Still no movies to report on, unfortunately. We’re entering finals week for Statistics in Business Research 341, which is Latin for “Your brain will bleed golden mathematics blood out of your ears

Pre-Segment 1: Jerry Lawler is in the ring to start us off, announcing that tonight, we’re going to see Edge in a World Heavyweight Championship match against John Cena!

Hm… Supposedly Vickie Guerrero made the announcement. I wonder what she’s planning?

Segment 1: Crowd pops as the Piper’s Pit scenery is set up on the stage, and Piper’s music is playing. Lilian Garcia: “Now ladies and gentlemen, Piper’s Pit, with your host…!” A pause, and Chris Jericho’s music fires up. “Chris… JERICHO!!!” Boo.

Y2J pops out and picks up a mic, welcomes us to Piper’s Pit, and tells us he will host it better than Piper himself did. He says the most infamous Piper’s Pit was when he beat the tar out of Superfly Jimmy Snuka… who happens to be the guest on tonight’s Piper’s Pit.

Snuka pops out and takes a seat next to Jericho, turning the chair to face Jericho (rather than the table) and stares him down without taking the second mic. Jericho says that the PP segment kicked off a bunch of classic matches, and he shows us some footage of it from 1984. Kinda cool for someone such as me, who was a diapered two-year-old at the time.

Once we come out of that, Jericho says that he’s the poster child for The Wrestler and other has-been legends, what with his entry into independent wrestling promotions and even the 2008 Royal Rumble even in his mid-60s.

“Whatever few functioning brain cells are left in that broken-down body, that broken-down cranium, of yours, had to be in the spotlight, hear the roar of these hypocrites one last time. You see, that’s the problem with all the Hall of Famers like you, Piper, Flair, and Steamboat: You’re all sick in the head. You’re too occupied with your own egos to let it go. Just pack it in, Snuka. It’s time! I brought you on this show tonight to show all the superstars in the back what can happen to them if they’re not careful. Because if they’re not careful, they’re going to end up like you: a pathetic disgrace.” God, I love Jericho’s mastery of English.

Snuka stands up, and Jericho follows. Jericho asks rhetorically if it makes him angry, but that he doesn’t have the right to be angry because no one cares about him anymore; to just go and pack it in, it’s over.

Snuka yells that he doesn’t understand, which Jericho isn’t surprised about. “So, ‘old school is cool,’ right? Let’s return Snuka back to the old days!” Jericho pulls out a bag of stuff, flips a couple bananas at him as Piper did, then pulls out a coconut. He tosses it up a couple times… and Snuka grabs it! Snuka readies it to smack Jericho, and Jericho retreats, saying Snuka’s made his point.

Snuka poses for the crowd, which was all too easy. Sure enough, Jericho breaks through the back of the PP set, smacks Snuka with a few of the set pieces, beats him with his belt, and finishes by stuffing a banana in his mouth as Piper did 25 years ago. Snuka is laid out as Jericho smirks to a weak “Asshole! Asshole!” chant.

Segment 2 [Triple Threat Match, winner goes to Money in the Bank]: Kane defeats Mike Knox by pin, and outlasts Rey Mysterio. Power-vs.-speed has been done to death… but power-vs.-speed-vs.-power? Frickin’ awesome. While too short to be considered a “great free match,” it was quite exciting, one of the best Rey matches I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

The match, like last week’s triple threat, was non-stop due to the fact that both guys at any given time could go at least 80% of their speed. The end game especially was quite inventive, and extremely exciting: it started off with Rey pinning Knox, the pin get broken up by Kane, and Kane whipping Rey to the corner. On the follow-up charge, Rey dodged Kane, then did headscissors to send Kane nose-first into the middle turnbuckle.

Knox appeared to knee Rey, then threw him into the opposite corner. Rey ran out, and Knox tried to Electric Chair him; but Rey bounced over Knox instead, and basically did a modified West Coast Pop to Kane. Knox tried to follow up with a slam, but Rey gave him headscissors to get him in 619 position.

Rey was cut off by Kane readying a chokeslam. Knox recovered but was big booted by Kane. Kane lifted Rey for the chokeslam but Rey countered with a huracanrana to put Kane in the 619 position. Rey hit it, followed up with the proper West Coast Pop, and pinned.

Knox recovered to kick Rey in the face to break the pin, and followed up with the spinning reverse neckbreaker or whatever. As he stood up from it, Kane recovered quickly and gave Knox a chokeslam. Rey was finished, and Kane pinned Knox for the three. Very slick! Definitely worth a watch!

After the match, Kane chokeslammed Rey for no reason. Jerk.

Segment 3: Todd Grisham interviews Shawn Michaels in the back, who says that he’ll beat the currently unbeaten Vladimir Kozlov because he’s managed to overcome every obstacle to live up to being “Mr. WrestleMania.” He’s going to end a streak tonight, and go to WrestleMania to end another. Nice.

Segment 4 [Tag Match]: Kelly Kelly & Mickie James defeat Jillian Hall & Beth Phoenix (w/ Santino Marella & Rosa Mendez) by pin. Match was short, and disjointed because Maryse and My Melina were doing retarded guest commentary, and the camera kept cutting back to them. (Like, Melina so totally called Maryse a slut! Like, oh my god! Like, that’s so totally a hardcore insult! So totally!)

Match was lame from what we saw of it, naturally. KK took a minor bad fall early when Beth attempted to powerbomb her into the corner. Beth was a step too far away from the corner though, so KK wound up slamming the back of her head into the bottom turnbuckle, snapping her neck forward like whiplash. Had to hurt, and gave me a gut-wrench flashback to Candice Michelle’s horrendous, collarbone-breaking fall.

KK was fine though and wound up being FIP, tagging in Mickie, whose speed dial was up to 11. Mickie went crazy but had to tag out again, and KK… well, KK scared the hell out of me. She went to the top rope, stumbling twice in the process and once trying to get her balance, then did a jumping victory roll; although, the angle to which she dove off, it looked like she was doing Jeff Hardy’s Senton Bomb, and I really was sure she was going to miss. She didn’t know, and with Mickie defending her, she managed to make the three.

Post-Segment 4: After the match, Rosa came in to attack KK. A Pier Four brawl broke out, and My Melina tried to go and stop it. Maryse pulled her off the apron, causing her tight red dress to ride up a bit. As My Melina suffered a headlock, she managed to pull the dress down to cover her black panties (which I so totally wasn’t looking at), then ate a DDT on the ringside padding to expose them again. I mean, to hurt her poor skull. Can I beat up Maryse for this?

Segment 5: The divas were apparently picked up and shuffled off during a video recap of last week’s events between Triple H and Randy Orton; as we come back from that, Orton himself hits the ring with a team of lawyers and Arena Security Staff, not to mention the rest of Generation Douche. I haven’t seen an entourage this size since the days that we were supposed to take the Nation of Domination seriously.

After a commercial, we get to the point why he’s here: Because he won the Royal Rumble, he will now choose which champion he wants to face at WrestleMania. First he nonsensically blathers that we thought he’d face Trips for the title at WrestleMania, implying that he’ll go after Edge/Cena’s belt. He continues that he’s going to so totally press charges on Trips for assault from his actions last week, and verbally recaps stuff I’ve already recapped (and stuff WWE just recapped not three minutes ago). Orton calls out Trips, actually uses the phrase “it’s time to face the music,” and says that he’s “going to be going away for a really long time.” I’m sure Trips is scared.

We all know Trips can’t refuse a call out, so he hits the stage… with a sledgehammer. I’m sure won’t help his case any, but what the hell. Trips has a mic in his other hand, and reminds us that his doctors insist he’s got that disorder going on, that “you’re not in control of your actions. Well let me assure you, Orton: I’m in complete control of mine!”

Trips walk to the ring, and the cops form a wall at the ramp-side of the ring. There, Trips lifts his sledge… then drops it. He spins like a model on a runway, showing Orton and the cops that he is unarmed and that his jeans are sexy to all the ladies out there, then gets in the ring. The cops are idiots and line up behind Orton, and allow the conversation to go on.

Trips recaps for us that he took out the whole McMahon family and how Orton now needs to have Trips go on and win the WWE Championship. He says he needs it to “avenge the moment that changed your life.” Specifically, we’re going all the way back to Evolution, when Orton was betrayed by Evolution the night after becoming the youngest-ever WWE Champion.

Trips finishes by admitting that he doesn’t run from his past, that he wasn’t happy about Orton’s success. He says he made a conscious decision to betray Orton; he brings it around to say that Orton is now making a conscious decision to run from Trips by going after the other belt. Trips declares that this is because Orton is afraid of him, that Orton is the same “little kid that was carrying my bag around in Evolution.” Ouch.

Orton starts shaking as Trips shoves his nose into Orton’s cheek and calls him gutless. One of Orton’s lawyers tells him that Orton has nothing further to say, and that security will remove him from the ring. The cops assist Trips to the ropes… but Orton calls them off. Orton says he’s changed his mind, predictably… and will instead take on Trips at WrestleMania.

…Under one condition: there is no further action between the two of them until the PPV. If that happens, Orton presses charges, Trips gets tossed in the hoosegow, and there is no match. Trips agrees and leaves.

Orton then says that despite being out of control of his actions, it felt great to give the Punt Kick of Doom to Vince, and to Shane, and that RKOing Stephanie was orgasmic. Trips shakes and gets back in the ring, gets forehead-to-forehead with Orton. They share my favorite, the Staredown Of Intense Rivalry…

Trips reminds him, rather softly, that the last time they fought, Trips broke Orton’s collarbone. “That was just business… This? Is personal. I’m gonna break… your… neck!” Trips then charges out, looking for all the world like he’s going to kick a puppy on the way to the locker room.

Segment 6 [Singles Match, winner takes on Undertaker at WrestleMania]: Shawn Michaels defeats Vladimir Kozlov by pin. Match was decent. Shawn spent the whole match on the defensive, even suffering two forms of the Bearhug of Doom. A nice shot occurred when Shawn went for the first of his Moves of Doom, and took the super headbutt to the sternum when he tried doing the flying forearm. Still, Shawn managed to get a bit of momentum, hit the Macho Man Elbow Drop, followed up with Sweet Chin Music, and it was over.

After the match, the lights go out, Taker comes to the stage… and he Shawn just stare. Taker does the throat flash, which somehow summons fire as well. Shawn gives a sageful nod, and I get extremely excited about the show.

Segment 7: Grisham interviews Edge in the back, who dismisses the idea that the only reason Edge is agreeing to the match is because Cena was knocked out on SmackDown. Edge insists that the reason is because we’re near his hometown tonight, and that he wants all of Cena’s friends and family to watch him lose.

Segment 8 [Singles Match for the World Heavyweight Title]: John Cena defeats Edge by disqualification, but Edge retains. Match was decent, with plenty of crazy reversals and such. Cena made it somewhat exciting: his Superman just-this-much comebacks to avoid countouts and such were, though expected, dramatic. At the end we saw Edge lock in the… uh… was that a modified Texas Cloverleaf? Shit, I haven’t seen that since Dean Malenko was active.

Anyway, Edge whiffed on the follow-up Spear attempt, and got locked into the SSTF. He grabbed the ropes, and his a Spear out of nowhere. It wasn’t enough, so Edge left the ring to get his title belt. Cena ducked his attempt to use it as a weapon, and put Edge up for the FU. Edge dropped the belt meanwhile, and as the ref passed by them to hand it back to the timekeeper, Edge snatched it and blasted Cena in the head with it. DQ loss, but the title remains his.

Post-Segment 8: Edge half-walks, half-crawls up the ramp. Once he reaches the stage, as he and Cena are staring at each other, Big Show comes from the back and stands beside Edge. Show looks at Cena… uh… disappointedly? Show then looks at Edge, who offers his hand so Show can help him up. Show ignores him, and looks back at Cena.

Presently, Vickie herself pops out of the back with a mic. Edge remains on his ass as she announces that Show is now the #1 Contender for the World Heavyweight Title: Big Show! Edge looks scared, Cena looks sad, and Show looks like he just got a blowjob. Which, considering he walked back with Vickie, maybe he did.

Recommendation: Must-watch. Whole night was entertaining, with a hell of a promo cut as usual by Jericho, even if the ending was predictable (but necessary). Trips had a decent promo too, even if it lacked the punch intended (but not for lack of trying). The matches were good (divas aside), with the opening triple threat match stealing the show. Cena/Edge was hotter thanks to the crowd, but the drama and action of the triple threat won tonight.

Oh. And we can’t forget the black panties.