Kofi Kingston defeats The Miz to retain the United States Title. Kofi and the US Title in an unannounced PPV add-on match? What the hell is going on? Has anybody checked the current weather in hell? Lilian Garcia gets her close-up as she intros this match. And let's just say that as sad as I was when she made a HUGE fashion faux pas back on what I thought was her final PPV appearance (that stupid thing where girls wear leg-warmers with high heel shoes; so dumb), she looks to be going out in style this time: you canNOT go wrong with a hot chick in a low cut Rolling Stones tongue-themed halter top and fuck-me boots. Miz does a quick bit of pre-match mic work of his own, speaking in French to the Montreal crowd; I don't speak the language, but I'll wager a body part that it boiled down to "I'm the Miz, and I am Awesome." I wonder if Maryse was impressed?
 
Match gets off to a hot start with Kofi jumping around like he can, then after 2-3 minutes, settles into the mandatory heel beatdown... it is, however, a touch more back-and-forthy than you might think, since a lot of Miz's offense actually came off countering Kofi. So Kofi's stuff was more frequent than just sporadic "hope spots," as he was actually feeding Miz's offense. Some cool stuff by Miz that actually was his own doing: a Macho Man Axe Handle, and a Double Clutch Backbreaker/Inverted DDT combo move. Then Kofi started his rally, the crowd got WAAYYY behind him with the whole "Yay"/"Boo" thing, some more reversals and stuff, and Kofi countered his way into hitting his jumping/spinning/Trouble In Paradise kick. Enough to get the pinfall. Call it 12-15 minutes, and very entertaining. Why this had to be an unannounced add-on match, while other crap on the card was planned ahead of time is beyond me; but either way, I guess I have to be glad it was on the show at all, right? WWE: doing shit so dumb that you're actually grateful when the give you the bare minimum since 2005!

Cody Rhodes/Ted DiBiase vs. Triple H/Shawn Michaels in a Submissions Count Anywhere Match. DX enters first, and their lengthy "Let's Get Ready to Suck It" bit is interrupted by Montreal's desire to chant "You Screwed Bret." But HHH acknowledged it, and kind of defused it by feigning an apology and then saying it was all Michaels' fault, anyway. The crowd, which seemed to just be chanting out of obligation at this point, some 12 years after the fact, accepted this, laughed, and kind of decided the most they would do is to boo Michaels ironically, while still enjoying the DX shtick. Legacy enters, and we begin.
 
Given the match stipulation, this is obviously conducted under Tornado rules, and the announcers make a big deal out of how much effort WWE put into planning their coverage of this match at a production meeting, including camera placement, and the assignment of two referees to the match. So when it breaks down to HBK/DiBiase and HHH/Rhodes, each brawl spilling out of the ring in different directions, each one has a ref with them, and each one is covered well by cameras. All four end up converging again up on the concourse. Legacy eventually gains control, and start trying to steer the match back into the arena and towards the ring. By the time they finally do get back to the ring, we're at about the 8 minute mark; DiBiase powders out long enough for DX to put Rhodes in a cool-ass double submission move: with Rhodes trapped inside a steel chair, HHH applies a Boston Crab while HBK does a Camel Clutch... but DiBiase powders himself back in just in time to break the hold. He takes out Michaels, and then we get a sequence of HHH vs. DiBiase back up in the ring. HHH got the better of it, and even locked in a Crippler Crossface (called "Oh my, whatta submission maneuver" by Cole). Rhodes with a save, then when Michaels got back in to re-balance the numbers, Rhodes got the better of him with an modified Torture Rack. Now HHH has to make the save.
 
HHH/DiBiase keep doing stuff in the ring, while the Rhodes/HBK brawl spills back out into the fans. Rhodes ended up shoving Michaels out of the stands (about 5 rows up) and into some boxes/tables/whatever in the production area. HHH came to check on Michaels, but DiBiase followed, and now Rhodes was able to join in as HBK was incapacitated. HHH then took out DiBiase with a spinebuster on the steel stage, and started brawling to the backstage area with Rhodes. DiBiase recovers to rejoin the fight; Michaels is still out. So HHH is on the short end of a 2-on-1 beating for a couple minutes. He refuses to submit to a Million Dollar Dream, and manages to get back in the fight by putting DiBiase through a catering table. Another Crippler Crossface on Rhodes, but DiBiase manages to recover to break the hold. More 2-on-1, as a camera shot shows us that Michaels is just now back on his feet and watching the backstage brawl on the TitanTron. Legacy apparently senses this, somehow, as they blast HHH with a cooler and decide to just leave him KO'ed, rather than going for the submission... they head back out into the arena, and intercept the still-wounded Michaels.
 
Now it's 2-on-1 versus Michaels after he took the big stunt bump. Closest Legacy got to a submission was an AngleLock by Rhodes, but Michaels escapes that with a cool flippy enzuigiri/flip-kick combo. Rhodes then gets Sweet Chin Music, and HBK slowly recovers... and then teases the Sharpshooter (BOO! says Montreal) before settling on a Figure Four (YAY!). DiBiase breaks it up, and the 2-on-1 continues on Michaels, even as HHH starts getting to his feet backstage.... but it might be too little, too late, as Michaels finds himself trapped in the match's second cool double-submission: Rhodes applies a ringpost-assisted Figure Four, while DiBiase cinches in a Million Dollar Dream. Here's HHH stumbling down the ramp.... falling down... can he make it before Michaels has to tap out? Nope, he can't. With HHH still 40 feet from the ring, Michaels taps out, and Legacy are your winners in a 25 minute brawl.
 
Long, but with only a few really big spots, and yet, the magic of vets like HBK/HHH meant that this told a story and kept the intensity at a watchable level despite an objectively slow pace and lack of action. That's psychology baby. And only time will tell if this finish does anything for Rhodes/DiBiase or not; my guess is "not really," and they'll have to find some other breakout moment or hook, since they really only contributed one neat spot here, and it's a spot you can't duplicate outside of this specific type of match, so.... yeah. Still: it doesn't hurt 'em. And probably doesn't do any lasting damage to DX, either.

Kane beat the [redacted] Khali in a Singapore Cane Match. Good lord. You think I'm recapping this? Think again. All you need to know: the live crowd turned against this after 2 minutes. It wound up going on to become 8 full minutes of my life I'll never get back. The pop for Kane's win, via chokeslam, was practically oozing with sarcasm.

Backstage: CM Punk is interviewed, and wastes little time invoking the name of Jeff Hardy. And flat-out saying "Just three weeks after I got rid of Jeff Hardy, he went and did exactly what I said he would, and now his mugshot is plastered all over the internet." Punk assures us that he will never let us down like Jeff, and says that "good things happen to those who live a clean lifestyle" and says that every time people have said Punk had no chance in the past, he's proven 'em wrong. And he'll do it again tonight against the big spooky Undertaker. He ain't a-sacred. Until the lights flicker, then he freaks out and hides behind Eve Torres. But it's just Jimmy Wang Yang playing... so Punk regains his composure and beats the shit out of Yang, before turning back to the camera to assure us there's plenty more where that came from, and it's got Taker's name on it. Good stuff, and color me surprised (but pleased) that WWE/Punk are using Jeff's situation this way; nobody can say that Jeff didn't bring it on himself, and my god does it ever fit right into and help Punk's character.

Christian beat William Regal to retain the ECW Title. Right off the bat, the ring announcer informs us that Regal's associates -- Vlad and Zeke: the Bad Motherfuckers -- are hereby ejected from ringside, and if they don't leave, Regal will forfeit the match. So the duo depart, Regal remembers to remove his robe BEFORE the bell this time, and we start. They keep it slow and mat-wrestling-y for a few minutes, but then Regal gains nominal control after chucking Christian off the top rope, and following it up with a VICIOUS exploder suplex. Sweet hope spot for Christian, as he tried for a springboard sunset flip, but Regal re-countered that with a brutal knee-to-the-head. At this point, Regal's happy to settle in with naughty-looking submission moves (even though this match is NOT one of the night's themed-matches), including a choke of some kind and a Dragon Sleeper (I wonder if Taker is going to be charging royalties?). Another mini-rally for Christian following a missile dropkick, but Regal has the answer yet again, leading up to ANOTHER awesome looking move: a head-and-leg cradle suplex/pinning combo which Striker calls a RegalPlex (and which I'm more than happy to do the same). Man alive, what a cool move.
 
Christian begins what seems like a genuine rally with a jaw-jacker elbow, another missile dropkick, a divebomb forearm, but then whiffs on another top rope move. Regal with a convincing near fall with a running senton. Regal goes for his Finisher du Jour -- a running knee lift -- and Christian spins out of the way, and counters directly into the Killswitch. That gets him the win. Clocks in around 12 minutes, and though the pace itself was a bit slow-ish, the punctuation marks (mostly Regal's vicious spots) were all exclamation points, and this was a really nicely put-together old school rasslin' match.

Random In-Ring Shenanigans: Pat Patterson is introduced as Montreal's Own First InterContinental Champion Ever, and speaks in French for a bit, and eventually clues us in that -- just days shy of the 30th anniversary of the creation of the IC Belt -- he's proud to be here in his hometown and.... he gets interrupted by Dolph Ziggler. Patterson gets a few quick verbal jabs in, then Dolph takes over and starts telling all kinds of Senior Citizen Jokes that are so awful (and so awfully delivered) that they'd make Abraham Washington blush. Difference is: telling shitty jokes isn't Ziggler's on-purpose gimmick. Montreal first tries a "Shut the Fuck Up clap clap clapclapclap" chant (that's not very French of you bastards!), then starts "What'ing" him out of boredom. Then Ziggler kicks Patterson in the gut out of nowhere. Before he can continue, Johnny Morrison runs out to protect Patterson. Oy. Let's give Ziggler's verbal awfulness a pass, and just be happy that WWE decided to give Pat Patterson a Very Special Moment in his hometown: they let him get in the ring and surrounded him by two of the company's premiere hunks of gay-porn-ready man-meat. Good for him; I bet he loved it, and deserves every second of it.

John Cena beat Randy Orton in an "I Quit" Match to win the WWE Title. The match was preceded one of the single-most ridiculous video packages I've ever seen. "Eyeball-roll-inducing" doesn't even begin to touch on how overwrought and embarrassingly silly this was. Classic slow-mo entrance from Lethargy's Douchemaster Supreme; classic mixed-reaction-at-best for Cena. Jesus. I know as well as anyone how fun it is to be annoyed by Cena's cookie-cutter crap, but let me spell this out for you: if you think the solution to the John Cena Problem is named Randall Orton, you forfeit the right to breathe the same air as the rest of us sane, rational human beings. Just accept the lesser of two evils, and shut up. You're free to chant "Cena Sucks" whenever you want, if you believe it. But when Cena's in the ring with this particular opponent, you are therefore obligated to ALSO chant "Orton Sucks Worse." Otherwise, you are a demonstrable fool.
 
But hey, I'm having fun ranting against you demonstrable fools, and the truth is, you were probably just about the most fun part of this match. Once again, a Cena match benefits from people hating him, and thus, lending a perception of drama/sizzle to things. Even as Orton was perpetually moving in slow motion and taking 30 seconds to perform 5 seconds worth of action (for a fun game, everytime Cole says "stalking" re-imagine it as if he said "loitering"; you will be amazed at how perfectly apt a description it is for most of Orton's alleged "personality"), you couldn't take your eyes or ears off the screen because of the sheer electricity of the fans. Truly, they were the hardest workers here.
 
On top of Orton making me wish that live TV had a fast-forward button, we got to the "I Quit" portion of the match at about the 8 minute mark. That's just MORE time-wasting and pace-killing, as the ref has to whip out the mic, and Cena felt obligated to milk each response for an extra 20 seconds before he answered "no" to the question "Wanna quit?" as the Orton beatdown continued. This repeated a few times. As I've stated in the recent past, the "I Quit" thing is also seriously lame in terms of gravitas and manliness, forcing your top guys to half-blubber "no I don't quit" into a mic, instead of letting actions speak louder than words. At about the 10 minute mark, Orton brought out handcuffs, and hooked Cena onto the ropes. This just let him stalk ("loiter") even more in between random one-shots and ref-questionings. The fact that Orton is averaging one offensive move every 45 seconds apparently isn't supposed to matter when Cena's in handcuffs and Orton's doing things like finding left-over Singapore Canes to use.
 
By about the 15 minute mark, I should note that the original Crowd Sizzle Effect is gone, and they've gone from racous to almost silent. I guess booing Cena isn't as much fun when he's getting his ass very slowly kicked? Orton -- with the key around his neck -- also keeps moving Cena around and cuffing him to different things. Needless to say, there is also nothing more exciting than a kinetically-challenged man dragging a stumbling unconscious man around for 30 seconds to cuff him to some other object. Close to the 20 minute mark (or somewhere around there; honestly, it felt like 45, so who knows?), we FINALLY hit a respectable gear, as Cena dodges a chairshot, then backdrops a charging Orton, and gets the key off of Orton. He uncuffs himself from the ringpost, and recuffs him left hand to to Orton's left hand.
 
Then Cena, who's main crime is that HIS offense is often spastic and sloppy, goes on a much faster-paced rally for a bit. Then Orton hits an RKO out of nowhere, and tries to drag Cena's carcass across the ring so he can recover the handcuff key... but while he's doing this, Cena recovers, and manages to yank Orton to the ground and applies a handcuff-assisted SSTF. The one and only time the ref puts the mic in Orton's face, he says "I Quit" in about 7 nanoseconds flat. Wow. A way to be even pussier than blubbering "No I don't quit"! Leave it to Randall. Match over, new champ, and the fans who deign to respond to the finish do so with almost all cheers.
 
I suppose if you genuinely cared about this story or buy into Orton in some way (such as believing lethargy to be a marketable character trait), this was (objectively) a well-plotted (if well-plodding) contest with the hook of the handcuffs. But in execution, it doesn't seem many people were into it on that level, and once the people who were just into it to mutinously boo Cena stopped caring, there wasn't nearly as much fun or drama. Still, 8 minutes of action crammed into a 25 minute package or not: Orton's not the champ anymore. And that makes me smile. For now. Then I'll remember that Cena's not THAT much better soon enough, and get all frowny-faced again. But for now: smiles. Yeah.

CM Punk beat the Undertaker in a Submissions Match to retain the World Title. After taking 10 minutes too long in the previous match to accommodate Orton's kinetic shortcomings and still going forward with a lengthy Announce Table Hype Job *and* a video package, it's 10:35 before ring entrances even start, and 10:40 before the bell rings to start the match. So the one match on the card I honestly cared about is gonna go a grand total of 12-15 minutes? And Mark Henry got 16? And Khali got 8? D'oh.
 
Once the bell rings, Punk makes good on his claims of not being scared by taking the fight straight to Taker, and then being immediately overpowered and chucked out of the ring, but getting right back in to rejoin the fight. And get rechucked out of the ring. And rejoin the fight. And rechucked. Then there's a bit of a brawl outside of the ring, which Taker again gets the better of for a little bit until Punk's able to dodge a charge, and Taker eats the ringside barricade. Then Punk grabs a chair and swings away a few times to gain a nominal advantage. But once back in the ring, that advantage evaporates, and Taker starts working Punk's arm/shoulder to set up Old School. But Punk counters that and crotches Taker on the turnbuckle; he follows up with a running super-enzuigiri, and then superplexes the dazed Taker off the top rope. Bit of a run for Punk, then Taker rallies, and the crowd is way into the "Boo"/"Yay" slugfest as Taker regains control. Snake Eyes. Big Boot. Leg Drop. Chokeslam... but chokeslam countered with a stiff front kick. As Punk crawls over to maintain control, however, Taker grabs his arm, pulls him in, and locks in his Hell's Gate chokehold. And Punk taps out immediately. Just like that. Out of nowhere. So, uhhh, 8 minutes instead of 12-15?

NO~! Here's SD General Manager Teddy Long, who comes down with a sudden case of Continuity. He remembers that Hell's Gate was banned by Vickie Guerrero many moons ago, and it's still an illegal hold, and says that this match MUST continue. As Taker glares at Teddy, Punk strikes from behind (hmmmm, did he tap so fast because he knew the move was illegal and wanted to keep himself as fresh as possible for a restart? methinks maybe)... after a bit of grappling, Punk scores a takedown, and starts trying to work towards the Anaconda Vice. More grappling on the mat. Punk finally gets a wrist, and cinches it in, but Taker's still trying to counter. In the struggle, his hand taps the mat, and the ref sees it, and decides to call for the bell. Taker was clearly STILL fighting, but the random tap stands. OMG ANOTHER MONTREAL SCREWJOB~! Punk retains. Taker's pissed. Right at 12 minutes, counting a little 3 minute interlude for Taker's faux celebration and Teddy's speech before the classic Dusty Finish.
 
I'm not gonna lie and say this was fantastic; it's not even close to what these two could probably do in a straight-up contest. But WWE booked themselves into a major corner: Punk really shouldn't re-lose the title again so soon, but Taker can't look bad in his first match back from a lengthy vacation, so.... we got this. The first "decision" just came out of nowhere and reeks of Taker's UFC Fetish, and the second seemed almost like a homage to that shitty/flukey finish to the Gina Carano fight last month. Except that in this case, the person who was clearly going to win eventually got screwed, rather than the person who was gonna lose anyway getting screwed one round too soon. Just as my own personal preference: MMA can be really fun and intense and dramatic and stuff, but it's also different from pro wrestling; let's not try to imitate/duplicate, OK? Real fights are generally boring as hell; fake fights are fun. And fake fights should have a finish, probably. This one? Didn't, really. More than a bit frustrating given my expectations and hopes for this match to "make" this PPV.
 
So, there you have it, folks. Another PPV down. Just 4 more to go here in 2009. If you appreciate OO saving you the $700/yr. it'd cost to watch these shows on your own, why not donate a few bucks to the cause (PayPal is our processor, but all credit cards are accepted)? You'll be making sure that we're around and telling you what happens on the shows you can't be bothered to pay for! And you'll join a noble minority of readers who help subsidize this place for the vast majority of no-good parasites! And you'll have my thanks.
 
See you again soon, kids. Not only will I be keeping OO updated with the latest Jeff Hardy news (he has a court date tomorrow, and the sheriff's department is scheduled to have a press conference, so we'll DEFINITELY be covering that on the main page by 5pm tomorrow), but I think I'll go ahead and cave to Pyro's request that I turn the one-night comeback of Trish Stratus into an Event, by recapping RAW for you (it'll be up by mid-day Tuesday).
 
Sure, why not? It's not like I didn't already give you a killer, news-laden 5000 word OO on Friday. A constantly-updated Newsflash page for Hardy. A 3000 word PPV recap tonight. And now, dusting off my old RAW Recappening Skillz to boot? Seriously, at this point, if you don't donate, I hate you.
 
On that happy note: bye bye, everybody!