But even after all these little counter-balancing elements cancel each other out, there's still one guy and one story that was a big winner. Batista. Without saying more than 10 words, and even with a bit of an anvilicious story now surrounding him involving JBL, Batista still managed to convey more of a sense of "I know what I want and I know exactly how to get it" with one little smile than he could have in a 15 minute promo. I'm digging stuff like that.

So yeah: not a home run of a RAW. It was only really the third best thing I watched on the TV on Monday night (a word of warning: my column pre-ramble tomorrow will probably be Letterman/Carson-centric, so prepare to FF if that doesn't creme your Twinkie!). But at the end of the night, definitely a bit more in the plus column than in the minus column.

Here's how it went down:

Opening Theme/Pyro/Etc., and we are "live as hell" in San Jose, CA, where tonight we've got two big main events and oh so much more in store. Or at least, that's Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler's story, and they're sticking to it as we kick off with...

The Cerebral Assassin vs. The Logical Monster: 
Let the Mind Games Beginunlate!

Triple H's music hit, and he and Ric Flair head to the ring. Trips, ever the ham, cuddles with the World Title for a good 30 seconds after his Aquafina Geyser, to convey the idea of "My Precious." Flair starts the talking, basically doing the "I used to be the Man, but now Triple H is the greatest wrestler alive, and you have to believe me cuz, hey, I used to be the Man" thing.

[Complete Tangent: due to the dual-tapings thing, there were a lot of SD!-centric signs in the crowd, and right off the bat, I spotted one I loved.  "Cuck Fena."  I canNOT believe I didn't think of that myself.  If I put that on a t-shirt, how many people do you think would buy it? Also something I've forgotten to mention: WWE's retarded "T-shirt that's too hot for TV and must be blurred" campaign is only revealed as even MORE retarded when you have something like last week on SD! where somebody was wearing a "Ruck Fules" t-shirt in the front row for the entire show. No blurring. I reassert that WWE needs somebody on "Stupid Patrol," and I'm not saying I'd be awesome at it, or anything. But I would be.] 

Then HHH takes the mic and opts NOT to do his usual same old song and dance (but Trips, YOU PROMISED~!), instead just briefly glossing over his title win the night before over Randy Orton, and dismissing Orton with a "Nice try, kid." Instead, HHH knows we all know how good he is, so he'll just let us reflect on that ourselves, instead of him wasting his breath. Which leaves HHH's breath to be wasted on doing an over the top sell job on an "historic moment" that happened at the Royal Rumble. In HHH's opinion, it was a night all us fans will be telling our grandkids about (which means, in HHH's opinions, all our grandkids will be in a rush to stick grandma and grandpa in a home, where we can get the psychological attention we require). It was, in short, the night we Unleashed the Beast.

Enter Batista, but don't give him a mic just yet. HHH wants to kiss some more ass, and one must wonder just who in the hell is dumb enough to buy ANY of it (and the answer sure as hell had better not be "Batista"). HHH's out-of-character fakeness reaches a fevered pitch when he goes opposite of 2 months worth of other comments, and announces, "And at WrestleMania 21, it'll be my honor to face you Batista." He says that night will be everything Evolution ever dreamed about: it'll be their night. And now, it's time for Batista to respond: "I always enjoy hearing what you think about me, Hunter. But now, let me tell you what *I* think about *you*." We get a big pop for that, as Batista takes off his sunglasses to indicate he's gonna be getting Very Serious....

But before he can: interruption from the Parts Unknown! For some reason, a JBL promo is joined in-progress up on the TitanTron, with the footage cued up to a spot where JBL talks about Batista winning the Rumble and how he doesn't care if Batista DOES jump to SD!, because "he might be built like Tarzan, but I'll make him look like Jane." JBL announces it might be the champagne talking, but he fancies himself a Wrestling God, and nobody, certainly not a minor leaguer like Batista, will beat him. 

I'm about to wonder "Where in the hell did that come from?", but HHH answers the question almost immediately by acting all indignant about the clip, saying whoever played it is in trouble, and he doesn't care what "Foghorn Leghorn" says, nothing's going to ruin Evolution's night at WM21. Batista won't be goaded by such mind games, he's staying right here on RAW, and at WM21 they will fight each other for the richest prize in the game, and ain't nobody gonna get in the way. HHH ends the promo (Batista never DID get to speak, and is slow to join HHH and Flair in leaving the ring, but eventually does).

Well: this is WWE's idea of being "clever," I guess... creating a "mystery" that is really quite obvious to anyone who's been paying attention for the past 2 months. The cynic in my is wondering if this is being done so that HHH can "save face" with his Cerebral Assassin gimmick by doing this transparent little "whodunnit?" instead of just doing the more straight forward thing I suggested Monday where Batista just out-reasons HHH. But the lesser cynic in me sees this as a way to just stretch out the same basic story for 3 weeks, maybe even creating an excuse for Batista to be a ringside guest at the SD! PPV, and transparency and all, it'll still be OK if Batista is mentally one step ahead of HHH once all is said and done. Afterall, aren't I the one who keeps talking about slowly simmering? I guess my only thing is that I always means simmering while seasoning the pot with a dash of ambiguity, instead of a quart of bludgeoning obviousness. But again: I can deal. Batista himself is still a HUGE enigma (not getting to speak), which is almost exactly as it should be, and that's the important thing.

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Shelton Benjamin vs. Simon Dean (IC Title Match)

What, pray tell, has Simon done to deserve a title shot? Absolutely nothing, and that's why the announcers spend the early part of the match mentioning that Shelton's such a bad-ass fighting champion that he's basically started an open door policy, and will defend against anyone, anywhere. Tonight, Simon got his name on the top line. Too short to amount to much of anything, which had Simon use his gym bag to briefly gain an advantage at the 1 minute mark, and almost immediately thereafter, Shelton hit him with that leg-whip thingie for the win. Less than 90 seconds, and the message I got was that Simon is such a jobber that Shelton didn't even need to use his finisher against him. In fact, Jeb Lund and Brad Smoley want me to tell you that in their Top Level OO Personality Post-RAW AIM Session, they determined that the secret ingredient in the Simon System is "Joboflavin." 

After the Match: as a victorious Shelton left the ring, Simon grabbed a mic and announced that the only reason Shelton won was because he is a proud user of The Simon System. OK, so is this his new gimmick? Losing matches to "prove" that the Simon System works? Whatever... anyway, Shelton doesn't like even indirectly endorsing the Simon System, so he sprints to the ring, and NOW he gives Simon the honor of an actual T-Bone Powerslam. This time when Shelton leaves, Simon keeps his yapper shut.

Backstage: HHH is shouting at Bischoff about the JBL footage, cuz he wants to know who played it and why. Bischoff says "Believe me, I'm trying to find out, because there's no way I want to lose Batista to SmackDown!". Whoa, now Bischoff is being all logical, too! Too bad HHH is not (he's still in over-reactive drama king mode), as he rants and raves some more about how this won't stand and Bischoff had better get it sorted out, because HHH is the World Champ, and GM or no GM, that means HE runs this show. HHH leaves, and Bischoff is not to sure about HHH's interpretation of who's in charge... 

Eleventh Commandment Theatre

OK, so we come back from an ad break, and Spaz is in the ring earning her quarter of a million dollars by firing off the t-shirt gun. For some unknown reason, we stick with this for a good 60 seconds. I'll say this: at least when Spaz is prancing around being useless, she's doing it to a kick-ass Hives song. And I don't count on wrestling for my rock 'n' roll any more than I count on it for masturbation material, but hey, you combine two pointless and useless diversions like these, and it inches towards tolerability. But not close enough to it that I don't still feel a sense of relief when somebody finally interrupts to try to accomplish something constructive: it's Edge.

He gets in the ring and accuses Spaz of trying to embarrass him. Spaz has no idea what Edge is talking about, and frankly, neither do I. So as much as I love it when Edge comments, "Don't play dumb with me, even though I know that just comes naturally for you," suddenly I must admit that I am the intellectual equal of Christy Hemme. And this 2 weeks after Randy Orton and I were thinking alike. What is wrong with me?

Finally, Edge gets Spaz to unroll one of the t-shirts she's shooting out, and AHA, I get it: it's a WrestleMania 21 t-shirt. And the perceived embarrassment is because Edge WON'T be going to WM21 to wrestle in the main event. Edge starts really freaking out (a nice follow-up to the frustration and character building done in the last half of his singles match the night before on PPV), and backs Spaz into a corner and starts shouting at her. "I beat Shawn Michaels" this, "I dominated the Rumble" that, "I eliminated five men" this, "I was in the final three" that... basically, he was a hairsbreadth away from accomplishing his dream, and it was all taken away at the last second. You begin to sense that Edge is gonna snap and do something evil, but that's when Spaz's Knight Templar crusades his way to the holy ring for the save....

Because Shawn Michaels knows that the 11th Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Unnecessarily Include Useless Divas That Nobody Cares About In Wrestling Angles." And you thought he cares about Kurt Angle? No, he just needs an excuse to do some SERIOUS ass missionary work over on SmackDown! where they've clearly lost sight of this Commandment. But the missionary work will come later, for now, he figures he can chastise Edge for his sin, and maybe send him on his way with a couple Hail Marys and an Our Father.

Actually, Michaels is here to talk about REAL embarrassment. In this case, the embarrassment of being pinned by Edge last night, the embarrassment of being eliminated from the Rumble and bloodied by Kurt Angle, and (in a great ad lib) the embarrassment of having to switch mics in the middle of a promo when his first one kept shorting out. But Michaels says he's not one to vent his frustration by bitching and whining like Edge, he's one to vent it in the ring. HBK says he's got a tag match later tonight, but he pulled double duty last night at the Rumble, so he wants to do it again: right here, right now, Edge vs. HBK 2!

Edge teases the fans, but in the end declares "Hell no. I beat you already, and I'm so done with you.  I've got nothing left to prove to you." And then, recalling an aside comment made by Michaels a few weeks ago, Edge asks if HBK will be a man of his word and shake Edge's hand after losing to Edge. Edge taunted for a bit, and Michaels hesitated, but eventually gave Edge the handshake. But then, just as Edge started gloating over it, Michaels also gave Edge the Sweet Chin Music. 

I liked this segment. I mean, there would have been a billion other more compelling ways to start things off then non-sensically using Spaz, but I guess if the story is that Edge is so delusion that he's really not making sense himself, then it doesn't matter. He just picked some random moment to come out and start blathering about his twisted version of reality in his oh-so-frustrated way; *he* was the story, not Spaz. Which is fine. And the refusal to face Michaels again is perfect. A total dead-on dick move. But perhaps eating the superkick will change his mind and give us a Free Per View or two between now and WM21?

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Maven vs. Hurricane

Without any pre-match mic work from Maven, this one kind of died on the table. Not much heat to it, and the announcers killed any interest a fan at home might have by using over half the match to talk about the Batista/JBL/HHH situation. Basic lay-out here: hot start for Hurricane, Maven dominates the middle, comeback for Hurricane, but then Hurricane whiffs on a top rope move, and Maven IMMEDIATELY pounces with a new finishing move that is a variation on a backbreaker that I've never seen before. Very cool. Match was nothing (barely 2 minutes long, and Maven had the audacity to work a chinlock for part of his offense knowing that the match would be that short), but I guess if winning his second match in two nights and debuting a new finisher is part of the process of getting Maven's push in line with his recent mic work, I can cope. I just wonder why you don't use said mic work to make the matches a little more exciting for fans....

Backstage: Oh, christ, it's A Useless Diva whose name I forget chatting with Maria the Mic Stand as the two sashay down a hallway. A snippet of their noble attempt at conversation.... 

UD: "Ohmigod, did you hear what JBL said?" 
MMS: "Ohmigod, yes, I can't believe JBL said that." 
UD: "Ohmigod, cuz Batista's really strong and stuff." 
MMS: "Ohmigod, I know, I can't believe JBL said that." 
UD: "Ohmigod, look at us, two total hotties talking about wrestling. Do you think the boys will like us?" 
MMS: "Ohmigod, totally. Except that one The Rick guy. He's probably sitting there right now making fun of how vapid and pitiably-dumb our wrestling talk is, instead of fantasizing about my totally awesome boobs. Who does he think he is to have standards that start with the superficial, but then extend on to other, more important, qualities? And where did I suddenly obtain a polysyllabic vocabulary?" 
UD: "Ohmigod, I don't know. But if he doesn't totally dream about tapping this fine, fine ass of mine, he's probably gay."  

And speaking of "probably gay," here's Gene Snitsky surprising the Useless Divas by walking out of the Women's Dressing Room just as they arrive.  They want to know why Snitsky was in there, and he just says he was "Looking for someone" (and just like that, why do I fear that RAW has found the one way to make Trish Stratus less awesome?).  And then, because WWE has apparently decided it's funny that the fans all think Snitsky is totally hot for Heidenreich's body, Snitsky briefly does a fashion critique on the Useless Divas' footware. Snitksy's decision: "Nice shoes." Plonk, says I.

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A Little Bit o' History: Snitsky and Kane crashed a SD! match at the Rumble PPV. I don't recap recaps.

Backstage: Bischoff is telling Coach he wants this Mystery of the JBL Tape solved, pronto... Coach immediately does some quality detective work by just standing there and pointing off screen... where we pan back to find SD! GM Teddy Long? Yup yup. Bischoff immediately has a Prime Suspect, but Teddy proclaims his innocence. Well, his PARTIAL innocence. He had nothing to do with the tape, but he IS here to negotiate with Batista. Teddy says he's offered JBL a very generous package to jump to SD!, where he could face (sneaky PPV Plug Alert!) either JBL *or* the Big Show, since those two men will be fighting at No Way Out on Feb. 20 in a Barbed Wire Cage Match. Well, it ain't exactly a WrestleMania commercial airing during the last-ever edition of "Nitro," but I guess that's a pretty nice ploy by Teddy. Holla. Of note: the fans didn't exactly react warmly to the idea of Batista leaving RAW, which is strange, since this wasn't a "Just RAW" audience, it was a "Joint Brand" audience....

Elsewhere Backstage: it's Randall and it's Stacy, and those two kids just canNOT get together without doing something to make me laugh. In this case, we cut to the shot of them, and Randy's tying a boot, and Stacy's just standing there with a blank stare on her face for about a second and a half... and then I guess they got the message that cameras were rolling, because suddenly Stacy just started laughing out of nowhere as if Orton had just said the funniest thing in the world. Man alive, it's almost TOO perfect. I mean, in the rare cases where relationship stories work in wrestling, it's because the seem real and what we get to see on TV is the tip of an iceberg and these characters continue to interact in an interesting way the other 166 hours a week when we're not looking (not to go back to a standby, but this is exactly what Trish and Jericho did last year; and it was the interest in what was happening off-screen that had me on the brink of curiosity about the Kane/Lita relationship's ambiguous on-screen status). I already have my doubts how interesting it would be to hang out with Stacy and Randy, but then something like this, and it pretty much underscores that there IS no iceberg at all: what we see on TV is all there is. These two are incapable of real human interaction, and take until a second and a half AFTER the cameras turn on to even approximate it. High-freaking-larious. But not in a good way. 

And the reason I rant like this? Simple, because the content of Stacy and Randy's little skit was rather bland. Stacy's all "You're hurt, snookykins," and Randy's all "I know, honey, but I got a job to do tonight, and I'll prove to everybody that I really am the Legend Killer." I'll say this, once they started talking, it was actually almost a real conversation... the only problem is that he probably wasn't meaning to, but Orton was still oozing "tool" from every pore, as was discussed in this very spot one week ago.

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Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho vs. La Resistance (World Tag Team Title Match)

One week after Batista claimed Conway's ass for Quebec, and 6 hours after I said Benoit and Jericho would be "Division Killers," we get this match, and you might think the result is a foregone conclusion....  but you'd think wrong.

Instead, La Resistance early on manage to isolate Benoit in the ring, and maintain the advantage for a good 3-4 minutes. Along the way, there are three instances of Jericho getting distracted and NOT being in the corner when Benoit tries for the hot tag. [A possible plot point? It turns out, no.] This gives JR plenty of time to proclaim that last week was just a bad night for La Resistance, and that the REAL La Resistance, the deserving tag champs, are back again tonight, and are proving it.  Finally, Jericho IS in the corner, and Benoit is able to make the hot tag at about the 5 minute mark. And that's when the match just goes to shit.

I honestly can't figure out what was supposed to happen, or why what happened did happen, or anything.  Just wild four-way brawling, culminating in Jericho getting one of La Resistance in the Walls, but then an awkward "break-up" where Jericho actually just released the hold since the other La Resistance decided not to break up the hold and go after Benoit, instead, or something. Then more four way brawling, and I think Jericho locked the Walls on the other La Resistance, so I started thinking the sloppiness was just some miscommunication to get the "legal man" in the ring, and that now we'd proceed to the logical and compelling finish. Nope. Instead, the first La Resistance guy got back in the ring and broke up the Walls, and for some reason, the ref just called for the bell and said "Double Disqualification." Whhaaaa?  Probably 6-7 minutes, and not too shabby for the first bit, but that ending? Look, I don't got much going for me in this world other than my big brain, and when *I* can't figure out what finish they had intended for, you've botched something pretty bad.

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I'm Already Bored: the EXACT SAME Chris Masters vignette airs for about the fifth week in a row. I'm running out of fun ways to make fun of this guy for being another tepid entry in the "style over substance" category. And when I'm sick of making fun of fey-posing metrosexuals with dubious wrestling ability, that's saying something. Cuz that really is kind of my forte.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Muhammad Hassan

Before the match, Hassan recapped what happened to him at the Royal Rumble (where 8 guys teamed up to eliminate him), and in so doing, did his usual act of making himself into the ultimate victim. Unlike Maven before him, Hassan basically used this time to make sure the crowd would care about his eventual match. Sure enough, he finally dropped the other shoe: Hassan challenges anybody who was a part of that gang-attack on him at the Rumble, hell, he challenges ANY AMERICAN, to come out to the ring and face him one-on-one.  Just as Daivari was getting on a role with his Farsi translation of said challenge, some not-exactly-familiar music hits....

It's Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter, here to defend America's good name! And with that, the average age of Hassan's TV opponents remains mired in the 60s. But in all honesty, by holding the "obvious" Slaughter back for 2 months until AFTER Hassan was established, I think they maximized the value of this match. Slaughter started fast, Hassan reversed an Irish Whip, resulting in Slaughter taking a nice bump for an old man (front-wise into the turnbuckle, but elevating so he took the top turnbuckle in the ribs).  Hassan followed up with my second least-favorite hold of all times, the bearhug, Slaughter powered out, but Hassan cut the rally short with a Flatliner out of nowhere, and immediately rolled through into the Camel Clutch (a nice combo, actually).  Slaughter submitted.  Two minutes; kind of connect-the-dots and simplistic, but ultimately effective, I guess.

Backstage: Jericho and Benoit are discussing their loss... well, their non-win. Out of respect to these two, I won't mention how really annoyingly fake and hyper-dramatic it was, but by the end, they were pissed off at each other. For some reason, they went the fakey-route instead of just doing a casual conversation in which Benoit questioning where Jericho was during some of those attempted tags resulting in escalating hostility... but hell, the end result is a good thing, and I'll pretend the road getting there wasn't bad. The Ends Justify The Means, kids...

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Eugene Gump: for those who missed it at the PPV, you got a look at the very funny "Forrest Gump" parody WM21 commercial. Like I said, these things are ultimately pointless fluffery, but I'd kinda like to see WWE continue with a full series of them (like they did for the Olympics/SummerSlam theme). There are plenty of "New Classics" from the past 15 years or so to parody...  without even really trying, I know I've come up with ideas-of-varying-quality for "Silence of the Lambs," "Pulp Fiction," "Shawshank Redemption," "Fight Club," and a few others. Hell, Matt Hocking has practically HANDED WWE a "Lord of the Rings" parody. You can even go back further than 15 years and do other classic movie moments from "The Godfather" (I know it'd never happen, but having HHH reminding Young Randall to never go against Evolution before having Batista take Randall out fishing would be hilarious to me) or "The Shining" or something.  And in deference to WWE's fetish for Exceedingly Awful Ideas, I'll also share one that definitely fits that category: I've never seen "Titanic" in my life (and am proud of that), but I've seen that one naked drawing scene parodied enough times to know that it's a Famous Movie Moment... and in "WWE Think" that means actual artist and noted pervert Jerry Lawler drawing (oh, let's just say) Spaz naked, with all the obligatory shrieking about "puppies" at WM21.  Anyway, you get the idea....

Backstage: Triple H has been thinking, and he reveals to Ric Flair that he's changed his mind. [Or, more likely, has had this in mind all along, and we're just now entering Phase 2 of the Cerebral Assassin Plan.] He thinks that *he* is the one being selfish with his vision of an all Evolution WM21 main event. Teddy Long has offered Batista a LOT of money to jump, and anyway, JBL's WWE Championship "is a title Batista can actually win" (you better believe the crowd "oooohed" and "aahhhhed" at that dick comment). Suddenly, HHH realizes that Batista SHOULD jump to SD!, and take advantage of the opportunities there, and then, when Batista is the WWE Champ (said in a dismissive voice), and HHH is the World Heavyweight Champion (said in a "clearly this is the important title" voice), Evolution will rule the wrestling industry. [Shut up TNA and Indie fans, you know HHH is right!] Flair is in awe of HHH's mighty brain power, and says that is a great plan.

On the Stage: Eric Bischoff is out to make a few announcements about next week's huge RAW in Japan. First, just as I had expected, the "Ends Justify The Means" Match is announced, as Chris Benoit will face Chris Jericho in a match the Japanese fans ought to eat up. And second, to take advantage of Tajiri's home country crowd, he'll team up with William Regal to compete for the Tag Titles against La Resistance (that could be a very cool moment, and again a match specifically designed for the Japanese fans to enjoy). And finally, for NO reason that I can discern (other than Bischoff didn't like having his authority questioned by HHH earlier), HHH will defend the World Title against Edge next week. Huh; personally, I'd have thought that keep Edge OUT of title matches would be best for his character until it's actually time for him to win the title, but I guess WWE thinks otherwise.

Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton vs.

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Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton vs. Triple H and Ric Flair

HBK and Orton entered before the ads. And when HHH and Flair enter afterwards, they are accompanied by (a) Batista, and (b) the old "Evolution" theme song (which I don't think they've used in months). For the second night in a row, Orton is exposed within the first 60 seconds of the match: his exchanges with Flair are met by initial girlish squeals of ecstasy followed by hearty boos. After Orton owned Flair, he insisted that HHH tag into the match, and HHH eventually decided to oblige. And then, because Orton is a freaking idiot, as soon as he gets his wish and HHH tags in, Orton his exactly one (1) offensive move and then tags in Shawn Michaels. I'm not sure if they intentionally laid it out this way without realizing how lame it was, or if Orton just whiffed on a little piece of on-the-fly ring psychology, but it certainly was a minor detail that stuck in my craw.  HBK continued the offense, getting things up to a fevered pitch (he even hit the Macho Man Elbow; and here's just a little reason why Shawn is so outstanding: 98% of the time, he delivers it right-handed, but the ring position was wrong, and instead of panicking or repositioning or anything, Michaels just hit a left-handed version every bit as smooth as the normal one). As the offense picked up, Flair got involved to try to stop it, so Orton came in, an we got ourselves some Pier Four Action. Orton and Michaels quickly dispatch Flair and HHH, and are in control of the match. 

You might THINK this is the spot for [ads], but you'd be wrong, because first, Batista's got a little something for us. He blows a gasket or something, and starts acting all hyper and out-of-character. He even grabs a chair and starts whacking things (the ringsteps, mostly) with it, and threatens to get in the ring to attack Michaels and Orton.  He's REALLY going over-the-top with it, and I begin to wonder if some of whatever got into Flair's drink two weeks ago wound up in Batista's tonight, but also begin suspecting that there is more to this over-acting than we are seeing right now...  finally, the ref has no choice by to eject Batista from ringside. Batista acts ultra-mad again for a few seconds, but then turns to leave. And as soon as he does, the anger just fades away, and he starts chuckling to himself, and covers his mouth to hide it. And that, kids, was my Favorite Moment of RAW. For mysterious reasons all his own, Batista started acting like a spaz and got ejected. But he was just faking, and he remains our Logical Monster. The moment of that reveal was outstanding, not just because I was begging for it, but because it's perfect for Batista's character: he didn't speak more than 10 words tonight, but his actions say an awful lot...  and finally, after that little tiny bit of detail work by the Big Man, we break for

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Michaels was briefly in control when we got back from the break, but that came to an end within a minute or two, when he got caught in the enemy corner. Orton, in this case no dumber than any babyface tag partner in the history of wrestling, tried to make the save, but only served to distract the ref, allowing for heel double-teaming on his partner.  And so with that, Michaels became YOUR Babyface in Peril.  This continued until Flair made the age old mistake of going to the top rope: Michaels had just enough in the tank to rocket launch Flair off the top.  Flair crawled to his corner and made the tag to HHH, Michaels crawled to his corner and tagged Orton, and we enter End Game. Orton cleaned house on HHH and Flair for a minute or so, including a ref bump, culminating in a sloppy RKO out of nowhere on Flair. But I guess in this case, maybe the sloppiness of the move was on purpose? Because all of a sudden, Orton is motionless on the mat, selling his "concussion" once again. The RKO was awkward, but Orton's bump (like the night before) was innocuous, which kind of makes the "concussion" talk seem a little over-wrought, but whatever: I'm always ready to buy that Randy Orton's mind is not all there, regardless of circumstances.... 

HHH came to and noticed the motionless Orton on the mat, and decided to capitalize by hitting a Pedigree. But when he did, Michaels swooped in and hit the Sweet Chin Music to save Orton. And almost immediately, Edge ran out to exact some revenge on Michaels, but Shawn dodged, and for some reason (well, the reason was: "to facilitate this spot, even though it didn't really flow well") HHH was not selling the superkick and was already back on his feet, so Edge speared him, instead. Shawn and Edge powdered out. The ref came to, and Orton ("far away look in his eyes," said JR over and over again, as if Orton looked that much different than he usually does) saw HHH KO'ed on the mat, draped an arm over, and got the cheap three-count for the win. An OK 15 minute match, I guess, but it definitely felt like they were more concerned with getting some story stuff over (Batista's ambiguous Mona Lisa Smile/Randy Orton finally making his peace with being a clueless dumb guy) than with really putting together a solid wrestling match.

After the Match: Shawn got in the ring to tend to Orton, who was not responding to questions. I really wish I hadn't spent the last 10 months making fun of Orton being borderline-retarded and more lucky than good.... because now that HIS CHARACTER has been rendered borderline retarded and he OBVIOUSLY scored a win tonight 100% due to luck and not talent, I got no less than two dozen e-mails saying they can't wait to see how I rip into Orton for finally finding his perfect niche. And hey, I don't deny it: I think it's hilarious that after everything I've said about Orton, it comes down to this, the Full Manifestation of my own concept of Orton... but I've also wasted all my good material, and all your expectations seemed awfully high for my riffing. I can't meet those. So I'll just say, "Yep, finally, the role Randy Orton was born to play" and leave it at that. I would also like to note that because of Orton selling the "concussion," and Shawn's mothering him, I think Orton's shitty theme song played all the way through TWICE, just to piss me the fuck off.

Video Package: all thinks Kane/Snitsky. I don't recap recaps.

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Kane vs. Snitsky (Steel Cage Match)

Since it's already after 11pm when we get back from the break, they sent Snitsky to the ring during the ads. Kane makes his entrances and wastes no time getting into the ring. They do the most basic of brawling for about 2 minutes, when all of a sudden, Trish Stratus shows up in the entrance aisle.  She is, because (as we noted during the Facemask Phase) she's a student of Bobby Heenan's more hilarious cheap-sympathy antics, wearing a cervical neck collar. Gotta love that Trish. About 3 more minutes of methodical brawling that sure didn't feel like Main Event Caliber. And then finally Kane decided he'd done enough damage to Snitsky after a flying clothesline, so he went for the door... and that's when Trish decided to interject herself: she tried to slam the door on Kane's head. But Kane easily blocked it, and stepped out onto the steps, and (good christ, this was SOO awful) had to go OUT OF HIS WAY to not descend to the floor, and instead had to reach awkwardly for Trish from the top of the steps, lest he accidentally actually do something stupid like WIN THE DAMNED MATCH.

So Kane hauls Trish into the ring, and the jerko is gonna chokeslam her again, but Snitsky comes to the rescue in the nick of time. And the love of Snitsky's life might be that Golden Haired Poet Warrior, Heidenreich, but I guess he's got a soft spot for Trish. Maybe she helps him with his shoe shopping? So Heidenreich shepherds Trish to the door, and sees her to safety on the floor outside the ring.... but like Kane before him, he does it while awkwardly AVOIDING TOUCHING THE FLOOR HIMSELF. What the fuck? Since when does a blow to Randy Orton's head cause everybody else to become retarded, too? At least Snitsky kind of has a reason for standing on the steps, contemplatively. He sees that cage door hanging there, and decides "Hey, that might be an interesting weapon," and yanks it off its hinges.

But when Snitsky gets it into the ring, Kane immediately turns the tables, kicking the door into Snitsky's head, then atomic dropping Snitksy onto the propped-up door ("Bah gawd, Snitksy's been neutered"), and then chokeslamming Snitsky onto the door for the pinfall win. I'll say this: a pretty awful five minutes, but once the door came into play, they really heated it up, and the last minute was pretty satisfying, with cool looking spots, and it finally made this feel like a main event. Kane celebrates to close out the show, while JR and King actually narrate a few "RAW in Japan" graphics that they throw up on the screen to close the show.