Bryan goes flying towards Orton in a great pic. Photo credit: WWE.com
Daniel Bryan kicked things off by accusing the officials and medical staff (who stopped his match on Raw due to an injury on his behalf) of only ending his bout with Orton because they saw him as the "weak link." He also claimed that Orton's pat on his back was patronising. So Randy came out and explained that it was out of respect, but Bryan wasn't having any of it and called him a liar. A frustrated Orton retorted by saying that Bryan was loosing it and had enough of him before storming away.
Sheamus beat Cody Rhodes in a passable, if forgettable outing. Both men were competent in the ring, but it lacked any real excitement or interest for me. Boy, hasn't Cody become a real punching bag over the last year? Afterwards Damien Sandow ran in and savagely clobbered his rival Sheamus.
Curtis Axel (c) pinned Wade Barrett to retain the Intercontinental Championship in a decent back and fourth encounter. Once again Axel looked solid here, and Barrett also gave a respectable display. Afterwards The Miz (who'd provided guest commentary) had a brief face off with the champ until his manager Paul Heyman convinced him to back off.
AJ Lee bested Natalya in a fair Divas bout, largely thanks to the effort of Natalya. AJ looked okay here, but pretty unremarkable as usual. Backstage Aksana called Kaitlyn "trash" so the former Divas Champion launched herself at Aksana. It was atrocious acting all round as they were eventually split up.
Alberto Del Rio won via disqualification versus Chris Jericho in a solid contest. As expected both wrestlers were on stellar form, with nicely executed action from the opening bell. The DQ occurred when an enraged Dolph Ziggler ran in to attack Del Rio.
After the World Champion managed to escape the ring, an upset Jericho Codebreakered Ziggler for costing him the match. Del Rio then snuck back into the ring to swiftly kick Ziggler in the head, as he had done to finish him off at last Sunday's Payback event to win the title.
Christian defeated Drew McIntyre in a brief match up. The wrestling was fine, but unfortunately they didn't have enough time to make a real impact. That being said I'm still just grateful we have Christian back, he's one of the most consistent performers in the company. As 'Captain Charisma' was talking about how glad he was to be back in the ring, The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) came down the ramp (rather than through the crowd, which looked odd) and attacked Christian, finally finishing him off with a triple powerbomb.
Daniel Bryan won via count out versus Randy Orton in an engaging main event. The count out occurred after Bryan struck Orton with a suicide dive to the outside, however an irate Bryan refused to let the match end that way and demanded that the bout be restarted so he could beat Orton definitively, but the referee refused. The match of the night had been very entertaining, with top wrestling from both men and plenty of excitement.
Overall it was a decent show, with most matches being enjoyable enough. However after a great Raw you couldn't help but feel a bit deflated after the momentum had dropped, but that's often the case with the blue brand this year. My highlights were Axel versus Barrett, Del Rio versus Jericho and the great main event.
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