I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do with my suddenly cleared schedule. One thing I’ve always wanted to do, just for a day of unbridled peace, is to lock myself away from the world and give myself a Godfather marathon. I’ve attempted it twice but outside circumstances always stopped me. I think at some point over the next week, I’ll disconnect myself from the world (no Internet or cell phone), and just watch all the Godfather movies back-to-back.
  

Yes, even Part III, since I’m apparently one of the four people in the entire world who didn’t think it was an abortion. (Although Sofia Coppola’s acting set new lows, I’m sure.) [Ed. Note: as a Godfather fanboy, I'll agree that Part III isn't the heaping helping of Suck it's often made out to be. Rather, it is merely unnecessary. I've joked in the past that it's like a third nipple: sure, you figure more of a good thing is better, but when you get right down to it, you're used to how awesome just having access to the usual two are, and you end up neglecting the superfluous one, and only occassionally go out of your way to deal with it.]

So, uh, that’s my exciting life as a poor bachelor who works in retail and hates almost every moment of it. But that’s not all I do of course, since we’ve got wrestling tonight and tomorrow! One show at a time, so let’s get to RAW, where three of my newest least favorite people on the planet will be guest-starring.

Segment 1: We’re opening with Johnny Ace, flanked by boytoy David Otunga, who hits the ring immediately. He’s here to introduce and put over Brock Lesnar, so I guess Lesnar is actually trying to be a heel? After a recap of Lesnar’s return last week, he pops out and joins the heels in the ring. Has he always sported that minor cauliflower ear on his right side, or is that from UFC?

Lesnar establishes his alignment immediately by thanking Ace for “reintroducing legitimacy into WWE,” which brings a solid wall of boos. John Cena immediate pops out to retort, though he too gets a solid wall of boos. Cena steps right up to Lesnar, insincerely thanks him, then slaps him across the face.

Lesnar pulls out a double leg takedown, proving that he hasn’t forgotten a damn thing from MMA, and he and Cena brawl. The entire back room empties, refs, wrestlers, and road agents alike who come in to pull them apart. Cena’s got a bloody mouth for his efforts; dunno if that’s legit or just effects, but it certainly helps add to the story. I think it was legit because Lesnar seemed like he either forgot how to pull punches or just didn’t give a shit during that initial takedown.

Justin King meanwhile finds himself on the outside of the pile, so all he can do is wave angrily as if he’s calling off a match; if he was in the center of it, he probably would have been throwing elbows himself. Someone put that man in a triple threat match!

After several charges and pull-aparts, they finally got Lesnar out of the ring, and we faded out to commercial despite a Staredown of Intense Rivalry.

Pre-Segment 2: Okay, we get a replay of the opening after commercial. Lesnar definitely didn’t pull that first punch to Cena’s face, but then he misses or pulls the rest.

Segment 2: After that, we see Ace chewing out Teddy Long in the back, saying that the brawl was “all Teddy’s fault,” which of course makes no sense to anyone. He orders Teddy to go find Cena and ask what the hell that was all about.

After T-Long leaves, Eve arrives and hits on Ace. We have no idea what she wants because she doesn’t want to discuss it, but she does invite him to call her.

Segment 3 [Tag Match]: Brodus Clay & Santino Marella (w/ Naomi & Irrelevant) defeat Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger (w/ Vickie Guerrero) by pin. Decent match but nothing overly special. This is the first match where we’ve seen Clay against a credible opponent, and Jack Swagger kept him contained to be a false face in peril. But then we went to commercial, and when we came back, it was Santino who was the true face in peril. It was so bad that Santino lost the Cobra out of his singlet, and referee McDoucher decided the best idea was to stuff it in his pockets.

Dolph was legal when Santino was able to get the hot tag, and Brodus’s house of fire spot was simply never extinguished. He finished off Dolph almost like it was a squash.

Segment 4: The Miz is in the back and sucking up to Ace, but Ace doesn’t have the time to deal with him. He politely dismisses him, and then Long comes back with Cena in tow. Cena manages to insult The Rock, then accuses Ace of getting Lesnar to take him out at Extreme Rules.

But Cena isn’t scared, and hell: he still wants to compete tonight despite his mouth being a mess. He tells Ace he’ll fight anyone, anytime, anywhere, and then he marches off out of the office. Ace orders Long to deliver the message that David Otunga will be facing Cena tonight, and that Ace will be in his corner.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: R-Truth defeats Cody Rhodes by pin. I’m pretty sure R-Truth did the Ass Voltron with Little Jimmy on the stage before coming down to the ring. It must have given him good luck, because he pretty much beat the hell out of Cody the moment the match started. The instant Cody started getting any sort of momentum, Big Show arrived to toss a video clip on the Titantron of Cody losing to Kofi Kingston last week. It was enough of a distraction for Truth to finish him off quickly.

Segment 6: After two cut scenes of searching that I didn’t bother recapping, Santino finds a giant crate in the back. When he opens it, the Three Stooges unfortunately pour out. Stupidity ensues, and I think I lost more brain cells watching it than if I had had a stroke.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Lord Tensai (w/ Sakamoto) squashes Yoshi Tatsu by referee stoppage. Basically the same as last week. The fans were doing their best to chant “Albert… Albert…,” but the commentators did their best to cover it up. Good action from Tensai, can’t wait to see who his credible feud is going to be against.

Segment 8: CM Punk is here to take on Mark Henry, but he wants to talk first regarding the crap Chris Jericho is pulling on him. Punk opens by putting over his straightedge lifestyle and explains it by calling it simply what it is: a way of life. Punk knows he has always stated how proud he is to be straightedge, but the reasons behind it were close to the vest. He kept it quiet because it wasn’t really anyone’s business, and it never really mattered. He swore he would make it to the top of WWE not because of any lifestyle decisions, but because he’s the best goddamned wrestler in the world.

But then comes Jericho, who tried to get in Punk’s head by calling himself the best in the world. But since that didn’t work, Jericho’s tactic was to start getting overly personal, and in fact lying about Punk’s sister or the legitimacy of his birth. But even after all that, Punk made Jericho tap at WrestleMania, which has led to Jericho’s total assault last week. But as Punk lied there after the attack, soaked in the whisky from the bottle Jericho broke over his head, he only had one thought in his mind:

“I smelled like my father did.”

Uh… really? We really are going down that route?

Punk starts to elaborate, but then Jericho pops up on the Titantron. He says the same stuff he did before WrestleMania: he’s sure he just “unlocked that alcoholic gene that Punk inherited from his father.” But Jericho wants Punk to enter a recovery program, and the first step is to admit he’s powerless against alcohol! And Punk needs to admit it, because we fans don’t see him as the best in the world, but we see a “living, breathing, loser.” Punk is just mad because last week, the world got to see the first incarnation of “CM Drunk.”

And Punk is apparently seriously humiliated from all this despite the chants to support him… but, swerve! Punk says that while the memories may have come flooding back, the only thing Jericho broke last week was that bottle. So Punk is going to focus every bit of this “dark place” he visited into beating the shit out of Jericho, because “it’s no longer about being best in the world, it’s about kicking your ass.”

And here comes Mark Henry for their match, but Punk is still awfully pissed.

Segment 9 [Singles Match for the WWE Championship]: Mark Henry reverse-squashes CM Punk by disqualification, but CM Punk retains. Punk beat the shit out Henry, but Henry managed a clothesline out of nowhere to defend himself. So Punk rolled out of the ring, but headed over to the announcers’ table. Once Henry came to follow, Punk stole a monitor and smashed Henry with it twice, drawing the DQ.

Post-Segment 9: Punk wanted to do more, but then Jericho’s music hit. Punk completely forgot about Henry, but Jericho took a while to get there, so Henry jumped Punk. The fight got back in the ring, and Henry hit the World’s Strongest Slam before leaving.

Well, when Jericho finally got to the ring, he came with twelve friends… specifically beer cans. He was about to pour one on Punk’s face, but Punk managed a hope spot and fought him off… until a Codebreaker out of nowhere. Jericho then did to Punk to boos what Stone Cold Steve Austin has done a hundred times to cheers.

The refs hit the ring once Jericho is most of the way through his second six-pack, with Justin King once again pissed off and looking like he wants to throw Jericho over the top rope, probably because he knows he’ll have to squeegee the ring clean. But Jericho finishes pouring the beers on Punk anyway, then hits a second Codebreaker.

And then he goes out and steals Punk’s title just to pose with it. Man, he’s good at being a dick.

Pre-Segment 10: I was right, Justin King is the ref for the next match. He is totally going to break the squeegee over Jericho’s face after the show.

Segment 11 [Singles Match]: Alberto Del Rio (w/ Ricardo Rodriguez) extend-squashes Zack Ryder by submission. Zack’s only offense was his running kick, but when he went for the Rough Ryder to follow up, ADR blocked it and quickly applied the cross-legged arm breaker, which Zack tapped out to in a nanosecond. Just to be a jerk, ADR stole one of Zack’s armbands to wipe his sweat.

Segment 12: The Three Stooges hit the ring, and thank god the WWE audience boos the shit out of them, even when they try to get a cheap pop. Then even I have to admit they do something cute when Curly hits the ring to Hulk Hogan’s music and attire, and even somehow managed to apply the fake tan over the commercial break. Cole even gets in a cheap shot and says that the Hulkster “has apparently lost some weight.” Burn.

Then Curly does a perfect imitation of Hulk’s voice and mannerisms; it’s fucking brilliant! But it’s still not enough for the fans to do anything but boo the hell out of it, leading to a bizarre moment where they’re forced to cheer Kane when he pops out. Well, it’s cheers at first, though it soon switches to apathy as Kane is halfway down the ramp.

Moe and Larry bail, and Curly tries to hulk up (the fans even say the “You!” part of it along with him), but Kane just chokeslams him and leaves.

That should tell you something right there: these idiots are so bad that they were booked to get their asses kicked, and the fans still couldn’t care enough to give it more than a smattering of applause.

Segment 13: Josh Mathews interviews Henry in the back, who bitches and moans about the match tonight, but he reports that he’s already spoken to Ace. Next week, we’re going to see Punk and Henry again for the title, but it’ll be no-DQ.

Segment 14: After commercial, Mathews now interviews Brock, who puts himself over with a lot of bullshit, but hey, it works for him. Brock tries to be a heel, but he just gets cheered when he says that Cena can’t hold his jockstrap. Ewww…

Pre-Segment 15: Main event time. Cena’s pre-entrance words are that he might be scuffed up, but he’s still here, so let’s roll!

Segment 15 [Singles Match]: John Cena defeats David Otunga (w/ Johnny Ace) by submission. Standard Cena match, and I think at this point I don’t have to explain what I mean by that anymore. Cena’s lip started bleeding again pretty early, but he ignored it as he FU’ed and STF’ed to victory.

Post-Segment 15: And then Brock Lesnar came down to play soccer with Cena’s… uh… Fruity Pebbles. Once Cena got up from that, Brock immediately hit him with an F5, and the fans were mostly cheering him. The only reason they started booing at all was because they started cheering “One more time!,” and he didn’t oblige.

Final Thoughts: Decent match but nothing special. And really, I think I did enough commentary in the body of the recap that I don’t really have much to share here… plus I have technical computer issues I need to deal with, so I’m going to call it a night.

There were no announcements for next week’s RAW other than the Punk/Henry title match. However, remember that tomorrow (actually “tonight” by the time you’re reading this) we’re going to have an 80s-themed live edition of SmackDown on Syfy. Those are always special, so if you don’t watch week to week, you might want to give it a watch. Either way, we’ll have the recap for you on Wednesday, and then we’ll have a long weekend until next week’s RAW!

Until tomorrow, everyone…

Episode Grade: C+