I WAS feeling a little better Thursday, but then I woke up today (“today” being “Friday,” even though you’re probably reading this on the weekend), and I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I’ve been dragging all day, and Wal-Mart had me doing some slightly more physical tasks than usual, which just made me more tired. I normally read for my lunches and breaks, and today I just slept though them all… and I’m STILL worn out. Truth be told, I just want to go sleep, or at least lay down for a bit.

Of course, not helping matters is that my Cubs lost to the Reds, which has the dual effect of hurting the former worse than a non-divisional game, AND makes Rick even more smug than usual! Damnit!!! How I longed to mention in the precap, for posterity, that the Reds can suck my left testicle! …Oh wait, I guess I just did.

Ah well, it’s still pretty early in the season, and I’m sure the Cubs will win most of the rest of the games, then win the World Series. The South Side of Chicago is about due, isn’t it? (Plus, Rick has Ryan Dempster on his fantasy baseball team, so even HE is cheering for the Cubs… well, for about 32 games this year, at least.) [Ed. Note: I only picked him up in one of my four leagues, operating on the assumption that he'll "regress to the mean" and be his usual self the rest of the season. So I'm really only 25% cheering for the Cubs during his tarts.]

Okay, I’ve delayed long enough. Let’s get this going and put a capper to my crappy day by having one the most ass-hatted booking decisions thrown in our faces…

Segment 1: We open with a short video package of how hard Christian has busted his ass to finally be champion, and the man himself pops out of the back in short order. Christian pimps his title, then begins a speech about how awesome it is and feels to be champion, how he’s dreamed about it ever since he was a kid… but the dreams paled in comparison to how it actually feels. Awesome!

Christian is almost in tears as he says that Edge sent him a text that declared that he earned it. He says with no Edge, there’s no Christian, so the latter loves the former. And of course, there are the Peeps, his fans, we who believed in him and how much we wanted this moment for him just as much as he did. Christian thanks us, then reminds us how Edge once said, just before retirement, that a piece of the title belt belongs to each of us, and that he fully agrees. So he promises to that—

Mark Henry? Really? Mark says that he was cheering for Christian the whole time… because he wanted to get his hands on the title first. That makes no sense, a punch line for a different setup, but whatever. Mark points out that Edge isn’t around to protect Christian anymore, so he needs to—

Redacted Khali? Okay, this is random. Translator says that Christian should so totally take on Khali instead; Christian asks why he should choose between a fat ass a man who, on RAW, was running around in a pink tutu.

Well, here comes King Douchebag to… uh… help? Orton says he’s new here on SD, and wants his name in the hat to take on Christian. Less is more, baby; that’s all Orton says, which is fine by me.

Here comes Teddy Long finally, who wants to take a voice vote on who Christian gets to face. So obviously, they pick King Douche, and in fact start chanting “Randy! Randy!” before T-Long even bothers asking for the vote. Wonderful.

Segment 2: Khali runs into… uh… Some Guy who looks like he belongs in Jersey Shore, with the douchebag hair and arrogant punch-worthy smirk. He’s another Indian and speaks to him in Indian, then Khali leaves. Some Guy then basically insults Translator for letting Khali wear a tutu on RAW. The announcers mention the guy’s name, but I can’t phonetically spell it in my head, so I’ma just call him Ginger, since it’s about as close as I’m going to get.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Sheamus defeats Daniel Bryan by pin. Damn fine match, with good action all over. DB put on a clinic as usual, and Sheamus easily held his own with heel beatdown brawling. The sequence was pretty sweet… Sheamus was on the apron and vaulted over the top rope. DB jumped and caught him, bringing him down smoothly into the Labelle Lock. Sheamus was able to fight through it and grabbed the ropes to break the hold, then rolled out of the ring. DB went to follow-up by doing a suicide dive between the ropes. However, just as DB started to go through, Sheamus, standing outside at ringside, did a Blarney Boot that sent DB back through the ropes and into the ring. Sheamus then got in the ring, did another Blarney Boot because he’s all sorts of pissed off, and made the pin. Good stuff.

Segment 4: Cody Rhodes is here to talk. He’s here to bitch that Rey Mysterio hit him with the Green Mist during their match at Extreme Rules. Cody isn’t pleased that the match ended with a loss for him, but he is happy that he made Rey “expose himself.” This is TV-PG of course, so all he means is that Rey exposed himself as a coward.

Cody is pleased he doesn’t have to deal with Rey any more, given that he’s at RAW now. But Cody delivers the line in a weird, over-enunciating way. It’s a little creepy.

Anyway, Cody goes on that the Green Mist burned his eyes, but even through the burned eyes he can see that we’re all ugly jerks. So, he has two of his little friends start handing out bags for our heads, so he doesn’t have to look at us anymore. And, that’s it to the promo.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Ezekiel Jackson (w/ The Corre) defeats Big Show (w/ Kane) by pin. Match was power vs. power, okay but nothing special, but short enough not to overstay its welcome. Zeke had some early offense, and when Show started to rally the Corre wanted to help him out. Kane was there as backup, but then the other members of Corre started beating the hell out of him. Show exited the ring to save his buddy, but as he got back in the ring Zeke took that moment to jump him and give him a clothesline that ripped Show’s head off.

Post-Segment 5: Zeke was in the ring as Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel slid in the ring. They held his arms up in victory, as well as their own, which made Zeke pretty confused. Zeke didn’t rip his arms away, but clearly wasn’t pleased with the implication that they were his equals. Wade Barrett then got in the ring to bitch Zeke out, to which he responded by simply leaving. The other three members of Corre just watched him go, and gestured (Broadly) that they so totally couldn’t believe he’s not a team player.

In other words, they’re doing with Zeke and Corre on SD the exact. Same. Thing. That they’re doing with Mason Ryan and Nexus on RAW. Like I’ve mentioned before, WWE clearly doesn’t mind plagiarizing itself.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Layla reverse-squashes Alicia Fox by pin. Match was under 45 seconds. Alicia kicked ass for most of the time, but then Layla did a spinning back kick followed by… uh… basically, it’s a Stone Cold Stunner, but a neckbreaker rather than a jawbreaker. Layla started with a spinning neckbreaker, then intentionally dropped to her ass, so Alicia’s neck was snapped backwards over Layla’s shoulder… and Layla held her like that for a few seconds. That’s the kind of shit Mortal Kombat fatalities are made of.

Post-Segment 6: Kharma arrives, and once again Layla and Alicia are so damn stunned by fear that they’re too dumb to exit the ring despite Kharma Ortoning her way down the ramp.

Oh wait, Layla gets bonus points for actually being smart enough to bail! Kharma looks disappointed as she watches Layla retreat to the foot the ramp.

Meanwhile, Alicia completely loses her mind and kicks Kharma in the side from behind. Kharma looks more annoyed than hurt as she does a Bruce Willis turn to face Alicia. Alicia, still completely insane, tries another kick. Kharma grabs her leg and does a pushing clothesline, then hits her version of the Faithbreaker, which still doesn’t have a name… but it was a delayed Faithbreaker, which was even more impressive. Pretty sweet.

Segment 7: Corre is walking in the back, then finds Zeke sitting by his lonesome in the locker room. They asked what the hell he’s doing, being an ass and rejecting their special hug. Wade points out that Zeke is walking away from them, not the other way around. Zeke isn’t paying attention, so Wade barks at him to stand up and face him so he “sees this one coming.”

Zeke stands up, smiles, and takes the first shot. He gets the better of them for a few minutes, but numbers overcome him, and we get a mini trashy brawl in the back. It concludes with Heath and Justin tipping over a large metal dresser or crate or whatever onto Zeke, which knocks him out.

So, uh, face turn? Isn’t this Zeke’s fourth turn in the last 18 months? Or is my sense of time just totally messed up?

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Sin Cara defeats Tyson Kidd by pin. Oddly, I don’t know if someone hit the wrong button or what, but the lights were dimmed for this one, instead that orange and blue combo that usually is only on for Sin Cara’s entrance. Match was damn solid, with Sin Cara’s normal “blink and you’ll miss it” move set, ending with the top rope backflipping C4. Fantastic!

Even better than the match itself was the commentary. Chavo Guerrero was helping out, and was being a general dick, his general theme being that Sin Cara just stole all the moves from the Guerrero family, wasn’t anything special, didn’t do anything new, and was “simply okay.” A feud is definitely forming, and if anyone can mix well with Sin Cara’s style, it will be Chavo. And any excuse to have Chavo actually do something for once is well appreciated.

After the match, Chavo got in the ring and shook hands with Sin Cara. There wasn’t violence, but you could tell from Chavo’s eyes and expression that he’s not thinking about sunshine and fluffy bunnies.

Segment 9: Todd Grisham is talking to T-Long, who simply says that it’s so totally fair that Christian has to defend the title against Orton tonight, because Orton won a Last Man Standing match at Extreme Rules.

That was barely a cut scene…

Segment 10 [Singles Match for the World Heavyweight Championship]: Randy Orton defeats Christian, and is the NEW World Heavyweight Champion! …And I couldn’t be more upset about it.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. When I first read the spoilers, I was about as pissed as anyone about the loss. The thing is, the way it was presented, it didn’t seem so bad. WWE and its commentators pretty much were playing apologist from the start of the show. I don’t know how irrational the thought is, but the entire thing almost seemed to me like WWE realized its mistake on the title change, rushed the three commentators to record alternate commentary, and blather for the whole match justifying their decision in the form of half-hearted drama. Michael Cole especially played tweener, playing up the “anything can happen” angle, while Booker T was going on about how much Christian worked to get to this point, and Josh Mathews being neutral by just sticking to play-by-play.

Christian was greatly disappointed at how things turned out, but Cole also told us how beaten up he was after his ladder match, and how Orton was specifically targeting those bruises. The live fans wouldn’t have heard any of that, and from their perspective, it could seem like Christian was pretty much jobbing. It wasn’t a squash, but knowing the outcome ahead of time has screwed up my perspective, so I can’t really call whether the match was a normal, relatively dramatic one, or a near-squash. I simply can’t be objective about it.

What I can be objective about is the aftermath. This isn’t the first time we’ve had a champion drop the belt in a short amount of time, and WWE has—rarely—actually played up real-life fan rebellion by working it into their storylines. I have no faith in WWE, I’m just playing devil’s advocate and pointing out that it’s possible that Christian isn’t a one-and-done champion.

Still, as reported in the OO forums, no one in WWE thinks Christian is worthy of being the face of the company, and only one guy (a writer) seems to have any faith in him at all. Orton was clearly being cheered over Christian, provided WWE didn’t mess with the audio (though, again, I have no faith that they’d play fair), and Orton is a proven commodity whereas Christian would, technically, be a gamble. I don’t agree with WWE’s decision, I think they’re basically retarded from top to bottom, but I can at least understand where they’re coming from. Of course, having Orton as champ also means WWE isn’t afraid to have the ratings stagnant, rather than taking the gamble and seeing if Christian as champ would have given them a boost.

I’m also afraid WWE is going to spin this against Christian no matter what the ratings for this week say, which is why Rick always advocates that a one-shot look at the ratings is meaningless compared to trends. If this week’s ratings are low, WWE is going to blame it on Christian being champ and use that as proof they did the right thing; never mind that fans may have simply tuned out because they knew about the stupidity ahead of time. Meanwhile, if this week’s ratings are high, WWE is going to credit Orton and say that the spoilers point to Orton as champ is what drove the fans to come and watch. Either way, Orton gets the credit, Christian gets the stick, and all us fans who aren’t orange-loving douchebags lose.

Further, just because I’m a masochist, I decided to look at some of Orton’s tweets since this all went down. He’s spending half his time being an excuse-making pansy apologist, and the other half calling people such creative things as “boners.” Perhaps one cuts a bit close to home, with him saying that “dirt sheet writers getting laid is highly improbable,” but still: seventh-grade insults to the fans from the alleged #2 babyface in the whole damn company? There is so much wrong with that I can’t even begin.

Final Thoughts: All told, I’m not very confident that WWE is going to make this right at all. WWE is still sure that Orton is the best thing for the company, and that we fans need to see him crammed down our throat. And as long as Orton is cheered over Christian, and everyone else for that matter, then this is simply what’s going to happen. There are so many Orton-lovers out there that we fans with actual taste have become the minority, as if that wasn’t clearly in evidence already.

It’s upsetting, but really, what can we do? Unless we all just stop watching SmackDown entirely, voting with our dollars and in the Nielsen Ratings, WWE just won’t cater to anyone but the money-spenders. And hell, Orton makes it easy, I guess: for whatever reason, all he has to do is stand there and speak random English words, and he’s cheered. Why should WWE take the effort to write better, more varied, intelligent stories when they can just take the easy way out? Pride in one’s work should always be its own reward, but clearly WWE just doesn’t care anymore: the only reward they’re interested in is advertising dollars and merchandise revenue, to hell with a quality product.

But, we’ve examined that a zillion times around here, and I’m tired of typing. I’ve lost perspective of this episode, so I’m not going to give it a grade.

Hopefully next week will be better.