Other than random details of my (non-?) cold, unless you want to hear about my kickass glass tower in Minecraft, I don’t really have much to talk about. I’m a little… uh… irritated that the Cubs lost the series against the Reds, but I’ve sort of been conditioned to expect disappointment from them. Still, like I said last week, the season is relatively young…

I’m just hoping Dempster can get it together so I don’t assume an L every time he steps onto the mound. Thank god for Soriano, but if memory serves, the Cubs’ main problem this season is not being able to hit when there are runners in scoring position. They can get in a decent position, but just can’t effectively finish the job… which, really, means they’re relatable to me. No wonder I cheer for them!

Enough overly forced self-deprecating humor. We’ve got RAW tonight, and it will be in all probability better than last week’s effort. Here we go…

Segment 1: We cold-open to Alberto Del Rio entering the ring in his (one of many) car, and we have the reverse camera setup going on, so now the ramp is on the east side of the ring rather than the west. ADR is sad that his destiny to be World Heavyweight Champion was stolen from him… but no matter, because his destiny can only be delayed, not stopped. And it’s for that reason he wants to know why we wasted so goddamn much time with The Rock last week.

So, since ADR is here on RAW and is the greatest superstar in the history of everything, he obviously sees himself as the #1 contender to John Cena’s title.

But here comes Rey Mysterio to disagree. Rey says that ADR’s destiny is to be the personal ring announcer to Ricardo Rodriguez, which doesn’t really make sense, but it makes RR happy. Don’t know if he’s trying to sow seeds of deception or what, but… Anyway, Rey challenges ADR to a match, to which he responds, “What, you want me to beat you for like the thousandth time?” Ha!

But it goes no further than that, because here comes The Miz with Alex Riley in tow. Hooray for Miz! I’m still a believer!

Anyway, Miz says that this is his show, and the WWE Championship is still his title, mostly because it’s all Alex’s fault that anything bad happened. So, the line starts with him. ADR says that that Miz had his shot, failed, so he needs to go to the back of the line. Miz replies that he didn’t fail, because he won the match, and only lost because the referee reversed his decision. But regardless, Miz demands a legitimate rematch against John Cena; meanwhile, he encourages ADR and Rey to “just fight in a Taco Bell parking lot.”

And, uh, here comes R-Truth? Truth begins by saying that he hates hospital food, because it’s smelly, and tastes bad. Uh… okay? Oh, Truth’s point is that the one who’s eating a lot of hospital food now is John Morrison, because Truth beat the shit out of him last week. Truth continues to give some sort of nonsensical blathering, essentially calling out each man and saying they suck, and his super beatdown of JoMo last week proves he should get the shot. He also gives us the line, “When an angry black man is talking, you all need to shut it up.” He then shreds the fans a bit, saying that he’s going to put all of them into beds beside Morrison (which I’m sure the ladies would love), and that’s the truth!

So now it’s time for General Manager HAL 9000 to say something. Apparently, the GM thinks only three of these guys deserve a shot, so we’re going to have a #1 contender’s triple threat match. The one who’s out? R-Truth.

Truth absolutely loses his shit and gets in Rey’s face. Rey pretty calmly says he agrees with the GM, that Truth doesn’t deserve to main event, and “that’s the truth.” Truth’s eyes bulge like a Looney Toons character, but he seethes his way out of the ring and up the ramp.

But the angle isn’t done, because Miz wants the last word. He says that regardless of whatever they did—or didn’t—accomplish on SmackDown doesn’t matter. They’re “bench-warmers and day laborers” here on RAW. RR cuts him off and ADR gives his cocky little wink, so Alex Riley punches him. RR punches Riley, Miz punches RR, ADR and Miz both tumble over the ropes, and then Rey hits ADR with a vaulting flying crossbody. Sweet little chaotic finish to the opening!

Segment 2 [Tag Match]: Kelly Kelly & Eve Torres squash the Bella Twins by pin. I don’t recap squashes. Good of WWE to bury the Divas’ Champion, though; getting buried is what being a champion is all about!

Post-Segment 2: The Bells bail to yell at each other, which proves to be a good move, as Kharma hits the ring. And yet again, the faces just stand in the middle of the ring like complete and total retards as Kharma Ortons her way to the ring.

The Bellas haul ass, and finally K2 decides to get out of the ring. Eve stupidly goes for an attack, which has all the effectiveness of trying to knock out Superman by hitting him in leg with foam rubber. K2 springs to the back, and Kharma hits her sick Super Faithbreaker on Eve.

We get it. She’s strong. She’s the Kane (circa 1999) of the women’s division. Can we just get her into a match now? And where the hell is My Melina? She had a recent photoshoot, so get her on TV already!

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Kane (w/ Big Show) defeats Mason Ryan (w/ CM Punk) by disqualification. Early offense by Ryan, who basically dominated and had one (1) near-fall. But then Kane started his comeback, and we’re time-compressed for some reason, so he never lost momentum. CM Punk tried to interfere, but Show caught him and hit him with a Knockout Punch.

This led the rest of Nexus to hit the ring, whereupon their got their testicles served to them on a golden saucer of love. When Mason tried to reenter the ring, Show and Kane hit him with a double chokeslam. Kane blew his corner pyro, and the faces left with both a moral and actual victory.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Dolph Ziggler (w/ Vickie Guerrero) defeats Santino Marella by pin. Match was practically a squash, with Dolph beating Santino down for two or three minutes. Then Santino started a comeback and readied the Cobra, but Dolph answered with a picture-perfect dropkick. He followed that up with the Zig Zag, and that was that.

Cut Scene: So, they show the clips from Friday, of Christian losing the title. As they come back from that, Josh Mathews immediately gives us the apologist lines (“It’s so totally unfair Christian had to defend his title!”), to which Jerry Lawler gives us the pass-the-buck lines (“Maybe so, but the fans overwhelmingly chose for him to take on Orton! And I have to give him my congratulations!”)

So, in other words, WWE is telling us that we don’t deserve to be angry at them for the title switch, because it’s all our fault in the first place, and it’s really poor little Randy Orton who is the victim here when we should all be congratulating him.

God, I hate WWE sometimes. Fuck you, Vince (and any other writer who decided to feed Lawler those lines).

Segment 5: R-Truth is WALKING~! and, possibly, leaving the arena. He’s also talking to himself, and Scott Anderson appears to ask him what’s going through his mind. It’s a trip none of us wanted to take, and Truth blathers some insanely nonsensical response, especially how fans are begging him to be a face again. But finally he gets around to saying that he’s going to hurt Rey and ADR… but only on his terms.

Pre-Segment 6: Miz is pacing in the locker room. Alex tries to explains his actions from last week, that he so totally had good intentions with the way he manipulated the match. Miz responds that he gave Alex orders, which he ignored, so really, it’s all Alex’s fault. Alex continues to try apologizing, but Miz just keeps flinging insults at him, ending with “I don’t even know why I allow you in my presence.” Seems the bromance is in jeopardy! And clearly Miz is playing the girl!

Alex has an idea to make his faux pas up to him. So Alex leaves the locker room, and the camera follows him as he wanders the halls looking for someone or something… hm…

Oh wait, no, Alex goes to the gorilla position, and shortly comes out to the stage, then to the ring. Alex is given a mic, and he proceeds to say publicly that the only person in his life is Miz. Uh, okay, I was kidding about the bromance thing, but…

Hey! Alex just challenged John Cena to a match! But Cena doesn’t immediately come out, so Alex taunts him by patronizing him as not taking Alex seriously enough. So Alex’s move to express his anger is to fling the microphone up the ramp.

I’m not entirely sure what that exactly that accomplished, but Cenan does indeed hit the ring. A ref materializes, and I guess this is for-real.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: John Cena defeats Alex Riley by submission. Match was fairly short and typical Cena, with Superwigger getting his ass beat early until he decided to swallow his spinach. He hit Alex with an FU, and thereabouts is when Miz hit ringside. Cena spotted him, hit Alex with a second FU while constantly staring at Miz, then even applied an SSTF, again without breaking eye contact with Miz. Alex tapped, and Cena posed and preened in Miz’s general direction.

Segment 7: Michael Cole is in the ring, and he wants our attention. See, since he’s already beaten Lawler twice now, he can’t possibly get any better… ergo, he’s retiring from active competition. Conveniently, he’s retiring as the only undefeated WWE Superstar ever. And when he gets into the WWE Hall of Fame, he wants to be a dual entry, as both an HoF announcer, and an HoF wrestler.

Lawler wants to respond. Cole reminds him that he can’t touch him without being fired. Lawler replies that he remembers that… but is glad that didn’t apply to The Rock, and we get a clip of last week, with Rock putting Cole in his place.

After the clip, Lawler gives Cole one more challenges to a match, saying that Cole wins, not only will Lawler personally inducted Cole into the HoF, he’ll give Cole his own HoF ring.

Cole thinks about it, but says no. He retreats to his Lexan blast shield, and bitches out Lawler for taking away Cole’s spotlight one more time. He gives a few cheap heat lines, then turns to talking about how yesterday was Mother’s Day, and how there’s nothing better in life than spending that day with one’s mother. So what did Lawler do? Oh that’s right, his mom’s dead!

And with that, all the light-hearted feelings from Lawler go out the window. Lawler bails from the ring and gets to the Lexan shield, and actually manages to kinda-slap Cole. But then Cole retreats a hair, and the door pops open. This leads to an ironically hilarious moment where Lawler has to figure out how to be pissed off and unable to reach Cole when he clearly, in fact, can reach Cole. So Lawler delays that half-moment where you can tell he’s thinking about it, and he finally decides to start retardedly hopping back and forth and start to climb the outside of the Lexan shield. As Kirk Lazarus will tell you, it’s never good to go full retard.

Jack Swagger then appears. His first act is to hit Jerry in the back of the head with a forearm, essentially squishing Lawler’s face into the glass. Jack then flings Jerry into the ring post, and shakes hands with a thankful Cole.

Segment 8 [Singles Match for the United States Title]: Kofi Kingston defeats Jack Swagger by pin, and retains. Damn fine match, plenty of back and forth action, Jack and Kofi work well together. No exceptional high spots, but the psychology was above typical WWE average. Kofi kept going for the Trouble in Paradise, but Jack kept slipping away. Eventually, Jack got the Ankle Lock on Kofi, but Kofi was hanging onto the ropes. Jack had to break it but used the full four-count.

From there, Jack kept targeting the ankle. Kofi had one hope spot, possibly his third Trouble in Paradise, but he whiffed again due to his ankle not holding up. But finally, just as Jack seemed to have things in control, Jerry Lawler reappeared on the stage. Jack was distracted by this, and that moment’s hesitation is all it took: Kofi hit him with the Trouble in Paradise, finally, and that was it.

Post-Segment 8: Jerry hauls ass to the ring and beats the shit out of Jack before flinging him over the barricade. He then runs around to the Lexan shield, tries to figure out what to do about Cole, then reaches in and grabs his tie through one of the arm holes. Jerry then pulls repeatedly on it, making Cole headbutt the Lexan about two dozen times before finally refs appear and pull him away.

Jack gets back over the barricade, infiltrates the Cole Mine, and pulls Cole to safety. Jack also finds a mic and heaves into it as he declares that Jerry is so totally fired. But Jerry finds his own mic and declares he so totally only touched Cole’s tie, not Cole himself, so he’s so totally not fired! (And I guess this means we’re retconning out the fact that Jerry actually did manage to half-slap him in Segment 7?)

So Jack’s response, logically, is to accept Jerry’s earlier challenge on behalf of Cole. So I guess Lawler vs. Cole III will take place at the next pay-per-view, in two weeks. Cole doesn’t look happy about it, not that I blame him. Big cheers for Lawler for this whole sequence, though, and we’ve got yet another picture of Cole’s face getting squished that will definitely someone’s avatar on the OO Forums.

Segment 9: [Triple Threat Match for the #1 Contender to the WWE Championship]: The Miz defeats Rey Mysterio by pin and outlasts Alberto Del Rio. Good match, no massive high spots, back and forth from beginning to end. Rey bores me, but Miz and ADR kept my interest for the match. Good stuff.

The pace was kept fast thanks to the three guys, with Rey for the most part taking heel beat downs but getting in the occasional hope spot. At the end, Alex Riley came back out. Miz at the time was outside the ring and basically unconscious, so he didn’t really care. ADR was distracted by Alex’s presence however, so Rey started to gain momentum. He hit ADR with the 619, followed by a corner top rope splash. He pinned for 1… 2…

And then Alex came around the side and pulled ADR out of the ring from the north side. No DQs in a Triple Threat match, so the ref couldn’t do anything but stand there confused. As Rey also looked confused toward the north side, Miz slid back in the ring from the east side and did a quick school boy pin.

All is forgiven, as Alex and Miz are arm-in-arm as they walk up the ramp, just like two young bromance lovers should be.

Post-Segment 9: And here comes John Cena one more time because, hey, why not. Cena is here to congratulate Miz… just like he did the night after he lost the title at Extreme Rules. See, Cena isn’t one to make excuses, although that’s all Miz ever seems to have. So at Over the Limit, their rematch will be one where Miz can’t have any excuses… because it’ll be an “I Quit” match.

Cena leaves, and Miz looks concerned, but not exactly worried. He and Alex continue to the back.

And in the ring, Rey is still there. R-Truth materializes through the crowd and comes into the ring from the west side, and hits Rey with a falling front neckbreaker. Jerk.

Final Thoughts: A definite improvement over last week, but we only had two not-shitty matches, which is a far cry from the pro wrestling I remember. I suppose it was sustainable episodic television though, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Even Cena kept his performance low-key, which is all I can ask for at this point.

I’m not looking forward to Lawler/Cole anymore, though Truth/Rey intrigues me. This is the first time I can recall that Truth has ever been asked to be in the upper midcard, so I’m curious how exactly he handles it. I dismissed him immediately when he first got the “promotion” (after turning heel and being asked to go against Morrison), but now, I’m not so sure. Truth has just the right amount of crazy going for him that he doesn’t seem like a caricature of himself, yet he’s just crazy enough that his random attacks and nonsensical promos actually work for him. That’s gotta be a tough line to walk.

In the ring, Truth has always gotten by with twirly moves and speed, but as a heel, he’s not allowed to do much of that stuff… definitely no pop-and-locks between leg drops and that kind of thing. I don’t recall ever seeing Truth in a position where his move set is so limited, so I’m really curious on how well that’ll work for him. Can we buy him if he’s just being all trashy brawly? Guess we’ll see.

Everyone else? Meh, I said what I needed to say in the recap proper, so it doesn’t do either of us any good for me to keep prattling down here. Other than missing My Melina, I suppose this episode was a decent effort, and hopefully WWE is finally back on track… well, as “back on track” as we’re going to get in 2011, anyway.