Full results from this week's episode of WWE Raw, the annual WWE Draft show, from Richmond, Virginia:
- The Hart Dynasty (Tyson Kidd and David Hart Smith, with Bret Hart and Natalya) defeated WWE Unified Tag Team Champions Show-Miz (WWE US Champion The Miz and The Big Show) after Tyson Kidd made Miz submit to the Sharpshooter (Hart Dynasty win the WWE Unified Tag Team Championship)
- Team Lay-Cool (Layla and Michelle McCool, with Vickie Guerrero) defeated WWE Divas Champion Eve and Maryse after McCool hit the big boot on Maryse (Smackdown earns a Divas draft pick from Raw)
- CM Punk (with Luke Gallows and Serena) defeated Evan Bourne after the Go To Sleep (Smackdown earns a draft pick from Raw)
- Ted DiBiase and Santino Marella co-won a Raw vs. Smackdown Battle Royal that included WWE Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre, Rey Mysterio, Kane, Shad Gaspard, R-Truth, MVP, Mark Henry, and Yoshi Tatsu (Raw earns three draft picks from Smackdown)
- Chris Jericho defeated Christian after the codebreaker (Smackdown earns a draft pick from Raw)
- WWE World champion Jack Swagger defeated John Morrison after hitting the Doctor Bomb (Smackdown earns a draft pick from Raw)
- Hornswoggle defeated Dolph Ziggler by countout (Raw earns a draft pick from Smackdown)
- Batista defeated Randy Orton and Sheamus after Edge hit the spear on Orton, allowing Batista to get the win (Batista is the #1 contender for the WWE title)
More detailed results after the jump.
- Show-Miz opened the show with an interview with Miz saying that Bret Hart had to honor his promise from two weeks ago that he had to declare Show-Miz the greatest tag team of all time. Bret came out, and lived up to his word, but also declared that The Mountie is the greatest Intercontinental champion of all time (ouch, poor Jacques Rougeau) and that David Arquette is the greatest World champion of all time, with the point being that he can say anything he wants, but actions are what's important. They had a really good TV match, with a really hot finishing sequence, with Tyson Kidd taking out Big Show with a dive to the floor, both Harts hitting the Hart Attack on Miz, and then Kidd finishing off Miz with the Sharpshooter. I'd love to see what these two teams could do with some time on PPV. After the match (during the commercial break, even), Show-Miz broke up, with Big Show hitting Miz with the Knockout Punch.
- Jack Swagger did an interview talking about beating Randy Orton last night and bragging about graduating from college with a 4.0 GPA in Finance. Edge interrupted and said that unless Swagger is drafted to Raw, 4.0 is the number of days he has remaining as World champion.
- During the women's match (standard woman's fare), the fans broke out into a "WE WANT MICKIE" chant as was rumored beforehand, but you wouldn't have known what they were saying if you weren't listening for it. Eve and Maryse had problems throughout and it led to the finish, as Maryse was hit with the boot after arguing with Eve for no reason. With the resulting draft pick, Smackdown drafted Kelly Kelly, who I guess takes Mickie James' spot on the babyface women roster on Friday nights.
- Evan Bourne and CM Punk had a nice short TV match, which made me wish that Bourne would get drafted to Smackdown so he can work with guys who actually get TV time for matches. The finish came when the mystery member of the Straight Edge Society (who is hopefully Joey Matthews/Mercury, because he's awesome) interfered and helped Punk win. With the win, Smackdown earned a second draft pick and received The Big Show from Raw. Teddy Long seemed pleased to have Big Show on the Smackdown roster and a moment's hesitation, the Big Show celebrated with Teddy, so I guess he goes over as a face.
- Sheamus came out to brag about destroying Triple H at Extreme Rules last night and declared himself the #1 contender. Randy Orton came out and disagreed. John Cena came out, said there was no guest host, made fun of his jean shorts, and then made a match between Sheamus and Orton for the main event on Raw. This somehow took 8 minutes.
- The battle royal was typical battle royal fare. It did have a nice finish between Rey Mysterio and Ted DiBiase both fighting to win the battle royal for their brand, but DiBiase finally booted Mysterio off the apron to win the battle royal for Raw. Santino tried to celebrate with DiBiase afterwards (he had been laid out by Kane and selling for much of the end of the battle royal) but DiBiase laid him out with Dream Street. With the three picks, Raw gained three new babyfaces: John Morrison, R-Truth, and Edge. Gotta figure that, on a brand that includes John Cena, at least one of those guys will be turning heel pretty quickly.
- Chris Jericho cut a promo before his match, blaming his loss to Edge last night at Extreme Rules on Heath Slater defeating him the night before. He demanded Slater come out to apologize, but Slater refused, saying he would lose to his pro Christian in their match tonight. Christian and Jericho had a solid match that got better as it went on, which seems to be a trend for Raw matches. The finish with the codebreaker out of the top rope crossbody was really nice. Jericho attacked Slater post-match to continue that NXT feud. With the pick, Kofi Kingston jumps from Raw to Smackdown, and he made an immediate impact by running to the ring and hitting the Trouble in Paradise on Jericho.
- Swagger and Morrison had a good, long match, with Swagger looking good by beating Morrison decisively. It's kind of a shame Morrison went to Raw, because these two seem to be developing good chemistry. Christian went from Raw to Smackdown with the pick (which makes you wonder why he went to Raw after ECW folded to begin with), so expect the Christian/Jericho feud to continue (or not, see below).
- Wayne Brady hosts next week's Raw. Horray.
- They did a backstage segment where Ted DiBiase was looking for a new sidekick, first approaching Carlito and then R-Truth. DiBiase mentioned he wanted somebody to carry his bags, to which Truth said, "You want yourself a Virgil!" After saying he would think about it, Truth then slapped DiBiase. Personally, I think Truth should be thanking his lucky stars he's even alive after being blown up by MacGruber last week on Raw.
- Ziggler and Hornswoggle was short (no pun intended). It wasn't the total burial it looks like on paper, as Ziggler didn't have to sell for Hornswoggle, was counted out by a fluke, and then laid him out with the sleeper afterwards. With the win, Raw picked up their last wrestler, who was Chris Jericho. Interesting, as they seemed to start towards a Jericho/Christian feud, they had the obvious Jericho/Big Show program they could have done, and it would have seemed likely to keep Edge and Jericho split up after the blowoff to their program last night.
- Before the Orton/Sheamus match, Batista came to the ring and claimed that his loss last night was bogus and that he should be the #1 contender. Randy Orton and Sheamus came out and disagreed. John Cena came out and made the match a triple threat match. The main event wasn't great, but was more boring than actually bad, though. The finish with Edge spearing Orton sets up Edge as the heel in the feud with Orton, which is interesting. I think Orton is more naturally unlikable than Edge, but at the same time Edge hasn't seemed to fully click as a babyface the way Orton has with the crowd. It makes little sense to me, as Orton seems to be less likable than Edge, but the fans like who the fans like, I guess.
Looking at how things broke down, on paper, you wouldn't think Raw got that much of an edge on Smackdown, but they did get both participants in Smackdown's World title match from Wrestlemania last month, and only really got Big Show back in terms of guys who can main event. It looks like the show is going to be built around babyfaces Rey Mysterio, Kofi Kingston, Christian, and the Undertaker (whenever he comes back) feuding with the Straight Edge Society, Big Show, and Jack Swagger. That's not terrible, and the shows should still be entertaining as Smackdown has a big edge in good workers over Raw, but definitely lacks what Raw has in star power. Tomorrow is the supplemental draft (re: the undercard guys get swapped out) so it will be interesting to see how Smackdown is treated there. We will have analysis of the supplemental draft up here tomorrow sometime.
Overall, three hours seems like a bit long for a Raw, but the wrestling was generally really good. Four of the eight matches would be worth watching if you can catch a replay on Universal HD or whatever. It felt kind of like a Clash of the Champions show, because they generally gave time to the matches, we got a little bit more than the same ol', same ol' that we see on Raw every week, and they seemed to go out of their way to put together good matchups like Punk/Bourne, Christian/Jericho, and Swagger/Morrison, but the tag team title match in particular is worth going out of your way to track down.