The matches included Raw's United States Champion The Miz defeating SmackDown's Intercontinental Champion John Morrison, SmackDown's team of Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, and Natalya defeating Raw's team of Melina, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim, and SmackDown's team of Chris Jericho, Kane, R-Truth, Matt Hardy, Finlay, Tyson Kidd, and David Hart Smith defeating Raw's team of Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Big Show, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, and Mark Henry.

In the main event, John Cena defeated Randy Orton in an Anything Goes Iron Man match to win the WWE Championship.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) previously held an annual pay-per-view (PPV) titled Cyber Sunday.

[7] Mark Henry became the final member of Team Raw by defeating Chris Masters on the October 15 episode of WWE Superstars.

[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.

[10] 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.

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.

[11] Punk would then defeat his challenger at Breaking Point under controversial circumstances[15] before losing the title to The Undertaker at Hell in a Cell a month later.

[16] 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.

[21] Both wrestlers found singles success with Morrison winning his third Intercontinental Championship from Rey Mysterio on the September 4 episode of SmackDown, while The Miz defeated Kofi Kingston to become the new United States Champion on the October 5 episode of Raw.

[14][22] 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.

[23] Next, SmackDown's Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, and Natalya faced Raw's Melina, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim in a six-diva interbrand tag team match that was second of three matches for the bragging rights trophy.

Undertaker pinned Batista after a Tombstone Piledriver to win the match and retain the World Heavyweight Championship.

[29] In addition, Bragging Rights would be the final WWE pay-per-view event held at Mellon Arena, as the arena was demolished to make way for Consol Energy Center,[30] which opened in August 2010,[31] although the final WWE televised event was held on the May 10, 2010, episode of Raw.