he’s been drafted over, this will be his last night ever on RAW. Crowd cheers, and Y2J says that he expected that reaction because they can’t handle his awesome honesty.

Still, he goes on, things will get worse on RAW now that he’s leaving, and we’ll be begging him to come back within a mere six weeks. But he totally won’t, because he’s leaving RAW in his dust, and screw all of unappreciative jerks.

Enter Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. He heads to the ring confidently, but not at a retarded Cena-like speed. Dragon gets in the ring, produces his own mic, and tells Jericho that he’s totally wrong about the fans, that we’re totally appreciative of everything; he got tons of love for WrestleMania 25. But if Jericho wants appreciation that bad, he’ll give it: and Dragon says thanks.

Jericho asks for clarification. Dragon replies that he thanks Jericho for reigniting the spark of competition, to “feel proud of what you’ve accomplished.” He didn’t think he’d ever be part of WrestleMania again, or RAW for that matter; but if wasn’t for Jericho, it wouldn’t have ever happened. Dragon is out here, specifically, to give his thanks, which he does again.

Jericho halts that, and accuses him of coming out here just to feel the admiration of the fans, just to hear their cheers. In reality, Jericho promises, no one cares about him anymore, nor does anyone care about the other legends since they’ve been unseen since WrestleMania. Jericho rhetorically asks if when the fans cheered “You still got it,” whether he actually believed he did. This gooses the fans into cheering it.

After the cheers subside, Jericho says he needs to put Dragon out of his misery, and wants a one-on-one match to finish him at Backlash. He asks if Dragon accepts…

And here comes John Cena, goddamnit. So far, the segment was hot—not red-hot, but hot nonetheless. Cena gets in the ring to mostly boos (or, in one section of the crowd they stupidly showed on TV, complete apathy), and readies his own mic. Before he gets to speak, Jericho tells him to not even bother blathering. Jericho knows that Cena will just want to pander to the crowd and cry that Dragon is awesome, and should be respected. Then Jericho starts to call him “Steamboat,” cuts himself off, pauses… and the camera magically moves about four feet to the right, and Jericho starts up again. Well, leave it to a UK taping of RAW to avoid an “anything can happen” moment.

Anyway, once we get going again, Jericho says that due to him leaving RAW, he doesn’t have to listen to any of this crap, so his last act on RAW is to just walk out on Cena. And Jericho does so, leaving the ring as the crowd sings the goodbye song.

Halfway up the ramp, Jericho stops as Dragon announces he’s happy to accept the challenge. Jericho smiles, but doesn’t turn around.

Cena then calls for Jericho to stop, and gets the shit booed out of him. Cena then goes that he wasn’t here to put Dragon over, but that Vickie Guerrero isn’t here tonight. He reports that she did say that Edge doesn’t get to compete, but that Cena does. So, Jericho has to face Cena tonight.

Did that make any sense? Who got to make that match? Is Cena the de facto GM because he’s the champ and Vickie is gone? Or did Vickie make this match? And why would she do so? What does she have to gain? What would Edge have to gain? So many questions, so many non-existent logical answers…

Pre-Segment 2: Chavo is in the ring and reminds us that he’s been drafted to RAW. Crowd boos. He says he wants to thank Vickie. Crowd boos. Chavo says he’s going to prove that not only can he push Vickie’s wheelchair around, he can push around anyone on the RAW roster. Crowd boos.

And then Batista’s music fires up. Wuh oh.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Batista squashes Chavo Guerrero by pin. I refuse to recap squashes.

Post-Segment 2: Chavo gets a mic and says that this won’t ever happen again. Crowd boos. Chavo says he wasn’t ready. Crowd… cheers? Because Bats is back on the way to ring. Chavo then says he was ready, really! Seriously! And Bats gives him another Batista Bomb for the hell of it.

Segment 3: After a commercial, Shane McMahon is WALKING~! and bumps into Bats. After congratulating him for beating the hell out of Chavo, Shane is all, “Boy, that match last week, that was crazy the way we all tried beat on Orton, huh?” And Bats just laughs and agrees.

Shane could have left it there and been happy, but oh no, he had to comment that he didn’t appreciate Bats tossing him into the corner toward the end of the match. Bats laughs again, and casually says that he didn’t appreciate Shane double-crossing him. They kinda make eyes at each other… with little twittering laughter (the uncomfortable laughter of someone who is standing face-to-face with the guy who banged your girlfriend). Shane finally confirms that they’re both on the same page and totally focused for the six-man tag match on Sunday. Bats nods and walks off.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: CM Punk defeats Kane by pin. Match was all right, but nothing special. It was oddly power-vs.-power, with Kane’s offense coming from his fists, and Punk’s power coming from his legs. It was short, and at the end, Kane had the momentum and set up for the chokeslam. As he lifted Punk up, Punk got his arm around Kane’s neck, came down with a DDT, and floated over for a bizarre-looking pin. Huh.

Segment 5: Santino Marella hits the ring and recaps that he lost his match last week, so his sis has to kiss Khali on SmackDown. Santino calls that unfortunate, but says he’s going to call out his sister to personally apologize to Santina now. He says it’s unfortunate that many people think Santina and Santino are the same person, and they’re all wrong.

After a bit of a delay, Santina appears on the Titantron facing stage right. She goes on to report that she can’t kiss Khali because—she turns to face the camera—she has herpes. (Well, a “blister on the lip,” but I think we all know where she got that!) She’s totally in Italy right now, the best country ever (which draws some boos), and her doctors say she totally can’t kiss Khali.

Santino shrugs and says that it’s too bad, but will make her feel better by reading a poem entitled “An Ode to the Marella Family Beauty,” which I’ve got to transcribe:

One beautiful girl, one handsome fella
Who else could it be but the siblings Marella?
Both of us born in nineteen eighty-five
Our parents were models, that’s no jive!
We look so gay—

Hm, wonder where that was going? Anyway, Beth Phoenix’s music cuts off the poem. She and Rosa Mendez get in the ring (as Santina continues to react to the poem that isn’t being read), and Beth gets a mic. Beth says that she and Vickie made a backup plan in case this happened, and the Santina/Khali kiss will happen at Backlash.

Meanwhile, Santina says that was a totally awesome poem, and will respond in song. Santino panics and orders the monkeys in the truck to kill the feed. Once they do so, Santino angrily says that he doesn’t know what Beth is up to with her jealousy of Santina, but she better win the Women’s Title match, because she’ll never be Mrs. WrestleMania like Santina is. On cue, My Melina goes her ring entrance as we go to commercial.

I’m entertained, but also have a slight headache, after that segment.

Segment 6 [Singles Match for the Women’s Title]: My Melina defeats Beth Phoenix (w/ Rosa Mendez) by pin, and retains. Match was above the trendline for women’s match, but still not quite as good as the Gail/Maryse match from the last SmackDown. Still very entertaining though, with one hell of a unique spot.

Beth started things off by looking like a total badass, using her power to fling Melina around, which she sold like a champ. Beth ended the opening of the match by putting Melina in the torture rack, temporarily making me think it was 1998 again. Melina wiggled out of that, then tried to counter with a backslide. Beth was too strong, held on, but their backs were together and they were unable to make any progress. Beth decided to use Melina’s struggle against her, so Beth ran backwards—which was forward to Melina—and slammed the champ face- (throat-?) first into the corner.

Then things got amusing. You know that juvenile trick where you grab a guy’s wrist and use it to make them punch themselves in the face? Well, Melina’s front was to the corner; Beth grabbed Melina’s ankle, bent her leg all the way up backwards, and proceeded to force Melina to kick herself in the back of the head four or five times. Crowd popped for this, and Jerry Lawler had no idea what to make of it. And I was laughing at Melina, which I’m sure means I’ll be kicked out of the Melina’s Stalkers Club for being a jerk.

Melina continued to suffer shots, though she got in a hope spot or two. Eventually she got some momentum and did a Johnny Cage-like kick, floating over from the split to make a pin. It failed, but it summoned Rosa Mendez to hop to the apron. Melina went over to argue with her as Beth recovered. Beth tried a, uh, Spear, I guess, from behind; Melina’s psychic powers allowed her to dodge it, making Beth Spear Rosa off the apron. As Beth recovered from that, My Melina decides to throw me a bone and uses the ropes to hit the Pyro’s Fantasy and make the pin.

Fun match, and Melina’s self-kicking just proves to me that her natural flexibility should definitely encourage some submission goodness between herself and Gail Kim, provided WWE allows Gail to actually use that old moveset.

Segment 7: Triple H is in the locker room, and Shane comes in. Shane wishes Trips luck with his match with Orton tonight, but Shane also points out that he’s worried about this Sunday. Shane reviews that if anyone on the team gets DQed this Sunday, Trips loses his belt, and wouldn’t that just suck. Trips promises that Shane doesn’t need to worry, that Trips will get out all his crazy anger in his one-on-one match tonight.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: John Cena and Chris Jericho wrestle to, probably, a double disqualification. Decent match, though the first third of it was punctuated by the Bizarro World crowd that got a little too involved in cheering for Jericho and booing Cena. Ironically, they reverted to mark state at one point to chant along with “You can’t see me!” when Cena hit a Five-Knuckle Shuffle, then went back to booing him.

One awesome spot occurred just before the commercial. Cena set up for the FU, but Jericho countered to a DDT. Cena rolled to the apron and managed to stand. Jericho ran to the closest corner to bounce up and go for a kick, as he is wont to do, but Cena caught him and readied an FU on the apron. Jericho wiggled out and also stood on the apron. Jericho managed to get behind Cena, grab him by the neck, and run them both forward. As they got to the end of the apron, Jericho jumped off toward the stairs, taking Cena’s face with him, and slamming it into the steel. Ouch.

One of the mid-match false finishes saw Cena whip Jericho off the ropes, then give him a drop toe hold. Cena tried to setup the SSTF, but Jericho countered that into a quick rollup. Cena floated over and looked like he was going to try his own pin, but no: Cena gets a grip on Jericho’s ass and lifts him up into an FU. Cena starts to deliver it, but it’s a rather high angle: Jericho does a forward flip out of it, landing on his feet but stumbling forward. Jericho rights himself, and hits the Codebreaker. He takes too long to make the pin however, and Cena kicks out at two.

As they rise from that, Jericho stumbles around and goes for a second one. However, as he hops and grabs Cena’s head, Cena continues lifting him up and hits a smooth high-angle FU. Cena too takes too long to crawl over for a cover, and Jericho kicked out at two.

Presently, Cena went to the top rope for his wacky leg drop. Jericho sidestepped that and slapped on the Walls of Jericho. Cena screamed for a minute, but managed to power out and roll Jericho over. After some awkward movements on both their parts, Cena managed to slap on the SSTF. Cena senselessly broke it (I guess to drag Jericho more into the center of the ring), and as he pulled Jericho’s leg, Jericho managed to twist himself and hit an enzuiguri.

End game happened after that, with both guys going to the top rope. Cena readied a superplex against Jericho, Jericho resisted, and… Edge came out of nowhere to shove both guys off the corner. Damn it, I’m so sick and fucking tired of non-finishes.

Post-Segment 9: Edge beat on Cena, capitalized with a Spear, and left the ring to grab a couple of chairs. He successfully hit the one-man Con-chair-to, then got a mic. He explains to us that the winner of a Last Man Standing match is someone who knocks out his opponent for a ten-count, then starts to count. Edge gets to ten, and Cena doesn’t even twitch. Edge announces himself as the theoretical winner, and theoretical new winner of whatever the hell title Cena is holding.

Pre-Segment 10: We get a “during the commercial” segment that Cena stumbled out of the ring (to boos) and had to be assisted to the back, as he is so totally concussed which will so totally factor huge into Sunday’s match.

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Big Show squashes Rey Mysterio by pin. I refuse to recap squashes.

Segment 11: Ted DiBiase is in the locker room, and he has a brief conversation with Cody Rhodes. They agree that Generation Douche is totally on the same page, and the faces totally aren’t. Randy Orton materializes and says that their inevitable victory at Backlash will have nothing to do with the faces being upset at each other, but because Orton is so totally the best and everyone (including us fans) are so totally jealous of him.

Segment 12 [No-DQ, No-Countout Singles Match]: Randy Orton defeats Triple H by pin. Match was all right, but I’m so fucking bored of this feud it’s unreal. Match was spot-heavy due to the stipulations, but it wasn’t anything we haven’t seen before. (Hey look! A spinebuster onto one of those flimsy trash cans!)

At the end, the rest of Generation Douche came out to help Orton. Shane and Bats soon followed to even up the sides. Bats got his eyes raked, and then tried Spearing Rhodes, but wound up Spearing Shane instead. After a little more craziness, Shane powdered out, Bats threw Rhodes out, DiBiase threw Bats out, Trips threw DiBiase out, and Orton hit an OMG RKO OUT OF NOWHERE I CAN’T BELIEVE IT~!!!!! to win the match.

Recommendation: Decent, but not a must-watch. The main event, Santino’s segment, and both squashes were lame. The other matches and promos were entertaining at worst, and above average at best. Pretty sweet… in parts.