I experienced love and happiness, encouragement and motivation, food and clothing and shelter. We had our share of fights, especially as I was going through my teenage years, but she was always ready to back me and my opinions and hobbies as long as they weren’t illegal or immoral. She taught me to think for myself, for better or worse.

But she has optimism, in both me and the world, and maybe that’s why she’s one of the 5%. Because no matter how far I fall, no matter how badly I screw up, no matter my sins and mistakes, I have at least one person who believes that there is some sort of benefit in me, that I have some positive worth to society. Just that belief, though, proves that she embodies positive worth in a world like this, a trait that’s getting harder to come by.

Happy birthday, Mom.

Segment 1: Alberto Del Rio hits the ring and immediately kicks it to a video recap, because that’s why we watch professional wrestling. It’s the recap of ADR beating the crap out of Sheamus on RAW. After that, ADR makes some vague threats, and then Sheamus’s music starts… but it’s Ricardo Rodriguez wearing a Sheamus disguise. I think I’d find it funny if I haven’t seen this skit a thousand times.

ADR opens by basically saying that anyone can be Sheamus because anyone can be an idiot, but there’s only one Alberto Del Rio. More blathering… and then Sheamus’s music starts up again, and the real Sheamus pops out and hits the ring.

ADR and RR immediately start to attack, and though the heels get in their attacks, Sheamus manages to clear the ring. However, ADR does get in a shot on the now-injured arm of Sheamus, so we’ll see if that leads to anything.

ADR and RR start to retreat, but Sheamus says screw that noise and catches up to them. He flings ADR head-first into the metal logo on the stage like on Monday, but then RR manages to help ADR put Sheamus down. ADR punches the crap out of Sheamus’s arm, but finally the refs hit the ring to peel them apart.

Then Teddy Long hits the stage with a mic. Yes, Teddy Long: not sure where Eve is, but apparently T-Long is here to act on Johnny Ace’s behalf. Ace has apparently called to the show (I guess), and we’re going to see Kane vs. Sheamus and ADR vs. Khali. And the latter match is starting right now… after commercials.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Alberto Del Rio (w/ Ricardo Rodriguez) defeats Khali by submission. Yes, by submission. That tells you how far Khali has fallen.

Decent match I guess, but the guys just didn’t click. Offense was sloppy and slow, moves were boring, sequences were predictable. At least it was short.

The finish was kinda neat. Obviously Khali was too big to do a Crossed Arm Breaker, so ADR just worked on taking him down. Once Khali was on his back, ADR just did some mounted punching. When Khali covered himself up, ADR smoothly grabbed the left arm and applied the armbar. Khali resisted, but had to tap eventually.

Segment 3: Replay of the Big Show vignette from RAW where he sells his heel character.

Segment 4: Brodus Clay, Naomi, and Cameron come into T-Long’s office. T-Long says that after Big Show’s assault on him a week-and-a-half ago, Ace has banned Clay from ever being on RAW again. But, the good news is that he’s a permanent member of SmackDown. Clay replies that Long can tell his SmackDown opponents that rather seeing them, he’s going to see Show in them, and he’s going to “eat them up.” Are you stealing Ryback’s shtick, buddy?

Commercial: Nicki Minaj is ugly. That is all.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Brodus Clay (w/ Naomi & Cameron) squashes Derrick Bateman. Holy shit, this is a worthy squash. Brodus just straight rearranged DB2’s face. He also nearly accidently rearranged Lilian Garcia’s face when he threw DB2 over the barricade, and DB2’s flight nearly sent him into our lovely ring announcer. DB2 oversold like a car dealership, and the whole thing worked really well.

I normally don’t recap squashes, but this was a solid match in terms of story and power, rather than a ho-hum squash like the bullshit Ryback has been doing. Good stuff. If this is the first in a line of stupid squashes however, my patience will quickly run out.

Cut Scene: Booker T talks about one of his favorite memories of RAW, specifically when he and Buff Bagwell main evented for the WCW Championship back in 2001. I kinda hope they take all these “RAW Memory” segments and combine them into one compilation on YouTube.

Pre-Segment 6: For the third time in a row, Sin Cara doesn’t enter the ring by using the trampoline and bounding over the top rope. Is that to protect his knee, or protect him in general? The trampoline makes for a sweet entrance, but I bend to the logic of keeping him safe if that’s the reason for the change.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Sin Cara defeats Drew McIntyre by pin. Solid enough match until the final spot. Cara stood on the middle rope, then went for a flying punch to D-Mac, who caught him sideways and spun him. Cara re-countered to a tilt-a-whirl, but never got the move off, as his momentum was stopped. I’m honestly not sure if this was a blown spot or by design, but D-Mac then put Cara on his shoulder for something. Then Cara again spun out with a tilt-a-whirl, this time finishing it for a tilt-a-whirl DDT. My money is that that was always the end game, but Cara didn’t have the right momentum to finish it, so D-Mac audibled to make it look like Cara triple-countered into a big move. If that was the plan, well done; if that was an audible, also well done, because it didn’t make Cara look like an idiot.

Other than that, good stuff from Cara as always. He’s still not exactly at 100% (or he’s not working with guys that can click with him all that well), but it was a solid match.

Pre-Segment 7: Some Guy and Some Other Guy blather. That means…

Segment 7 [1-on-2 Handicap Match, Tornado Rules]: Ryback squashes Some Guy & Some Other Guy by pin. Whatever.

Segment 8: We’re supposed to be having a Christian-hosted Peep Show. As we come back from commercial, the stagehand monkeys are busy setting up the ring for it, but then Cody Rhodes’s music plays. Cody hits the ring, kicks over the stools, and grabs a mic. He’s so awesome that he doesn’t answer to Christian; Christian answers to him, and that’s why he’s going to be the one who does the talking. It’s Christian who’s had the midlife crisis and is pandering!

And, uh, here comes Christian. Christian adds “I’m the one who took the title too.” Heh. Christian says that if Cody wanted to be the host of the show, hell, all he had to do was ask.

As Christian gets in the ring, Cody says that the only thing he wants to ask is: “Who are you trying to fool?” After all, before his return from injury, he hated the fans! So why is he soft now and a suck-up to the fans? Christian answers that he had a “moment of clarity” and other clichés. It mostly came from inducting Edge to the Hall of Fame, and hearing Edge’s speech, that it’s a privilege to entertain the fans, and it’s a privilege that could be taken away in an instant. So if it does get taken away, does Christian want to be the jerk known for whining about “One more match”? Or does he want to be the guy who wants to win titles and secure his Hall of Fame legacy?

Cody calls bullshit on that, since he is the future, and a future Hall of Famer. Christian merely got lucky to win the Intercontinental Title, and he won’t be keeping it past No Way Out.

Cody wants to “share something” with Christian then, but Christian speaks for the fans and insists that Cody should just shut up and listen. Cody may have been nice enough to start the Peep Show, but Christian is going to finish it by beat the shit out of him.

And, uh, here comes Dolph Ziggler. See, Ziggles has a match with Christian basically now, and Ziggles insists that he will beat up Christian. Right now, in fact.

Cody accepts that and exits the ring, then joins the commentary as the match gets underway without a commercial.

Segment 9 [Singles Match]: Christian defeats Dolph Ziggler by pin. Solid match with no noteworthy spots, but it was very technically crisp. Wouldn’t mind seeing these guys go another five minutes… The match ended when Dolph went for the Zig Zag, but Christian held on to the top rope to defend. Christian then went to the top rope, and Dolph went to knock him off, but Christian put him down and followed up with the Frog Splash.

After the match, Cody stood from the commentators’ table and gave a little sarcastic golf clap. No words or actions otherwise, though.

Segment 10: As we come back from commercial, we get a replay of the main event “match” from Monday of Michael Cole getting his ass beat by John Cena. Back “live,” Cole stands up from the table with a live mic and tries to defend himself. He tries some cheap pops and says that the fans are so totally mature and will let this go.

And… Jim Ross? No, just his music… it’s Hornswoggle of all people who hits the ring dressed in JR’s trademark black with the black hat. Unfortunately, Horny insists (with a southern accent) for another replay of the match. Ugh.

Horny keeps laughing at Cole once that ends, but the thanks everyone, and…

Yay, the Hallelujah chorus! Damien Sandow hits the stage and says assholes like Hornswoggle have been unjustly elevated, which “serves only to lead you, the lambs of the WWE Universe, to the slaughter of your own ineptitude.” Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s basically a double negative… if we’re slaughtering our own ineptitude, doesn’t that mean we’re getting smarter? [Ed. Note: As long as he keeps delivering his promos while holding the mic like a snifter of brandy, he is forgiven. The man is a genius with the Little Things. I'll wet myself if he starts swirling the mic around in a distractedly pompous way any time one of his opponents starts wasting his time by blathering.]

But Sandow is still the “avenging sword of taste and decency,” and he’s not going to let this bullshit continue. So he gets in the ring, says Horny is welcome, then stalks him.

And, uh… Tyson Kidd makes the save? Really? Ladies and gentlemen, a face turn!

Kidd gets the upper-hand and flings Sandy to the—Huh. Sandy. That’s a good name to insult him by, isn’t it? He’s still one of my favorites; I insult with love, as he does us!

Anyway, Kidd gets the upper-hand and flings Sandy from the ring. Sandy takes off his robe as Kidd taunts him from the ring but… no dice, Sandow (okay, I can’t keep that up and take myself seriously) calms himself down and walks away.

Kidd dismisses Sandow with a wave of his hand, then turns his back to check on Horny. So of course that’s when Sandow hits the ring after all and beats the shit out of Kidd, thus further cementing Kidd’s face turn and his own heel status. Even though it’s not a match, Sandow hits his cross-armed neckbreaker, then rolls himself through for a missionary pin. Just to be a dick, he goes ahead and wiggles his eyebrows for the camera and hits a shit-eating grin as he does a cartwheel.

Seriously: I’m pushing him to the fucking moon in WWE ’13. He better be in the flipping game.

Segment 11: Kane is in the bowels of the building, but Matt Striker finds him to interview him. Striker asks how it feels to have the possibly to beat the WWE Champion (after beating CM Punk on RAW) and the World Heavyweight Champion (because he takes on Sheamus tonight) in the same week. Kane responds that he totally doesn’t have feelings, so Striker should just ask Punk how he feels after being chokeslammed, or Striker should ask Sheamus after Kane does the same thing tonight. Kane only concern is concentrating on winning the triple threat match at No Way Out.

Striker asks a follow-up on whether he’ll comment on the look he and AJ shared. Kane just angrily gives Striker a stink-eye, so Striker backs off. Kane leaves… and as he does so, we see AJ pop out of the shadows and look… uh… weirdly at Kane’s back.

Segment 12 [Singles Match]: Antonio Cesaro (w/ Aksana) squashes Jimmy Uso by pin. Whatever. And where the hell was Jay?

Cut Scene: Now we get Sheamus giving us his RAW memory, when he won a battle royal in 2009 to prove that his success wasn’t a fluke.

Segment 13 [Singles Match]: Sheamus defeats Kane by disqualification. Decent match but nothing special. Nothing was technically wrong, but Kane clicks way better with Punk than Sheamus.

Back-and-forth all match long, but a slower pace and way more punchy-kicky-slammy. At the end of the match, once Sheamus had momentum and hit White Noise, ADR and RR hit the ring to cause interference right in the ref’s face.

Post-Segment 13: Make that RR alone, as ADR hung out at the foot of the ramp. RR didn’t do anything, but he provided enough of a distraction that Kane recovered and took Sheamus down. Kane then adjusted the glove and readied a chokeslam, but then AJ came down the ramp.

All AJ did was give Kane a weird look behind his back. Kane’s spidey sense told him something was going on, so he turned around, and shared another weird look back at AJ. Two seconds later, Sheamus recovered, then hit Kane with the Blarney Boot. RR was finally getting up about then, so Sheamus gave him a Blarney Boot too.

We end with Sheamus still staring down and taunting ADR, who just remained outside the ring and wasn’t impressed.

Final Thoughts: And that’s it. Decent night with a couple bright spots but nothing you really need to set aside an evening for. I’d elaborate, but I’ve said enough, and I’ve got crap to do tonight.

Remember that RAW starts at 8:00pm on Monday and will be another three-hour special featuring the return of Vince McMahon. We’ll have the coverage as usual for that at the usual time.

Have a good weekend, guys.

Episode Grade: C+