the most epic of battles to decide once and for all which brand was truly the dominant force in sports entertainment. Did Raw manage to run roughshod over the competition or did Smackdown slay the mighty Monday Night Dragon that for so long has tormented it with its "A-Show" status? The answers to all this and more can be found, if you'll just read on a bit further down Joining me for this journey of course will be none other than my trusted sidekick, the ever resourceful young lad, James_A! Jimmy, for the love of pete will you put those cheetos down, and join me up here!
Jimmy: *wipes cheeto stains away from face* Sorry Jules... um, you want me to do the thing with the poster now?
Jules: Thank you Jim Jim. And, sheesh, does Undertaker have to make that face in every picture he takes? He must have been absolute joy to deal with back in his elementary school days when it came time for yearbook photos. Enough of that jibba jabba though, how about we proceed onto the first match of the card?
John Morrison vs. The Miz in an Intercontinental Champion vs. United States Champion Match
Jimmy: This was a match I was particularly excited for as well. We all saw the chemistry these guys had last year when side by side. They went on to win the Tag Team Titles, get their own WWE.com show, develop a viral following, and win some Slammy Awards for their troubles. Since breaking up they, of course, have become champions in their own right. But the question remained of which one was truly better.
Now for as much chemistry as these guys had as a tag team, they looked a little messy and misunderstood throughout a lot of this match. Nothing as clunky as CM Punk and Elijah Burke all those years ago on ECW, but not nearly as smooth as it should be from John Morrison (or even The Miz for that matter). Now despite numerous mistakes (miztakes?) in this match, there were many redeeming things in this match (particularly Morrison's gymnastics.) Much of Morrison's offense ended up working against him (eventually costing him the match as well) which I liked because of Miz's comments the other night on Superstars. I found this to be a fun little match with a good dynamic, but one that should've been much smoother (especially with two guys who know each other so well.) The ending was also very lame and tremendously anticlimactic. If that (having Morrison miss Starship Pain) was all it took to beat Morrison, how come Ziggles, Mysterio, or CM Punk couldn't beat him like that before? Are they like, stupid or something? The wrong man did indeed go over (Miz is not the Shawn Michaels of the two) and of course, the big unexpected win he picked up doesn't mean jack squat as long as he lies stuck in no man's land.
J Rating: J-J ¾
Jules: Well, here was the match I was probably most looking forward to on the entire card, and what do you know, it’s the bloody opener. I guess that’s not too bad a thing though, because many wrestlers say the opening match is the second best spot of the night in terms of crowd reactions and such, but anyway, onto the review of this match. I’m not sure why, but I think I and a lot of other people had unreasonably high expectations for this match going in, and I think both guys here tried very hard to live up to those expectations. Both of these guys have made good solid character progression since their split oh so many months ago in the draft, speaking especially of Miz here who has raised his stock from that of a nothing comedy character to a serious singles star, and Morrison who it seems is on the cusp of breaking into the Smackdown main event scene with his in ring work. That said, there were a few spots in this match that looked a little awkward to me. First you had JoMo and Miz attempting to do that classic chain wrestling series perfected over the years by guys like Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Lance Storm, Jerry Lynn etc… You know the one that starts with a basic sunset flip, with a series of quick fluid roll ups and reversals, with the big dramatic bridge spot at the end where the guy on the bottom (Miz here unfortunately) has to push himself up from his back to his feet just with his own pure neck strength? Well, thanks to Miz here this spot looked quite slop-tacular and botched up from start to finish. I would give them points for trying but, in my estimation, you’re more often than not better off doing what you know you can do, and doing it very well, than attempting something you haven’t quite perfected yet, and winding up looking like an amateur goofball on pay per view here.
There was also a good series of punches and kicks here that climaxed with a big spinning karate kick by Morrison at the end, that, either do to the camera man’s position or just the guys' timing or positioning being a little off, didn’t look as on target as it could’ve been I may be forgetting something, but I think that about covers all that stuck out to me about this match negatively speaking. John Morrison took a bump off the top after being thrown by his feet by the Miz to the black mats outside back first that literally made me cringe. Very lucky he didn’t knock himself silly there. Other than that there was the usual entertaining gymnastics display here with Morrison performing a few nice looking flips and dives, eventually culminating with the finish which saw him miss Starship Pain, which apparently is enough to knock him out long enough for Miz to gain the pinfall. I don’t want to make too big a thing out of it here because it really doesn’t matter, but I think the wrong guy won this match, especially after Jericho’s comments on Smackdown where he said he had no faith in John Morrison to win this match. I think it might’ve been a better choice to let the babyface guy go over here, but again, small point of contention here. Also, I should note that, just for the Dirt Sheet segment alone this was probably one of the best built to matches on the card, but I did find it funny, that here we have the IC Champion from Smackdown and the US Champion from Raw, and almost literally nothing was made out of that. Just goes to show what those respective belts mean nowadays I suppose.
J Rating: J-J 3/4
Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool, & Natalya vs. Kelly Kelly, Gail Kim, & Melina in a Six Diva SmackDown! vs. RAW Match
Jimmy: Why in the world should Beth Phoenix or Melina feel any sense of "brand pride"? They just got traded to the shows they're on now literally days before the PPV! Not to mention that Beth Phoenix threw a well-documented bitch fit about going to the blue brand. How she managed to get on the SD! team and carry them to victory is puzzling at best. This was the same 6 diva tag you could catch on either TV show but the difference was that people were actually shown to be watching and/or pretending to care. Oh and Natalya got some great offense in. But yeah... No nudity of any kind really knocks this match down a great deal and any hope of the PG era coming to an end was completely non-existent during this match. Shame too because I'd rather see their titties.
J Rating: J-J
Jules: So Michelle McCool’s transformation into the female version of AJ Styles continues and is almost complete, aside from you know, that whole, being legitimately awesome in the ring thing that is. Everything from her finishing move to her tights, and now, her entrance robe complete with giant hoody just screams blatant rip off there. If I were I AJ I don’t know how offended I would be though. Now that I think of it, those two actually might make a pretty nice couple, if it wasn’t for that whole pesky, AJ being married deal. But anyway, all I’m waiting for now is for Michelle to start busting out the occasional Pele’ flip kick and the big moonsault into a reverse DDT spot every now and then to make this transformation complete. I really don’t remember a good deal about this match which is bad because I literally just watched it in the last half hour of writing this. It was pretty much the same basic six Diva tag match you’d see on Raw when you skip to the kitchen to make a sandwich. They played up the tension between Beth Phoenix and Michelle, with Beth being the new top heel challenger on Smackdown and all, by having her forcefully tag herself in here. Natayla was also involved here, and I’m just salivating for the day when we can see her and Beth have a one on one match up. Her little strand of pink hair makes me go ‘awwwwwwww’ by the way, every time I see it. Just don’t tell her that, lest she kick my teeth in. On the Raw side of this match you had Melina, who, as per her new gimmick I guess as the new Mickie James had to botch up yet another spot, this time in the corner with Beth. Kelly Kelly and Gail Kim were there too, and I believe played the babyfaces in peril at various times in the early going. The big story behind the match though was that if the Raw side won, then the big trophy sitting over by the announcers' desk would then go directly to Raw, thus really making the mutli-man main event negligible, so that pretty much guaranteed that the Smackdown side here had to win, although it would have been kind of funny to see the Raw Divas pull this one out and claim the trophy for themselves and be the heroes for Raw, and then all fourteen guys in the main event could’ve just shrugged their shoulders and went home I early I suppose.
J Rating: J-J
The Undertaker (c) vs. Charlie Manson Punk vs. David Batista vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. in a Fatal Four Way for the World Heavyweight Championship
Jimmy: I thought the timing of this match was rather fair considering that this PPV still had a 7-on-7 brand supremacy match and an hour long Ironman bout coming up. Sandwiching this match in the middle also gave the audience a breather from all the SmackDown! vs RAW stuff going on. This was pretty action packed to start out and while sometimes I complain about clutter, there didn't seem to be a lot during this match. Rey Mysterio really was seen only about 20-30% of the match but for the times he was seen he made it count. Most of this match saw either CM Punk or Batista beating up on/getting beaten up by the Undertaker. There were a few parts where I thought it would end like when Hell's Gate nearly claimed Batista, Punk went for a Last Ride, Rey went to Sleep, and Batista dropped a huge steaming Bomb on Taker (not unlike Psycho Sid's huge, steaming... nevermind.) There was good action throughout but nothing that was overly memorable. I guess that's what happens when we're dealing with the nature of a Fatal-Four-Way. What this will be remembered for is for Batista's post-match turn which saw him nearly knock Rey's block off (literally). Good to see Batista back in the heel role.
J Rating: J-J-J ¼
Jules: Here’s another match I was expecting to be pretty good, and all in all, I can’t say I was disappointed here with this match, although, I was far from blown away by it to be honest. Pretty much every one of these guys has a history with one another in some kind of way which makes for an interesting mix, plus, they all seem to have good to great chemistry with each other as well, with Batista mixing up well with Undertaker especially. There were so many near falls in this match that at one point I just had to stop counting, which made this match seem like a really important fight for the world title instead of just four guys thrown together having a match. CM Punk seemed to be playing darts with Rey Mysterio at one point as the poor little fellow would barely be back in the ring before Punk would rush over and clobber him, and then send him sliding out of the ring. Speaking of Punk and clobbering, I got a hearty laugh when he made his entrance and yelled out audibly “It’s clobbering time!”… What a tremendous man he is. The big storyline throughout was the slowly but surely fracturing friendship between Batista and Rey Mysterio. This was without a doubt the highlight of the match from a psychological perspective, and lead into the great post match heel turn with Batista beating the bejabbers out of Rey Mysterio, which, as a heel turn angle, I have to give a full five stars to. It was just done so absolutely perfectly. This match however, while very entertaining, in the end, was still about to the level of an average Smackdown or Raw television main event bout I thought. There was nothing particularly sloppy or illogical about it per se, it just never really made it the big crossover to that level of a pay per view quality main event in my humble opinion. Plus there was a bit where I could hear Batista and Undertaker talking to one another and Batista calling the tombstone spot for later. I hate when that kind of thing happens, just takes me out of the match completely. Again, could be a situation where it’s more the camera man’s fault perhaps, but irregardless, I’d appreciate it if in the future they would keep this kind of stuff better concealed. Remember guys, you’re supposed to be trying to fool me into believing that this stuff is actually somehow, like, real, I guess….
J Rating: J-J-J 1/4
C. Jericho (Cpt.), Kane (Cpt.), Finlay, ♥ Dynasty, M. Hardy, & R. Truth vs. DX (Cpts.), B. Show, C. Rhodes, J. Swagger, K. Kingston, & M. Henry in a 7-on-7 SmackDown! vs. RAW Match
Jimmy: This has to be one of the most poorly built "big matches" we've seen in recent memory. First, you have little to no interaction at all between Chris Jericho and Big Show who just so happen to be the UNIFIED TAG CHAMPS on opposite teams. Then you have the royal botch that was the SmackDown! team which, for whatever reason, had to be replaced by an entirely new group of individuals. Finally, every pre-match promo saw HHH bury anybody in the match whose name was not Paul Levesque or Michael Shawn Hickenbottom. So to say I wasn't thrilled for the match would be a bit of an understatement.
I found the beginning of this match to be surprisingly slow considering that you had twelve other fresh legs waiting by the wayside to be tagged in. Instead the first two participants just kind of slowed it down with numerous restholds. While they did that I went to go get some pizza. When I came back the participants were still in restholds and I wanted to throw pizza at the screen until Shawn Michaels got tagged in. He, of course, went at it with lots of the young folk from Team SmackDown! and eventually went fistie-cuffs with the opposing captain Chris Jericho. From here the action picked up rather quickly and before I knew it there were guys brawling all around the ring. Then the Big Show decided to turn on teammates Kingston and HHH and betray Team RAW right into the ultimate loss of the night. The beginning started too slow but the team match delivered in its closing stages.
J Rating: J-J-J
Jules: I remember some of my favorite matches as a child growing up on old school WWF were the old Survivor Series matches that saw two teams of five tag teams a piece in a literal twenty man tag team match. I just always thought it was such an interesting little set up. This match wasn’t quite as interesting to me, but in the end, I thought it turned out alright. One thing that sticks out to me though, is that, a large portion of the people who ordered this PPV are probably among the crowd that watches Raw exclusively, and thus, when it came time to this match, they would have to be scratching their heads at why there were five completely different guys on the Smackdown team than was there last Monday. I seriously can’t remember a match that had a build up I’ve disliked more than this one. It’s bad enough that you had DX in the ring last Monday burying and thus dooming the former Smackdown team, but you had them do basically the same thing to their own team in a backstage deal on this show as well. But putting all that aside, this match as I said, was done about as well as it could be. There was a strange spot at the beginning when Matt Hardy was in the ring trying to play a babyface on the Smackdown team, which was clearly built up as the heels in this program, with even Todd Grisham seeming to turn at then end, which both made me giggle, and want to see Lawler actually cold cock him as he threatened at one point. You also had HBK seemingly playing the heel there working over Matt Hardy, which made me excited as we so rarely get to see HBK work as a heel and control the match, but he’s so awesome at it, but then it dawned on me, and them at the same time I think, that people love Shawn Michaels, and this crowd anyway, was largely indifferent to Matt Hardy, so they had him tag out and Michaels quickly took over the role of babyface in peril, which he is also quite great at, in case you’ve not watched any wrestling in the past twenty or so years.
It was also neat to see HBK share the ring with the Hart Dynasty at various points. Before he retires at sometime, provided they build either Kidd or Smith up to a worthy level, I really need to see him in a program with them of some kind. Then there was Finlay who also got some ring time with Michaels, at which point I joyously thought to myself ‘Thank you Lord’… And of course, Jericho got some HBK time as well. So all in all, I was a happy wrestling fan in that regards, although Shawn did look a wee bit silly here wearing the DX shirt like a poncho with the Raw shirt hanging below it like a skirt. Kofi Kingston got to make a big entrance and literally looked a big star there for a few moments before everything was over. Jerry Lawler continued the “let’s bury Smackdown and our future far under the earth” trend though by burying the Hart Dynasty, first by not knowing the name of their team, and then by joking that Tyson Kidd must have had a hard time getting a day off from JC Penny. Nice, Jerry, real nice. You also had Michael Cole in perhaps the pinnacle of stupidity, hitting a new peak, even for him, when he blurted out “This is VINTAGE… Bragging Rights!” Really, how can something be vintage when so far there’s only been one of them in history, and that one event isn’t even yet completed? At that point I wanted Lawler to knock out both Cole and Grisham, and walk to the back so I could watch the rest of the show in silence, and pretend JR was there or something. There was a really nice flourish of moves at the end which capped off, predictably, with Big Show turning on his Raw team mates and allowing the Smackdown side to win. All in all, a very fun tag team match.
J Rating: J-J-J 1/2
Randall Orton (c) vs. John Cena in a Sixty Minute Ironman Match for the WWE Championship
Jimmy: So for the passed four or five PPVs I've been criticizing Randy Orton for his in-ring work. Going into this match, I was getting ready for an hour of headlocks, four corner stomping, and other "methodical" offensive maneuvers. For the first four minutes or so that's what we got. Then we got some quick pinfalls, a few breaks, and some outside brawling. But as soon as I started getting bored, Cena by intention or not started bleeding. I don't know how long it's been since I've actually seen blood but it was refreshing nonetheless. There were some slow moments during this match (it is an Ironman after all) but there were also some very cool spots. One that immediately jumps to mind is Orton threatening to blow up Cena with the pyrotechnics and another one was the aforementioned FU onto the announce table. There were also smaller but equally noteworthy spots like Cena sending Orton through a barricade or Orton sending Cena into eletrical wires a la Goldust in 2003. Randy Orton did a great job playing a psycho heel in this match while John Cena played comeback kid almost perfectly (if not for dragging his feet to execute moves while down a fall.) I can't complain with the result of this match because in all honesty, I didn't want to see Cena on SmackDown! While that might offer up more opportunities for Cena in title feuds, it offers up much less opportunities for the younger superstars on SmackDown! to get any sun competing with the likes of Undertaker, Batista, and Chris Jericho. CM Punk can barely break into the main event anymore and John Morrison keeps getting cut in front of. Enough is enough as far as I'm concerned and the WWE needs to stop talking about the future and start being about it. As far as the match goes, it was probably the best match we've seen out of the Cena-Orton saga. Both men played their roles tremendously. Now that they finally have this rating, they can follow suit with the last neverending saga that involved Orton and can just stop.
J Rating: J-J-J-J
Jules: Oh, this match. I feel like I could have lived a whole other lifetime or two in between the opening and closing bell here. I have kind of mixed feelings here altogether. There was a lot to like here, story telling wise. I loved Randy Orton’s whole deal where he was just totally sliding off the deep end, making nutty facial expressions, and rubbing his head like he might have some kind of brain tumor or something. Then there was the whole deal up on the stage where Randy Orton was pushing all the buttons on the pyrotechnics control panel trying to literally blow John Cena up. I know, it’s inappropriate but I was laughing so hard at this. It felt like I had been transported to the wacky climax of an old fashioned James Bond movie. For all its strengths though, there was one thing about this match that, to me anyway, was a big, big detriment, and that is the fact that it was an Iron Man match to begin with. I have no trouble with long matches, even hour long matches, but Iron Man matches in general have the problem of conditioning the fans to not care about the match at all until the final five minutes or so, when you know the finish is coming. There have been Iron Man matches in the past that I thought worked well in spite of this, but overall, this is just not personally my favorite match concept. Also, there are wrestlers, such as Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Kurt Angle, etc… for whom these kinds of matches are almost designed, but Randy Orton and John Cena have been so stuck in their WWE molds as far as general working goes, that to expect them to have an hour long match at this point and not have it drag or repeat itself, is asking a bit much I think. There were moments in this match that were insufferably slow to me, and in vital periods of the match too, such as when John Cena was down a fall, and the clock was ticking, yet it seemed like he seriously took a day and a half to set up the two steps by the announcer’s desk for an Attitude Adjustment spot.
Now, that spot was probably one of my favorite spots of the match, and while it was being executed, especially in the final seconds as Cena walked Orton up those steps, I was really into it, but that whole time of him playing set up there, I was just screaming at him to hurry up, you fool! There were some other things I didn’t like here as well, such as, even though this match was no DQ, and advertised as the fight of all fights, you still had doctors in the ring with Cena cleaning up his cut in the middle of the match. This was very unnecessary I thought, as at no other time in any pro-wrestling match in history can I recall doctors stepping in to do such a thing, and the cut John Cena had wasn’t even that bad. It wasn’t near his eye, nor was it especially deep. Just let the man bleed for goodness sakes why don’t you? Also, they had to stop the clock to do this whole thing, which when I saw it, I almost had a conniption. It took a lot of self motivation to watch this match to begin with, knowing its length before hand, but then to have time just suddenly stop right in the midst of the match, I could have attacked those attending doctors at that point. One final annoyance before I wrap this up. There was a spot here where Orton caught Cena in an RKO while he was being hit with Cena’s Attitude Adjustment, which was very cool, but then, both Cena and Orton, who both had their shoulders down and had their arms on top of each other were both counted out for a fall each. Seriously, what the hell? First off, it has been my understanding since I was a small child watching this stuff that for a pinfall to be valid you have to have at least one of your own shoulders up off the mat, and besides that, what was the point of this pin to begin with? The overall deficit of falls remained the same, only the numbers changed. Does it really make a damn bit of difference whether the score is 2-1 or 100-99? You’re still down by one fall either way. Maybe I’m the only one that bothered though. All in all, I will say that this match was good for what both been did in it, but I was not enraptured by it, by any means, and I think they could have had an equally good or better match, without it having to last an hour.
J Rating: J-J-J 3/4
Things We Learned While Watching Bragging Rights
Jimmy: I learned that after going on and on about his ring name, wrestling trunks, theme music, phony accent, shotty birth certificates, fraudulent thunderclaps, and actually being billed as a Jamaican superstar in real world interviews that Kofi Kingston really wasn't Jamaican after all. He was just doing all that to "pay tribute to the Jamaican culture." I guess we can't fault him for doing it though since John Cena, Cryme Tyme, and R-Truth similarly "pay tribute to the African American culture" from time to time.
I learned that no matter what happens, (even when in an intense blood feud culminating in an hour long Ironman match in which put your enemy in a trash bin because you're down a pinfall and said match could dictate the rest of your career) that you should always put the trash bin back and remember to throw your trash away.
I learned that you can always count on official Charles "Running Man" Robinson to pick up the slack for any referee in peril. Unless of course that referee in peril is Charles Robinson in which case he'll need to be woken up swiftly lest somebody hits their finishing move on their opponent in the duration of his slumber. How's about you Jules?
Jules: There was a segment done in which WWE showed a segment of fans outside the building and asked their thoughts about the Bragging Rights SD vs. Raw concept. From this segment I learned, that what Vince McMahon said earlier in his comments (addressed to the UFC and Dana White) about WWE being a more “sophisticated” product was absolutely true. Never in all my days have I seen such a fine collection of scholars and thespians. If only Hemingway and Einstein could be alive to see this day!
I learned, again, that ECW is a complete no man’s land. Let it be noted for the record that this brand had no presence whatsoever on this show. Although, also let the record state, this can be blamed almost entirely on the incompetence of ECW general manager Tiffany, who having a chance to get her brand some exposure on the PPV by having some of her superstars joined to team Smackdown, instead, very dumbly, refused said offer, so her guys could have one more night of staying home and playing Nintendo.
Finally, I learned that I really, really miss Jim Ross. After suffering through a whole PPV of Grisham and Cole’s interplay, I cannot wish good ol’ JR a speedy enough recovery. For the love of Gawd, come back man!
Overall Rating
Jimmy: After some quick deliberation, my math tells me that Bragging Rights has earned 30 ¼ J's out of a possible 50. On it's own that earns 60.5% but on a curved scale it gets an impressive 79%. This is the first "A" that a WWE PPV event has earned since Jules and I have been reviewing. Coincidentally enough, the other PPV that got an "A" also had five events on the card which leads me to believe that our key favors events with less matches. If you've forgotten what our other events have gotten, here's a reminder:
Extreme Rules: C+ 63%; 39/62(Curved scale) The Bash: D 52%; 37.5/70(Curved scale) Night of Champions: B 69%; 43.25/62(Curved scale) Summerslam: B 69%; 40/58(Curved scale with 7 matches counted) DGUSA: Enter the Dragon: A+ 80%; 40/50(Non-curved scale with 5 matches only) Breaking Point: C 58%; 36/62(Curved scale with 7 matches counted) Hell In A Cell: C+ 63%; 45/70(Curved scale) BraggingRights: A 79%; 30.25/38.25(Curved scale with 5 matches only)
Thoughts, Jules?
Jules: Those numbers seem about right to me Jimmy. That's what I always say isn't it? I hate math, so I just pretty much nod and agree whenever we get to this point. Overall I thought this event was pretty good I guess. An 'A' seems like a bit of an overstatement though, to me at least. I would say there was a lot on this show that was quite good, but there was nothing, not even the main event, in my mind, that was to the level of deserving to be put into a time capsule and saved for future generations. Just my two cents anyway. Thanks everyone for reading, and Jimmy and I will be back again, soon. Basically, whenever WWE forces our hand anyway.
Email Jules at pulp_wrestling@yahoo.com
Email Jimmy at j4m354@gmail.com
Sign up at LOPForums.com and a get a free Hulk Hogan Pasta Maker (extremely limited time offer only.)
