[derfsucks]

Recap up here in a tiny bit ... I only sorta flaked, heh. Wife's mom had a heart attack this weekend so yesterday was spent getting her ready for a nice long bus trip from Denver to Detroit so she can be with the fam, and also serve as her mom's stand-in in the delivery room with her younger sister - she gets induced Thursday morning. I swear, my life's a soap opera.

Merge this with the discussion thread when it's posted?

[derfsucks]

RAW from the home of the Detroit Red Wings, Joe Louis Arena.

SEGMENT 1: We open to a black arena, and the lights hit to Regal standing alongside the lovely Vivian Garcia. Regal nods, and Viv busts out a few bars of “God Save the Queen.” Regal prattles on about respect, going as far as to say he’ll start ejecting members of the audience if he doesn’t get some quick. He chooses a deliciously punk looking girl and her indie wrassler guy looking ‘boyfriend’ to eject, only to have Mickie James jog out bouncily to beg him not to eject her ‘brother’ and his girlfriend. She follows Regal in the ring and he contemplates stripping her of the Women’s Championship, but Cena rambles down to the ring, escorts Mickie out and calls Regal out about what terrible decisions he’s making – he uses ‘examples’ from fans, one of which involved something about a poop sundae, if I’m not mistaken. Anyways, Regal softens just enough to say that he’ll give Cena a rematch against Orton tonight as the main – and he answers Cena’s questions about JBL involvement by saying that anyone not directly involved in the match will suffer consequences for butting in. Cena’s weary, but not so weary that he can’t talk Viv into breaking into a verse of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” for the Motor City, Motown, Hockey Town, etc.

SEGMENT 2: Piper’s out at the request of Santino Marella for the next match – a tag team title affair between Santino/Carlito and the reigning champs, Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes. Piper pantomimes a hand slap to Santino before the match. Santino starts the match jawing at Holly, who promptly drops him with a fist in a funny spot. From there, though, there is absolutely nothing at all of note here other than the game over spot, which sees Santino hop off the ropes to taunt Piper rather than going after Rhodes. Of course, Santino turns directly around to the most boring finisher in wrestling, Cody’s DDT, for the 1-2-3. Honestly, though? For as boring a finisher as that move is in 2008, Cody’s got a convincing looking DDT going for him. Piper celebrates with the champs.

SEGMENT 3: Kennedy’s out at the top of the ramp for his obligatory self-performed boxing introduction – guess they couldn’t get the mic rigged over the ring at the Joe Louis Arena. His opponent is Snitsky. Damn, the Wellness policy is no friend of his – googling images of good ol’ Gene not too long ago revealed quite the physical decline. Match is nothing special, really. The King says something about Gene having ‘summer teeth’ – “sum’er yellow, sum’er brown” – before going off on a tangent about how JR should introduce himself boxing style like Kennedy. I laughed at that stupid-ass suggestion WAY too loudly. Kennedy’s especially energetic in the ring – he’s not ‘wacky’ like Cena or ‘wonky’ like Kofi Kingston, but he always seems like he’s got some extra zip behind his movements. It reminds me a lot of The Rock at times, only on a not-nearly-as-good level. Anyways, KK is smart and takes advantage of a missed Snitsky legdrop to whoop on a hamstring and knee, and winds up hitting a Mic Check out of semi-obscurity for the win.

SEGMENT 4: We get a dose of Santino mic gold as he laments losing a shot at title gold to an ‘antique’ like Roddy the Piper. He tells Piper this isn’t the 80’s anymore – Reagan’s not the prez, and Michael J Fox is not going back into time to become a werewolf. Santino’s going to find Piper and hurt him, and it’s going to hurt a lot worse than a coconut to the head, heh. Cut to John Cena and his admittedly cool John Cena t-shirt getting a coffee backstage. Mickie James pops in to say thanks for getting her back earlier, and she asks if he’d like to join her/her ‘brother’/her brother’s girlfriend for a drink later on. Cena says no and then breaks into a monotonous robot speech pattern about staying focused for his upcoming title match. Mickie’s a bit taken aback, but Cena’s just clowning. He tells Mickie that sometimes being out with him turns wild, and she skips off merrily to her tag team match against Beth Phoenix and Melina, coming up NEXT.

SEGMENT 5: Oh man, poor Mickie – her partner’s Maria. Turns out it doesn’t matter much, as this pairing only exists for storytelling purposes. Maria and Mickie do get in a pretty nifty looking double-splits move that they turn into a double legsweep takedown – it was nifty and synchronized, albeit kinda useless. Mickie eventually chucks Melina into the ropes where she bumps the Glamazon off the apron. That’s it for Phoenix, who saunters off to leave Melina to be pinned after a Mickie James neckbreaker.

SEGMENT 6: Y2J is out (sans Highlight Reel set) to apologize to HBK. We see the clip of HBK’s tide-turning superkick and subsequent collapse from last week’s RAW. Y2J saw the pain in Michaels' face as he hit the kick and crumbled, and he feels badly for calling out HBK’s integrity. He goes so far as to say that he doesn’t want to have his PPV match with HBK, seeing as Shawn’s not healthy and all. Limping HBK hits the ring and tries to talk to Jericho, but Chris cuts him off time after time. Shawn finally butts in and says Chris doesn’t need to apologize, that he does – because he was faking the injury. Jericho gets all flustered and thinks Shawn’s just screwing with his head, so HBK superkicks him in the jaw and kneels down at his side with the punchline, “Trust me when I tell you, I’m not hurt.” The audience laughs, and to prove his point, he flips over the top rope and lands with a resounding lunge on the floor. I still love the Jericho/Michaels interplay, and I liked this segment, but I’m absolutely clueless about what it means for the continued development of this angle.

SEGMENT 7: After a dramatic delay made up of a Titantron video and ‘new WWE CD’ music, here’s Jeff Hardy – and the music’s decent, but not for a theme tune. Well, this isn’t really a ‘shock’, but it certainly falls under pleasant surprise lines. He basks in a considerable amount of applause before starting to talk about how he made a mistake and paid for it --- and then becomes a victim of dead mic syndrome. Regal’s back out to talk about how nobody wants to hear Hardy talk about his mea culpa, but he will indeed continue to be punished as he’ll face Umanga right now. In a nice touch, Umanga’s got an athletic tapeless left forearm tonight, and he gazes at a tattoo of what appears to be his mother’s face before hitting the ring. Hardy dropkicks him on the floor through the ropes, then slingshots himself over the top to thump Umanga. Despite that, the Samoan Bulldozer whomps on Jeff quickly, even getting in a top rope headbutt on a prone Hardy. Jeff fights back and hits a solid looking Whisper in the Wind (JR: “TWIST OF FATE! TWIST OF FATE!”) for the three count. Umanga is beside himself.

SEGMENT 8" Cryme Time hit the ring, Cade and Murdoch follow. JTG slides out of the ring and sits on the railing by the front row to draw a crowd. Cade and Murdoch use the usual offense here – lots of punches, clotheslines and elbows of both the dropped and whipped off the rope variety. Cryme Time work in a nifty-looking double team where Shad catapults JTG up and over himself to deliver a forearm in the corner. Generic offense rounds it out until JTG goes for a sunset flip and Murdoch sits down on it for the surprise three-count. Murdoch looks stunned and Cade is flabbergasted. He gets a mic and tells Murdoch to sing on, only to belt him in the face twice after a chorus of “The Gambler.” I mean, seriously, he dead **jacked** Murdoch in the face with the first one. FACE TURN! Can the crowd really get behind a pale, pudgy, country-music-karaoke-singing redneck? Only time will tell.

SEGMENT 9: The Glamazon kills Melina. Goddamn that was vicious. Oh yeah, a recap – Melina’s got an icepack on her neck in the back talking with Jillian Hall when Beth Phoenix saunters up. Phoenix says the boot shot that cost her the title was intentional because Melina knows it would be easier to beat Mickie James than it would be to top the Glamazon. Melina pops her one to show her 'intentional,' but the Glamazon grabs her two-handed by the throat and absolutely THROTTLES her against a set of nearby lockers – SEVEN OR EIGHT TIMES, before chucking her to the ground and pounding her in the head and face. This was the best beatdown RAW’s seen in a while. Jillian just sorta hangs around saying, “Oh my god!” and “Are you alright?” while Melina floats in the land of severe beatings. Judgement Day rundown is next. Orton talks now and says a whole lot of the same crap he always says.

SEGMENT 10: Holy shit, Orton’s new music is SO MUCH WORSE than his last theme. I really hope this is just a three-week ‘sell some WWE CDs’ thing – I actually muted the TV until Cena came out. CENA is here, and we're off. Punchy kicky. Cena with some wacky offense, sends Orton to the corner and catches him out off the ropes for a bulldog. Cradle suplex from Cena gets two, and Orton catches Cena with an elbow followed by a counter into that slick backbreaker Orton does. That only gets two. Hilarious and loud dueling chants going on, as the back and forth is “Let’s go Cena!” and “Let’s go Red Wings!” Orton’s got Cena down and goes for a brutal stomp to the head, but Cena catches the foot, sits himself up off the mat, fights to a standing position and promptly dumps Orton over the top by his foot. It looked as lame as it sounds – why the fuck didn’t Orton just jump kick him with the other foot? Damnit, there I go, being logical with wrestling again. We’re out to commercial break as Orton says, “Goddamn that hurt.”

SEGMENT 11: We’re back from commercial and replays show us the cool stuff we missed during the break – namely Orton punting Cena in the chest as he tried to crawl back in the ring over the second rope before pulling him partway in and hitting that mean-looking hanging DDT with Cena’s feet on the second rope. Cena’s fights up out of a headlock but eats a powerslam for two. Orton headlock – Cena fights out again, but Orton reverses a rope whip and ducks down as Cena sails over him with a missed crossbody. Orton’s doing that creepy ‘slither like a snake but bounce on his knuckles’ thing for the RKO, but Cena calmly tosses him away. Kick to Orton’s gut, and Cena goes off the ropes and hits a Blockbuster from the mat, then goes up top and drops a legdrop to the back of Orton’s neck as he was getting up. Cena gives the five-knuckle shuffle sign, but then gets all depressed when he turns around to find Orton’s rolled off the apron onto the floor … but WAIT! Out comes Regal with JBL – in a referee’s shirt. Regal and Bradshaw have determined that the current referee isn’t fit to continue officiating this match. I actually didn’t see that one coming as a mid-match interruption. Cena mouths “Of course” as JBL lumbers to the ring; Cena decides to just slug him straightaway as soon as he gets through the ropes. Cena shares a few fists with Orton as well, only to run into JBL’s boot when he goes for the FU. From there, the fast three count wins it for Orton. JBL’s hobbling a lot when he gets up after giving the boot, but he and Orton still whoop on JBL until The Game steps out to even the score. HHH wails on JBL and then Orton, with Cena and JBL petering out in a through-the-crowd brawl. Orton and HHH fight and the crowd goes batshit as a previously unmentioned cage begins to descend over the ring – and while it’s a rad visual, no one has really fastened the cage down or together at the corners. Orton’s got control but Helmsley changes that with a AA spinebuster. The cage is so unfastened, in fact, that HHH throws Orton into it, and the cage side swings out far enough for Orton to bounce off the cage and slide down it straight to the floor. HHH climbs up to the top scaffolding of the Cage, but he’s holding on pretty tight just in case. Play Helmsley’s music, and we’re out on that ‘buy our PPV’ note.

I actually need to go back and re-watch the total shit-kicking that Beth Phoenix put on Melina – SUCH a thing of beauty.

[snelson66]

I don't know which way to six-pack vote this coming week: Beth for the beating she gave out, or Melina for taking and selling said beating.

[bdbdbd]

Tie'em.

That came out dirtier than I meant it to, but I'm alright with it.