Even more specifically, I'm  

Oh, and did you know: Comedy Central's must-see late-night block of excellence is going to be expanding by another half-hour this spring. If you're wondering why Lewis Black hasn't been on the Daily Show lately, it's because he's getting HIS own show in March. I almost feel badly for Stewart: his cupboard's being left bare as all his students are moving on to eclipse the master. What happens if Rob Cordrey gets his own show?

One other Happy Item before moving on to The Suck.... I would like to report that -- even 4 hours after the fact -- I simply cannot stop giggling after reading the accounts of discredited South Korean Researcher Woo-suk Hwang. I figure maybe that'll put a smile on your faces, too. And trust me: you don't even have to care about what he was researching or why he's been discredited. Just bask in the magical mood-boosting powers of Woo-suk Hwang!

And now, I guess I might as well jump into this mess with both feet. It is, afterall, my job to make crappy shows like last night's RAW more fun to read about than they were to watch. Shouldn't be too hard this week....

Video Package: The Elimination Chamber. Like the match itself, the first half of the package was interesting and dramatic, and the second half was hella lame. Oh, and then after the match, Edge showed up and beat Cena for the title.

Opening Theme/Pyro/Etc., and we're live in Hershey, PA. Wracking my brain for pithy things to say about Hershey, and all I'm coming up with is hack-caliber nonsense. So instead I'll just point out that I remember Hershey, PA, as being the site of Triple H's first-ever good wrestling match (against Henry Godwin, if you can believe that). Almost EXACTLY 10 years ago, come to think of it. And while I'm passing along that tidbit of trivia, it turns out we don't have time to waste, as introductions and crowd shots have already been interrupted by....

The Ex-Champ is Here

John Cena strolls out, to a decidedly mixed reaction. Gripe: he got his ass handed to him less than 24 hours ago, and he's showing absolutely no signs of wear or tear. 

The first thing Cena does when the music cuts out is to challenge the crowd to make some more noise. And then, in complete and total defiance of my advice for how to play Cena's character, he challenges those booing him to "do better than that" if they want to bring it.

Then he continues on with a thesis about how everything comes down to making choices. Like how Edge made the wise choice to cash in his Money In The Bank last night, and took advantage of the situation to win the WWE Title.

And like how the fans are making choices, because apparently, a lot of them think Cena sucks. Now see: just like that, what had been a strong and vocal mixed reaction got a hell of a lot quieter. Because it's not fun to boo Cena if he's gonna sit there and admit that he's getting booed. It's an admittedly-subtle bit of reverse psychology, but it annoys the crap out of me that WWE doesn't have a handle on it. Cena's fun to hate when he's under the misapprehension that he's the coolest guy in the world, and as a result, keeps acting like a cocky little brat. And much less fun to hate if he's daring us to hate him; when he does that, he crosses over in the the realm of not-worth-reacting-to-at-all. Again: it's subtle, but there are people getting paid to understand how these things work, and I wish they'd get it right. It's simple common sense: if fans are already enthusiastically booing a guy and you've decided you want them to keep doing it, YOU DON'T CHANGE A THING. We don't need your (or Cena's) permission to boo, WWE. We've already made our choice, and sending Cena out there to be confrontational with his detractors will only cause us to find other ways to undermine him. Like by NOT booing, if it's clear that's what he's asking us to do. 

Unless this was done on purpose as part of the "re-babyfacing" of John Cena. Although, if so, it's really only a stop gap measure: it silences the boo-birds so that only the cheers can be heard, but it doesn't actually turn them back into Cena fans. It'd be more of WWE's beloved "addition by subtraction."

So anyway, as Cena's spiel continues, his supporters hit all the right spots to cheer, but the dissenting voices that were so prevalent 2 minutes ago are pretty much gone. Cena wraps up his discussion about the Fans' Choices by parroting the wisdom (HA!) of Allen Iverson, who said that if one million people love him and 10 million hate him, all he can do is go out there and go to war for the one million who love him. And the other 10 million who are drinking the "haterade" can kiss Cena's ass. 

On that punchline, there's not nearly as much heat on Cena as I'm guessing WWE thought there'd be. Although I did get a kick out of how, when picking which fans to show cheering for Cena, the monkeys in the truck had one lengthy reaction shot of a row of misguided middle school girls who were shreiking with such enthusiasm that you'd think John Cena was dreamier than.... well, whoever it is that middle school girls think is dreamy these days. I've long since stopped keeping track.

Upon inviting all the grown-ups in the room to kiss his ass, Cena then says *he* has some choices to make, too. And he's made a big one. Namely, he's cashing in his own rematch clause, and he's doing it right here, tonight, in this very ring. So he calls Edge out to do this thing right now...

And Edge's music starts up.... but that's not Edge. It's Lita, sporting jeans and one of her double-sided-tape tops. Although I should know better, that's always a hit with The Me. And god-fucking-dammit, she's also sporting Cena's gay-ass Bling Title Belt, just with Edge's name affixed to it. Which can only mean one thing: Cena's getting the belt back sooner rather than later. Because otherwise, somebody who was going to be taking the championship seriously would have ditched that piece of sheerest ricockulousness in favor of an Actual Championship Belt.

Lita declares that Edge will be more than happy to grant Cena his rematch. But it won't be tonight. Because Lita just met with Vince McMahon, and after some "oral persuasion," it was agreed that Cena wouldn't get his rematch until the Royal Rumble. The crowd, not surprisingly, decides that Lita's revelation earns her the title of "slut," and lets her know it.

At which point, Lita changes gears, and affirms her whore-ish-ness... because, you see, draining one wang isn't enough for Lita. No, she'll be requiring another before this night is up. Which is why tonight, in That Very Ring, she and Edge will get naked and have sex. And for the second time, the bottom drops out of the segment, and the once hot crowd clams up, because they suddenly care a LOT less about what's going on than the did mere moments ago.

But Lita's gonna try really hard to sell this crap. So for 2 minutes or so, she tries every trick she can think of. Taunting the crowd for not being able to get laid, taunting the crowd for lacking the sexual prowess of Edge, and even taunting Cena by saying that later tonight, Edge will do what Cena couldn't the night before: last longer than 2 minutes. Zing? Lita says that Edge is better at pleasing women than Cena, and he's better inside the ring, and he'll prove it by beating Cena at the Rumble. And, just to piss off Bulldog, she assures Cena he can "Bank on it."

Finally, Cena's heard enough so he chimes in with a nicely prepared writer-monkey line: "Some of these people think I suck. But they all KNOW that you do." Again: that gets a zing-with-a-question-mark, as this exchange of taunts has all the gravitas of two high school juniors (from the remedial classes) breaking up with each other. 

Cena closes by saying that it doesn't matter when, and if Edge wants to set the date for the Rumble, that's fine, because Cena will kick his ass then, and win back his title. "And you can bank on THAT, bitch!" is Cena's punchline. Play his music!

As Cena and Lita stare each other down and mutter at each other, that gives Joey Styles, Coach, and Jerry Lawler a chance to hype what's still to come on the show -- including a Michaels/Angle vs. Carlito/Masters tag match and a women's title match. But of course, with Lawler and Coach, all they really do is take 2 minutes to talk about how we're going to have Live Sex Acts in the ring, and how awesome it'll be. And just like that, Lawler and Coach prove themselves to be even dumber than the dumbest viewer in the audience, since there can be absolutely no one out there who was doing anything but wondering, "OK, how's WWE gonna get out of this one?".... Lawler and Coach would natter on about this all night, and it was really distractingly annoying; Joey, for his part, would dutifully mention the promise of Live Sex Acts, but never really sounded enthusiastic about the prospect.

Coming off a really shocking title change where a guy not viewed as "Championship Material" by most fans walks out with the big gold, it was so VITALLY important that Edge's first impression as champ be a good one. To prove to the fans that "Hey, this is no fluke, and you better get used to me holding the title." Sending Lita out to brag about how Edge is so much better in the sack than any of the fans or than Cena was essentially WWE doing the exact opposite of making a good first impression. It was off-topic, it was stupid, it was pointless, and when you throw in the fact that they didn't even bother letting Edge bring back a Real Title Belt, it pretty much accomplished the goal of saying, "It's OK: we just did the title change last night out of desperation. You can go back to not buying Edge as a main event wrestler if you want, since he'll only be staying for three weeks and then Cena will get his silly piece of costume jewelry back." It wasn't just a bad way to start the show, it was actively counter-productive. Baffling....

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Trish Stratus vs. Diva Search Ashley (Women's Title Match)

The hell? Where does this match come from? Trish and Ashley, who actually are on-screen pals in a way that Trish and Mickey James are not, are suddenly going to battle over the women's title? How? Why? And if you say "Because Ashley's win in the bra and panties match makes her the Number One Contender," I'm afraid I will have to insist you jump off a tall building for the betterment of all mankind.

For some reason, Mickie James is bopping around the ring before either of the combatants gets introduced. I might be mistaken, but was she using "Hey, Mickie" as her entrance music? If so, she will become my most hated wrestler ever. Starting in fifth grade, I tried desperately to become "Rick" instead of "Ricky," and for the most part it worked. Except with my brothers, both of whom -- to this day -- call me "Ricky" to my great annoyance. And you better believe that this has come to the attention of my friends, including one of whom who thinks its clever to periodically taunt me with "Hey Ricky, you so fine, blah blah blah." I fricking hate that song. HATE it.

Trish is introduced first, but Lillian Garcia apparently does an inadequate job, so Mickie takes the mic and not only re-introduces Trish with a little extra flourish (read: screaming, which appears to be one of Mickie's stronger talents), but also cajoles the crowd for not cheering loud enough for the Totally Awesome Women's Champion. The whole time this is going on, Trish is giving off a vibe of "OK, thanks, that's nice of you, but please stop. Now." This fails to register with Mickie.

Then Ashley comes down, and the match is on. You know what I said in the New Year's Revolution Recap about the start of the women's match being the kind of back-and-forthy chain wrestling that you're used to seeing at the start of what's gonna be a 25-minute match? Well, Trish and Ashley did sort of the same thing here, but in a way that made me appreciate Trish and Mickie's version from Sunday all the more. Trish and Mickie were crisp and tight with the headlocks and hammerlocks. Trish and Ashley? Adjectives like "slow-motion" and "awkward" are a bit closer to accurate.

Luckily, it only lasted for about a minute, and then Ashley reversed her way into a pinning combo out of nowhere. So, even though Trish was sure to kick out, Mickie reached into the ring and pulled Ashley off by her hair. That's gonna be a DQ.

Your Winner: Diva Search Ashley, via disqualification, in about 1 minute flat; but Trish retains her title. Lillian got a little confused and announced Trish as the winner, but I'm confident this is the Actual Outcome; and as long as Lillian keeps on mastering the ability to find that narrow range where it's possible to dress super-hot-but-not-slutty, I think we'll forgive her a one-week flashback to 2000, when she made mistakes like this on a weekly basis. 

After the Match: Mickie actually continued beating on Ashley for about 15 seconds until Trish got to her feet and pulled Mickie off. Mickie wanted to get her some more of Ashley for daring to even try a pinfall on Trish, but Trish kept shoving her back and wondering aloud what the hell is wrong with Mickie. Mickie seemed confused as to why her friend Trish didn't appreciate the help. And more to the point, once Mickie was calmed down, Trish turned to tend to her real friend, Ashley, but Ashley had already left the ring in a huff, and was shooting some dirty glances back Trish's way. Hmmmm.... potentially interesting, I guess. Has Mickie cost Trish her one Real Friend? Or can sense be talked to Ashley? Or am I just reading way to much depth into all this because I'm under the misapprehension that girls are allowed to have Actual Storylines in WWE?

Blatant Lies: a lengthy New Year's Revolution recap runs, with the final exhortation that the show was so good, so  "Don't Miss the Encore." You know what? You already know that Edge wins the title, so go ahead and Miss The Encore. You have my permission. And as of late, it's pretty clear that I know what I'm doing a lot better than WWE does.

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Coming Soon: Rob Van Dam gets a video package all his own, hyping his return in the Royal Rumble Match. Well, that settles the mystery, then.... it's been pretty widely known that the Rumble would be RVD's return, it was just a question of whether or not they'd hype his return or if they'd keep it a surprise.  It'll be tough for RVD to really show off or make an impact within the context of the Rumble Match (he's not got the kind of moveset to get the "Diesel Push"), but hopefully WWE has big plans for Rob heading towards WM22....

Backstage: John Cena is futzing around in his locker room, when in walks Vince McMahon. Vince cuts to the chase, and says that (even though it wasn't his idea; yeah, right) he's really looking forward to tonight's Live Sex Acts. REALLY looking forward to it. So he doesn't want anybody interrupting and trying to get revenge for losing a title, or anything. Cena hears Vince loud and clear, and actually assures Vince that he's just as curious to see the Live Sex Acts as Vince, especially since he gets the impression that Lita might be downright freaky in bed.  With Vince and Cena on the same page, Vince turns to leave.... but not before Cena stops him and says that Vince better check his crotchal region, cuz Cena thinks he sees vestiges of Lita's "oral persuasion." Oh lord. Hey, Writer Monkeys, I think the comedy world put a 10 year moratorium on cum stain humor back in roughly 1998 or so, when we all got sick and tired of Monica's blue dress. And if I'm wrong about this, at least stop and ask yourself, "What good does it do for John Cena's character to have him checking out Vince McMahon's crotch?"...

Elsewhere Backstage: Carlito is gearing up for his match, when in storms Chris F. Masters. Masters does his level best Generic Wrestling Heel #3 (which is the angry, shouting heel) as he grabs Carlito by the throat and asks why Carlito stabbed him in the back during the Chamber match. Carlito deadpans that it was "an accident," but CFM's not buying it. He says, however, he's willing to let it slide for the good of their tag match tonight. Can CFM trust Carlito? Carlito assures him he can. CFM says he hopes so, otherwise what he'll do to Carlito will be Not Cool. I guess this accomplished its goal of addressing the friction between the two.... but I can't get it out of my head that you do Masters no favors by just having him try to act like a generic shouting heel, when you COULD have done something kinda funny and character-building with him if he just blithely accepted "It was an accident" and apologized to Carlito for flying off the handle. It'd be like the inverse of Batista, who was boring as hell for so long when he was just the shouting, blustering heel, but started to connect with the audience when his Inner Logical Monster started shining through and it was clear he was often times one step ahead of the Cerebral Assassin. In Masters' case, what his character needs to to stop being a generic blustering heel and actually embrace his Inner Dumb Guy. If he's Carlito's easily-manipulated goon, he MIGHT (maybe) one day find his niche as a character (hey, if The Lovely Miss Tomko did it...) But they sure as hell didn't go that route here.

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Chavo Guerrero vs. Rob Conway (Rumble Qualifying Match)

Basic back-and-forth to start, with Chavo soaking in a lot of "Eddie, Eddie" chants. Match turns to Conway's favor about 90 seconds in, when Chavo tries to skin the cat, Ricky Steamboat style, but Conway catches him and sends him tumbling to the floor.

Conway's offensive is mostly centered on the back and neck, and by the time he settles in for the always-popular chinlock, the fans' chants have turned around to "Let's Go Chavo," as it seems they always do. That's pretty cool. Chavo eventually escapes the chinlock, and goes on the offensive after an enzuigiri sends Conway to the outside, and Chavo follows up with a plancha.

Lots more high energy offense from Chavo, including a few near falls, but after Conway rolls through on a flying bodyblock and gets a near fall out of it, it looks like the tide might have turned. Conway even stops to taunt the crowd with Eddie's boogie-dance/chest-slap, which infuriates the fans. But then when he turns back to Chavo, and tries to deliver a suplex, Chavo turns it into the Three Amigos of his own. Then it's up to the top, and a Frog Splash. Done and done.

Your Winner: Chavo Guerrero, via pinfall, in about 5-6 minutes. Pretty decent stuff, but it's hard to get super excited when the outcome is pretty well a foregone conclusion.

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WrestleMania Moment: Well, I guess even with a dearth of anticipation for WM at this juncture, we still begin the marketing process... this week's WM moment is Edge winning the Money In The Bank Ladder Match at WM21. Appropriate enough. Also of note: I guess the theme song for WM22 is "Big Time." Trying to extract information from my grade school data banks, I believe the artist was Peter Gabriel, and the video involved a lot of crap that seemed high tech at the time, but then when I saw it again years later on "Beavis and Butthead," it seemed pretty silly. In the genre of 80s Pop, "Big Time" isn't something I remember particularly fondly, but I guess it beats the hell out of WWE using something pooped out by Scott Stapp's new solo project as the theme song....

Backstage: Shawn Michaels is getting taped up, when in walk Kurt Angle and Daivari... Shawn and Kurt bicker over who screwed who last night in the Chamber, when Shawn tries to settle things down by saying, "That was last night, but tonight we have bigger and better things to deal with." The hell? Since when is some random tag team match "bigger and better" than going for the WWE Title? But whatever, the monkeys wrote it, Shawn said it, and we have to deal with it... so the topic turns to whether they can trust each other tonight in a tag match. Angle says that his gold medal proves his "integrity," and says it's Shawn who's likeliest to turn his back on a partner. So Angle says tonight, he's adopting Vince McMahon's "zero tolerance" policy, and if Michaels screws up, he will pay. Hokay...

Elsewhere Backstage: Shelton Benjamin and his Mama have arrived at the building and are walking down a hallway, when Mama spots Val Venis. For some reason, he looks familiar to her, so she goes up and wonders, "I know you, have you been in any movies." Uh oh. Val lights up, because of COURSE he's been in many films. He names a few. I don't know how "Harry Twatter" made it past the censors, but I sure as hell chuckled when it did. Mama finally puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that Val's a porn star, and gets all indignant. Because she's a Christian woman, and has never seen any such films, and she doens't know what Val's implying, but she knows he's going to hell. Then she looks over to Shelton, who is still standing nearby. Then back to Val: oh yes, he's going to hell, and he's going TONIGHT. The announcers wonder what the hell that means, but that's only because they are functionally retarded.

Carlito Cool and Chris F. Masters vs. Time Management

It's time for our "Odd Couple" Tag Team Match. Well, almost time. The heels enter, and then it's deemed necessary to break for....

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Shawn Michaels and Kurt Angle vs. 
Carlito Cool and Chris F. Masters

Michaels and Angle are at odds from the start, and they can't even agree on who'll start the match. So the much-more-cohesive Carlito and CFM help out by just attacking the both of them before the bell. A minute or so of four-way brawling eventually simmers down when Angle tosses Masters out of the ring, leaving Michaels and Carlito alone in the ring to officially start the match.

And here, it's very basic stuff, as Michaels out-wrestles Carlito with headlocks and armdrags and stuff. Then he tags Angle in, who does the same for a minute or two. Then Michaels back in for more of the same. Carlito eventually gets clear long enough to tag in Masters, who comes in and hits maybe one power move before Michaels puts the same basic Mat Wrestling on him, too. Then Angle's in, and it's still more of the same. This honestly lasted for about 6-7 minutes, without much sense of momentum-building or anything.

Finally, around the 7 minute mark, Angle tried to work a hammerlock on Masters, but Master is all big and strong and stuff, so he powered out, and then put a few more power moves on Angle. He got it into his dim little skull that it might be time to try the full nelson. But Angle easily escaped that. Frustrated, Masters just sort of clubbered Angle in the back, and sent him tumbling out of the ring. When Michaels strolled down the apron to check on his partner, Masters body checked him off the apron and to the floor, too. 

Daivari came over to exhort both men to get up, but as they did, they got too busy with bickering with each other over whose fault this all is. They even had to bleep some stuff. So with this break in the action, it's time for more....

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Back, and Angle has clearly been our babyface-in-peril during the break... but after about an additonal minute of Carlito beating him down, they do a cool spot: Angle tries to German Suplex Carlito, but Carlito flips all the way through to land on his feet, but then when Carlito tries to strike again on Angle, Angle snaps off a belly-to-belly, instead. Nice. That creates the opening for both men to make tags.

Michaels comes in a house o' fire, and immediately jumps ahead to the Big Finish by hitting Masters with the Flying Burrito. Kip up. I think Carlito tried to come in, and maybe got an inverted atomic for his troubles. Body slam on Masters. Macho Man Elbow. Michaels tunes up the band. But at this point, for some reason Angle gets the ref's attention, and as Michaels is stomping his foot in the corner, Carlito yanks his legs out from under him and crotches him on the steel ring post. Ref turns around to see Masters still down, and now Michaels down in the corner. He questions Carlito, but you know Carlito's not copping to anything. To say Angle was unconcerned about this turn of events would be an understatement.

So it is thus that Michaels became our True Babyface In Peril. Masters and Carlito tagged frequently and put a thrashing on Shawn, even re-opening his head-wound from the night before. Carlito did all the real work for his team, using Masters more as just the quick punctuation marks scattered about the flowery verbiage of the match. That seemed to work well.

Also, during this beatdown, a subplot developed, as Michaels would periodically hit one move, and try to make a tag, but Angle would be distracted by something. He'd turn around, he'd stroll to another corner, he'd drop to the floor to chat with Daivari.... he screwed Michaels over about 3-4 times on tags. Finally, about 15 minutes into the match, Michaels escaped the full nelson, and tossed Masters out of the ring, and when he went to his corner, instead of trying to tag Angle, he just started pummeling him. The two brawled into the ring, where the ref ruled SHAWN had to leave, because their previous contract constituted a legal tag, afterall. So leave Shawn did. But not before hitting a superkick on Angle.

Shawn stood at the foot of the aisle, watching as Masters recovered and applied the full nelson on Angle. Shawn gestured with the finest manner of gestures (the Broad kind) that Angle would be going to sleep now. Which he eventually did. When Daivari came over to Shawn to protest this miscarriage of justice, Michaels superkicked him, too.

Your Winners: Carlito Cool and Chris F. Masters, via submission, in about 16-18 minutes. Pretty turgid to start, but once they got back from the break and the action picked up and the psychology/storyline kicked in, it was very good. I'd rather that Carlito be given a singles agenda, with Masters as his dumb bodyguard, but outings like this, and I gotta assume (given the shittiness of RAW's tag scene) that Carlito and Masters are probably in line to be the next tag champs. Who else is there, really?

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Backstage: Shawn Michaels is WALKING~! Right into Vince McMahon, who insincerely hopes Shawn's feeling alright, what with his head bleeding again and all. Shawn assures him he'll be just fine. And that makes Vince happy, because he likes what he saw out of Shawn tonight. The OLD Shawn Michaels, the one who'd stab a partner in the back. Shawn doesn't quite take this as a compliment. But Vince hopes that same Shawn is back next week, because you might not be able to trust your tag partner, but you can "always trust [Vince] to make the best matches and deliver the best RAWs ever week." Oh, the ironing. And next week, it's gonna be Shawn vs. Kurt in their deciding rubber match. And on his way out, Vince says, "Yeah, you two will settle the score and then... then I think it'll be time to Move On." Which only makes sense if you remember the ham-handed and pointless speech Vince made about 3 weeks ago in which he equated "moving on" with "forcible retirement."

Elsewhere Backstage: Todd Grisham and Triple H enjoy some clips of last night's match, where HHH beat Big Show. Grisham figures everything must have gone exactly according to plan.... which HHH scoffs at. According to plan? On a night where the "unbeatable" John Cena finally lost his title, but to a guy who wasn't even in the picture a week ago? Nuh uh, that's not "according to plan." That's downright loco. But through it all, Todd's right about one thing: Triple H's plans never go awry. He's the one constant in this business, and when he says something is gonna happen, it happens. So tonight, another promise from Trips: he is going to go to the Royal Rumble. He is going to win. And then he's going to go to WrestleMania and beat whomever is the WWE Champion, to once again sit atop his throne as the "King of Kings." OMG, BLASPHEMY~! Alert Bill O'Reilly and his ilk immediately! How long before somebody takes the Christ-laden lyrics for "Silent Night" and rewrites them with a wrestling theme? Oh, wait.... 
 
Elsewhere Elsewhere Backstage: Victoria, Torrie Wilson, and Boobies McTitsalot have apparently been re-assigned to Housekeeping for tonight, as they are making up a bed. The very bed that we are assured will be used for Edge and Lita's Live Sex Acts later on tonight. Of course, once they make the bed, they are obligated to unmake it, as all three hop in and roll around under the covers for a bit, to the delight of Jerry Lawler and exactly Nobody Else Over The Age of 16. And as for the backstory on the Live Sex Acts? That gets cleared up when the announcers shoot it to....

Last Night After the PPV: Footage of Edge leaving the arena, where he is caught by Todd Grisham (boy, that guy sure gets around). Grisham wants to know how it feels to be champ. It feels good, duh. And then Lita says she can't wait to celebrate, her hungry hands clearly indicating that she and Edge can't get back to the hotel soon enough. But NO~!, says Edge. He's worked too long and too hard (mheh heh heh heh, he said "long" and "hard"), and he's going to celebrate HIS way. Which means no sex tonight! They will save it up. For tomorrow night. When they have live sex in the ring on RAW. Ugh. See what I mean about this whole thing not just being retarded on a theoretical level, but also at a very pragmatic level where it torpedoes Edge's character by making him seem like a retard or a bogus cartoon character or something.... any type of normal, relatable person doesn't accomplish a 15-year goal, and then announce that he's going to celebrate by trying to have sex on national TV. By having Edge behave this way, you invite fans to just stop caring about him entirely. Poor Edge....

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They're Going to Waste 4 Minutes Every Fucking Week, Aren't They?: an update on Stacy Keibler on "Dancing with the Stars." She and her flamboyantly gay expert dance partner didn't get eliminated. Or maybe the guy isn't gay, but only acts like it to score chicks. Which I gather works, in some cases. It's his business if he's only attracted to women who are attracted to fruitcakes. But I digress. New Call To Action for OO Nation: I hereby implore anybody out there who is bothering to watch this crap to vote against her so that she IS eliminated, pronto. So that we quit wasting time on this horseshit.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Val Venis

Under normal circumstances, this could actually hold promise as a fun, well-worked little wrestling match. But you give it less than 4 minutes and make the focus be on Shelton's Mama, and that's simply not gonna happen.

Mama not only nursed Shelton after he got beat up early in the match, but when Val tried to follow Shelton outside the ring, Mama got in the way and allowed Shelton time to recover. All of which might work better if the fans seemed to give a shit about Mama.

Anyway, the Mama Distraction set Shelton up to control the second half of the match, and he eventually tried for his T-Bone Powerslam, but Val blocked it. Then Val stumbled back too close to the ropes, and Mama poked him in the ass with a hair pin. So Val stumbled forwards back into Shelton's waiting arms where this time there was no counter for the T-Bone. Shelton celebrates, again oblivious to the fact that his Mama won the match for him.

Your Winner: Shelton Benjamin, via pinfall, in maybe 4 minutes, tops. Nowhere near a representative sample of what these two COULD do. On the upside, now that Shelton's beaten both Val and Viscera, does that he might possibly need a tag partner for Phase 2 of this mini-feud? Charlie Haas says he reports back to WWE effective next Monday, so that could be interesting...

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Kane vs. Gene Snitsky (Rumble Qualifying Match)

Punch, boot, slobber. Punch, boot, knocker. Chokeslame. Fin.

Your Winner: Kane, via pinfall, in about 30 seconds. You know, there's really no point doing "Rumble Qualifying Matches" if you're going to make them be between One Guy Who Clearly Won't Miss The Rumble and Another Guy Who Nobody Cares About. Just fucking say, "Kane's too good to exclude from the Rumble," and be done with it. Only problem is that once you do that, the excuse for having this "match" evaporates, and the writer monkeys actually have to think of something good or interesting to plug into its place. And that's like REALLY hard work, man. Two straight matches with FF (or, if you're still in the dark ages of TV viewing, "flip away") written all over them... WWE must be sure as hell that "Live Sex Acts" is so strong a draw that they won't lose any viewers no matter WHAT crap they serve up in the final few segments, here... 

After the Match: Kane cuts a Generic Monster Promo. He's all big and mean and stuff, and at the Rumble, he's going to make 29 other men his bitches en route to winning the world title at WrestleMania. You keep telling yourself that, Glen.... and maybe someday, somebody will realize the amount of bullshit you've put up with from the company and actually reward your patience and good-humor appropriately.

Backstage: a limo arrives, and out pops Edge. You know, call me crazy, but if *I* had just won the World Title, I probably would have gotten to the show on time and tried to soak in the entire 2 hour experience of being lauded for my awesomeness. Then again, what do I know? I would have had my sex back at the hotel, so clearly, *I* am the one not thinking sanely, here. Lita greets Edge, and hands him the title belt. Sadly, Edge does not inquire why his bitch hasn't yet fetched him a non-gay title belt, when she's had all day. Instead, they just smooch, and make it clear it's time for Live Sex Acts. After these....

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The Raging AntiClimax

The ring has been transformed into... well, let's be charitable and call it A Cheap College Apartment Bedroom. Because nothing says, "I'm a certified poonhound" like a fricking futon. Luckily, Lita's not the discriminating type. A futon's, like, a billion times classier than just getting bent over the kitchen table like the naughty, naughty girl that she is.

Lillian then introduces the couple. For some reason, Lita has seen fit to change wardrobe. I'd make some half-joke/half-revelation-about-my-personal-tastes about the unnecessary "upgrade" to ridiculous stockings and fancy underwear and whatever, but the pragmatic part of me realizes: she needs layers, so as to entice us with an allegedly-sexy strip-tease. That's all it is, not some willful attempt to make sure I'm the only member of the viewing audience whose wang actually decreases in plumpness. Now the theme of the upcoming "Diva Magazine"? *That* is apparently a purposeful attempt to keep my mighty wang in check; they already did the cheesy overdone-lingerie-theme a few years ago, and it was lame. Although, amidst all the other silliness of that magazine, Molly totally owned all the other divas (I can prove it) and did so by not trying too hard. So hot....

But I digress (is that the third or fourth time I've done that today? I need to check the thesaurus entry for "digress" one of these weeks).... before the fucking can begin, Edge must first address his fans. He starts out with "The Champ is Here." Ohhhh, that'll show 'em! Then he launches into a moderately schizophrenic promo. Because the thing we saw a few minutes ago (from the night before) said all he cares about was celebrating HIS way, with Live Sex Acts.... but now, he's here actually being more on-topic, saying that winning the WWE Title represents everything he's ever worked for. He puts himself over as being the most unpredictable superstar ever, because he schemed up this whole plot to cash in his Money in the Bank, and nobody saw it coming. [Ummm, Edgeward? Some of us got sick of "seeing it coming" months ago, and just stopped predicting it.... don't get too full of yourself.]

He continues to fail to talk about his raging erection or interesting Public Sexual Congress as he discusses the way he proved himself better than Cena, Michaels, Angle, Carltio, Kane, and Masters.... because you don't have to be the biggest or the toughest, you just have to be the smartest. Which is what Edge is. He proved it by being patient, biding his time for 9 long months, and then springing his trap at the perfect time. You know, if Edge just opened the show with a strong, on-topic promo like this (and left the Live Sex Acts on the shelf), things would have gone a whole lot better on the night....

And then, in the awkwardest of awkward segues, Edge just stops mid-thought and announces, "Before we go any further, let's all reminisce about my greatest moments here in WWE." Actually, he says "The WWE," which is a major gripe of mine, but on a show full of gripes, why linger on it? So Edge shoots it up to the TitanTron, where a music video tribute plays. It's a quasi-metal/douche-rock power ballad from Stain'd (my apostrophe, not theirs, although I thought they used to have one). I'm sorry, but that equals FF. Seriously, WWE, we can bicker over musical tastes and what you serve up as background music for your video packages, but this had the Double Whammy of just being an awkwardly placed, heat-killing interruption, rather than fitting into the ebb and flow of the show. Why would you put something like this in there with the sole purpose of killing off whatever fan interest had existed up till that point?

The music video ends, not to boos or to cheers, but mostly just to relief-that-it's-over. Edge proclaims, "After seeing that, I gotta say: I am pretty awesome." Haha. But enough foreplay! Edge came here with a purpose, and the time is here! For some reason, Edge feels the need to inform us all that he and Lita abstained for the last 24 hours. Which accomplishes nothing more than making me hope that at least this'll be over fast. Because unless Edge rubbed one off before hitting the ring, a two-day lay-off means he oughta finish up in about 90 seconds flat. But I'm probably just thinking too hard again, aren't I? And about things that are probably best left not-thought-about...

But now, it is time to release all that pent-up energy. So hit the generic porno music. And the mood lighting. And then: the make-out session begins. As they proceed to the removal of clothing, Edge lingers uncomfortably long on Lita's be-stockinged feet, giving me the idea that I could crack you all up by jesting that "The only person in the entire arena who'd find this nonsense hot would be Snitsky." Except then Coach (damn him!) had to go and ruin it by making a less funny quip along the same lines. You know things are bad when I'm reduced to thinking the same thinks as Jonathan freaking Coachman.

Eventually, both are down to undergarments, and it's time to hop onto the Futon Of Lust. For being such a pair of rabid hornballs, Edge and Lita sure get timid, here, hiding under the covers as they remove the rest of their clothing. Lita's bra and panties are eventually thrown clear of the undulating sheets and comforter; although Edge's man-panties never appeared (perhaps he possesses the Tom-Cruise-like ability to impregnate a woman without ever introducing her to his penis?). There's a brief moment when the screen cuts to black. I am told that this is because Lita's nipple made an appearance from under the covers, and some watching the show straight off the satellite feed got to see it. There may or may not be pictures floating around by this point, 12 hours later. Maybe check the OO Forums. They're usually pretty good about hunting stuff like that down.

Edge and Lita keep messing around under the sheets in what sure as hell appears to be Not Sex Nor Anything Remotely Related To It. But that's just cuz they are now just rolling around and wasting time, until they get bailed out.....

By Ric Flair. Flair stands on the stage, and says he knows championship material, and Edge is no champion in his book. Flair calls Edge not only a joke in the ring, but also a joke in the sack. So he invites himself down to the ring to show Lita how it's done. As Flair takes his time -- crazy man strutting and punctuating his walk to the ring with lewd gestures -- Edge leaps out of bed and frantically puts his pants back on.

So when Flair gets the ring, Edge is waiting for him. But Flair gets the better of it, and peppers Edge with fists, sending Edge out of the ring. Flair wastes some time once again thrusting in Lita's general direction (while Lita, fairly enough, registers ample disgust)... then Flair goes out to catch up with Edge, but in the interim, Edge has found a pal: a steel chair. He wallops Flair with it. Then lays in with a bit more of a beating. Then, he drapes Flair's carcass over the announce table. Slides a second steel chair in under Flair's head. Raises the other up, and....

One Man Con-Chair-to. Ouch. 

For all intents and purposes, Flair is dead, and Edge poses to celebrate his victory.... but that's when John Cena runs out from the crowd to attack Edge. Cena got a few shots in on Edge, nothing major, but enough to send Edge scurrying up the ramp (stopping only long enough to grab the title belt).

Cena wants to fight, but quickly realizes, "Hey, there's a naked babe in the ring with me," and figures he can have some fun with that. So Cena sorta makes it clear that he might have to do something to Lita. Unless Edge wants to come back here and fight this out like men. Lita goes hiding back under the covers again. And Edge seems to be contemplating this difficult decision.... except, it's not so difficult: he's not heading back to the ring. So Cena eventually gives up on that tack, and goes to Plan B.

Which is to rip the sheets off the bed. Awww, Lita found clothes. Then he hoists Lita up on his shoulders, gives Edge one last chance to save the girl (through this all, the once-spunky Lita put up no fight whatsoever; although I realize that on this night, "spunky" is probably not a good word to use in the midst of this segment; but you get the idea.... Lita became a useless, victim-y shrinking violet, here). But Edge is not gonna budge. So an F-U for Lita. Play John Cena's music. And cheer for him! Because nothing says "John Cena's most-boo-free week in a month" like beating up a girl!

Cena stares daggers into Edge as this show comes to a merciful end. One decent wrestling match, which led directly to the announcement of what could be an excellent one next week, and that was about it in terms of highlights. Everything else ranged from pointlessly-boring to outright bad. Not how you capitalize on increased fan interest coming off the PPV, WWE.... boo on you.