Bragging Rights (2009)

Randy Orton lost the WWE Championship to John Cena in a 60-minute Iron Man match.

The concept of the show featured a seven-on-seven tag team match pitting contingents from Raw and SmackDown against one another. On the October 12 episode of Raw, it was announced one-half of Unified WWE Tag Team Champions Chris Jericho would act as the co-captain of SmackDown's team with Kane as the other co-captain, and Shawn Michaels and Triple H (collectively known as D-Generation X) would act as the co-captains of Raw's team. Later in the program, the other half of the Tag Team Champions The Big Show would qualify for the latter team by defeating Chris Jericho in a match that would qualify him to be on the team. Continuing the trend of qualifying matches on said episode of Raw, Cody Rhodes defeated Ted DiBiase and John Cena in a Triple Threat match, Jack Swagger defeated Montel Vontavious Porter, and Kofi Kingston defeated Evan Bourne.[7] Mark Henry became the final member of Team Raw by defeating Chris Masters on the October 15 episode of WWE Superstars.[8] The following night on SmackDown, Kane revealed that in fact the SmackDown team will be co-captained both by Jericho and himself. Qualifying matches for the SmackDown team commenced on the same night, with Dolph Ziggler defeating Mike Knox and Finlay in a Triple Threat match, Shad Gaspard and JTG (collectively known as Cryme Tyme) defeating David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd (collectively known as The Hart Dynasty), Eric Escobar defeating Matt Hardy, and Drew McIntyre defeating R-Truth.[9] On the October 23 episode of SmackDown, Jericho and Kane booked a 4-on-5 handicap match pitting Ziggler, JTG, Escobar and McIntyre against Finlay, the Hart Dynasty, Hardy and R-Truth, where the winning team would join the two at Bragging Rights. The latter team won the match, thus replacing the former team, along with Gaspard.[10]

Intercontinental Champion John Morrison of SmackDown lost against United States Champion The Miz of Raw.

The main rivalry from the Raw brand heading into Bragging Rights was the continuing conflict between Randy Orton and John Cena over the WWE Championship. The two had faced at the three previous pay-per-view events, with Orton retaining the title at SummerSlam, Cena winning the title at Breaking Point in an "I Quit" match and Orton reclaiming the title at Hell in a Cell in the event's eponymous match.[11][12][13] On the October 5, 2009 edition of Raw, Cena challenged Orton to one last rematch for the title, this time a 60-minute Iron Man match where the competitor with the most decisions at the end of that time would be named the victor. In order to accept the challenge, Orton added two more conditions to the match—if Cena loses, he would leave Raw and that the match would be "anything goes".[14]

The Undertaker returned to WWE at SummerSlam after CM Punk won the World Heavyweight Championship.[15] Punk would then defeat his challenger at Breaking Point under controversial circumstances before losing the title to The Undertaker at Hell in a Cell a month later.[16][17] On the October 9 episode of SmackDown, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon announced Punk would get his rematch at Bragging Rights, but it would be in a Fatal Four-Way match with Batista and Rey Mysterio.[18][19]

On the October 12 episode of Raw, the reigning WWE United States Champion, The Miz, announced that he will face the WWE Intercontinental Champion John Morrison at Bragging Rights.[7] In 2007, the two formed a tag team and gained success in the tag team division, winning the WWE Tag Team and World Tag Team Championships as well as the 2008 Slammy Award for Tag Team of the Year. In an untelevised match at WrestleMania XXV, the team lost their unification match against The Colóns (Carlito and Primo) that would form the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship.[20] A week later, The Miz found himself drafted to the Raw brand in the 2009 WWE Draft due to botched interference from Morrison. Miz subsequently attacked Morrison after the match, ending the partnership.[21] Morrison was later himself drafted to the SmackDown brand.[22] Both wrestlers found singles success with Morrison winning his third Intercontinental Championship from Rey Mysterio in September, while The Miz defeated Kofi Kingston to become the new United States Champion on the October 5 episode of Raw.[14][23]

Before the event aired live on pay-per-view, a dark match took place in which Christian defeated Paul Burchill to retain the ECW Championship.

The event was generally well received by critics, with positive comments on the opening bout between Morrison and The Miz and mostly on the Iron Man match main event. The pay-per-view drew 181,000 buys, and is up from the 153,000 buys Cyber Sunday 2008 got.[26]

• The official Bragging Rights website