You can choose to believe or disbelieve me, but....
 

Last night was the first WWE PPV in a long time where every single pick I would have made would have been accurate. Now, granted, we've stopped playing the PPV Predictions Game (on the grounds that it's so very hard to muster up the interest among the trOOps), so I never actually made these picks in public last week.... but if I had

I'm not here with a full-sized update. Just a quick-and-dirty rundown of the utterly forgettable and pointless Judgment Day PPV (and hey, guess what kids: WWE's doing it again on PPV in just 13 days! how lucky you are to be forking over $40 a pop on these entirely unique and worthwhile broadcasts!), and then a couple quick newsbites.

Enjoy:

• Ric Flair defeated Carlito in the Judgment Day opening match. The crowd ran hot and cold all night (can you blame them when they're being asked to buy into MVP as a wrestler capable of keeping up with Chris Benoit in a lengthy 2-of-3 falls match?), but were red hot for Flair, who won clean with a Figure Four.
   
  
• Backstage: Randy Orton attacks Shawn Michaels from behind. Doctors eventually tell Shawn he's not medically cleared to wrestle.
   
  
• Bobby Lashley won the 3-on-1 Handicap Match, but not the ECW Title. Lashley won a squash over Vince, Shane, and Umaga. But because he pinned Shane, Vince retained the ECW Title, claiming that the title can't change hands if the champion isn't pinned. Bleargh.
   
  
• CM Punk beat Elijah Burke. And nary a peep was heard. 
   
  
• Randy Orton beat Shawn Michaels by referee's decision. Michaels came to the ring and insisted on competing against doctor's orders. They played up the fact that Michaels had a concussion 2 weeks ago courtesy of Khali, and was just attacked backstage. After 5 minutes of action, Michaels got woozy and feinted in the ring, and the ref stopped the match, and awarded it to Orton. Huh. You know, I was expecting the old "Shoot Collapse" (a la HBK vs. Owen in 1995) back on Monday night. Glad to see my instincts were sorta-right. After the match, Orton tacked on an RKO, and Michaels wound up doing a stretcher job.
   
  
• The Hardys beat Cade and Murdoch to retain the RAW Tag Titles. I gather JBL and Cole called this match for some reason. Just end the brand split, already, dammit, cuz shit like that just makes my head hurt trying to figure it out. A good, longish match that clicked because the fans were into the Hardys. And get this: after the clean pinfall win for the Hardys, Cade/Murdoch shook their hands in a show of Mutual Respect. Huh.
   
  
• Edge beat Batista to retain the World Heavyweight Title. Edge stalled and avoided locking up for 2-3 minutes. Edge got his rear handed to him in methodical (read: "slow and kinda boring") fashion for another 5-6 minutes. Edge was ready to be beaten, when Batista's leg conveniently buckled on a BatistaBomb attempt. Edge rolled Batista up for the cheap win out of nowhere. Believe it or not, I like this: Edge is so good at being an ass that I can see this whole Flukey McChickenshit thing working perfectly for him.  
   
  
• MVP beat Chris Benoit to win the US Title. It took over 15 minutes, but MVP won in two straight falls. And once again, nary a peep was heard. Stone cold silence. That's what you get for shoving a middlin' talent with a lame-ass gimmick and none of that precious Gravitas down people's throats. Gravitas first, titles second, dum dums.
   
  
• John Cena beat The [redacted] Khali to retain the WWE Title. Short and simple. Khali would be dominant. Cena would get a Hope Spot. Lather, rinse, repeat for 5 minutes. Then the match went outside, Cena rammed the steel ring steps into Khali's knee. When Khali dragged himself into the ring and got up on all fours, Cena hit him with a top rope legdrop, and then slapped on the SSTF. And you better bet yer ass that the biggest, most unstoppable oaf in recent memory was more than happy to tap out to the shittiest looking submission move in recent memory. Superman wins again, and it only took about 7 minutes! Which is better than it taking 15, I guess, but still....
   

And in other news:

• The reason for Shawn Michaels doing a stretcher job is that his aches and pains have finally caught up with him, and it's time for him to evaluate his situation. 
   
  His knees are what are really bothering him, lately, though his surgically-repaired lower back is slowly (re-)deteriorating due to the grind of a full-time schedule, too. And actually, as far as the knees go, there's nothing "lately" about it. It's been a full 15 months since Michaels and WWE first started looking for an opening for Michaels to take time off and get well... but various storylines (the return of DX) took off faster than anticipated and various injuries (to HHH) meant HBK had to stick around and work through the pain.
   
  With Edge gone (to SmackDown!) and Michaels now facing anything from a drastically reduced part time role (at best) to 6 months or more on the shelf following surgery (at worst), it's surprising to realize just how wafer-thin the RAW Roster is, all of a sudden. ESPECIALLY in terms of top level guys who can -- you know? -- actually wrestle. My guess is they can cover that up with more of the Unexplained Brand Crossovers, but still... when was the last time you can think of when RAW's roster was pretty much on par with SmackDown!'s? It's gotta be about 3-4 years, and back then, it was because SD! was loaded and was in the middle of a nice run of being the hands-down better show every week.... not because both brands were riddled with injuries and converged at the lowest common denominator.
   
  And of course, you know what this means, don't you? Randy Orton, #1 Contender to Cena's WWE Title. It only took serious injuries to the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and Ken Kennedy, resulting in the removal of Edge from RAW, but somehow, Mantard's Drunken Hissy Fit is now entirely forgotten. Main events, ho! With Young Randall, it is now assured that it's not talent. It's not personality. It's not character. It's his DENSITY to fall ass-backwards into situations like this. DENSITY~!
   
  Note to WWE: the day you run with Homey the Clown vs. The Ultimate Douchebag for any longer than a one-month diversionary feud is the day you may kindly kiss another couple tenths of Monday night ratings points goodbye. You're already down 15% since February. Care to try for 20%?
   
  
• Speaking of ratings:
   
  Last Thursday's Impact did yet another 1.0. Same as it ever was.
   
  Last Friday's SmackDown! did a 2.5 (down one tenth from the week before, and inching back towards year-to-date lows).
   
  
• WWE.com has reported that Gregory Helms will have to undergo spinal fusion surgery, and will be out of action for 9-12 months.
   
  'Tis a shame that Helms will miss a stretch of time that is almost as lengthy as his recent Cruiserweight Title reign was. What, you don't remember that? Well, I guess you can't be blamed for that.
   
  Kind of interesting: for a 2 year period, the WWF was rife with these neck injuries. Austin, Benoit, Edge, Lita, Scotty 2 Hotty, and of course Angle (who opted for the alternate surgical procedure)... but we haven't had one I can remember in over 3 years, now. Helms is the first in quite a while. Do we thank the "slow it down" philosophy? I dunno....
   
  
• And speaking of Scotty 2 Hotty, our last little tidbit for today is another set of WWE releases.
   
  Scotty is one of them. In a way, he might be one of WWE's longest-tenured employees besides the Undertaker. As Scott Taylor, he was a regular TV jobber dating back to 1992, and was used frequently enough and thought highly-enough-of that when the WWF tried their Light Heavyweight Experiment in the mid-90s, Scotty was used as one of the tourney participants. From there, it was a hop, skip, and a jump to becoming a regular tag wrestler and eventually morphing into "Scotty 2 Hotty." Now, 15 years later, the guy is finally getting the boot.
   
  I dunno if I like that, but whatever.... my stance is that guys like Scotty and Goldust who can effortlessly engage the crowd and get cheap pops (be it WORMs or nipple rubbing or what have you) are WAY more valuable than loads who effortlessly play to dead silence. But somebody, somewhere disagrees with me on that seemingly self-evident truth. And that's why Bob Holly and Mark Henry still have  jobs.
   
  Also released: ECW's Ariel. Which pretty much means that Kevin Thorne's goth drama-queer act is DOA, since Ariel's rump was the only part of the act that got over. Light rumblings that Batista might have had something to do with her release, following some sort of confrontation between the two. Not that I can imagine it would have taken much to nudge Steph/Vince in this direction, since lord knows there is only one way for a woman to be attractive (vapid, boring, and anorexic), and Ariel is the one who didn't look like the others. Not that Ariel was ever my speed mind you -- she's a little too good at playing crazy (and not the good, semi-interesting kind of crazy, but REAL batshit crazy) on top of the really annoying trying-too-hard goth make-over look -- but at least when somebody is different and unique, it SHOULD give a creative team a little more material to work with in terms of different and unique storylines.
   
  Alas, at this point, it is painfully clear that WWE's "creative" team is anything but, so forget I even brought up the point...
   
  And finally: Nick Mitchell and Angel Williams were both released from the developmental program, as well. I'm sure that Angel's crime was daring to be athletic at a time when WWE is going out of their way to repopulate the "women's division" with failed actresses and models. At least Mitchell is guilty of kind of sucking. He was the fifth member of the Spirit Squad who barely, if ever, wrestled, on the grounds that he was not very good. Note: Nick Mitchell was "Mitch," not "Nicky." Nicky was Nick Nemeth, who, come to think of it, is also somebody who's mostly just taking up space in the developmentals...
   
  But I digress. 
   
  Thus endeth today's Special Monday Newsflash edition of OO. See you folks later in the week...