Our second match of the night gives us Cody Rhodes taking on Rey Mysterio, Jr. As we touched on in our preview, this match stemmed from Rey Mysterio hitting Rhodes in the face with his knee brace during a match on Smackdown in January, breaking Rhodes' nose and "disfiguring" him.
Rey Mysterio comes out in a nice Captain American ensemble, complete with winged mask, red gloves, and the whole nine yards. Yeah, yeah, Mysterio is Mexican. . .just roll with it, folks.
Rhodes got off to a quick start, dominating Mysterio early and using his Bill Laimbeer-style face mask as a weapon to gain the advantage. (Yes, Bill Laimbeer. . .some of you may have to look him up on Wikipedia or something.) Rhodes went for Mysterio's knee brace, attempting to remove it, without success. Mysterio managed a flurry, but got stopped on his way to the top rope, and got an amazing delayed superplex. . .yes, delayed superplex. . .for his troubles.
Rhodes attempted to end the match with the Cross Rhodes, but Mysterio countered, sending Rhodes out of the ring, and the pace picked back up. Mysterio got a near fall, but Rhodes kept countering Rey's momentum. Mysterio went on another run, and attempted to hit the 619, but Rhodes caught it and countered it into a slingshot, snapping Mysterio's neck on the ropes.
Rhodes did, finally, get Mysterio's knee brace off, after which Rhodes immediately went after the luchador's knee. Rey managed to make it to the top rope for a moonsault and another near fall, after which he removed the protective mask from Rhodes' face. Mysterio then hit the 619 and followed it up with the swan dive, but was caught by Rhodes.
Mysterio then put Rhodes' protective mask on over his own mask, and hit a series of headbutts on Rhodes. Mysterio hit a swan dive headbutt with the mask on, but Rhodes managed to kick out again. Mysterio went for a suicide dive, and was met by his own knee brace to the head by Rhodes. Rhodes then brought Mysterio back into the ring, hit the Cross Rhodes, and got the pinfall victory.
Again, another decent match between these two, and they worked both the mask and the knee brace into the match nicely. Maybe not as good as the opener, but still a decent effort overall.
Winner: Cody Rhodes via pinfall with the Cross Rhodes.