Anyway, the asphalt track looks just about as scary as the dirt track did four years ago. I still want to magically teleport to London to try it out, though I have a feeling it would take me a bit longer than 40 seconds to get through it… like maybe about six minutes, three of which will be voiding my bowels as I take that first big jump. I’d likely finish the race and then immediately curl into the fetal position while softly weeping, but it would be one fun ride!

So, let’s get to SmackDown, where… uh… I honestly don’t remembered what happened last week and why this week should be significant. That’s probably not a good sign.

Segment 1: So it’s Booker T to open the show, since he’s in his hometown of Houston. He’s got all the fans on his side, especially when he does a Spinaroony in his tux. After pleasantries, he throws it to the Titantron, and we get a replay of RAW, where Sheamus went all Niko Bellic on Alberto Del Rio.

Booker T is playing the “heel” I guess for expressing that Sheamus crossed the line and must apologize to ADR, but the fans aren’t booing it. Notably, Michael Cole is still saying grand theft auto is wrong, while Josh Mathews is trying to justify it. I know this is all in the name of entertainment and not-stupid people won’t make a big deal about it, but if WWE is willing to fire a dude for making a rape joke, they probably shouldn’t encouraging criminal acts, you know?

Sheamus gets a mic, totally doesn’t apologize, and just maintains cheap pops by saying how awesome Texas is. But he does admit that it’s a new day, so if one does the crime, one has to do the time… so he in fact does apologize Booker, the fans, and ADR himself for taking his car.

So Booker shrugs and is like, okay, let’s put it all behind us, we’re good! Let’s get on with tonight’s activities!

And here comes ADR to put a stop to that. He doesn’t think an apology is good enough, and demands for something to happen. Before Booker brings up any suggestions, it’s Sheamus who says he’s so sorry about the event, he’s willing to put the World Heavyweight Title on the line tonight. Booker’s down, while ADR thinks he probably shouldn’t… but goes ahead and agrees.

Pre-Segment 2: Sin Cara hits the ring for a match. Cody Rhodes hits second, but he talks his way down the ramp. See, Cody has experience with masks, and he knows that Cara wears it for a specific reason: that Cara is ugly. But more importantly, without the mask, Cara is totally not special at all.

Well, that was certainly a good promo with feud implications, given that it was about twenty seconds long. Interesting… I’m sold. Let’s see how they do…

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Sin Cara defeats Cody Rhodes by pin. Solid match, nothing overly special. Sin Cara didn’t take any amazing risks but was still extremely flashy, and Cody kept up with him. The story here is that Cody kept going for Cara’s mask, and Cara had to keep adjusting his offense and defense to keep it from getting ripped off his head.

The match ended with Cara doing tilt-a-whirl headscissors-to-sunset flip, but Cody resisted being pulled into a pinning position. Still, in that position, Cody tried to rip the mask off. Cara defended it, then quickly rolled Cody up while he was still bent over. Cody took the loss, and Cara scurried out of the ring before Cody could take vengeance.

Segment 3: So Daniel Bryan hits the ring, and just starts screaming “No!” repeatedly. The fans predictably respond, and DB just gets more agitated. So do I, since “Yes!” is the new “What?,” and I hate them both.

DB puts himself over and says he totally deserves to be in the WWE Championship match at SummerSlam, but instead, AJ Lee so totally shoved him into a match with Kane while damaging his reputation by calling him crazy. And DB is not putting up with this shit.

And that’s when Kane’s pyros go off, and the Big Red Machine hits the ring. No mic here, Kane wants to fight. But then AJ’s music fires up, and the RAW general manager hits ringside! She explains that this was the show they first met after all… and Booker T asked her to be a special guest tonight!

Well, AJ says she and Booker T both don’t like what’s going on here. She made the match because they’re good athletes, not for any other nefarious reason! And she can’t see DB and Kane beating the crap out of each other or the audience every week, so this needs to stop.

AJ says to Kane that she knows they haven’t been able to talk since her promotion, but it’s so totally awesome to see him again. She appreciates Kane’s sweetness and understanding, especially when “other people” were treating her miserably. She turns back to DB and says that she knows DB is totally jealous of Kane and her friendship.

Besides, DB is totally stable! He’s so stable that he shouldn’t care that he’s never pinned Kane! So she says that he can show he’s a good sportsman heading into SummerSlam by shaking Kane’s hand tonight.

DB says no, and AJ insists, because she wants a clean match at SummerSlam. DB resists, but eventually offers his hand first. Kane just watches him for a minute as AJ leaves… but then she winks rather seductively at Kane. Kane takes the wink, looks right at DB, and slaps him in the face.

They guys go back and forth without anyone really getting the upper hand until Kane big boots him out of the ring. Kane goes to pursue, so DB just bails through the crowd. AJ has stopped on the stage, and she’s busting her ass laughing… so much so that she has to fall to her knees as she cries “That was great!” Kane meanwhile is looking at her confused, blows his corner pyros, then keeps looking at her. They do this… thing where Kane tilts his head one way, then AJ tilts it the same way, then Kane tilts his the other way, then AJ tilts hers the other way too. It’s… cute, but pretty creepy.

Segment 4: Teddy Long is in Booker T’s office. They’re chatting when Curt Hawkins and Tyler Reks come in. Reks sells themselves, and Booker T says they’re okay, but they really need to step up their game. After all, they keep losing to Ryback even 1-on-2, and that tells him something. He wants “A-plus talent,” and nothing else works.

Booker T turns away, and they zoom the camera on the Hawkins and Reks as they talk to each other. Reks says he totally can’t go back to his old job. Hawkins is all, “What, at the surf shop? Who cares?” And Reks is all, “No man, my other job.” Uh…

Hawkins asks if that would really be so bad right now, and Reks pulls a Mitt Romney by saying “Well, maybe not, because I was pretty good at it, huh?” Suddenly he’s all smiles and wants to talk to Booker T again, but Booker runs them out of his office.

So… yeah. We don’t know what job Reks was talking about, but clearly this is his new character gimmick or hook. Ten bucks says whatever it is, it’s not going to be very entertaining. [Ed. Note: my money's on Male Stripper. And furthermore, my money's on the fact that Stephanie finally got around to seeing "Magic Mike." The two, in that case, would not be unrelated.]

Pre-Segment 5: Jinder Mahal does a pre-taped to-camera piece where he says he totally can do what Ryback does, but better, which is why he’s put himself in a handicap match.

Segment 6 [1-on-2 Handicap Match, Tag Rules]: Jinder Mahal squashes Some Guy & Some Other Guy by submission. Two moves, then he slapped on the Camel Clutch on the first guy.

Post-Segment 6: Jinder tosses in Other Guy into the ring, throws him onto Some Guy, then slaps on a double Camel Clutch that looks incredibly stupid. Both guys tap out pointlessly since, you know, the match is already over.

Ryback’s music fires up, and Ryback just saunters over to the ring. Jinder just leaves, and Ryback screams at him, so then Ryback hits his double finisher on both guys. Poor Some Guy and Some Other Guy… they didn’t ask for this!

Segment 7: Chris Jericho hosts the Highlight Reel, and his guests are Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero. Except Vickie comes out after a nanosecond to inform CJ that Dolph isn’t going to lower himself by showing up tonight.

Fine, says CJ, he’s flexible. They do some dueling “Excuse Me’s,” but then CJ says that it’s sort of a special experience for him since they’ve never been in the same ring together before. Vickie doesn’t care and says that if he insults her one more time, she’s leaving. He feigns crying about it, then just deadpans, “Fine, get the hell out of here then.” Heh.

Vickie starts to, but CJ stops her and says they’re just playing around, you know? She needs to relax and harness her chi! But, he sort of understands her hostility, especially after the end of the Dolph match on RAW, which he totally recorded and Touted. So we throw it to the obscenely expensive Jeritron 6000 (an upgrade!), and says “Roll it, monkeys.” Nice. I wonder how many fans in the audience missed that reference.

After the clip, Jericho points out that this whole argument started because Dolph accused him of not being able to “win the big one,” but jobbing to Alex Riley means Dolph can’t even win the little one. He says that that’s nothing against Riley, but come on, Riley up until then had only won a single match in 2012, which is “a worse record than your dye job.” That… didn’t quite make sense, but okay.

Vickie argues that CJ just has footage, not facts. Dolph knows that CJ has lost his touch, and will totally prove it at SummerSlam.

Jericho gains the serious voice as he says that doesn’t have to defend himself to anyone, that his legacy stands strong on its own. But Dolph’s line that his record hasn’t been great lately rang true, and he’s decided that he needed a change of heart, and that “Y2J is back, baby!” And that fires up the crowd to chant “Y2J! Y2J!”

Jericho is going to prove at SummerSlam that he hasn’t lost touch, and never, EEEEEEVVVEEERRR!!!, going to lose his touch A-GAYN.

That’s when Ziggler comes out of nowhere and tries to put Y2J down, but it doesn’t work. Y2J handles his business, but once Ziggler goes down, Vickie slaps him. Y2J gets distracted, and Ziggler nails him with a Zig Zag, then follows up by smashing in his skull with the blue Money in the Bank briefcase. Vickie grabs the mic to give one last taunt which I couldn’t understand, and we’re done.

That was a pretty electric promo. I keep underestimating Vickie’s mic skills.

Pre-Segment 8: Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, and apparently Little Jimmy are out here on commentary for the next match.

Segment 8 [Tag Match, winners are #1 contenders to the WWE Tag Team Titles]: The Prime Time Players (w/ AW) defeat Epico & Primo by disqualification. Match was too short to be much of anything. It was executed well, don’t get me wrong, but this is about the story, not the action. Kofi was doing such a solid job on commentary that AW grabbed Kofi’s glass of water and threw it in Kofi’s face.

The champs weren’t having that crap, so they chased AW… who bolted directly into the ring. Kofi and Truth started attacking the heels, and once they bailed, they kicked the shit out of AW. PTP eventually pulled him to safety, but the damage was done: PTP wins, and they’re #1 contenders now. PTP celebrates as they leave, while the champs argue with the faces.

And… that’s the last you’ll see of AW, because he’s been future endeavored and is burning his bridges left and right! And from the string of tweets as of this writing (which is at 10pm precisely), it really does seem to all come back to that unfortunate Kobe rape joke he said a couple weeks ago. I almost feel bad about pointing it out now.

Pre-Segment 9: Antonio Cesaro says “victory” in five different languages. Even the ref doesn’t look very impressed.

Segment 9 [Singles Match]: Christian defeats Antonio Cesaro (w/ Aksana) by pin. I was all set to hate this, but Cesaro really proved his worth here. He doesn’t exactly have the deepest move set in the roster, but he has enough flash and unique moves to mix up his primarily punchy-kicky offense. His gut wrench belly-to-belly suplex looks pretty sick by itself.

It was back-and-forth all match and a solid competitive showing for both guys. Christian played Face in Peril for most of the match, pure formula that, but wound up getting his comeback spot late. He tried a Spear, but Cesaro countered by grabbing Christian, tossing him high in the air, then hitting him with a European Uppercut on his way down. Solid spot with a sweet bridging pin, but Christian kicked out. Cesaro argued with the ref, then tried his finisher, but Christian wiggled out and hit a Spear out of nowhere for the win.

Cesaro takes the loss, but he really made a showing of it. Suddenly, I like him better than Ryback.

After the match, Cesaro kicked Christian’s ass, finishing by holding Christian in his arms and slammed him back-first into the barricade, which Christian greatly oversold. There’s a story injury right there.

Segment 10: RAW recap.

Segment 11: Eve and Kaitlyn have separately joined Booker T and Teddy Long in the GM office. Eve still wants a position in Booker’s cabinet, but Booker says that all jobs are filled. Then Kaitlyn says she wants a job, so he instantly makes her another assistant.

Eve flips out, and Booker doesn’t want to hear the bickering, so next week, we’re going to see Eve vs. Kaitlyn (otherwise known as “The Battle of the Full Bras”), and the winner will get the job as Booker T’s assistant. Kaitlyn is down with that, Eve is less so but desperate, and the match is on.

Segment 12 [Singles Match]: Rey Mysterio defeats The Miz by pin. Solid match, above-average and a should-watch. No noteworthy spots other than the ending, which saw Miz catch a 619 attempt. Rey re-reversed it into sunset flip and made the pin out of nowhere.

Strangely, they didn’t do replays, and Miz just looked forlornly off to the air, which was pretty weird. Stranger still, they didn’t really talk much more about it, and hastened to the next segment. Timing issues, maybe? [Ed. Note: could be. They taped an Orton/Swagger match and it got axed from the broadcast, and they might have had to make up still more time. Or maybe they just didn't want to bury their IC Champ.]

Either way, I’m not sure if this match speaks to anything larger, but Rey just won clean over the Intercontinental Champion, so there’s that.

Segment 13: RAW Recap and SummerSlam hype.

Segment 14 [Singles Match for the World Heavyweight Title]: …Doesn’t actually happen.

If I had been paying attention to the clock, I think I would have realized something was up, but my time-shifting threw me off. We get full entrances, and we’re told by Cole that ADR has totally filed a report with the San Antonio police after Monday. That seems like an odd aside.

We get boxing-style entrances, and… ah, here come a bunch of cops. ADR grabs a mic to insist that he never filed the report after all, and he doesn’t want to see Sheamus arrested because he wants his title match. The cops surround the ring while ADR still begs them not to come through the ropes.

Until ADR screams “Now!,” at which point they all do and start attacking Sheamus for no reason. Unless the SAPD has some really Old World training, I’m pretty sure that’s not in the police handbooks.

Sheamus manages to fight them all off and even attack ADR, but the fake cops get their second wind and attack Sheamus from behind. Sheamus continues to defend himself but can’t beat the numbers, and he’s eventually driven back into the northwest corner. They hold him there so ADR can hit his signature step-up enziguri.

ADR then flings all the fake cops out of the ring, just so he can be alone with Sheamus to taunt him, then slap on an armbar. Sheamus screams, ADR doesn’t care, and eventually releases it of his own volition (refs never appear). ADR just stands over Sheamus’s body and randomly screams and cheers while the fans universally boo. Whee?

Final Thoughts: That… was stupid. Ignoring the eleventy billion plot holes with that ending segment, that was pretty much the most ridiculous way possible to get Sheamus “beaten down” to end the show. Add in that ADR essentially pissed away a world title match—which goes against everything his character has ever talked about—and it looked like an alternate reality where the “Creative” Team handed over the characters to a very drunk career criminal with a hatred of Irishmen. [Ed. Note: in addition to "pissing away" the freebie title shot, del Rio has also lost the SummerSlam PPV title match, according to a Tout Decree from Booker T. So that match is off, and who knows what'll replace it? OK, we all know. Orton Happens.]

Nothing really got accomplished in the second hour otherwise. Christian/Cesaro have started a feud for no damn reason, Y2J/Dolph deepened but didn’t really progress (and Y2J basically had to retcon his heel vow of “never bringing ‘Y2J’ back”), and Rey/Miz existed without a payoff. The first hour wasn’t much better, as Cody/Cara is already shaping up to be a solid feud, but Mahal/Ryback is a feud they can’t pay me to care about. And why are we starting three feuds only a couple weeks before a pay-per-view?

I can’t really recommend this episode. The wrestling bits weren’t horrible but they weren’t exactly all that thrilling other than the opener. Christian/Cesaro was solid, but “solid” isn’t must-watch. You can probably skip this one without feeling too upset about it.

I got nothing more tonight, but I do have some BMX racing to watch and Skyrim to play, so I’m calling it a night. I’ll see on the other side of the weekend for the RAW recap!

Episode Grade: C-