we got you!" But by the same token, what did "getting us" accomplish last month when you did this with Batista? Not much. Maybe a one week spark of interest before ratings went right back into the crapper.
 
So who really knows if the Big Surprise of Hardy's win is really a good idea, or just the opposite of Sustainable Episodic TV? We'll have to take a wait-and-see on that, but in the short term, there's no waiting required to realize that tonight's PPV was mostly just off-kilter and unsatisfying from the get-go. Sad, but true. Here are the results from the just-completed WWE Night of Champions 2009 pay-per-view:

• Chris Jericho and Big Show beat Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase to retain the Unified Tag Team Titles. After some pre-match mic work in which Jericho re-lambasted Edge for no good reason (other than Jericho is a giant jerk), he finally intro'd his new partner: The Big Show (now sporting a slimming blue trim on his black singlet that also matches Jericho's trunks). OK: so it's not Jack Swagger, but it's close enough to the same idea (since we'll probably still need a replacement in that US Title match, now, and gee-whiz, I wonder if Evan Bourne's around?)... Jericho and Show got off to a strong start with attempted double-teaming, though they've still got some work to go before everything's clicking on that front. Then, showing just how little WWE trusted Legacy to hold up their own in this match: they turned Jericho (probably the #2 asshole in the company right now) into the Babyface In Peril, since fans would actually care about him. 
   
  They chose wisely: after 5 minutes of the fans not giving a crap about the heel vs. heel dynamic, they finally came semi-alive towards the end of Jericho getting beatdown by Legacy's tag trickery. Nice mini-pop for Show tagging in and cleaning house. A little Pier 4 Brawl, and Jericho hit the Codebreaker on Rhodes, then powdered out with DiBiase, leaving Cody to tap out to Show's Colossal Clutch. Heel vs. Heel never works, and this was really no different, but at least with the Jericho/Show pairing, WWE didn't piss away the Brand-Hopping Tag Champs gimmick, and those two should be fun to watch crossing brands until the inevitable break-up where Big Show no-likey being Jericho's lackey. 10 inoffensive minutes that maybe wasn't a high energy opener, but which probably had to go on in this early slot to facilitate story-telling about filling Show's spot in the US Title match.
   
  
• CM Punk is a giant meaniehead. WWE Diva Josh Mathews tried to interview CM Punk, but Punk found Josh's question lame, and decied he'd conduct his OWN interview. With the crowd. He took Josh' mic and went out into the arena, and asked the fans how in the blue hell they can support Jeff Hardy, a man who can't even support himself. From here, Punk backpeddaled a bit, and said "It's OK if you're under 17 years old and like Jeff Hardy. It's not your fault. He's everything you've been told is cool. It's YOUR PARENTS' fault. Errrr, no, I mean YOUR PARENT's. Singular. Because just like Jeff Hardy, such phenomenally screwed up kids can only come from single parent households." He then finished up on a rant about a parent's inability to say "no" to their children, which in trun leads to kids unable to say "no" to Jeff Hardy. To cigarettes. To beer. To pot. To whiskey. To street drugs. And finally to pills and worse. BOO~! So Punk invites us all to say "yes" tonight, if we're in such a malleable mood. Say "yes" to a straight edge utopia where CM Punk will remain OUR World Heavyweight Champion. DOUBLE BOO~!
   
  Smoking hot promo, though I'm not sure if it does anything to solve the fundamental problem that, ummm, Punk's kinda RIGHT about everything he says so far, which might be a layer of subtlety lost on WWE fans. I mean, in my own personal experience (and as a man who enjoys his whiskey), straight edge types aren't inherently evil at all (they're just taking solace/comfort in a belief system that seems to work for them). They only become insufferably clueless cocks when they turn evangelical when you never asked them what they think. Most don't do that but some do; now Punk's one of 'em. Like I said: it's such a fine line that I don't know if it's the kind of thing WWE will ultimately handle well. If Punk keeps "seeming right" and getting small pockets of mutinous cheers, I can see somebody (*cough*Vince*cough*) going all spaz and deciding to "Muhammad Hassan" Punk into betraying his own fundamental rightness/consistancy in order to be MORE stereotypically evil. Remember the sensible-but-outspoken Arab American who suddenly, out of nowhere, starting running a Terror Cell? And then had to be fired for being too much of an insulting/insensitive racial sterotype? Yeah. So: that would suck if they did something similar to Punk. But let's cross our fingers.
   
  
• Christian beat Tommy Dreamer to become the new ECW Champion. Not nearly the "home court advantage" you'd expect for Tommy in Philadelphia. But then again, ECW's been dead and buried for almost 9 years, now, so maybe I'm wrong for still secretly jonsing for those good ol' days. Anyway, as a face/face counterpoint to the opening match, Dreamer and Christian didn't have to stick to any formaic trickery to generate a reaction, and instead just kept up a decently-paced back-and-forth contest right from the start. Christian would rally, try to hit a super-big highspot, whiff, Dreamer would capitalize, lather, rinse, repeat. It only took about 8 minutes, but that was the basic sequence, and it ended with Christian re-countering one of Dreamer's big moves for a bit of triple-reversey action into a Killswitch for the clean win. Short, fast, and the crowd was plenty happy for Christian despite Tommy's standing as a home town hero. Dreamer even briefly stuck around to give Christian a big congratulatory hug before leaving the new champ to clebrate.
   
  
• Backstage: Big Show and Chris Jericho are interviewed by Josh Mathews, who can't believe these two are such good pals all of a sudden. But Josh is wrong: no pals, it's just business. Both Jericho and Show go off on how much sense this pairing makes for Business Reasons, how they have held 40 WWE titles between them, and how they are now embarking on being the greatest tag team in the history of wrestling (hey, isn't there a DVD on that topic coming out soon? how conveninent). Jericho and Show leave, chuckling at their own awesomeness, but Jericho comes back and -- smirking mightily -- thanks Edge for making this all possible. DICK~!
   
  
• Kofi Kingston retained the US Title in a six-way match over Carlito, Primo, Jack Swagger, MVP, and Miz. Primo is just quietly announced as Big Show's replacement; no real explanation or story. Huh. Thought this was a custom-made spot for Bourne (unless they are actually UNDERselling a legit injury to Evan, rather than over-selling it, which is what I had assumed when Bourne was "injured" on RAW, but had actually wrestled a match at those same tapings that aired on Superstars last week).
   
  Anyway, this is Tornado Rules, which is all six guys fighting  at the same time until a singular pinfall or submission. So it's just crazy go nuts with big spots being used to let certain guys powder out while other guys take a moment to do stuff inside the ring. Big spots here included Carlito doing a wacky-ass double-jump moonsault to the floor, Carlito/Primo/Kofi doing some incredible back-and-forth-and-back again nearfalls, and my favorite: Primo and Kofi were setting up to double-team superplex Miz off the top rope, and then Swagger stepped in and hooked both Primo and Kofi to powerbomb them off the top while Miz flipped over, too in an amazing Quadruple Stack Tower Of Doom. Finish of the match had  Carlito bossing Primo around, and Primo went along with it until Carlito and Primo were the only two men standing. At which point Carlito backstabbed Primo one more time. Who saw that coming? Besides everyone? Carlito gestured Broadly to indicate his genius strategy, but this just meant that when he finally went for a cover, he was picked off by a resurgent Kofi, who rolled Carlito up with a small package for the win. A fun 10 minute highlight reel of a match.
   
  
• Backstage: Randy Orton was interviewed, and said nothing interesting. And said it very slowly and boringly. Something about doing what Cody and Teddy didn't do, and coming out of tonight with gold thanks to his intelligence and scheming. Randy Orton WANTING to have a Battle of Wits? Are you shitting me, Writer Monkeys? The one guy on the roster that Eugene could come back and defeat soundly in Trivial Pursuit, and HE's claiming intellectual superiority? Baffling; just stop trying to make Orton into something he's flamboyantly not, OK? Just. Fucking. Stop. It doesn't help him in his quest to one day find his own voice and niche, and it SURE doesn't help the overall quality of the product. He's a mentally-enfeebled douchebag who maybe -- just MAYBE -- had wrestling bred into him by a fluke of genetics. It's real; it oozes out of his every pore; and isn't it enough for a slappable heel? 
   
  
• Michelle McCool beat Melina to retain the Women's Title. McCool interrupted Melina's ever-popular ring-entrance with a sliding dropkick, which was about the most heat this one had. Then the bell rang, and it was mostly downhill. One nice spot outside the ring, with both women standing on the ringside barricade, and after some jostling for position, Michelle hit a DDT onto the top of the barricade. Then back in the ring and some off-kilter back-and-forth until McCool hit a roll-up out of nowhere for the win. About six minutes, and no great shakes here; we've seen way better women's matches for free on TV lately.
   
  
• Randy Orton retained the WWE Title in a 3-way match over Triple H and John Cena. During ring introductions, it became clear we had yet another match with no one, clear-cut, unanimous babyface. Cena got way more boos than cheers; HHH got nominally more cheers than boos; Orton got 95% boos. Not unexpected at this point, but whatever...
   
  Early match was Orton's "intelligent strategy," where he kept trying to powder out to force HHH to fight Cena, but they didn't bite on it, and kept stalking Randall. Which is easy, because Orton is under the misapprehension that "moving slowly" is a personality trait, rather than merely another reason he's boring as fuck. So they kept catching up and savaging him, until one move where HHH was holding Orton and Cena charged, but Orton ducked and Cena took out HHH. That led to Cena vs. Orton. Then Cena got beat down and it was HHH vs. Orton. And they kept trading spots like that for 8 minutes until they go outside and manage to toss Randall into the front row. HHH and Cena do the "look to the crowd" spot to try to recapture a magic that has -- technically -- never existed. But don't tell that to WWE: HHH vs. Cena has headlined WrestleMania, and ALL WRESTLEMANIAS ARE EQUALLY AS AWESOME. The Philly crowd kind of no-sells the "look to the crowd" milk-it spot, but does get into the yay-boo-yay-boo thing once they start trading blows ("yay" for HHH, "boo" for Cena).
   
  When Orton tries to get re-involved, he winds up tied to the Tree of Woe, so HHH/Cena can keep going at it for a bit. Once Orton finally escapes and gets back into the mix, HHH and Cena surprise everybody (or at least, surprise Cole/Lawler) by STILL working together. This leads up to a spot where HHH locks in a Sharpshooter on Orton's legs, and then Cena piles on by cinching in an STF on Orton's head. Orton taps out, and so of course, the ref..... does nothing at all~! While his confusion is somewhat understandable, it's not like WWE History isn't rife with moments where double-pins/double-submissions have been acknowledged, so honestly, this is just fucktarded beyond all belief that Orton tapping out "doesn't count."
   
  Adding to the fucktardery, NOW is when Legacy decides it's OK to interfere (even though ALL MATCH LONG, it's been made clear that DQs don't count an anything's legal). DiBiase successfully takes out HHH, and while Rhodes is about to get FU'ed by Cena, Orton springs up and RKO's Cena. For the pinfall win. Double-you. Tee. Eff. So Orton's "master intellectual strategy" was to wait until he'd gotten his ass kicked and tapped out in the middle of the ring and THEN have his lackeys come out to save him and let him score a win out of nowhere? Or was Orton's master plan to bank on WWE having no sense of logic, continuity, or history so that he could tap out and not have it count so long as he got himself into the most vicious submission move possible and tapped out to BOTH of his opponents at once, instead of just one?
   
  If anybody can tell me where the good strategy or compelling storytelling came into play here, I'm listening. As it stands, this was just another case of Orton quarterbacking a title match to about 20 minutes worth of two-star action (if you're into that Meltzer style rating crap). Not satisfying in the least; not in and of itself, and not in a "well, I wonder what happens next on Monday night" way, either. Just raging mediocrity and illogic, through and through. But hey: plus 10 for them realizing this was a load of crap and then trying to hide it on the mid-card, rather than force it into the top spot, as they have so many times in the past with Orton.
   
  
• Backstage: Miz tried to smooth it onto Maryse, but Maryse is all "Well, maybe we can hang out later. If you come on out to the ring with me tonight for my match." And Miz decides to have none of it, saying he helped Maryse out on Monday, but she's now on the brink of blowing it with the greatest studmuffin of all times. He says she's not a champion, she's a tease, and after she loses that Diva Title, she'll be crawling back to him, but it'll be too late. The prophecies of Miztrodamus: they sound sensible.
   
  
• Mickie James beat Maryse to win the Diva Title. Once again, the women just don't really get on track in any meaningful way. Just 5 minutes of back-and-forth tepidity with no real storyline or hook (or chemistry), with threats of "Boring" chants if only they'd tried to take the match any longer, and then BAM Mickie hit the DDT for the clean win after Maryse's failed use of the Hair Spray of Doom. Miz's prohpecy is now half-true. Only time will tell if he'll really turn down Maryse crawling back to him. And it's sad that THAT is the storyline coming out of a title change. But it is. Poor Mickie...
   
  
• Rey Mysterio beat Dolph Ziggler to retain the IC Title. Out of the gate, they start upsetting me, since they decide to do a slow/feeling-out start, even though this match started at 10:15pm (and still with the de facto Match of the Night to come). This also didn't sit well with the live fans, who TRIED to amuse themselves with "Let's go Rey"/"Let's Go Ziggler" chants. Except that the Rey chants were half-assed and the Ziggler chants were championed by what sounded like 4 people. D'oh. Then Ziggler hit a powerbomb-into-the-turnbuckle (Rey's head snapped off the top rope), and embarked on methodical rest-hold offense straight out of the Book Of Orton. Only Rey's periodic and high-energy Hope Spots kept the previous match's threatened "Boring" chants from materializing for real, here. But it was still a close thing, and the crowd was D-E-D, dead. The climax of Ziggler's offense was his own (1) decent move of the night: reversing a Splash Mountain attempt into a top rop gutbuster. But even then, he had nothing with which to follow-up besides his random stomping/punching/resting/taunting. Which allowed Rey to reverse a slam attempt into an enzuigiri, which led to a (619), which led to the springboard splash and the win for Rey, despite having had all of 5 offensive moves in the entire match. Rey celebrates, the fans sign in relief that even if it was boring they still got the right finish, and Dolph sulked while his girl Maria looked miffed. Whee. A 15 minute match that contained about 4 minutes of value-add; and you know my stance on stuff like that (especially when Punk/Hardy was waiting in the wings).
   
  
• Jeff Hardy beat CM Punk to win the World Heavyweight Title. Even with time running WAY short, they ran the full waste-of-space 3-minute video package for this one before the match although Punk's earlier promo should have done MORE than enough to set the stage (they also, for even LESS defensible reasons, ran a full package before Ziggler/Rey, for that matter). Result: our main event, and the one match on the card that we might all have secretly been banking on to be fun didn't even get underway until 10:40pm (at least 10 minutes later than it should have). Boo on that. What a screwed up show.
   
  They still started out with about 6-8 minutes of feeling-out, which served to set the stage for Punk exuding almost criminal levels of "Dick." JR even commented that he's never seen Punk quite so confident and cocky, and Punk played into that throughout the rest of the match with facial expressions and body language that were just off-the-charts even if he was delivering them while visibly stalling and slowing down the "action." Storytelling comes in a lot of ways, and Punk was working hard at it all match long, even if he wasn't breaking a sweat to do it.
   
  Then, about 8 minutes in, Punk gets frustrated that Jeff's not just rolling over like he should, and bitchslaps him out of nowhere. Oh-no-you-didn't! Crowd perks up further, and we hit cruising speed with the action. Punk with striking and high-impact stuff, but Hardy always with the crafty counter. Crowd is entertained enough by this that they don't even do the wanker "yay/boo" thing: Jeff's the favorite here, and Punk's a jerk, and you can hear it. This is about the only time all night we've had that level of agreement and sizzle for a match.
   
  Punk nominally controls about 10 minutes there, allowing for Hardy's various rallies and hope spots, until a huge sequence where Hardy THOUGHT he was in command, went for a Swanton, but ate Punk's knees, instead. Go to Sleep. But Hardy kicks out. IMMEDIATE rolling-crade follow-up. Hardy still kicks out. A Pure Frustration kick-to-the-head and cover-again. STILL kicks out. Punk begins to sense something is amiss, and bails out of the ring, grabs his title belt, and tries to walk out. But Hardy recovers, tracks him down, and drags him back into the ring. We get another minute or so of back-and-forth super-reversey action, and then Jeff hits a Twist of Fate. This time, when he goes for the Swanton, it hits. One. Two. Three. New Champ? Yep. Huh.
   
  Call it 15 minutes, and the default Match of the Night (since nothing else had bothered to rise above 2.5 stars)... and obviously, color me surprised. Though not necessarily impressed. Unless Jeff has already inked a new contract that involves no vacations until after WM26, this is simply Stunt Booking for the sake of getting JR to close out the show with "So yeah, everybody said this wasn't gonna happen. Well, it DID happen, so how you looking now, intarweb pundits?"... that didn't accomplish a whole lot when they did it with the Batista title change last month, and it won't do a whole lot here. In fact, not only will it NOT help Jeff at all (let's face it, this is just going to be another short term EPIC FAIL~! of a title reign for him once all is said and done, unless he really is sticking around, and NOBODY needs more of those on his resume), but this Stunt Booking amounts to WWE pissing away the chance to "make" Punk after 6 weeks of him looking weak. The stars were alligned: just let Jeff go off to do whatever, Morrison was in line to be the new #1 Contender, and Punk would get that last shot of gravitas by finally proving himself right with an actual win (instead of with his heroic capacity for whining).
   
  So yeah: I am surprised. But not really in that especially good kind of way that I sometimes enjoy. Unless I wake up tomorrow to tons of txt msg's about how WWE.com is "shoot reporting" that Jeff Hardy's "celebration party" ended with him being arrested for drunk-and-disorderly, and then being found in possession of drugs, and now he's so totally FIRED and it's REAL and now WWE's SCREWED because their champion is an ADDICT and we need CM Punk to SAVE us, then I really don't get the benefit of Stunt Booking just to try to prove a handful of idiots (like myself, admittedly) wrong by doing the opposite of the Foregone Conclusion. Oh well. But I admit, I'd probably be a bit of a sucker for the "Hardy Party Gone Awry" thing if they did it up right and really oversold it to an almost cheesy/Russo-y/shooty degree.
   
  It'd be fun to watch Keller and all them wetting themselves over posting 48 different clickable pages of worthless "updates" making themselves out to being the biggest marks of all. And also: it'd give Punk a HELL of a lot of traction in terms of reclaiming his title cheaply (but in an in-character fashion) while Jeff has to go away in an EQAULLY in-character fashion. I'd even be OK if -- after months of the "We Want Hardy" chant campaign by fans -- the "big reveal" is that, yeah, Jeffrey got drunk off his ass in celebration, but somehow, Punk planted the drugs on him. WHATTAJERK~! Then Jeff is back and all is right with the world. Or close enough to it. So we'll see... that's my one and only vote for an "out" as of now, though.