But good god, do drivers piss me off. It’s bad enough with retail models, but especially with machines you build yourself, matching up which video cards don’t argue with which applications and monitors and CPUs and so on. And sometimes, drivers aren’t thoroughly tested, and so we get a situation where the newest nVidia driver makes some of my games unplayable and kills my video processing software on launch.

And for whatever reason, Windows 7 didn’t bother backing up my drivers, so I had to fetch an old one from the site. At least nVidia is smart enough to make all their drivers (even legacy drivers) available for download all the time.

Of course, all this is a “first-world problem” (a phrase I’m increasingly hating and, in fact, I pretty much feel ashamed of myself for even using), so my rant isn’t meant to be taken as some sort of epic whine that the world is over. At least my computer is mostly functional, which is more than I can say for the one I blew up two years ago. But the Xbox and PlayStation don’t have this problem, and I find myself never able to give up consoles as a result, even though I could probably afford to be a PC-only gamer.

But now that my drivers are updated and everything seems functional, it’s time to concentrate on the RAW recap! I go into work later than normal for some reason tomorrow, so I’ll be staying up after the recap to get a few other projects worked on. Hopefully this RAW won’t take me all night…

Segment 1: We cold-open to the back, where we see Triple H walking through the back in his metal “mechanical” cast. He runs into Johnny Ace, who immediately says he so totally didn’t know Brock Lesnar would attack him a couple weeks ago. Johnny was even in pain to see Trips assaulted, then humiliated, then injured. But he’s got Ace’s support and sympathy!

Trips says nothing, which Ace calls him on. Trips just says that anything he has to say, he’ll say in a moment in the ring… and good luck against John Cena this Sunday. Heh.

Segment 2: Trips makes his entrance and takes a mic. He doesn’t fiddly-fart here and just goes right to the point: it’s not what Brock did to him that really bothers him; it’s what Brock said. See, Brock blathered all about “bringing legitimacy back to WWE,” to which Trips offers this hilarious line:

The day before he came back here, I was standing in the ring in front 78,000 people at the most watched WrestleMania in history, going toe-to-toe with the Undertaker, and the whole time all I could think to myself was ‘Geez, I wish somebody could come along and make this legitimate.’

Heh, perfect delivery. He goes on that Brock’s blathering has offended everybody from Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker to Bob Backlund and Randy Savage. Further, it offends Trips as a fan, which is how he started, always was, still is, and always will be.

But finally, Trips is embarrassed, not for the assault, but because he “bought into Brock’s crap,” just as he did a decade ago. Brock rocketed to the top of WWE just as everyone thought, but once he “had to fight,” and that staying on top was a challenge… he quit. And he took that fame and momentum, went to UFC, rocketed to top of that organization, but when staying on top of that challenge, he quit UFC. Ha! I’m surprised Trips didn’t bring up the Minnesota Vikings too.

Trips goes on that after Brock quit UFC, he came back because he looked at John Cena as some pussy. But when Cena kicked his ass, that was challenge… so he quit WWE again. Awesome.

Uh oh, wait… Brock’s music is starting up. But it’s not Lesnar himself, but Paul Heyman and Some Guy beside him carrying a manila envelope. Hmm…

Heyman and Guy get in the ring. Guy stays silent, but Heyman says that he gets what Trips is saying… because all executives say this kind of crap when they lose their biggest star, which is totally what has happened. And further, we still have this whole issue of a verbal contract that Brock made with Ace, and it’s totally binding. It’s at this point that Guy hands Trips a stack of papers, which Heyman says “Consider yourself served.” Heyman is using the phrase wrong, but the point is made: we’ve got a lawsuit on our hands as Brock is suing for all the cash WWE owes him after Ace gave his verbal consent.

Heyman goes on that from a professional standpoint, Brock is “disappointed” in WWE and how things turned out. But personally, Brock is disappointed in Trips because he didn’t put up a fight, and that he didn’t live up to his hyped that’s been surrounding him for 20 years.

Heyman taunts Trips some more and mocks the brace, and Trips has enough of that shit, so he basically grabs Heyman’s face and shoves him against the ropes. Some Guy bails, and Heyman craps himself, but Trips restrains himself. Trips does throw the lawsuit papers into Heyman’s crotch, and then says that Brock will totally get what’s coming to him.

Trips’s music plays as Trips heads up the ramp. But Heyman isn’t done, and his blathering cuts off Trips’s mic. Heyman says that now Trips has a second lawsuit, this one for assault and battery, and he’ll totally see Trips in court.

Thrilling. I would have preferred that last bit coming later in the in some sort of aside… it just seemed to take a good ending to the segment and make it lame.

Segment 2 [Tag Match]: CM Punk & Santino Marella defeat Cody Rhodes & Daniel Bryan by pin. Solid match that strikes a balance between comedy and workrate. Though a little on the short side, it’s a definite crowd-pleaser.

Cute spot to lead us into commercial. Punk was the legal man, and he started the spot by flinging Rhodes out of the ring on the west side of the ring. DB tried to nail Punk from behind, but Punk back body dropped him over into Cody. With both heels dazed, Punk hit the opposite ropes and did a suicide dive through the west ropes to take them both down; standard spot for this situation. But then, Santino Hulked Up and decided he wanted to play as well, so he tried to copy Punk’s move… and wound up slamming his chest so hard into the middle rope that he winded himself. Everyone else in the match gave a perfect “WTF?” expression as we faded out.

Back from commercials and the heels are fully in control, with Santino playing the Face in Peril (and me popping another button on my silk shirt, which means I have something else to write on my list to pick up from work tomorrow). Santino rallies as Cody tries to maintain momentum, and Santino does a somersault roll to dodge a clothesline. Then he dives for the hot tag…

And falls short by a good foot, flopping and faceplanting perfectly. Damn fine and hilarious spot, and it’s just a delay to the inevitable. After Cody gets done laughing at Santino and runs up to attack him, Santino kicks him off, then does a second dive to actually hit the hot tag!

Punk goes House of Fire and kicks tons of ass on Cody, hitting him with his signature running knee-to-bulldog chain. Punk makes the cover, but sees DB enter the ring and hops up to stop him. DB loses the grapple and nearly gets a GTS, but wiggles out and says “fuck it” before running halfway up the ramp. Cody thinks he can take advantage of Punk jawing at DB from the distance, but Punk shoves Cody toward Santino, who is still on the apron. Santino faces the Cobra, making Cody shirk away… right into Punk’s waiting arms, who hits a clean GTS and makes the pin.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Beth Phoenix squashes Alicia Fox by pin. Layla came out to watch, and she gave Beth light applause after the win.

After the match, Beth picked on Fox some more, causing Layla to run down and make the save. Layla gets in one shot before Beth bails, and they just glare at each other as we fade. These two go after each other for the title this Sunday.

Pre-Segment 4: Here comes Ace with David Otunga in tow to watch the next match. I wondered where Otunga has been…

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Kane defeats Big Show by pin. Subpar match. The ending saw Ace getting a mic and demanding Show apologize right the hell then, which distracted him. Kane hit the (shitty) chokeslam and made the pin to win.

Post-Segment 4: After the match, Ace and Otunga get in the ring and taunt Show, who is on all-fours and trying to scarf some oxygen. Blathering from Ace ensues, then he demands his apology.

Show gets a mic, and then… uh… basically makes a shortened retirement speech as he runs down the fact that he has absolutely nothing left to prove, especially now that he’s had his WrestleMania moment. But the truth is that he loves his job. Not just the matches, but it’s also the faces of the kids when he hits the ring and the bonds and friendships he’s made in the back. Show doesn’t need any more title matches, and he’s fine with being fined; he’s truly sorry for mocking Ace’s voice if it offended him all that much. But he pleads with Ace not to terminate him for something so petty.

Ace loves the passion, but still humiliates Show by forcing him to scream “I’m sorry,” and then forces him to get on his knees and begged Ace to keep his job. Show is conflicted, and teases it way too long. Finally, Show starts to get on his knees (for the third time) but ultimately doesn’t, and he begs Johnny (albeit while standing) not to let him go.

Ace insists he does everything “for business,” not for him, not for the fans. But he’ll reconsider.

And that lasts as long as it takes Ace to get to the stage, where he starts to wish Show the best of luck on his future endeavors. Before he drops the line though, Show screams at him to stop, then he does indeed collapse to knees as he blubbers his apology. He screams “Are you happy now?”

Ace thinks about it, but nope: Show gets future-endeavored, and then breaks down into tears and at least two other bodily fluids, and we fade out to commercial.

Segment 5 [Six-Man Tag Match]: Brodus Clay, Kofi Kingston, & R-Truth (w/ Naomi & Cameron) defeat The Miz, Jack Swagger, & Dolph Ziggler (w/ Vickie Guerrero) by pin. Meh. Solid match but an intentional crowd-pleaser, the heels didn’t really get much accomplished. A little redundant to the opener, and the crowd wasn’t really into at first. Even Jerry Lawler mentioned that everyone’s moods were probably down a bit after the last segment, and they just weren’t all that into Brodus’s entrance. (They did seem to perk up during the Ass Voltron, and really, who wouldn’t?)

No noteworthy spots. The match ended with a Pier Six Brawl that saw Miz take just about every move Brodus knew.

Segment 6: Punk is walking in the back and talking to Alex Riley, and AJ comes up. She stammers, but finally gets out that she totally wishes luck to Punk this Sunday against DB. Punk half-apologizes and says that he doesn’t really want get involved between AJ and DB, no matter what they may or may not be up to. She’s still all smiles and awkwardly twitchy until he mentions that she’s been a little, you know, unstable lately. As he excuses himself out of this awkwardness, AJ quivers her lip and looks on.

Pre-Segment 7: Sheamus hits ringside to join commentary for the next match.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Chris Jericho defeats Randy Orton by disqualification. Match was all right but nothing special. Sheamus did a solid job on commentary, and even verbally undressed Cole a few times in the process.

The match itself was formulaic, which isn’t a complaint, but there weren’t any high spots or anything. The end-game was signaled when the fight spilled outside, and Jericho threw Orton face-first into Sheamus.

The match went back in the ring less than a minute later, and Orton pretty much instantly took control. When he was setting up for his finisher though, Sheamus pulled Jericho out of the ring and beheaded him with a clothesline.

Post-Segment 7: Sheamus beat the crap out of Jericho with no answer, causing him to run away with his tail tucked firmly between his legs. Orton meanwhile was flipping out because he didn’t want to lose. Sheamus ignored his tirade and started heading to the back, but Orton exited the ring and confronted him. After arguing, Orton invited Sheamus to get in the ring and fight now… and in the process of showing his anger by hopping ass-first up to the apron, he nearly fell off and had to quickly grab the rope to stop from looking like an idiot. All credit to Orton: it was a smooth save.

Anyway, Sheamus obliged, and the guys faced off in the ring. All the refs in the world hit the ring to separate them to boos. Sadly, Awesome Ref Justin King wasn’t sent out, probably because he would have started beating the shit out of everyone just to play along.

Segment 8: Main event promo time. Ace hits the ring first, and he instantly makes friends by calling the fans losers. See, the fans are reflections of their favorite superstars, and since John Cena is a loser, all his fans are losers. By that same logic, I’m a hot Latina who has a fantastic rack… and I’m simply not okay with that. Unless I’m also a lesbian, in which I’m totally down.

Ace’s point is that Cena lost to The Rock, he looks like he lost to Lesnar, and he’ll be extra-losery after jobbing to Ace on Sunday. But there’s nothing wrong with losers, because without losers like us, there wouldn’t be winners like him.

It’s all damn fine cheap heat, and Cena gets a solid wall of cheers as he enters. Cena’s pre-entrance words are “I’m a little dinged up but I’m good,” and he hits the ring looking solid. But after he hits the ring, he immediately smells Ace’s neck and says, verbatim: “Desperation is a very stinky cologne, Mr. John Laurinaitis… if that is your real name.” I’m pretty sure we just saw Cena have a stroke live on the USA Network.

Cena proceeds to mock Ace’s voice, then mocks him further for firing Big Show earlier for the same thing. “You were a scumbag before you did that… After you fired the Big Show, you became the undisputed King of Douchebaggery.” Two things: first, why the hell are censors bleeping “douchebag” and its various forms? And second: no, Cena, that’s Orton. If anything, Ace is the Prince of Douchebaggery, the Heir to the Douchebag Throne. [Ed. Note: as far as OO Speak goes, I actually see Johnny as more of a Toolbox. The distinction is subtle, but important. And it pleases me greatly that CM Punk has tended to use this epithet when dealing with Johnny.]

Cena says that Ace certainly has gall to call himself a winner, then proceeds to run down Ace’s storyline failures, including keeping the belt off CM Punk. Cena then becomes hilariously stupid, interrupting Ace with what can only be described as Jim Carrey tactics, forcing Ace to even break character and laugh. He got unanimous applause for that one, and even an arena-wide “Cena! Cena!” chant. Seriously, you need to see this bit on YouTube.

Cena goes on that Ace’s whole problem is that he’s not about “People Power,” but “Person Power,” since the only person Ace cares about is himself. Just to prove it, he polls the audience, and gives a skateboard-related reference that goes over my head and even Cena admits was weird and obscure. Just in case that was a “fluke,” Cena asks a question of the fans that I can actually hear: “How many of you want to beat this guy so badly that he sounds like a baby calf squealing for dinner?” Ew… and funny.

Cena concludes with some cheap pops by citing the Steelers (they’re in Pittsburgh), and how the Steel Curtain gained fame by beating the shit out of their opponents, and that’s just what he’s going to do him on Sunday. Cena also could have gone with “I’ll be as aggressive as Ben Roethlisberger with any college-aged girl,” but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t have gone over so well.

Oh, Cena wants more cheap pops by citing the Pittsburgh Penguins too, but Ace so totally was going to reference them “in his promo,” so he accuses Cena of stealing his material. So Cena gives him the first crack, and Ace just says that the Penguins are losers.

Well, that’s some nice cheap heat, especially given that they’re in the Penguins’ arena. Cena says okay, that was Ace’s oh-so-witty reference to the Pens, so here’s what Cena was going to say: “Go puck yourself,” as he pulls out a puck and tosses it into Ace’s chest. The fans love this, and we have to pause to get out more cheers and chants. Heh.

Ace goes on that he’s totally better looking and more skilled than Cena will ever be, and that’s why Cena is so totally intimidated and will lose. That’s when Eve—looking unbelievably smoking, so it’s gotta be the glasses and the clothes (and the lack of the goddamn Teabag Moonsault)—charges into the ring. Ace doesn’t know she’s there as he goes on that he can totally change or add stipulations to any match he damn well pleases, being the Executive Veep of Talent Relations and all.

Before he gets to finish his thought on that one, Eve rather forcefully taps him on the shoulder and shows him a piece of paper. Cena doesn’t like silence, so he snatches the paper away from Ace (twice, because he accidentally rips it in half). Cena reads it to us: it’s from the Board of Directors! Apparently, they want the fans to know exactly what they’re getting for Over the Limit… so the Cena/Ace match will be one-on-one, no-DQ/no-countout, everyone is banned from ringside, if any superstar interferes they’ll be fired immediately, and if Ace loses he’s fired.

Holy. Shit. Ace isn’t happy, and Cena’s music plays. But Cena cuts it off, and he gives us a callback to Michael Cole, who earlier said that Ace was going to come out here and make some sort of grand announcement that would change WWE forever. So Cena asks with a flourish what, exactly, this announcement is!

Ace walks up… then slaps Cena and leaves. Dick. Cena smiles about it though, especially because Ace’s slap had less power on it than AJ’s against Kaitlyn.

Ace storms away to the back. Cena loses his smile and just coldly glares at his back as we fade out the show.

Final Thoughts: As it seems to be my new style, I’ve said everything I wanted to say in the body of the recap, so I’m basically done here. The first hour was pretty strong, and the second hour ended strong, but there was a lot of drop-off in the middle that I wasn’t entirely fond of. Nothing bad, just not entertaining.

I’ll bet billions to bullions that Ace comes out of Over the Limit a winner, as Brock or Heyman or some other entity outside the definition of “WWE Superstar” comes in to interfere. [Ed. Note: you know who else isn't a WWE Superstar, anymore? Big Show. OMG SWERVE~!]

After the main event match, Eve Tweeted that Sheamus and Orton will fight on SmackDown since they can’t keep their hands off each other. I figure Alberto Del Rio and Jericho will have some fun with that so they can soften them up before Over the Limit, so we’ll see.

Have a good week, guys!

Episode Grade: B-