Speaking of sharing pain, we watched a movie called 100 Girls a few nights ago. Naturally, we knew going into it that it would be a movie far more for me than it was for her (Katherine Heigl’s cleavage FTW), but it promised to have at least a decent premise. While some horny college guy is in the girl’s dorm, power goes out. He emotionally connects with a girl in an elevator, then he

(Let us skip the obvious plot hole, by the way, that if he got into the elevator with her, and only her, when the power went out, then surely he’d remember what she looked like at least. It’s clearly a B-movie, so we can forgive some silliness.)

The movie wasn’t bad; I gave it three stars out of five. It was certainly not as clever as it tried to pretend it was, but it was a good bit of fun, with plenty of female nudity to keep pervs interested and plenty of story to be not entirely retarded. Plus, it had some rather hilarious sexual one-liners that I can’t wait to bust out at inappropriate times. Woo hoo!

Pre-Segment 1: After the obligatory self-congratulating video montage, Triple H hits the ring to open his “home” brand, and he’s dressed to compete. We’re starting off with Trips vs. Vladimir Kozlov, but my money’s on some sort of stupid Randy Orton-related silliness to transpire.

Trips decides to talk before going on with things, and he first unkayfabes the whole “secret marriage” between himself and Stephanie McMahon. “We tried to keep it quiet for business reasons, but let’s face it: the world knew. All of you knew.” Decent retcon, really.

He comes around to saying that Orton of course knew it, and that he should have known better than to RKO her. He says that he let the assaults on Vince and Shane go because they were grown men, but to assault a woman - his wife especially - was unforgiveable.

Trips blathers a bit more to recap crap I’ve already recapped, including calling Orton a coward, and saying that there will be no escape from Trips at WrestleMania. “Orton, you’re a disease… and I am the cure!” Whatever.

There’s ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Bet ya the match doesn’t last as long as that promo.

Segment 1 [Singles Match]: Triple H defeats Vladimir Kozlov. Poor Kozlov is on a losing streak… it’s the Cold War all over again. Match was bland, too slow to be exciting, and the conclusion was pretty obvious. Meh.

Segment 2 [Singles Match for the United States Title]: MVP defeats Shelton Benjamin by pin, and is the NEW United States Champion! Well, it’s a nice, decisive ending to this chapter of the story (or is it the end of the whole story?), but the match wasn’t anything exceptional. It ended when SB went for the Pay Dirt, but MVP kinda slipped out of it and countered with little leg-assisted twisty neckbreaker. Meh.

Segment 3: Vickie Guerrero and Edge are arguing in the back about Vickie’s affair, or whatever. Edge is totally going to take out Big Show tonight to end his naughty ways once and for all!

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Shawn Michaels defeats Kane by pin. Match was decent, formulaic of course, but starring two guys who are good at it. Kane actually did more aerial moves than Shawn, oddly enough. After a top-rope clothesline, Kane seemed to be on the offense, and set up for the chokeslam. However, as he rushed Shawn, he ate a Superkick out of nowhere. That was all she wrote, and Shawn has the moral win over Undertaker’s mind, or something.

Segment 5: More Vickie crap, this time with Show. Show directly says that the only reason he popped out of the back on RAW was to help Vickie, not hurt Cena or hurt Edge, though he says that he knew Edge wouldn’t be able to deal with Cena himself. Vickie begs Show not to assault her husband anyway, but Show says that Edge deserves everything he’s about to get.

Segment 6 [Singles Extreme Rules Match]: Jeff Hardy defeats Brian Kendrick (w/ Ezekiel Jackson) by pin. Match was fairly rough, and quite fun. It started with Jeff doing a couple light moves before chucking BK out of the ring. When he went to follow, Zeke smacked Jeff and threw him into the security railing. Jeff grabbed a chair, while Zeke turned his back and tried to help BK up. Jeff smashed Zeke in the back a good five or seven times with the chair, then ran after BK.

BK got back in the ring, and though he managed to get in one solid kick, as soon as Jeff recovered, it got ugly. Jeff spent the rest of the match pretending the chair was an axe and BK was a tree, smashing pretty much every part of his anatomy against the chair multiple times. Jeff finally ended things with a Swanton Bomb, but it had been academic after three minutes of the pure beatdown.

Pre-Segment 7: Undertaker is out here for a match, but before we get started, he tells Shawn that regardless of his actions on Monday, Shawn is the hunted, and Taker is the hunter, so there.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Undertaker defeats JBL by pin. Power-vs.-power: Undertaker can do it, but JBL cannot… and damn did it show. Everything was like half-speed, probably because JBL can’t keep up anymore. Throw in that it was overly long, and it was a match that really needed to just go away.

Segment 8: Show hits the ring, calls out Edge. Edge comes out, they argue. Vickie comes out, says she loves them both, and that this craziness will be settled at WrestleMania where the winner “is not only the champion of the world… *pregnant pause with obvious punch line* …but also the champion of my heart!” Which, really, pretty much guarantees that John Cena will win so WWE can have some alleged “hilarity.”

Speaking of Cena, he comes out after the heels agree to a truce until WrestleMania. Cena says that he naturally wants nothing to do with Vickie when he wins. He also says that being the 500th episode of SmackDown, it’s pretty damned sad that it’s Edge and Show are making nice-nice and shaking hands. “Wow guys, happy 500. This is awesome TV and everyone’s going to be talking about it forever.” Bwa ha ha ha!

Cena then tries to pump up Edge by reminding him that Show and Vickie invented new positions behind his back. Further, he tells Show that despite Show wanting to come help on RAW, Edge turned on him, so he shouldn’t want the truth ever. Cena says that the most offensive thing here is that on this special anniversary of Mania, it’s that they will “compete to see who will share Vickie’s infection! Oh wait, I meant ‘affection.’ No, wait, I was right the first time.” Bwa ha ha ha again!

Edge says that Cena doesn’t know Vickie like he does, so shut up; Show then bickers with Edge about who knows Vickie better, and the argument turns physical despite Vickie trying to separate them. Show gets Edge ready for a chokeslam, and Vickie tries to physically separate them, hilariously. Show pushes Vickie away with his free hand.

Show looks conflicted, but releases Edge’s throat to help Vickie up. Edge readies a Spear, and naturally misses Show to blast Vickie. Edge and Show then squabble over who gets to carry her away. Show “wins” by starting to carry her, and Edge chop blocks him, resulting in Vickie landing spine- (or ass-?) first onto the canvas. Edge and Show bicker again and push each other, with Show getting the upper hand and finally delivering a chokeslam. He slips out of the ring and carries Vickie to the back, with John Cena nowhere to be seen.

SmackDown Recommendation: Meh. I usually enjoy match-heavy nights, but this one was average or worse. MVP/SB was decent but didn’t represent the peaks of their abilities. Jeff’s match was compelling due to his craziness, and gives me hope for his Extreme Rules match with Matt at Mania. The rest of the night, meh at best. I’d pass.

Now for RAW…

Segment 1: Cold-open to Ric Flair, already in the ring, stylin’ and profilin’ to the delight of the crowd. Once they all get their woos out of their system, Flair immediately goes on to accept the 3-on-1 challenge at Mania for the legends. It will be Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, and Rowdy Roddy Piper (with Flair in their corner) versus Chris Jericho.

During Flair’s vanilla promo, Jericho cuts him off and appears on the Titantron. He’s in the back, in the truck with the monkeys, against the background of a few highlight clips of the legends. Jericho leaves the truck and continues his promo as he WALKS~! through the back. He blathers that this isn’t like The Wrestler, that the four-on-one moral victory last week wasn’t a “final scene,” that he doesn’t have a director to yell “cut,” that the legends will suffer in the match.

Jericho pauses briefly to finish his walk and pop out of the back, resuming as he walks down the ramp and into the ring. He continues the same crap he’s done the last few weeks which, quite honestly, is getting pretty old. (If this were a movie - and it kinda is, if you think about it - the term is that the actor is being dragged down by his material: Jericho is better at delivering promos than this vanilla garbage, but he doesn’t have the script room to make use of his abilities.)

When Jericho finally shuts up about washed-up has-beens, Flair retorts with his own vanilla crap about how the legends are totally respected because they respect the fans first. He also says that he’ll totally have Mickey Rourke hop in the ring and stare down Jericho’s corpse with the four legends and all the fans to, all together, scream “WOOO!!!!”

…And Jericho punches him in the face. Flair rolls out of the ring, but Jericho continues the close-fisted beatdown. Flair bleeds just above his left eye, and he doesn’t get a break as Flair flings him into the time keeper’s area, smacks him with the announcer’s table, beets him with a shoe, and rips his shirts off. This goes on for an uncomfortably long time, and ends when Jericho slamming a camera into his forehead.

As Flair lays on his back, his head soaking in an ever-growing pool of his own blood, Jericho steals his watch and smashes it on the ring stairs, as if that’s the most heinous thing ever. Actually, that’s what Jerry Lawler says: “That’s the most heinous thing ever!” I agree: it’s pretty frickin’ mean to smash a guy’s Rolex, you know?

Segment 2 [Singles Extreme Rules Match]: Jeff Hardy defeats Dolph Ziggler by pin. Match was ugly in a good way, with Jeff whipping out a trashcan and a chair to do some damage. A Twist of Fate on the trashcan was pretty cool, but the best spot was in the corner. The trashcan was set up on its side, and Ziggler’s intent was to suplex Jeff from the top rope onto it. Jeff reversed ot, and did a sit-down faceplant against Ziggler, with his ribs and gut smashing from that height onto the trashcan instead. Looked awesome, like it hurt like hell, and pretty much led Ziggler to hold still for a Swanton Bomb on a chair. Ow. Jeff then wails away on Dolph with the chair, rather stiffly, a half-dozen times too. The pin was academic at that point.

Post-Segment 2: Jeff grabs a mic and addresses Matt Hardy that what we just wasn’t even close to the EXTREME~! he’s going to have to deal with at Mania.

Segment 3: John Cena reads an allegedly funny get well soon card to Vickie, and even shows us a picture of Edge and Vickie spliced together (and then Show and Vickie spliced together) as their secret love children, or whatever. Lame as fuck.

Segment 4 [8-Man Tag Match]: Christian et al defeat Shelton Benjamin et al by pin. Match involved all eight guys from the Money in the Bank match at Mania, and was fast and furious. Ending was a huge amount of craziness involving all eight guys, more steps involved than I care to type, though it ended with SB (legal) hitting the Pay Dirt on MVP (illegal), then eating the Impaler DDT from Christian (legal), and taking the pin.

Segment 5: Todd Grisham interviews Randy Orton in the back, who says… well, who says a whole lot of nothing. “I’m gonna totally beat you up in our match tonight!” Well, maybe that’s not an exact quote, but it was close enough.

Pre-Segment 6: Edge hits the ring for a match against Big Show. After he does, but before Show hits the ring, Vickie Guerrero follows in her wheelchair, being pushed by Chavo Guerrero. I didn’t realize that doing a joint recap means a joint SmackDown/RAW show too, but whatever.

Vickie parks near the commentator’s table. Edge rolls out of the ring and whispers something to her, and she rolls her eyes and looks away. SNUBBED~!

When Show pops out, he whispers something to her too, and she reacts the exact same way. DOUBLE SNUBBED~!

Once both guys are in the ring proper, Cena appears on the Titantron again. He says that regardless of whether they love Vickie or not, Cena reminds them that he is involved in the triple threat match, and that everyone thinks they’re pussies for wanting Vickie. Cena then implies that they need to fight like they’re Hall of Famers because after WrestleMania, they’ll “have slept with Vickie for nothing,” because he’ll win the championship.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Big Show and Edge wrestle to a no contest, I guess. Match was pretty lame, although Edge busted out a DDT on Show that didn’t seem to attract that much attention from the crowd. Eventually, Edge’s arms got tied up in the ropes, and Show readied his super punch. Vickie begged him to stop, and sent in Chavo to stop it. His presence in the ring caused the ref to ring the bell.

Chavo then punched Show from behind in the shoulder, which naturally didn’t work at all. Show turned to face him, and Edge got himself free. Edge ran to Spear show, missed, and nailed Chavo instead. As Edge stood from that, he ate the super punch in the face from Show. Show popped out of the ring, looked at Vickie, pointed to Edge, and left without a word. The announcers interpreted this as Show saying he did that for her, which doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Rey Mysterio defeats William Regal (w/ Layla & JBL) by pin. Match was all right but nothing special. Ended with a 619 followed by a springboard splash. Afterward, JBL tried to get in the ring, but Rey kicked him in the face to keep him away. No further words or action afterwards.

Segment 8: Lights go out, one gong, lights are on and Taker is in the ring. He’s got a mic, and he tells Shawn that his actions last week have kicked the feud to a new level, which is quite true to me. Taker says that Shawn’s obsession with being “Mr. WrestleMania” has blinded him to the realities of The Streak. Taker admits that Shawn told the truth: Taker has never beaten him one-on-one. However, Taker points out that the last time they fought, Shawn may have won, but then spent the next five years rehabbing his back. Taker concludes that at WrestleMania, when Shawn starts questioning his faith and abilities, it’s Shawn who asked for the match, not Taker.

Shawn Michael’s music fires up, but on the Titantron, we see Shawn in a graveyard. Shawn says that he is there to sniff the dead air, to prove that he is not afraid. He recaps all 16 opponents Taker beat, with the usual quickie video clips of the wins. Shawn walks to a new grave, points out that it’s freshly dug, that it’s not for Shawn himself though, but for the Streak. The camera pans back, the headstone shows “16-1”; Shawn says that the grave goes to hell, and kicks the tombstone into the grave. Shawn says: “Undefeated streak? Rest… in… peace…” then buries the broken tombstone as we fade to black.

Cut back to the Taker in the ring, with rage in his eyes that I’ve really never fucking seen before. Taker paces after rising from his knees, just like the “big dog in his yard” Jim Ross has always prattled about.

By far, that is one of the coolest segments I’ve seen all year. I can objectively see that, taken by itself, it was a bit silly and out-of-character. Subjectively, taking into account all that the two guys have been through, their (especially Taker’s) history, the parallels to Taker’s style of vignettes he used to give, and Shawn’s blasphemous theft of Taker’s catchphrase… well, I’m even more stoked about the Mania match, and I didn’t think I could be.

Pre-Segment 9: Santino Marella (with his unibrow back) is in the ring with Rosa Mendez and Beth Phoenix. He declares that he knows who will be the winner of the 25-diva battle royal at Mania… It’ll be him! He says that he struck a deal with Vickie Guerrero that if he can beat Mickie James with one arm tied behind his back tonight, he’ll get to be in the match. Wow.

Segment 9 [Intergender Singles Match]: Mickie James (w/ My Melina & Kelly Kelly) defeats Santino Marella (w/ Beth Phoenix & Rosa Mendez) by pin. Match was lame, although it was a little bit of fun, with Santino attempting to get to the top rope at the end. He fell off toward the ring thanks to Beth, and took a roundhouse kick to the back of the skull. That was all she wrote as Mickie covered him up for three.

Pre-Segment 10: During Randy Orton and Ted DiBiase’s entrance for their upcoming match, they show a replay of Jericho’s actions against Flair at the beginning of the show. As they break from that, Lawler addresses the camera, says he’s sick of Jericho’s assaults, and he calls out Jericho for a match next week.

Segment 10 [2-on-1 Handicap Match, Tag Rules]: Triple H vs. Randy Orton & Ted DiBiase never officially starts. As soon as Trips got to the ring, he Thesz Pressed Orton, and DiBiase started attacking Trips as well. The match was supposed to be tag rules, I guess, and they never officially started even as the fight spilled outside. Trips went under the ring to get his sledgehammer, and Cody Rhodes appeared like Hornswoggle out from under it.

The fight went back into the ring, and Rhodes introduced handcuffs. Trips was quickly handcuffed to the ropes, where he was completely assaulted. Orton grabbed a mic and said that there’s only one person who can save him, and that “she” better be quick about it.

The two tools continued the beatdown as Orton grabbed Trips’s own sledge from under the rung. Trips managed to kick it out of Orton’s hands once, but a further beat down ensued. Orton picked it back up, but didn’t have a chance to use it as Stephanie McMahon hit ringside. (She’s got her body back from birthing her kids, as evidenced by the skin-tight shirt and jeans.)

She pleads to Orton to lay off, even begs him to on her knees… though the begging commences on the apron. The two douches come up from behind, scaring her toward the ring, where Orton grabs her. He positions her in DDT position, with Stephanie’s feet on the middle rope. Trips begs him not to follow through, and fails reaching him (still handcuffed to the rope); Orton then delivers the DDT rather stiffly, and Stephanie goes limp.

Orton gives Trips another few punches, rearranges Steph’s body so she’s on her back, and picks up the sledge. Trips fights the cuffs desperately, even begs the ref to help him, to no avail. Orton looks like he’s about to use the sledge, but instead sets it down beside Steph. Orton then humps the ring, stares Trips down, then looks rather slimily at Trips… then kisses the unconscious Steph’s cheek, neck, and lips. Good lord.

Orton picks up the sledge and stands. Trips stands too, screaming, though Orton doesn’t say a word. After a bit of jawing, Orton smashes Trips in the head with the sledge. Trips doesn’t bleed but does fall back. Orton looks like he might follow up, but doesn’t, and just leaves with the rest of Generation Douche. Though Trips begins to recover and reaches for Steph, Steph herself stays unconscious as we fade out to black.

RAW Recommendation: As usual, Taker/Shawn stole the show. The video arguably was overdone, but like I said in the segment recap, it works for them as it harkens back to when Taker was a fresh young face before the whole “American Badass” crap, back when wrestling was entertaining week-to-week. And for Shawn to one-up Taker in Taker’s own backyard, well, that’s just offensive to Taker’s character… in a good way, of course. I haven’t been this excited about any one match at Mania since Rock/Hogan nearly a decade ago. And Shawn/Taker is probably going to be infinitely better worked than that one (even though, and I don’t give a shit what anyone else says, that Rock/Hogan was the most electric match I’ve ever seen in my WrestleMania experience).

The rest of RAW, like SD, ran the gamut from mediocre and meh to crap. I think putting the Edge/Vickie/Show crap on RAW, even though Cena is sorta involved, is a waste of resources and better placed on SD. Taker/Shawn is hot enough to justify a little bit on both shows, but… well, I guess Edge/Cena/Show has promise, I’m just sick of the whole soap opera-caliber crap.

Which brings me to Orton/Trips, which this week I thought was actually a step up. The whole handcuff-to-the-rope-and-beatdown angle has been done before, but to introduce the girl into the equation is new (at least as far as I remember). And as far as Orton being an effective ass, that’s about as far as he can go without just raping her on live television. The angle was overlong, but it was a bit less stupid than the pathetic house invasion from a week or two ago. Problem is, they’ve crossed a line and I can’t foresee a real decisive end to the story. Even if Trips wins the match, he’ll have to beat the ever-loving shit out of Orton to properly avenge Steph… unless Steph wants to turn heel, which is just stupid and logic-defying at this point. I don’t know. I’m not nearly excited about Orton/Trips as I probably should be.

The Money in the Bank match is shaping up, and I like the hyper action of throwing these guys into fast-moving matches, but it’s really not exactly making the feud any hotter. There’s no focus, and so far it’s just been faces vs. heels, with only Kane doing anything to try to step above the guys around him. We’ve got to see more craziness, including face-vs.-face, to really kick the feud up to where it should be. Maybe next week?

Not a lot more to say, really… well, other than the fact that Crazy Jeff is a hell of a lot more interesting than Poetic Jeff, and hopefully he keeps this persona for awhile. Matt/Jeff is my #3 Mania match at this point, right after Money in the Bank. Just a few more weeks before it all comes to fruition.