Oh, the cookie winner from last week, OO reader Josh Wallen, gave me this update to the trivia question I posed: “Little update on this! I just watched SS 2003, and it ends with Benoit/Cena as the final two on the face

Segment 1: Shawn Michaels hits the ring, where he’s getting cheers this week. Last Friday, when Undertaker mentioned his name, he managed to draw boos. Must be a home crowd advantage or something.

Shawn explains that the video we saw on SmackDown detailing some of his accomplishments at WrestleMania was sent from him, as a way to try to play a few mind games. He declares he respects, but does not fear the dead man. He boasts that he’s never been outperformed at WrestleMania, that all streaks come to an end, and-

Lights go out.

Titantron plays my absolute favorite video package in WWE, the one where we see Taker beating everyone in quick succession in each WrestleMania. I love this video, seriously… and of course it’s been tweaked to add his win over Edge last year.

It ends with Taker’s line from last week, “Sometimes you have to go through Hell to get to Heaven.”

Lights come back on, and Taker is behind Shawn. Shawn, however, says he knows he’s there, and casually turns around. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Taker has a mic and fairly calmly says that Shawn’s arrogance is clouding his judgment again, repeating that others have come before Taker and have always fallen. Cheers from the crowd.

Shawn responds that though they have taken different professional and personal paths, he says he’s earned so much that he shouldn’t have to qualify to fight anyone. He runs down his best WrestleMania entries on his resume, and that he’s absolutely ready.

Taker’s turn to talk, who says that Shawn has indeed had “epic victories” at WrestleMania… and “bitter defeat.” Taker assures him that “the dream you have of defeating me at WrestleMania is just that… the dream.” Taker says that Shawn’s too busy concerning himself about beating Taker and putting on a good show, when he should be concerning himself about what damage Taker will do to him. Taker declares he doesn’t need to steal the show, doesn’t need to prance, just needs to beat the living shit out of Shawn to prove the world that he’s the best wrestler ever.

Taker: “At WrestleMania 25, you will… rest-”

Shawn: “I will rest quite comfortably, the evening of April 5th, knowing that I did the impossible: I ended the undefeated streak of the Undertaker.” Cheers. “And know that even though you’ve defeated all your 16 opponents, know that you have never defeated me, and you never will.” Whoa.

They give a staredown of intense rivalry… and then Shawn’s music plays him out. Shawn leaves, the blacklights giving way to the bright arena lights; Taker lets him leave, and there are no physical hostilities.

Holy shit. THAT is how you kick off RAW.

Segment 2 [Singles Match for the Intercontinental Tile]: JBL defeats CM Punk by pin, and is the NEW Intercontinental Champion! Bah, match was lame, and pretty fucking stupid due to JBL’s slow pace and clear setups to all spots. JBL’s awesome ending move was, hilariously, poking Punk in the eyes. Well, then following up with the Clothesline From Hell, but still.

Segment 3: After a commercial, JBL is celebrating happily with Vickie Guerrero. Vickie says that now that she put JBL in that match, she owes him a favor. He’s game, but she doesn’t have a chance to say what it is yet, as Edge materializes. Edge asks what John Cena whispered to her at the end of SmackDown, but she screams that it doesn’t matter. Edge storms off. Well, that was productive.

Segment 4: Randy Orton is being interviewed from his home. Sitting next to him is his wife, who looks like a mindless putz and apparently dunked her head into pure hairspray before coming onto television, like a grown-up real-life Bratz doll or something.

Before Orton gives us his comments, we get a video recap of the ending events of SmackDown; as usual, standard OO policy established in 1906 forbids me to recap recaps, especially recaps of crap I’ve already recapped. Back to Orton (oh joy), he says that he so totally giving Trips the Punt Kick of Doom but restrained himself. The camera zooms out for a moment to show Orton’s wife still digesting the word “restrained,” seeing as it has more than one syllable.

Orton continues trash-talking nonsensically about every time Trips appears, he’s going to beat on Trips a bit more… but will leave Trips alive enough to defend the title. Which, really, makes no sense: if Orton’s entire motivation here is to beat on Trips, why the hell does he give a shit about the title? Did Orton’s motivation change overnight?

Segment 5 [(sort of) Lumberjack Singles Match]: Maryse defeats Melina by pin. Match was supposedly a plain singles match but the ref didn’t care when the SmackDown divas threw Melina back in the ring after being tossed out. Whatever. Match ended when Melina whiffed on a jumping knee strike in the corner, and Maryse countered by grabbing Melina’s hair and flinging her back to smash her head into the mat. Ouch.

After the match, all the girls brawled for about 30 seconds before the RAW girls ejected all the SD girls.

Segment 6: Vickie Guerrero is in the ring with a table, ready for the contract signing. Before we get started with that, Vickie announces that we’re going to have a 25-Diva Battle Royal at WrestleMania, with the winner being crowned “Miss WrestleMania.” So, neither girl gets to defend her title at the big one? Yeah, that’s a good way to book them to give them credibility.

Anyway, now it’s time for the signing itself. Big Show hits the ring first, followed by Edge. Edge says that he doesn’t mind this match because it’ll be more epic than Warrior vs. Hogan, and that Show “is better than Warrior, and I’m better than Hogan.” Boos abound, but Edge finally relents the mic to Show, who agrees.

And then John Cena heads down to the ring. Edge demands to know what’s going on; Cena asks Vickie, “What, you didn’t tell him?” Edge suggests he and Show eject Cena, but Vickie stops them, saying that she has randomly decided to let Cena compete in the match.

The heels don’t believe her, and Cena decides to tell “the truth”: “I told Vickie… I love her.” Vickie is confused, the crowd cheers because they’re idiots, and heels are confused as I am. Cena continues his blathering that Vickie must love him back to allow him to do this match. Cena says that he’ll see the heels at WrestleMania and walks away.

Edge gets on the mic and says that she doesn’t love him, that he’s being lying and stuff, and that she’s going to rip up the contract to prove it. Cena tells him to shut up, and that he can’t hide the truth anymore: Cena says that because some PPV was taken place at Boston, Cena knew the guys in charge, including the guy behind the security camera. And we see a Show/Vickie kiss that happened while Edge was taking a shower a few feet away. Vickie smacked Big Ass too as he was walking away. Ugh.

Edge, forgetting all about the wedding planner and the Old Testament apparently (eye for an eye, buddy!), gets in Vickie’s face and demands to know if that was real. Vickie cries and looks away. Show looks like he was just spotted jacking a cookie out of the jar. Cena’s music plays to end the segment.

This really doesn’t make sense, does it? If Cena just blathered the big secret, why doesn’t Vickie now rip up the contract? Obviously Cena was blackmailing her to get into the match, but he didn’t fulfill his end of the bargain (i.e., keeping his wigger mouth shut), so why should she fulfill hers? Sure, Edge may want some revenge, but he’s stupid to allow Cena to stay in the match (or at least not beg Vickie to remove him), and should just beat his ass in some crazy brawl. And Vickie should want Cena in the match either because she’d want revenge on him for telling the secret, and what better way to do so than bar him from participating in the title match when that, clearly, is all he wants to do?

Wait, that would all be logical. Instead? I find myself stuck somewhere between apathy and disinterest.

Segment 7 [Singles Match, winner goes to Money in the Bank]: Kofi Kingston defeats Chris Jericho by pin. I missed Kofi; where’s he been? I was damn sure this match was a foregone conclusion the other way. Match was decent but short, with the endgame seeing Kofi doing his high jumping double leg drop. Jericho kicked out of the resulting pin, but countered Kofi’s finisher to lock in the Walls of Jericho. Kofi tried to fight through it, but Jericho kept it in the center of the ring.

That is, until Ric Flair popped out of the back. Jericho kept the Walls on, but wasn’t really doing so firmly, giving Kofi a chance to crawl to the ropes. Jericho allowed the hold to break, and just stared down Flair. Flair didn’t advance further than the stage, so Jericho eventually lost interest and turned around… right into Kofi’s spinning kick finisher. That’s all she wrote, and Jericho was double upset.

Segment 8: Orton is back on the Titantron to assure us that he’s not afraid of Triple H, but is hiding at home because he’s so totally showing restraint.

Segment 9: After a commercial, Todd Grisham interviews Jericho in the back, who says that Flair indirectly stole his chance to be WWE Champion because he so totally would have won the Money in the Bank. So now, Jericho wants a “WrestleMania moment” next week (which doesn’t make sense, but whatever), and challenges Flair to a match next week to get him out of retirement for “one more match” in front of us hypocrites, just like Mickey Rourke and The Wrestler. Geez, how often is he going to plug that movie?

Segment 10 [6-Man Tag Match]: Rey Mysterio, Christian, & Finlay (w/ Hornswoggle) defeat John Morrison, Miz, & Kane by pin. It’s an honor to finally recap a Christian match again. Or, it would be, if it had lasted any time at all. Christian opened the match and was FIP, but tagged out and let Finlay and Rey basically do a joint House of Fire thing within probably 90 seconds. Morrison ate most of the moves, and though Miz broke up a Rey-on-Morrison pin once after a top rope huracanrana, Rey followed up with a 619 and huracanrana with pin. The faces kept the heels under control, and it was over.

Anyone know what song Christian’s entrance song is? Because I want it on my iPod.

Pre-Segment 11 [2-on-1 Handicap Match]: Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase defeat Triple H by forfeit. Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase are in the ring for their handicap match, and despite the fact that Trips’s music plays twice and Lilian Garcia announces him twice, Trips doesn’t show. The ref declares the heels the winners.

Segment 11: Orton appears on the Titantron and trash talks Trips. The doorbell rings, and the living Bratz Doll heads to the door while Orton blathers. Orton finally puts two and two together, warns her not to open the door, but too late: Trips smashes it in with his sledgehammer.

What follows is straight out of a horror movie, with Trips playing the guy in the hockey mask and the makeup girl and Orton’s Bratz Doll playing the terrified teens ready to be slaughtered. Trips checks out the bottom floor, but Orton jumps him. They brawl in a room conveniently absent of furniture except the shelves in the corner. Trips throws him through a window, which also conveniently has a cameraman outside it.

The brawl continues until the cops show up, who quickly arrest Trips while Orton plays every shirtless guy from COPS. Orton gives him a cheap shot, then runs away and trips over the flowers, probably skinning his elbow on the sidewalk. The show fades out with yet another convenient camera shot from inside the police cruiser: man, those cameramen must be psychic!

Recommendation: Must watch the opening segment, the rest is lame. Shawn vs. Undertaker and the Money in the Bank are still the only reasons I give a shit about WrestleMania at this point, though I hold out high hopes for anything Christian and Jericho get involved in. Otherwise? Meh, not too optimistic.

Time for sleep and pills. Later on, guys.