There is little doubt that at least one large portion of the

The Chris F. Masters kind of suck leaves you just wanting for it to end, and teases you with visions of using that Fast Forward button. But last night's kind of suck left you just wanting to see what unnecessarily convoluted idea WWE would present next. As much as I advocate planning ahead (something I think WWE's creative monkeys have clearly gotten away from, as they more seat-of-the-pants it), I also don't discount the importance of being able to think clearly on the fly. Last night's RAW gave more the impression of a company that might be on full tilt.

Goldust is back? Austin is gone? Torrie Wilson is gone? Christian quit, but HE'S HERE? Vader can't stay upright? Batista is now going to wrestle on a RAW only PPV under the flimsiest of pretexts? If any of that makes good sense to you, fill out an application and fax it to Stephanie McMahon. But the rest of us? I think we're still shell-shocked from a show that seemed like it was written with the intent of becoming future WrestleCrap.

And the important thing we can't lose sight of: even when RAW wasn't sucking, it was still awfully underwhelming, and did absolutely nothing to increase my interest in any of the Taboo Tuesday matches. You didn't have any extended quality wrestling matches, you didn't have any standout promos or angles (other than the ones that sucked in that trainwreck sort of way), and any show that counts Todd Grisham as it's standout Highlight of the Night has got issues.

Read on, if you dare, and discover The RAW You Almost Had To See To Believe....

Opening Theme/Pyro/Etc., and we're live from the Los Angeles Pond of Anaheim, California, home of the Mighty Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim, California, and no doubt proximate to the home of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California. Fricking twits... and my brother wonders why I never want to go visit him out there. Here at the site of two past WrestleManias, Coach and King would have you believe we practically have a PPV caliber show lined up tonight. Me? I'm a bit more skeptical.

The Triumphant Return of the Shitty Full Nelson Challenge

Once Lawler and Coachman get done with the hype and the welcome, we are interrupted by Chris F. Masters. Who is accompanied by Eric Bischoff. And who both enter to Eric Bischoff's theme song. Huh. BEST MASTERS' RING ENTRANCE EVER~!

Once both are in the ring, Bischoff handles the talking. BEST MASTERS' PROMO EVER! He puts the bad mouth on SmackDown!, saying it doesn't matter who the fans pick, because RAW will defend its home turf on its own PPV, and Masters and Edge will send two SD! stars home losers. And tonight, as a little sample, Bischoff arranged with SD! GM Teddy Long for a special preview, in the form of a Cross Promotional Shitty Full Nelson Challenge. He calls out Rey Mysterio.

Interestingly, Teddy Long makes an entrance, but then Rey makes a second entrance, separate from his GM, and with his own music/pyro/everything. Take that, Chris F. Masters.

Masters then does take a mic, and makes a bunch of short jokes. They do not bear repeating. Then he asks if Rey has any questions about the Full Nelson Challenge. Rey says Nope. But he's got something more like a statement. And he pops Masters in his dim, balding noggin with the microphone. The brawl is on, and Rey gets the better of it. This sends Bischoff into a tizzy, and he starts motioning to the locker room. Apparently, he gestured towards the wrong locker room, though. He got the Heat Locker Room, the one with Kerwin White and Snitsky. Edge and Lita were also in the group, but were careful to not do much of anything (Edge is hurting for real, and all).

Before things got too bad for Rey, Teddy started gesturing (Broadly, of course) that HIS back-ups should come to the rescue. So out from the crowd come the four other voting options for Taboo Tuesday. Yep, even Christian, who is honoring his final commitments, but at last word still has no interest in accepting the contact extension that WWE is offering. The SD! crew easily make mince meat out of the Heat crew, culminating in Rey delivering a (619) on Chris F. Masters. 

Wow, Masters was really just everybody's bitch here tonight. First the sound guy's bitch, and eventually Rey's. Perhaps he's found his calling. SD! celebrates in the RAW ring, while Bischoff herds his crew of mostly-jobbers (and Edge) back up the aisle. You just know he's not gonna like the way things went down.... in fact, you can practically script what'll be coming up next after these....

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Backstage: Sho 'nuff, Eric Bischoff has Masters, Edge, and Lita in his office, and is giving them a stern talking-to about not letting their brand down tomorrow at Taboo Tuesday. They will protect their home field tomorrow, or else. Edge and Masters remain mute and try to give us their "focused" faces.

Kurt Angle vs. Tajiri

Holy crap. First Chris F. Masters gets passed around like Clay Aiken in Cell Block D, and now Tajiri's back on Mondays? And against Kurt Angle, no less? Did *I* book this show? The answer, as it turns out, is "no," and we'd discover that very soon.

For one, I'd have booked this to be longer and more exciting. It honestly felt like Kurt's ring entrance and the lengthy video package they played over it of Angle stealing a win over Cena the week before took longer than the match.

Angle just flat out-wrestled Tajiri to start, and quickly decided to target Tajiri's back and ribs (uh-oh). Tajiri made all the suplexes and backbreakers look like a million bucks, of course. Tajiri got a little hope spot, and again, you get just a taste of what I talk about when I hype up Tajiri's mishandled potential: he's not been on TV in weeks, he's not had a compelling storyline in six months or longer, and yet, when he kicks an opponent, fans perk up and give him oohhhs and aahhhhs. At some level, fans might not think they have a reason to care about Tajiri, but he still makes them BELIEVE in him and his moves. Why you don't make better use of that is beyond me, WWE.

Angle, however, ended Tajiri's little flurry quite quickly, using yet another suplex variation to go after the back. And then? Just as I'd feared... Angle clamped on the body scissors of extreme visual excitement. Dammit: looks like whether we like it or not, Kurt's found something he likes, and he's sticking with it. As a change of pace every now and again in lengthy, PPV-caliber matches, fine. But you wouldn't use a bearhug in the middle of a 4 minute TV Special, now would you? Well, SOME would, but that's just cuz they don't know any better. And we know Kurt knows better.

Tajiri eventually escapes the dreaded body scissors, and starts landing more kicks. There's also a ton of super-sweet back-and-forth reversals (Tajiri countering suplexes, Angle ducking kicks) leading up to a stiff kick right to Angle's chin. It landed square, and going back to my above comment: you got the sense that these live fans almost believed Tajiri went from "jobber" to "potential winner" with just one move.

Of course, it wasn't quite that simple. Angle wouldn't go down, even as Tajiri piled on the offense (kneeling dropkick, handspring elbow, lots more boots to Kurt's face). And when Tajiri got cocky, he paid the price: he tried to cinch in the Tarantula, but Angle managed to hook an ankle, turn around, drag Tajiri back into the ring over the top, and slap on the ankle lock. Tajiri, remembering that as far as WWE's concerned he's inflicted with a lethal case of Jobby Jobberitis, wasted absolutely no time in tapping out.

Your Winner: Kurt Angle, via submission, in about 3-4 minutes. Bitching about the body scissors aside, this was a really crisply executed match, and a joy to watch while it lasted. But you clock in under four minutes, and you're not gonna be doing enough to win any awards.

After the Match: Kurt got on the house mic, and bragged about how he's undefeated against John Cena. He runs the laundry list: DQ win in a PPV title match, pinfall win in a tag match, and then the most satisfying one of all, last week's tap-out win. Angle's so proud of that one that he asks for it to be replayed again. Ugh, like we didn't already see 2 minutes of it during your ring entrance, Kurt? We do (most of us, anyway) have attention spans. For the first time in a long time, I'm actually pleased to see John Cena, as he dashes out before Kurt can ask for the replay to be put on a constant loop. The two brawl. Cena gets the better of it. Angle decides to take a rain check and says he'll do his business with Cena tomorrow night. The crowd is booing, and it might be for Kurt acting like a pussy. But I kinda thought that it kept going after that, and bled over to Cena's big ol' celebration of his own bad-assery. But then, he took off his sweatshirt, and all the girls went SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~!, and I couldn't hear anything else.

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A Visit With Our Hosts: We take a moment to chat with Jerry Lawler and Jonathan Coachman. With it being Halloween and all, they are costumed. Lawler is dressed as himself, circa 1985. Coach is dressed as Stone Cold Steve Austin (right down to the knee braces); Coach for 2 hours straight? Not so much fun at all. But Coach nailing dick-ish little one-off skits/angles where you know he'll get his comeuppance like this? Perfect. Also, please note that as the set-up to a very dumb joke (I already forget what it was), Jerry Lawler said, "I saw Steve Austin earlier today, and he said [blah blah blah, some joke about Coach's Halloween costume]".

Video Package: Triple H turned on Ric Flair. Seen it. And FF'ing it seemed to take longer than I'd have guessed it would. What was that, the extended remix? I'm sure it was well-produced and all, but honestly... I'm going on 2 years of using Technology to eliminate all commercials from my TV viewing. And something that amounts to a 5 minute commercial for a PPV? I'm gonna speed right through it if I can... I continue to contend that WWE needs to progressively address the issue of how people are watching TV now as opposed to 5 years ago; the "WWE Unlimited" web tie-in is a start, but dealing with savvy/selfish viewers like me who have learned how to only watch the parts of TV that contain Actual Content should be addressed. To us, any preponderance of replays is annoying (we can make our own replays if something warrants it, and even before I had the ability to do that, I was annoyed by the practice of taking 90 seconds after a commercial break to tell us what happened before. And video packages? You just showing us stuff that already happened, and maybe setting it to music. I'm not saying that there would never be a time or place for video packages. But I am suggesting that for them to be compelling "destination TV," feuds that are all of four weeks old don't really deserve them. Situations where you want to dig up and present history, or where you have a months-long story arc with details that some fans might honestly have forgotten: THAT is when folks'll be tempted to lay off the FF button. Till then, though? I gotta admit, if I could just lay off the ranting, all these pointless video packages and replays and stuff would sure make my recapping job ultra-easy. To be honest, this five minutes of TV time really should have just been recapped with "Video Package: Triple H turned on Ric Flair. Seen it." But I just had to go and ramble....

A Brief Interlude: Coming out of the video package, Ric Flair came out onto the stage. He kept it short and sweet. He's been kissing HHH's ass so long that now he can't wait to kick it, and Oh By The Way, please vote for "Steel Cage," cuz that's what Naitch really wants. This combined with the video package is kind of an underwhelming final sell for their Taboo Tuesday match, don't you think? Five minutes of stuff we already saw, and then 30 seconds of Flair asking for something he already asked for? I guess if there's a moral victory here, it's that somebody must have taken my advice of two weeks ago and told Flair to quit giving Trips all those backhanded compliments when he supposedly hates the guy...

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Eugene vs. Rob Conway

By way of giving us HELPFUL video package filler, we actually get to see Rob Conway destroying Koko B. Ware from Heat, and then destroy Eugene when Eugene tried to make the save. Thank you, WWE: *that* I had not seen.

For the first time on RAW, they go ahead an mention that these two are also involved in a Taboo Tuesday match, in which fans can pick a legend for Eugene to team up with against Conway. You'd think they'd have gotten to that sooner than 22 hours before the PPV starts, but hey, it's their company.

Match is really simple stuff, and again, a Lazy Recapper's Dream, since there's really no story to tell here, unless I just invent one. Which I don't feel like doing. So you get this:

Eugene stormed the ring and unloaded on Conway with the punchy-stompy. Conway had to bail out of the ring, Eugene followed, and in the oldest trick in the book (which Eugene has apparently missed somehow), Conway got back into the ring, and when Eugene followed, Conway was already on his feet and stomped Eugene in the back to take the advantage. What followed was about 2 minutes of absolutely nothing exciting, as Conway just randomly punched, slammed, and taunted Eugene. Then Conway made a mistake: he started slamming Eugene's face into the mat repeatedly, triggering the Hulk Up. Eugene went through the usual motions, and then missed on a Stunner, but hit with a Rock Bottom. But Conway got a foot on the ropes, so Eugene didn't win. As Eugene was explaining this confusing technicality with the ref, Conway decided "to hell with this happy crappy" and rolled out of the ring, got a chair, and whacked Eugene with it. It was just that simple.

Your Winner: Eugene, via disqualification, in maybe 3 minutes, tops. Just as short as the opener, but this time, the label "crisp" doesn't apply. No focus, no really neat exchanges. Just random wrestling moves strung together and then a cop-out ending.

After the Match: Conway was threatening to continue his assault when Eugene's three potential tag partners for the PPV showed up. Hacksaw Duggan whapped Conway with a 2"x4". Kamala delivered a Big Splash. And Jimmy Snuka hit the Superfly Splash to finish off Conway. But wait: for some completely unknowable reason, Jerry Lawler put on a Burger King mask, ran to the ring, and delivered a fist-drop, too. That? Made no sense at all. Coach seemed as flummoxed as the rest of us, as the camera cut back to him, and he kind of stammered, got a deer-in-headlights look, went mute, and just as he started talking about, he was bailed out by a cut to....

Backstage: Todd Grisham is dressed as late Cubs Announcer Harry Carey for Halloween. And he's actually doing quite a serviceable imitation of the old coot; let's call it 0.7 Ferrell. However, when "Harry" tries to interview Gregory Helms (dressed for Halloween in his most ridiculous get-up of all times, as one of the Queer Eye Guys), the former Hurricane just shakes his head and no-sells poor Harry. Todd is bummed out and stops doing the impersonation as he's about to kick it back to the arena.... but then he spies Mick Foley coming out of the TV production truck, and pops back into character to ask what Mick was up to. Mick reveals that Carlito says he has a surprise for Mick tonight.... so Mick was just in the truck preparing a special surprise for Carlito. One must assume we'll find out what it is after these....

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Carlito's Cabana: Very Special NOT Carlito's Cabana Edition

Well, Carlito's in the ring with a mic, but there's no hammock or patio chairs. What's up with that? I guess maybe with no scheduled guest, it's not a Cabana. It's just scheduled to be a Carlito's Monologue.

And not even one of Carlito's usual funny/laid-back monologues. He's dead serious and intense as he says it doesn't matter which of Foley's three "faces" gets voted into the match, because the only face the fans will have to be concerned with is Carlito's handsome mug, and the only three we'll be hearing will be when Carlito pins Mick Foley.

Before Carlito gets much further, though, he is interrupted by Dude Love on the TitanTron. Dude lays claim to being totally hip to Carlito's coolness, since he invented it, and all... but says if Carlito crosses paths with the Dude on the PPV, the Dude will NOT Have Mercy. Dude freezes, and with the help of a multimillion dollar special effects budget and the wizards at ILM, he sudden morphs into...

Cactus Jack. Cactus takes a different route from the Dude, leaving the coolness for others to decide, and simply running down all the implements that he might like to use against Carlito. Barbed wire, thumbtacks, you name it. He hits a Bang Bang, and then freezes so he can morph into...

Mankind. Combining various elements of the Mankind character ("corporate Mankind" outfit and Mr. Socko from the latter days, with the old original Mankind entrance theme and also his original creepy weirdness and proclivity for poems that were just a little too silly to be taken seriously, but a little too serious to be laughed at), Mick did a special poem for Carlito that involved how "neat-o" it would be to make Carlito "bleed-o" and to possibly even soil his "Speedo." Have a nice day.

Before Carlito can say anything to rebut that three-pronged verbal assault, for no discernable reason, the Coach stands up and picks up a house mic, and declares "Don't worry, Carlito, you'll take care of him tomorrow night. I just know you will." And then he says that he's sick of waiting, so he's going down to the ring right now to await Steve Austin's presence and the answer to Coach's open challenge. Which, as we learned last week with WWE's laziness and inability to create segues that make even a lick of sense, means this is a perfect time for some....

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You Won't Believe Your Eyes Theatre

So with me still trying to figure out what Coach has to do with Carlito, and pondering how distractingly annoying it is when WWE can't come up with anything resembling a logic transition, we're about to embark on a wild ride, kids. I honestly don't know how we got here, and you won't believe where we're headed next.

Coach is in the ring, and basically repeats his open challenge to Austin to come on down to the ring so that they don't have to wait till tomorrow night. Austin does not show up. So Coach says, "Aha, you're smarter than I thought, grasshopper," and theorizes that Austin knows he's going to be ambushed. Which he was gonna be. But Coach will "put all his cards on the table," and introduce the man he brought in to help assault Austin. This way, Austin knows exactly what he's getting into.

So who is Coach's mystery Hired Goon? It's fricking GOLDUST. 

No complaints here. Didn't I say one of the few possible good things that could come out of hiring Dusty to write for SD! would be that we might get Goldust back? Never should've been let go to begin with (especially not in the middle of a storyline with Booker T). Coach explains that it wasn't hard to convince Goldust to be his Goon, because Goldust still remembers being locked in a port-o-potty by Austin. Sadly, we do not have a video package to refresh our memories of that incident.

Coach wants Austin to kindly come out now that he's shown his hole card (play much poker there, Coach? if the story I heard about you crashing and burning at the World Series this past year was true, you could at least drown your sorrows in the knowledge that no matter how much I rag on your commentary skills, you are still only about one-third as awful as Vince van Patton!). But still no Austin. So Coach and Goldust threaten to go back and find Austin themselves. Except:

"No Chance in Hell" fires up, and out comes Vince McMahon. Instantly, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Surely those stupid rumors didn't have THAT much validity? And if they did, surely WWE was smart enough to just back the fuck down from a booking plan nearly as silly as wanting to make Tank Abbott WCW Champion? Let's see...

Vince actually wastes no time making it clear that Steve Austin will not be here tonight. And also not tomorrow night at the PPV. Goddammit. He spins a yarn about Austin being in an accident, but spins it in a way that you don't quite want to believe him. Vince himself suggests an alternate theory: that Austin is scared of Coach, and didn't want to fight. [In reality, Austin balked at a new planned finish for the PPV match. But last I heard, it was just a minor thing, and everybody assumed it would blow over, cuz it wasn't like Austin was playing hardball or asking for anything ridiculous. But I guess WWE stuck to their guns, and Austin just got pissier and pissier after the last status report I heard, and what I thought would surely be a non-story turned into a pretty big one. Need I direct you back to a portion of my Christian-related rant yesterday about the anti-synergy between an asshatted Talent Relstions Department and an incompetent Creative Team has created an atmosphere in which none of the talent have any faith or confidence in what's going on around them? And that some of them are in a position to just say "Fuck this" if they want? Because it's the same deal.]

Also: I now call "bullshit" on Jerry Lawler for saying he talked to Steve Austin before the show. Well: in reality, Austin may have been at the building at some point trying to hash out details, but in "storylines" Vince was saying Austin never even made it to Anaheim (either due to an "accident" or because of cowardice).

Vince goes on to declare Coach the winner of the Taboo Tuesday match via forfeit. Coach celebrated, but Vince said that he still wanted to make use of Coach's amazing ability and star power by putting him in a match on the PPV. Coach was leery at first, but Vince explained that his rationale was that "Coach is the #1 announcer on RAW, so he should face the #1 announcer on SD!." I, stupidly, actually got intrigued for 7 nanoseconds as I thought "Hey, you know, Tazz in this spot would make it pretty easy to forget about Austin, and could deliver an adequate 90 second beatdown on Coach to make it feel like we saw something unique and special." Then Vince let the other shoe drop: SD!'s "#1 Announcer" is actually Funaki. Duh. I felt dumber than Orton. 

Funaki charges the ring to give Coach a sample of what's to come. But Funaki, ironically enough, is actually a real life buddy of Austin's, and we all know how well that's working out for Jim Ross. With the help of Goldust, Funaki is turned into road kill. And Coach is enbiggened by his cromulent performance, and actually tells Vince he's done with Funaki, but he's so confident, he'll challenge ANY SD! star to be his opponent for Taboo Tuesday. Vince says that's OK with him, that he'll go back and draw up the papers and see if there's any interest, and then Coach can find out his opponent tomorrow night, live on PPV. But it looks like Coach has a taker who doesn't care about waiting till the PPV to reveal himself....

Batista is out, and this is just getting wackier and wackier. The World Champ makes his way back into the RAW ring, where it's clear that he's more than happy to kick Coach's ass on PPV, and equally as clear that the feeling is not mutual. Batista does that bad-ass thing where he carefully and methodically takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves, all while Coach and Goldust are cowering in a corner, trying to come up with some plan.

Their plan? Doesn't work. Coach tries to cheapshot Batista, but this only makes him angry. Coach then hangs Goldust out to dry, while he heads out on to the apron to direct traffic. Because we ain't done with the special guests... just as it looks like Goldust is about to join Funaki on the Discard Pile, some old music hits as Coach summons another familiar face to the ring.

Vader? VADER?!? It's Leon White, jock-strap on his face, and all. 

Vader's also sporting some new features since we saw him. I won't bother noticing the weight gain; being fat was always part of the Vader gimmick. But I will call your attention to Vader's newfound inability to remain upright. I don't want to start any rumors, but let's just say I wouldn't be surprised to find out that our favorite walking billboard for Colorado's DUI program celebrated his return to WWE with a few pre-show cocktails. Cuz it's either that, or a crippling inner ear disorder: at no point during his entire appearance did Vader appear to be steady on his feet.

Anyway, Vader is still the difference maker. The one-time benchmark against which all Talented Big Men were measured knocked Batista down with a belly tackle. But he also knocked himself down. Then I think maybe he dropped an elbow. Then Coach started shouting instructions to "finish him," and was clearly indicating that a powerbomb (Vader's old finisher) was what they'd planned on. But instead: Vader just delivers a double axe-handle to Batista's back, and they decide to call that the Big Finish. Let's just say if Big Dave didn't want to take a ride on a Drunken Vader Bomb, and somebody audibled out of it, I do not blame anyone.

They leave Batista to recover from the deadly double sledge shot, and on the way out of the ring, Vader doesn't just stumble, he actually falls flat on his ass. Ugh. This guy spent a year or two on my list of Five Favorite Wrestlers, and deservedly so... and now there's a good chance that he'll be remembered in the same breath as the ShockMaster.

Coach shepherds his motley crew away, as Lawler opines on commentary that Coach might have just signed his own death warrant, cuz all he did was make Batista angry. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say I needed to sign my own papers admitting myself to the psych ward, because there's no way I really just saw a segment in which it was revealed that WWE alienated Steve Austin, in which Goldust returned, in which Batista was inserted to wrestle on a RAW PPV, and in which Vader may or may not have been drunk off his ass but definitely DID fall on it at least a couple of times.

I realize this was probably a last second fix, but c'mon, there has to be a better way. HAS to be. Or is Vince back on some kind of medication, and the Evil Midget is making him do this? It might fit... JR's got nothing but time and loathing-of-Vince on his hands, afterall.

And somebody, explain to me this: how, if Coach beat Austin by forfeit in their Taboo Tuesday match, do the Voting Stipulations for that match automatically transfer over to Coach vs. Batista? Shouldn't they have come up with something new to vote on, done something with this angle so that there'd be a reason to be voting on those things instead of on the Austin things? Seems like that should have been a no-brainer to me.... and am I just thinking too hard, or would it be fair for me to wonder why the hell nobody mentioned that losing means Stone Cold is fired (and that Jim Ross stays fired). It's like they forgot that stip ever existed. Plus 10 for the train-wrecky randomness of this whole bit, but minus several million for logic and sensibility.

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Video Package: WWE issues me an engraved invitation to FF through what appeared to be 2 minutes of self-congratulatory fluff about being on tour overseas last week. Don't care. Nobody else does, either.

Triple H vs. Viscera

Ummm, so the rematch of the match we didn't get last week, I guess. Just great. If I were the kind of wanker who thinks TNA is close to being a suitable replacement wrestling product, I could so easily make the joke, "TNA screws up Ultimate X, and then makes it up to fans by giving away the rematch for free on TV. And WWE screws us on the long-anticipated HHH/Viscera match, and heroically remembers to re-book the same thing a week later. Thank you, WWE, you truly are the Worldwide Leader in whatever it is you're doing these days."

But I wouldn't have time to make that joke, because HHH crotches Viscera on the top rope as the big man tried to get in the ring, and then hit the Pedigree. Just like that.

Your Winner: Triple H, via pinfall, in maybe 20 seconds or so. I guess maybe I can't complain. Any PissBreak Match that's actually over before your pants are unzipped is about as good a PissBreak Match as you'll ever get.

After the Match: Trips is such a bad-ass that he just can't resist abusing Viscera some more. That ends with Vis taking a shot with the steel ring steps, and tumbling over into the front row. Mercifully, no one was injured. Then Hunter got back in the ring for A Closing Thought: he says he's afraid he's going to have to do some pretty evil things to Ric Flair tomorrow night. But he's not doing them cuz he wants to. He's doing them cuz he HAS to. Because "that's who I am. And Ric, it's who you USED to be." Burn. Triple H match: 20 seconds. Triple H promo: 40 seconds. Triple H beatdown on Vis: 90 seconds. Triple H ring entrance: 7 minutes.  Oh well: three out of four ain't bad.

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Hype Central: King and Coach run down the PPV line-up. Even on FF, two things catch my eye: all of a sudden, Flair/HHH *is* for the IC Title now (so even though HHH called it a "mediocre trophy," and they never addressed the significance of that comment, HHH still wants to fight for it? ugh... HHH as IC Champ does nothing for me; HHH doing something retarded like throwing down the IC Title because it's below him does even LESS for me)... and second: there's now only six divas in the Battle Royale graphic. After I went to such pains last week to come to grips with there being seven, despite not being able out who the seventh might be. What gives there?

Backstage: Todd Grisham (still in costume) decides to get serious for a chat with John Cena, but as soon as the interview starts, Homey the Clown is all "Yo yo yo yo, you in costume, dawg. Don't dis my G's out there in the hizzle. If you Harry Carey, then BE Harry Carey. Make me feel it, yo." So Grisham proceeds to do as ordered, and does an hilarious spiel asking Cena about Kurt Angle and somehow involving a chicken enchilada with all the fixin's. Somewhere, Harry is proud that his unique grasp on the non sequitur as a broadcasting device has not been lost on the Next Generation. But it seems something WAS lost on John Cena, because he promptly declares that Todd's actually-funny impersonation was "sad." Ummm: (1) Todd really was pretty decent, and (2) you ASKED him to do it, assface. TV Character John Cena finds new ways each and every week to be a guy that nobody would ever want to hang out with. Except maybe for teenage girls who don't know any better. After declaring Grisham "sad," Cena drops the Homey the Clown act and gets all serious (the Wigger Dial even got turned all the way down to 2) because it's not as sad as Kurt Angle selling out to Eric Bischoff all because he wants a shot at the WWE Title. Not as sad as Shawn Michaels asking for a non-title match here tonight, all because he wants to prove he deserves a shot at the WWE Title. Because those two guys (as an afterthought, Cena gives Kane and Big Show about 3 seconds worth of recognition to split betwixt them) have to realize that John Cena is totally bad-ass and doesn't back down from anybody. And if they don't see that now, then they'll see it after Taboo Tuesday cuz the champ is here, and the championship will stay here, and if you can't see that, then you can't see him. Which I think was about one attempted catchphrase too many for a promo that was supposed to be more serious and intense than usual.

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Big Show and Kane vs. the Heartthrobs (Texas Tornado Match)

The Heartthrobs are already in the ring, and for some reason decide that America wants to hear them speak. They talk about their Halloween costumes, and how they decided to come as Batman and.... Batman. Ugh, don't tell me the Battle Over Which Heartthrob is the alpha male of the team is coming soon to Heat? And they didn't look anything like Batman(s). They looked like Gay Zorros. Well, Even Gayer Zorros.

Show and Kane enter separately. Of note: Kane blows his corner pyro before the match. Which means the Heartthrobs are going to win this match. Or maybe not: the Kane Corner Pyro Rule does not apply 100% of the time in tag team matches where Kane's partner might score the fall for the team.

But Texas Tornado rules are that all four men are legal in the ring at all times, so methinks there won't be any real interest in keeping tabs on a Legal Man or anything like that. And sure enough, right out of the gate, Show and Kane get into a "Can You Top This?" with the poor Heartthrobs. Comically, it seems as though I'm not the only one who can't be bothered to learn which one is which, too. Coach wasn't being helpful on that front, and a couple of times mics picked up Big Show muttering "Where's my guy?" or (when Kane brazenly assaulted Big Show's guy) "Hey, that's my guy!"....

The stereo offense went on for a bit, building up to Show superplexing his guy. Kane -- with a bad back caused by the very same superplex the week before -- couldn't match that, but did hit his top rope clothesline. And then mics picked up Show muttering, "OK, let's get this over with." It was a fun little idea for a match, but if Show was noticing that it was starting to fizzle out, he would not have been wrong. Stereo chokeslams and a double pin later, and it was all over. And hey: Kane's music played at the end, too, so what was with breaking the Pyro Rule, dammit? Maybe they didn't want any distractions as the two eyeballed each other, not sure that either one proved himself better than the other. 

Your Winners: Kane and Big Show, in about 2-3 minutes, via double pinfall. They can pretend all they like that the Oneupsmanship was all about convincing fans to vote for them in the WWE Title Match, but what this really was was a telegraph job to show fans how much fun it'll be when Kane and Big Show are a full time tag team. There might have been a point to that if the fans weren't already leaning that way, but as it stands, this was yet another short-forgettable piece of fluff that really accomplishes nothing in terms of making me any more excited about the Taboo Tueday line-up.

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Video Package: live Taboo Tuesday hype from some deal in San Diego. No sale~!

A TV-PG T&A Skit That ALMOST Doesn't Overstay It's Welcome

It's time for the Diva Halloween Costume Contest, predictably MC'ed by Jerry Lawler, his libido, and his lack of an Inner Dialogue to determine which comments might be appropriate and constructive and which paint him as having an 8th grader's understanding of women. Lawler says nothing of import, and then introduces the girls...

Diva Search Ashley is.... umm, wearing something from Fredrick's of Skankywood, and then she put some black wings on it. Maria the Mic Stand is sporting the same basic concept, but in white. Goddammit, I know girls think of different things when they get dolled up for Halloween, but is it asking to much to have your costume BE SOMETHING? 

Finally, Boobies McTitsalot's costume actually is something: she's Catwoman. Coach suggests Boobies is hotter than Halle Berry, and with all due respect to Boobies who has certainly made the most of her hotness (and whatever other myriad traits she may or may not possess), could not be more wrong regardless of being graded in or out of the ricockulous Catwoman get-up.

Then Mickie James comes out, and NOW we're getting somewhere, because she's dressed up like Trish Stratus. She's got the mannerisms down, too. One observation: I don't know if it was on purpose, but the blonde wig did kinda look like it was out of the Molly Holly Intentionally Bad Wig Collection. Then again, I guess it fit, because Mickie's cardboard women's title belt was also in the realm of the intentionally bad prop. And I mean that in a good way, because THIS is a Halloween costume, homemade kitschy warts and all; it's not just dressing up for dressing up's sake.

Victoria is next and has opted for Sexy Baseball Player. She scores huge points on two fronts: first, she's sporting a White Sox hat, which scores the cheapest of heat with the Anaheim crowd. Second, she's got a baseball bat, which (when heading into a likely catfight situation) makes her costume easily the most practical of any.

Finally Trish: she's Wonder Woman. Kind of an old stand-bye, but hey, Trish in short-shorts is Trish in short-shorts, so to hell with creativity!

With all six women in th..... wait. Six? That's right: six. No Torrie Wilson. I didn't know at the time, but apparently she's gone from the company, too. Can't call this one a shock at all (everybody was just waiting for the other shoe to drop once Kidman got canned), but the timing is odd, coming right before a PPV.

Anyway, once all six women are in the ring, King is required to introduce each one again, and give her a little bit of time to wriggle around and get cheers from the crowd. He only gets up to Boobies when Mickie remembers "These crappy T&A segments always last too long and the crowd turns on them, so I better get this thing moving." So she interrupts Lawler and says that the fans are all insane for voting for anyone other than Trish, who is so obviously the bestest Diva ever.

Trish seems flattered but uncomfortable with Mickie's outspokenness (and her impersonation), but it's Victoria who takes REAL exception. She takes the mic and tells Mickie to quit spazzing out and settle the hell down. So Mickie hits Victoria with her cardboard title belt. Victoria no-sells it, smirks, prepares her baseball bat, and the brawl is on from there.

Without Torrie, the babyfaces have a 4-on-2 advantage. So Boobies gets subjected to some move that was really lame and which I shall call The WHEEEEEEEE, because it looked like that's the sound you'd be making if you were ever to experience the hold. Victoria actually took some real shots, with kicks from Mickie and Trish finding their mark. Victoria and Boobies retreat while Trish leads the celebration in the ring. Note: the three girls in regular boots/shoes performed all the real moves and took all the bumps, and the other three were mostly useless. Anybody out there STILL think I don't have the best reason of all for voting Cheerleader at Taboo Tuesday?

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John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels (Non-Title Match)

Let me get this out of the way, and then I promise I won't harp on it throughout the match: within the first 2 minutes of the match, there were "Cena Sucks" and "You Tapped Out" chants. Cena was met by a mix of Boos and Squeals that was more Boos than it's been in the last few weeks, while Shawn was universally cheered. This is not insignificant, and I just hope that finally, 10 months after I started talking about this problem when Cena was put on a collision course with JBL, there's enough evidence that even the densest person can see that I wasn't making anything up. There are real problems with the presentation of John Cena, and they've almost pushed ahead so far with it that there may be no fix other than to just go ahead and turn him heel, and try to reset things that way.

But enough about that. The match:

Started very slowly. Looking at the timer, it was already about 10:55 when they got done with introductions and locked up for the first time. Luckily, it turned out there wasn't another ad break coming, but that was still only leaving 10 solid minutes for the match, which had me thinking that they should keep the pace crackling a bit.

Instead: a few half-hearted mat wrestling exchanges led to Shawn locking in a side headlock. Then a tepid hope spot for Cena. Then Shawn went back to the side headlock. Then a hope spot. Then back to the side headlock. I shit you not: Michaels worked three consecutive side headlocks, probably totaling close to 3 minutes of matchtime. Who does he think he is? JBL? Nearest thing I can figure is that once he read which way the crowd was breaking (despite HBK starting out trying to be vaguely heelish), Michaels decided to go this route so that Cena didn't do a whole lot that would get him booed, and just try to get the crowd to subconsciously get sympathetic towards Cena over the course of three hope spots and mini-fire-ups. I can't say that it worked, but psychologically speaking, I think it's a valid tactic, and one I think I've even seen Shawn try before (maybe even against Orton last year?).

It might not even have been so noticeable if not for the fact that you know you've only got 9-10 minutes to finish the match, and they are clearly dogging it for 3-4 minutes right out of the gate. There's no focus, there's no story to the side headlocks, it's just Shawn controlling Cena on the mat. Zzzzzzzzz.

Cena gets his first sustained offense of the match when he fires up out of a side headlock and thinks he tossed Michaels out over the top, but Michaels skinned the cat, but Cena KNEW he skinned the cat, and caught him again with another clothesline. That established Cena for a couple of minutes of punchy-kicky dominance, which isn't much, but when it comes after non-stop headlocks, he practically seemed like Benoit. OK, not really.

Michaels reclaimed the advantage. You know how? Using the exact same trick Conway used on Eugene, but luring Cena out of the ring, and then getting back into the ring first. As I was watching last night, I made a mental note to do a "Cena's as dumb as Eugene" joke. But here in the light of day, the more insightful observation would be to note that it's further evidence that Michaels was trying to do subtly heelish things, but that the fans just weren't buying it. Well, except those pesky teenage girls, again.

HBK's second offensive run is more exciting than his first, but only nominally. Still no real psychological focus or anything: just well-executed moves strung together. Sorta started to remind me of Michaels/Carlito from a few weeks ago during this stretch. And then: Michaels settled in for the Main Event Sleeperhold. Well, there's another 90 seconds wasted, as Shawn gives Cena every opportunity to garner sympathy from the fans, but only really gets it from the female quarter of the audience. Cena, of course, escapes... he uses a back suplex, which means both guys are down, and we get a double count, and we're probably about ready for End Game.

Cena goes on a tear of clotheslines and his wacky shoulder tackle thingie, building up to a Five Knuckle Shuffle. Cena celebrates and showboats after this, but apparently Michaels finds the concept of the move everybit as silly as I do, since when Cena turns his attention back to the match, Michaels was just playing possum. Cena goes for the F-U, but Michaels worms out, bounces off the ropes, and hits the Flying Burrito. Nips Up. Goes up top for the Macho Man Elbow. But Cena moves out of the way. Both men are down again, and we get another double count.

And that's the cue for Kurt Angle to show up and make this thing a No Decision. He runs down. A few stomps for Shawn. A few for Cena. A few more for Michaels. But then Cena has magically recovered, and gets the better of Angle in their second exchange. Cena even hoists Angle up for an F-U. But before he can plant Angle, Cena walks right into a superkick from Shawn Michaels. Huh.

Your Winner: None, as I'm guessing it was officially a double DQ or no decision. About 9-10 minutes, and I gotta say, it just never really got on track. Or if it did get on track, it only did so for maybe the last 2-3 minutes. And then it went to the kinda lame, predictable ending that I think all of us saw coming. Not a strong finish to not-a-strong-show.

After the Match: Michaels surveyed the ring. Angle down. Cena down. Him standing. He got the WWE Title belt. Posed with it for a bit. Eventually relented and tossed it on Cena's chest. A cavalcade of vamping and replays leaves me convinced that something else is going to happen here, otherwise, why are we wasting this time getting further and further away from the climactic moment of the show (Michaels kicking Cena)? The ending should go as close as possible to the climax, dammit. But no: a good 2-3 minutes of "here's a replay" and "It looks like Shawn Michaels just sent a message to Taboo Tuesday voters" and stuff like that. Odd. Making the vamping even a bit more awkward: it seemed like Coach might really be losing his voice as the match went on, and he seemed to be struggling by this point. Why torture the man? He's got a three hour PPV to call the next night, dammit. Or at least the 2.5 hours of it he's not getting his ass kicked by Batista and bailed out by Goldust and his drinking buddy Vader.

They clearly wanted Michaels to come off as heelish in all this, but I just can't stop mentioning how completely NOT INTERESTED the crowd was in booing Michaels. Who ever would have thought that pretty boy backstage drama queen Shawn Michaels would have such a discernable advantage in popularity among the male demographic? Shawn would, in all seriousness, have an easier time getting booed against Kurt Angle than he would against John Cena, I think.

Final image on RAW: Michaels standing over Cena and Angle, so the only sane thing any of us can do is to rush to WWE.com to vote for Shawn Michaels and make sure this three-way match happens. Cuz boy wouldn't it be funny if somehow these guys went through all this trouble for us, and Big Show got voted in instead?