WWE RAW (10/18) – Smackdown Invades, Cena & Orton Team Up & More

Theodore Long turns off RAW GM / Team RAW brawl with Team Smackdown
Teddy Long comes out and says he's running the show tonight and the crowd hate it! The Anonymous GM chimes in and tells him to get out of his ring. Teddy has a referee bring out the Bragging Rights trophy and the Anonymous GM again tells him to get out and Long gets in Cole's face and disconnects the computer before introducing Team Smackdown lead by Big Show. Tyler Reks had new music, it's alot more evil sounding that the one he used on Smackdown. Makes his character seem pretty tough.

The Miz interrupts and calls them all Smurfs and introduced Team RAW which included the returning Ezekial Jackson and no R-Truth, the six RAW men and Alex Riley went to the ring and brawled with the Smackdown crew. Miz got out of the ring and pulled all his guys out telling them to save it for Sunday. Big Show got on the mic and challenged The Miz for later tonight in a captain versus captain match.

The live crowd were all over Teddy Long, I'm sure they'll assume its because the crowd are "loyal RAW fans". They just hated Long. The Miz had a © on his top due to him being captain which was great, because Big Show didn't have it on his top so it was something The Miz did himself. The brawl seemed dead and something I thought they would of saved for Friday to close the show heading into Bragging Rights. The live crowd were more interested in cheering for Bret's arrival.

Following this the announce team set up a RAW rebound video from last week's main event where Barrett teased Cena in the ring and they warned us the footage may be "a bit offensive". Don't try and milk a feud that's going good on it's own.

Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre vs. The Hart Dynasty w/ Natalya
We came back from commercial with the WWE Tag Team Champions in the ring, Drew is wearing new red tights for anybody wondering! The Hart's obviously got a huge pop but I'm guessing many of the crowd thought they'd come out with Bret. Match kicked off with more big "We want Bret" chants.

Rhodes & McIntyre spent the early part of the match tagging in and out often, keeping Tyson Kidd isolated for several minutes before Kidd made the hot tag and DH Smith came in like a house on fire, knocking Cody off the ropes and getting a near fall after the Running Power Slam which was broken up by Rhodes. Smith picked up McIntyre for the Hart Attack but went for the Sharpshooter instead. Tyson wasn't pleased and gave out to Smith which caused a distraction and Drew hit the Future Shock DDT and got the pin. Kidd walked away from DH Smith smiling as he went up the ramp. More break up teasing between the Hart Dynasty, we'll see what comes of this all.

Randy Orton backstage with John Cena
Orton told Cena that if gets in his way tonight that he will have no problem kicking him in the head. Cena responds by saying if Orton even tries to kick him with that leg and he'll break it off. Nice having tension between the two already and the "heelish" comment back from Cena was good as it doesn't necessarily have to be taken as a heel comment but a nice way to test the water.

After the break we had an R-Truth video package, a pretty long one for a promo and Michael Cole said he was a member of Team RAW. He's just not allowed into Canada due to some violation.

Goldust vs. Zack Ryder
Ted DiBiase and Maryse watched from the top of the ramp. This had the potential to be a very good match but Ryder is getting squashed each week and that included tonight. Goldust hit the Final Cut in less than a minute for the win. Following the match DiBiase did a number on Goldust in the ring as Maryse chased Aksana to the back who had the Million Dollar Title, DiBiase was watching the two ladies run to the back and turned around to land himself in a Final Cut of his own. Short but sweet showing for Goldust good to see him looking strong on TV each week instead of just campy videos.