I hate wasting money, both on general principle and because I don’t exactly have high-paying jobs. It’s worse when the money in question is triple-digits, as is my MLB.com subscription. For $120, I get to watch all baseball games whenever I damn well please on my computer, my PS3, or my Xbox 360. Hell, on the computer, I can watch up to four games at once!
 

But the thing is that I, you know, actually have to watch them. It’s already the middle of April and I haven’t seen one pitch since literally last August. The only team I can’t watch are the Reds when they’re in Cincinnati due to blackout restrictions, but unless they’re playing the Cubs, who cares. Philly—or more accurately, Roy Halladay—is fun to watch too as a backup.

  

I’ve not been extremely busy, so I’m not sure what’s holding me up. I think often I forget I even have the service, which means it’s definitely a waste of cash. I need to take some time some day soon and catch a game. IGN Entertainment calls though, and anything that actually makes me money takes priority obviously… I suppose I’ll find some time one of these days to catch the Cubs who are, last I checked, second-to-last in their division. [Ed. Note: if it helps, I've already missed two Reds games, with my excuse being the stupid scheduling during the first two weeks of the season. Oddly placed off days, and then day games on weekdays to accomodate all the opening days and home openers... not that I could have watched them, since I'm a cheapskate. But I could have at least followed along on At Bat 2012, which only costs $15, and already seems like the best $15 I'll ever spend on an app.]

As little as I watch baseball though, I never miss WWE RAW or SmackDown! So let’s get to RAW, where thankfully the Three Stooges have gone back to Hollywood and won’t sully the ring anymore…

Opening: We are (not) live from the United Kingdom, specifically in the famous O2 arena in London! And even better, we’re starting off hot with the no-DQ/no-countout WWE Championship match! Assuming nothing stupid is going to happen.

Wait, Mark Henry is already in the ring and doesn’t get an entrance? That’s not good…

Segment 1 [No-DQ/No-Countout Singles Match for the WWE Championship]: CM Punk defeats Mark Henry by pin, and retains. Huh, okay. Clean finish to a clean match given the stipulation. Solid match that was mostly Henry on offense doing punchy-kicky-slammy offense. It didn’t hook me, but holy shit was the crowd hot. Like, to the point where they were distracting… I guess you could call them “wanker hot.” They were super into Punk, but fired up some Daniel Bryan-like “Yes! Yes! Yes!” calls whenever Punk did, well, anything. Why do I have a feeling that DB is going to be a face tonight and for SmackDown no matter how hard he tries not to be?

Anyway, the match… it was good, but nothing extraordinary. They made decent use of the stip but didn’t fight any farther than ringside. The match ending was cleverly set up halfway through, when Henry wedged a chair between the top and middle ropes in the corner, intending to throw Punk into it.

Punk wiggled out and the match went on for another seven good minutes or more. At the end, Punk had Henry in the corner and did his signature running knee, but when he tried the follow-up bulldog, Henry threw him off. Punk crawled to the corner with the chair, which by then I had forgotten was there. Henry charged with I guess a Spear, evidently forgetting too, and Punk dodged, making Henry smash his head into the chair. Punk then took the chair, climbed to the top rope, and came down with it on Henry’s face. One pin later, and the crowd goes ballistic.

Post-Segment 1: As Punk is in the ring getting his brains back together—he took a couple chairshots too—Chris Jericho appears on the Titantron. He’s broadcasting live from a bar, and he reports that he’s been granted a championship match against Punk by Johnny Ace. Jericho had to make one concession though: the match will be a “Chicago street fight.”

Punk finds a mic and says that he doesn’t think Jericho can possibly survive it. Hell, Punk just showed what he can do when there are no DQs, and Punk will get to do this in front all his friends and family for extra motivation!

Well, Jericho isn’t so sure about that, and just wants Punk to show up sober. See, Jericho followed Punk earlier today… and we see a guy who seems to be Punk (though he’s wearing a hat and the camera is clearly a camera phone) walk into a pub, then walk out.

Punk says that sure, he did walk into a pub, but to hang out with his friends and eat some fish and chips. Why doesn’t Jericho come down to the ring and smell Punk’s breath?

Jericho says that that’s just denial. Punk is totally on the path to alcoholism, and has lost everything including his honor and beliefs. And on Extreme Rules, he’s going to lose his title too.

Punk wants to respond but the video cuts, which I guess is Jericho hanging up on him, even though this wasn’t really a video conference. But whatever… Punk nods and accepts his cowardice, and we move on.

Segment 2: R-Truth thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes, down to the hat and pipe. Hilarity ensues when Teddy Long appears. Truth says that he (and his assistant, Little Jimmy Watson) are going to track down a job for T-Long. As Truth leaves, Long says that somehow, that’s the best news he’s heard all month. Funny, but it’s definitely something you need to actually see; translating it to text won’t work.

Segment 3 [Singles Match for the United States Championship]: Santino Marella defeats David Otunga by pin. I’m not yet willing to write “extend-reverse-squash” as a header, but that’s what this match was. Santino got his ass handed to him, even got pinned, but his foot was on the ropes. Otunga responded to that by arguing with the ref, and Santino nailed him with the Cobra to stop his bitching.

Segment 4: Josh Mathews “interviews” Lord Tensai in the back, who speaks a little Japanese and just makes the statement “I know what you fear.” Uh, okay.

Segment 5: Brock Lesnar does an interview, but it’s a produced video package of a monologue rather than a back-and-forth. Lesnar puts himself over and runs down his résumé, and he walks a tweener line by saying he doesn’t give a shit about the fans, but he’s also back because he wants to beat the shit out of John Cena. Specifically, he says that if he had been here for the last eight months, “Cena would be the guy carrying my bags into the building.”

After saying that Cena is apparently pissing and shitting his pants over him, Lesnar also goes on to basically say that he’s not a wrestler (or a “superstar”), but just someone who wants to beat everyone up, because that makes him happy. No wonder he came back to WWE, since he clearly he wasn’t “happy” after getting the shit beaten out of him by Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem.

Segment 6: We were supposed to have a Zack Ryder vs. Kane match here. Ryder was out there first, then Kane came down, blew his corner pyros, then beat the shit out of Zack before the bell. Kane concluded the assault with a chokeslam.

The lights went red, then Kane picked up a mic to cut a promo against Randy Orton. It was provocative but not interesting.

Segment 7: Kofi Kingston is in the back, talking to AJ and I think trying to give her his phone number. Daniel Bryan appears in the background, and the fans give him massive cheers. He calls bullshit on Kofi hitting on her because “Even though I don’t want her, it’s not open season on her.” Then he says that he's renaming the LaBelle Lock the "YES Lock," because (a) who did Gene LaBelle ever beat anyway?, and (b) when DB locks in the submission hold, and when the ref asks his opponent if he wants to tap, he’ll have no choice but to scream “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Ingenious.

I’m stupid (one of my billions of faults) and went back and counted: Daniel Bryan said “Yes!” twenty-five times. And the fans ate that shit up, cheering louder for each one. Idiots.

Segment 8: Here comes John Cena to the ring. He cuts a fairly boring promo that actually puts Lesnar over (sorta), saying that Lesnar isn’t here to win, but to take Cena himself out; that draws massive cheers and the “Yes! Yes!” chants again. Cena admits he’s actually a bit scared given Lesnar’s reputation, but He. Will. FIGHT!!!

Whatever. But here comes Johnny Ace to talk stupid shit too. He says that Cena’s got a warmup Extreme Rules singles match tonight against a secret opponent, and next week will be a Cena/Lesnar contract signing. Apparently, this is all excitement for the new People Power Era, whatever the fuck that means.

Cut Scene: Truth is still looking for a job for Teddy Long, I guess, and runs into Hornswoggle, who I guess wants to help, or something.

Segment 9 [Singles Match]: Daniel Bryan defeats Kofi Kingston by submission. Huh, DB looks like a psychic. The fans were overwhelmingly pro-DB, but they weren’t actually anti-Kofi (other than when Kofi stole DB’s “Yes!” taunt just to be a hilarious jerk. It was a good match, but I’ll be honest: I haven’t been entertained in the episode at all, and while the crowd may be super-hot, I’m super-cold and just couldn’t get into it. I wouldn’t mind seeing these two go again to open a show.

DB won by his submission, which according to Cole, use to be called the LeBell Lock, but is now called the Yes Lock. Or maybe even Yes! Lock, like it’s Yahoo! or something. As if my Clippy wasn’t already hating me enough for all the misspelled and new words to the dictionary, now he’s going to get angry at me for my supposedly non-existent grammar.

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Brodus Clay (w/ Naomi & Irrelevant) squashes Dolph Ziggler (w/ Jack Swagger & Vickie Guerrero) by disqualification. Clay had all the offense, so Swagger tried interfering after about 20 seconds. The DQ was drawn, but Clay fought them both off anyway. Also, Naomi shoved Vickie after Vickie kicked Irrelevant.

Segment 11: Ace is talking to Otunga, with Ace trying to sell Otunga on working on his abilities in the ring (talk about stating the obvious). Eve then arrives and reminds him that they’re supposed to have a one-on-one meeting. Ace considers it and accepts it, but invites Otunga to join them for some sort of “idea.”

Segment 12: Two weeks ago, Chief Jay Strongbow passed away after SmackDown was taped. They cobbled together a video package but didn’t say anything more about him. I thought that was the end of it, but Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole break character to give short, personal tributes about the guy to-camera before replaying the video package. Good tribute.

Segment 13: R-Truth finds Teddy Long and reports that he found the perfect job for him: SmackDown general manager! Long says that’s stupid, because that’s the job he was fired from in the first place. Truth says that means it’s perfect for him. Heh, cute.

Pre-Segment 14: RRRRRROOOSSSAAA!!! Oh, how I’ve missed you… And now, apparently I’ve missed your almost-flesh-colored corset even though I never knew you had one.

Segment 14 [Tag Match]: Big Show & Khali defeat Primo & Epico (w/ My Rosa Mendes) by pin. Basically a squash, the tag champs got their asses kicked and tried to run away. Show wasn’t having that and threw them in the ring, where Khali brain-chopped them one at a time. Show then joined him in the ring, and they hit stereo chokeslams. They also did pointless stereo pins, but it certainly sent a message.

Segment 15 [Extreme Rules Singles Match]: Lord Tensai (w/ Sakamoto) defeats John Cena by pin. Standard Cena match, nothing interesting until the very end. Cena tried getting momentum when Otunga came down to interfere, but Otunga just ate an FU for his effort. But it gave time for Tensai to recover and hit Cena with the Green Mist, followed by a sit-down powerbomb for the win. Whatever.

Final Thoughts: Meh. I just absolutely could not get into RAW tonight. The opener was solid, but the rest was… just, not. Nothing was overtly bad; I guess WWE usually doesn’t do anything story-heavy while overseas, and it really showed tonight.

SmackDown returns to its normal timeslot, 8pm Eastern on Friday. However, RAW will be a three-hour special next week and will start at 8pm on Monday. I’ll need to double-check my DVR to make sure it’ll be picked up right.

Other than that, I don’t have any post-show notes, so I’m going to call it a night from wrestling and get back to work. Have a good week, everyone.

Episode Grade: D