Yes, they happened, so they count.
I hate the pushing of gimmick matches were they do not belong. Sheamus vs Orton should not have been a HIAC match, and it is not even worth taking the time to go through the reasoning behind it. If it is not obvious, then there is no hope. Even with that, the match sucked. Orton is not willing to bump for anybody the way that an opponent of Sheamus' should bump. Whether it's his ego or his ability, it's just not going to happen. Sheamus doing a backbreaker over a set of steel steps as if that did more damage was hilarious awful. It didn't necessarily detract from the match, but it's worth mentioning here because it was so Blue.
Edge vs Swagger was bad, and if the IWF didn't have an unwarranted boner for Edge, that should be obvious. Not to mention, they wasted ten minutes before that on a mediocre, nonsensical segment.
Women wrestled.
I even had problems with Cena vs Barrett. It was good, but it also had several flaws. Notably, they did not book it like it should have been booked: rookie vs Ace. When you watch Pillman vs Flair from 1995, you do not see Pillman outworking Flair. You see Pillman being conniving and sometimes getting lucky and being vicious as hell to keep him down. But Flair and Pillman knew how to work a match, and they didn't rely on relatively lazy road agents like presumably Cena and Barrett did. This was just a match. A good one, but it was still just a match. It did not reflect the underlying storyline. It was not a feud-ending match, so why did they kick out of finishers? Because it got a BIG POP~? Pathetic, lazy storytelling.
Kane vs Undertaker was atrocious. Even before the the horrific ending, it was slow and plodding and it did not reflect the fact that these guys HATE each other. I have been digging this feud a lot, and this was such a let down. Not to mention the fact that the ending made no sense. If Bearer was against 'Taker, why not just NOT return with the urn?! Undertaker was already weak; if he had just not brought back the urn, he could have never beaten Kane. Just poor, poor logic for the sake of a cheap SWERVE~.
So, Cena/Barrett was good and the US Title match was good. That's 30 minutes of good wrestling. In a three-hour show.