Something has apparently really pissed off Mother Nature, and clearly, a light snow dusting in the Midwest United States—which was immediately offset by 45-degree sunny warmth—is nothing compared to those tragedies. I don’t often speak FOR my fellow columnists, but I think it’s safe to say that Rick, Matt, and I all extend our thoughts and prayers overseas. And as of now, the nuclear reactor in question hasn’t blown, so hopefully the Japanese and the United States Air Force can get the thing cooled down in time. Good luck over there, guys: you’re in my thoughts.

It’s difficult for me to segue from that to pro wrestling, but in truth it’s been on my mind all day. One of my closest friends, Lena, has a lot of friends herself in Japan, in the area that was hardest hit by the resulting tsunami, and her duress has sort of passed over to me. I was even going to make some sort of joke or observation about the fact that Dayton edged out Xavier by a single point today and probably made Rick a very happy man, but my heart’s not in it to today. Let’s get to wrestling… maybe I’ll get my cynical jerk writing voice back by the end of the episode.

Segment 1: Here comes Edge to start out the show, and he’s here to talk. He opens with some generic lines, hyping his match with Alberto Del Rio at WrestleMania. But then he gets a bit original: you know how he wound up with a bloody nose last week on SD? Well, he says that a little blood and a busted nose is nothing compared to what he’s been through in his career. So tonight, he doesn’t want a match with ADR, he just wants a fight with him. And he’s not giving ADR a choice, because he’ll find him no matter where he is.

Here comes ADR to respond, but he’s got Brodus Clay with him. They argue a bit, and ADR insists that he sends Edge home every night in pain, and will replace Edge’s legacy with his destiny.

ADR and Clay get in the ring, then ADR continues his insistence that he’s going to be the next World Heavyweight Champion. Edge says he doesn’t think so, and he makes the first strike. He’s able to stand his own for about fourteen seconds, but a single clothesline from Brodus put Edge down.

Edge was ganked, but then saved of course by Captain Charisma. Christian also starts to contain both guys, but eats a shoulder charge from Brodus, and that ends that. The faces get destroyed, with Christian eating a straight punch to the throat, which looked nice and sick.

Teddy Long then appears and says that there’s just a little too much insanity going on right now on SmackDown. So we’re going to have the obvious tag team match here, which is nice: we get to see Edge and Christian collectively reunited! I hope we get a few five-second poses as a result.

Pre-Segment 2: Kane and Wade Barrett have a match, and Kane makes his entrance as normal. When Wade pops out, however, he wants to talk. He says that Kane has made a couple mistakes lately: first that he hasn’t been appreciative enough to the Corre, and second that he beat the crap out of Justin Gabriel last week. Wade concludes that Kane is a “great big chemical experiment mistake,” and Kane hits a perfect patronizing nod as Wade gets in the ring.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Kane defeats Wade Barrett by disqualification. Five seconds after the match started, the rest of Corre hit the ring to beat the shit out of Kane.

But then here comes Big Show with a chair, and Corre bails. And, uh, that’s it. Yeah, that whole segment was worth it.

Pre-Segment 3: Oh, after a commercial, I guess T-Long switched up the match. So, okay…

Segment 3 [Tag Match]: Kane & Big Show defeat Heath Slater & Wade Barrett by disqualification. Same deal, but it lasted a couple minutes longer. After a few minutes of action, Justin Gabriel and Ezekiel Jackson hit the ring and attacked the faces. Show managed to get out and grab a chair, making Corre again bail. Then Show turned and smacked Kane in the back with the chair, just as payback for last week.

That whole sequence was pretty stupid, I thought.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Cody Rhodes squashes JTG by pin. I don’t recap squashes, but I will point out that Cody didn’t bother with ring gear and just fought in a dress shirt and dress pants. He won with a bit of a headbutt with his Phantom of the Opera mask, and Cross Rhodes. After the match, the lights dimmed, because he doesn’t want people to look at him and his ugliness, or something.

Segment 5: Now it’s time for the “interview of the year,” this being Michael Cole interviewing John Cena, which I’m sure we’ll all totally excited about. Cena hits the ring presently, and opens with a nice line that if this is going to truly be the interview of the year, Cole will “go back to the hole you puked out of,” which doesn’t really make sense, but is still pretty funny.

Cena goes on that Miz made the biggest mistake of his life by assaulting him on Monday. After all, with Cena occupied with talking shit to The Rock, he should have stayed under the radar and sailed into WrestleMania. But now, Cena “is done with BS,” and if Miz wants to be the new face of the WWE, then Cena’s new goal is to “break the face of the WWE.” Then Cena’s music plays, he hands the mic to Cole, says they’re done, and he starts to leave.

But wait! Cole stops him because he’s not done with his interview. He asks if Cena is just scared and intimidated by Miz. So Cena flings his hat into the crowd, but Cole doesn’t take the danger signals and follows up by demanding an answer to the question.

Cena grabs Cole, and then Jack Swagger materializes. Cena sees him coming, but Jack takes him down and starts smacking him around. Cole stays in the ring and annoyingly cheers on Jack to beat the shit out of Cena. Eventually Cena fights out of it and gets face to face with Cole. Cole tries begging off, but Cena gets him in the FU position. Jack makes the save, but gets an FU for himself for his efforts. Cole is doing the Macaulay Culkin Home Alone face from the stage as Cena celebrates his moral win.

Cut Scene: We get a hype video for Sin Cara, which includes a demo of some of his moves. Pretty sweet… I’m hyped for the guy, I can’t wait.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Layla (w/ Michelle McCool) reverse-squashes Kaitlyn by pin. Ugh. You know, I was really excited to see Kaitlyn actually do something since winning NXT3. So she comes out, does two shitty throws to Layla, then gets distracted by Michelle. Kaitlyn turns around, eats a spinning neckbreaker, then gets pinned.

Really? This is what we get for Kaitlyn’s debut match? A couple shitty-looking throws and one chance to sell? No wonder no one takes the women’s division seriously. I need to just move on before I get too pissed off.

After the match, the heels did a neat little move where they sat Kaitlyn in the corner, putting her so her face was like a half-inch from the bottom turnbuckle. Layla held her from outside the ring, and Michelle went running forward and gave her a hip check to the back of the head, making her slam her face into the turnbuckle. Ouch.

Okay, if this is the start of a Kaitlyn/Laycool feud, fine. But I just hope her future matches are better than this. They pretty much can’t help but being better.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Rey Mysterio defeats Drew McIntyre by pin. Decent match but nothing special. Rey was solid as always.

One nice spot came early. Drew was on the apron, and had Rey up in his arms. Drew then dropped down to the floor, bringing Rey down with him, and doing a sidewalk slam on the apron while he landed clean on the floor. Realistically, this wouldn’t do any more damage than a standard sidewalk slam, but it still looked unique and was pretty neat.

From there it was standard Rey stuff, and good stuff at that, but nothing you haven’t seen before. The match ended with a 619, followed by a no-handed splash off the top rope in the southeast corner.

Post-Segment 7: After the match, Cody popped out of the back and onto the stage. He tells Rey that he wants his answer to his WrestleMania challenge. Rey replies with some basic taunts from the ring, asking if Cody is upset since his dad isn’t here to help him out.

Rey says that he wears his mask with pride, and he’s going to wear it with pride when he beats him at WrestleMania. So, I guess the mask-vs.-mask match, as it were, is on.

Segment 8: Here comes Triple H, coming out to respond to Undertaker’s comments on Monday. It’s strange to have Trips on SD and Taker on RAW, but whatever.

We open with a Trips video package of how awesome he is, as a response to Taker’s video package on Monday of him kicking Shawn Michael’s ass. It wasn’t badly done, but… meh.

When we get back to live, Trips says that he’s seen the two best matches ever with Shawn/Taker’s two iterations. It’s left Trips wondering why Shawn couldn’t finish the job, but Shawn himself answered that on his Monday video package when he (Shawn) admitted that he is always emotional about his matches. His (Shawn’s) emotions got in the way, and according to Trips, he went into WrestleMania simply wanting “not to lose,” rather than wanting “to win.”

Trips agrees with Shawn that he (Trips) has a dark side and can separate his emotions from his matches. Trips doesn’t have the remorse or regret when it comes to beating the shit out of people… and while that may make him a horrible person, it’s true. He declares that he will stand in the ring, on the grandest stage, in the biggest match of his career, across the ring from the greatest legend who “will ever be in this business”… but Trips is sure he will beat the Taker then and snap The Streak. And it will all be because he will have no emotion. He won’t flinch, blink, or hesitate. He “will not become unglued by things that go bump in the night.”

Trips points out to Taker that he made the match no holds barred… so Taker, he simply says, “Thank you,” and that’s the end of that promo.

Awesome. This is a situation of “less is more” in promos, and I love it.

Segment 9: Matt Striker interviews Christian in the back, who says that he’s so totally stoked at reuniting with Edge and how awesome pop culture has been for the last decade. And while it sucks that we haven’t seen “the team that started this decade off right,” what sucks worse is ADR and his stupid antics. Edge appears on screen long enough to say “You ready?,” to which Christian nods, and they march off together with serious faces.

Hm. Guess they’re going to be too all-business for a five-second pose.

Segment 10 [Tag Match]: Edge & Christian defeat Brodus Clay & Alberto Del Rio by pin. Good match, with Christian being the Face in Peril. The whole match was solid, with ADR showing ass part of the way through it but otherwise just picking his spots as Brodus did most of the work.

The final sequence saw Edge going for the Spear, but Brodus countered with a stiff clothesline. From there, Brodus dragged Edge to the corner and went for a running hip check to Edge’s face. Edge dodged, but ADR got in the ring and floored Edge, which summoned Christian as the savior. ADR threw Christian to the corner, but when he went for the follow-up charge, Christian back body dropped him over the top rope and to the floor, which was some crazy altitude, and ADR landed pretty sickly.

From there, Brodus charged Christian, who countered with boots to the face. Christian followed up with a tornado DDT, and Edge immediately followed that up with a top rope Macho Man elbow drop. Edge made the pin, and ADR finished things off by angrily staring at Edge from the outside.

Final Thoughts: Most of the episode was pretty lame, just like RAW has been. Too many video packages, too little actual wrestling or storyline development. The lone outstanding bright spot was the main event: all things Christian/Edge/ADR/Brodus were good, and hopefully they continue to be. I haven’t been really digging the ADR/Edge storyline up to this point, but this was a big step in the right direction.

Other than that, there wasn’t much to speak of, and I got my commentary out of the way during the body of the recap, so I think I’ll call it a night. I just picked up MLB 11 The Show for the PlayStation 3 for IGN, and it’s calling me. Have a good night guys, and remember to text “Red Cross” to 90999 if you can afford to give a sawbuck to Japan.

Grade: C-