One of the major differences between televised and non-televised shows these days is that the wrestlers at the latter play to the crowd, while those at the former play to the camera. It was cool to see the heels jumping out of the ring and jawing with fans.

Maryse, who accompanied Ted DiBiase Jr. to ringside, spent a lot of time interacting with the fans. At one point, she grabbed a fan’s sign and teased that she was going to rip it up – and then she did exactly that and began using one of the pieces of the sign to fan herself. And the look on her face when the old guy in the front row began taunting her by sticking a rubber chicken in her face was priceless.

I was half expecting to see little old lady Georgette Krieger coming down to ringside and smacking Sheamus in the head with her purse, and the masked Dr. X standing up from his seat on the floor and heckling The Miz. (For the many of you who didn’t get those references, Krieger and Dr. X were distinctive fans who never missed a wrestling show in Baltimore back in the day.)

Before the show got underway, something else occurred that brought back memories. It was announced that John Cena had suffered an injury and would be unable to appear, and Smackdown star The Big Show was taking his place on the card. When I was going to wrestling events in my younger years, every so often a headliner would no-show – if it was a babyface, it was usually announced that he had travel problems; if it was a heel, it was usually attributed to the fact that he “apparently was afraid to show up and face (insert name of top babyface).”

Unlike the events from the old days, however, WWE offered a full refund to any fans who wanted one. That was definitely the right thing to do, and while I’m sure a lot of fans were disappointed that Cena wasn’t there, it didn’t seem like many were interested in leaving and getting their money back.

Here are the results of the show:

• Ted DiBiase Jr. won a 15-man battle royal (nice to see him win something these days) to earn a U.S. shot later in the evening against Daniel Bryan

• WWE tag team champions Santino Marella and Vladimir Kozlov defeated Justin Gabriel and Heath Slater

• Gail Kim and the Bella twins defeated Maryse, Melina and Alicia Fox in a Divas Santa’s Helpers Match

• John Morrison defeated Sheamus in a Baltimore Street Fight

• WWE champion The Miz defeated Randy Orton

• Orton defeated Riley in an impromptu No Holds Barred Match

• U.S. champion Bryan defeated DiBiase

• Tyson Kidd defeated David Hart Smith

• The Big Show defeated Wade Barrett in a Steel Cage Match

Other thoughts on the show:

There were a lot of empty seats. The entire upper level was bare, and the mid-level wasn’t completely full. …

The best matches were Miz-Orton and Morrison-Sheamus. Orton was super over, and Miz got a lot of heat. Their match went about 19 minutes, ending when Alex Riley’s interference led to Miz hitting the Skull-Crushing Finale for the victory. After the match, the anonymous Raw general manager chimed in, and ring announcer Justin Roberts said that the GM was ordering Miz to go back to the locker room and Riley to get in the ring for a No Holds Barred Match with Orton. “The Viper” smacked Riley around for a bit before hitting the RKO for the win in about two minutes to get his heat back. …

Morrison and Sheamus put on a match that was near pay-per-view quality. There were some dramatic near falls and the crowd was very into the match. The match was billed as a Baltimore Street Fight (I’m guessing there was a Wilkes-Barre Street Fight at the Raw house show the night before and there will be a Washington D.C. street fight at tonight’s event). Anyway, I’ve never seen or heard of a fight in Baltimore in which a cookie sheet was used as a weapon. …

There wasn’t as much heat for the steel cage match, which was understandable since Big Show and Barrett are not feuding. Barrett, by the way, came out to The Nexus’ music and wore a Nexus T-shirt and arm band. …

There was a funny moment when Bryan was in the ring prior to his match against DiBiase. Bryan took off his T-shirt and teased throwing it into the crowd. He cupped his ear ala Hulk Hogan to see which section of the crowd would cheer the loudest for the shirt. The fans were going crazy, but when Bryan finally picked a side and tossed the shirt, the other three-fourths of the audience immediately started booing because he didn’t throw it their way.

Photo of The Big Show chokeslamming Wade Barrett by Baltimore Sun photographer Kenneth K. Lam

To view a photo gallery of Divas in action at the show, click here.
To view a photo gallery of entire event, click here.