Well, it appears as though PyroFalkon has once again been prevented from his usual All You Need To Knowing... I hope the guy hasn't contracted the Swine Flu. Actually, I'd heard tell it's computer issues plauging Pyro, not actual, you know, Plauge. Although... maybe his computer got the Swine Flu, somehow; they say that thing is still mutating and dangerous. 
 

Segment 1: Randy Orton vs. Shane McMahon ends in a No Decision. Point of Emphasis: there were no lengthy video packages or intro bits this week, and yet, it was 9:07pm (eastern) before Orton's entrance was over and Shane's music hit. I'd say Orton's a Walking Cure For Insomnia, except I'm not even sure what he's doing counts as "walking" any more. He may even have dipped down below "strolling" a month ago. What he's doing now falls somewhere between "ambling" and "meandering." He's THAT FUCKING SLOW. That's, apparently, what makes him a heel: not doing anything sensibly evil or dispicable, just the way he wastes your time and inspires you to change channels without fearing that you'll miss anything remotely worthwhile. Christ. I don't need everybody to be all flippy and hyper and Evan-Bourne-y; but I think I'm within my rights as a fan to require a guy to have a pulse if he's going to be put on my TV, much less be given the overpush that Orton has.
 
Anyway, then Shane's music hits, he SPRINTS in from out of the audience, he and Orton brawl into the crowd for a few mintues, then Legacy run out and interfere on behalf of their Lethargic Douchemaster Supreme. MVP and Batista eventually run out for the save and the Pier Sixer.

After the Match: Vickie Guerrero comes out on the stage and announces that NOBODY ruins her main event (uh, honey, if that was your main event, you just ruined it by putting it on in the opening slot). So there will be an Orton/Shane Do-Over later tonight, and if Rhodes/DiBiase/MVP/Batista want to be involved, they'll get their chances... Rhodes vs. MVP and Batista vs. DiBiase will happen, and the winner of each match can join in the main event (so it'll either be a 2-on-2 tag match or a 3-on-1 handicap match). "Win and You're In" is Vickie's motto.
 
Segment 2: Kofi Kingston beat Matt Hardy. Decent, but VERY short match in which Matt kept pausing and grimacing in pain to convey how much his "broken arm" hurts (it's really a finger injury, but hey, he's a heel, so let's give him a full hard-cast up to the elbow!) and how he shouldn't even be competing. Then Kofi hits his big jumping flippy kick, and pins Matt in about 3 minutes. After the match, Matt takes his big ol' cast and wallops Kofi with it out of frustration. Hey, it's nice to see Matt doing more with the Orton Family Legacy than Randy ever has! Let's just hope that arm never heels. If they so much as force him to move to a soft cast, he'd be less an Orton at that point, and more "Iron" Matt Sharpe.
 
Segment 3: Lo-Content segment with a few Backstage Bits... first, Santino was totally smoothiing on Kelly Kelly and saying that his sister Santino isn't here because Vickie Guerrero breathed on her last week, and now Santina has the Swine Flu. Then, Santino started making pig noises to indicate this was funny because Vickie is fat, and NOT because she is of Mexican heritage; that's WWE for you, ALWAYS CLASSY (and never as funny as my own Swine Flu joke). Chavo shows up and overhears some of this, forcing Santino into a half-hearted fake apoloogy.... second: they waste 4 minutes on telling us how injured John Cena is, because we apparently have the attention span of, well, of teenage John Cena fans... third: Big Show is with GM Vickie, demanding a chance to finish off Cena. Vickie tells him "OK, you've got a match at Judgement Day in 2 weeks." Wow, FEEL THE ANVIL~!... and finally: MVP is smoothing on the Bella Twins, and leaves they're company wearing a shit eating grin and muttering how much he's gonna love it here. OMG, MVP STANDS FOR MENAGE VA PROI~! AND TWIIIIIIIIIIINNNSSSS~!
 
Segment 4: Cody Rhodes beat MVP by count-out. William Regal was out to do color commentary, and basic set forth the notion that MVP is a "new guy" while Regal is a decorated former champion, so Regal wanty MVP's US Title. I'll buy that for a dollar! Match was short and nothing too special (although, in direct violation of the Legacy Lethary Mandate, Rhodes DID try to bust out a little something special from his pre-WWE-developmental days as a promising athlete: a Moonsault), and ended when MVP spilled out of the ring in front of the announcers. While Rhodes distracted the ref, Regal chop-blocked MVP, who was unable to get back into the ring before the 10-count. Match was a zero, but they stack the deck against Shane-O, and set up a US Title feud, so partial points.
 
Segment 5a: Lawler is in the ring, and says to counter SD's "Dance Off," RAW is going to have a "Sing Off" (well, at least it's not attempted PG-rated titilation, anyway). First, Jillian Hall screeches. Then, he opponent: Festus. Festus does nothing till Lawler rings the bell, then he mono-tonally bellows "Tomorrow" until Lawler rings the bell again. Festus wins? Yep. [You know, this idea of a "beauty and the beast singing duo" storyline was a lot better when I had it a year ago and it involved Trevor Murdoch instead of Festus. A LOT better.] This whole thing was a stupid waste of time, so HERE'S THE MIZ TO INTERRUPT.
 
Segment 5b: Miz hits the ring, Jillian and Lawler scatter, leaving the re-comatosed Festus in the ring holding his mic in the same pose he did when the bell rang the second time. Miz takes the mic and thinks about beginnging his address... but then decides to beat the shit out of flaccid Festus, just because he can. NOW he will begin his speech. It involves a lot of making fun of Cena for ignoring Miz's challenge last week, even though he was in the building and showed up to interfere in Big Show's match. Miz theorizes that during the original Miz Call-Out, Cena was distracted by Hollywood Business. Miz: "If you couldn't find that latest script of yours, Cena, that's because I stole it and mailed it to The Rock. He told me he was out of toilet paper." AHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHA! I told you people Miz was gonna get over faster than Johnny Nitro, and you doubted me. Morons. Oh, wait, I mean THE RICK told you that. I totally believed him, though. After a while of verbally brutalizing Cena, Miz decides JonJon is gonna puss out again, so (while sporting an ArmSock that reads "Miz 1, Cena 0") Miz declares that the scoreboard has just changed, and now it's Miz 2, Cena 0. He'd like Lilian to announce it, but that's when Cena's music hits.
 
Cena takes about 3 months to get to the ring (but unlike Orton, has an excuse, what with the grueling LMS match and stretcher job), and once he does, sort of limps to the middle and slumps while staring at Miz. It's kind of like "Well, I'm probably gonna get my ass kicked, but I can't let you keep talking shit about me, so here goes nothing." Miz is licking his chops, but that's when BIG SHOW makes a lumbering entrance. Miz evaporates, and Cena's level of resignation to an ass-beating shoots up about 8 notches. And an ass-beating he gets: a couple slams and KO punches and a camel clutch are Cena's for the taking. As the segment ends with Show leaving the ring, the ONLY THING MISSING was Miz returning from out of nowhere to put his foot on Cena's chest and redeclare "Miz 2, Cena 0." Oh well... as long as WWE handles this eventual mis-match better than WCW did with the breakthrough Jericho vs. Goldberg non-feud, I'll still be OK with things.
 
Segment 6: Mickie James beat Maryse in a non-title match. For some reason, Jared the no-longer-fat-but-still-really-unattractive Subway Guy does ring intros. He joins Cole in thinking there is some guy named "Maurice" involved in this match. Lawler, at least, gets it right. Good action and chemistry here, as Maryse does what she does, giving off oodles of "I'm so pretty and I know it" Barbie-Doll-Style bitchiness, and Mickie supplying the physicality (and, if I may state the obvious, still being even hotter than Maryse when it comes to my own personal tastes; ohhhh, mama, that rump in those pants should be illegal). Mickie wins in about 4-5 minutes with a DDT, continuing Maryse's string of being over-matched by more talented women (like Gail Kim and now Mickie), but only in non-title matches, and then somehow getting it together to eek out wins when the strap is on the line. It suits her. 
 
Segment 7: Junior DiBiase beat Batista by Disqualification. No William Regal to keep this one entertaining, but like the other "Win and You're In" match, it was kept short enough to be inoffensive, and DiBiase also violated the Legacy Lethargy Law to show off some of the skillz we've heard about, but feared were "trained out of him." Batista controlled most of the 3 minute match, but in the end, he accidentally ran into the ref, who apparently took it personally, because then when Batista trapped DiBiase in a corner and started pounding away, the ref fast-counted to five, and Batista didn't break. So he got DQ'ed. Huh. They should have played up the earlier bump as an excuse why the ref's vagina was so sandy, cuz that would have made it seem less cheap and fakey; as it was, they settled for blaming the DQ on Batista's "temper" (which I guess can also tie into the finish of the Backlash 6-man, and ultimately provide the impetus for a slow-building, Orton-paced heel turn where Batista keeps losing focus and fucking things up for members of the McMahon family).
 
Pre-Segment 8: Backstage, Chavo is talking to Vickie and randomly says that IF he was GM (and he's not and he so TOTALLY doesn't want to be) he'd make sure that Batista and MVP didn't interfere in the main event by declaring that if Batista runs in, he loses his WWE Title Shot, and if MVP runs in, he is stripped of the US Title. Vickie never quite agrees with this (she's still too busy trying to make sure Chavo understands he ISN'T GM), but Chavo assumes she loves it and leaves the room to go inform the peoples of the rule changes. Hostile Takeover?
 
Segment 8: Carlito beats THE Brian Kendrick. I don't recap squashes, and this was a horrible waste of Kendrick's ability. He should be on ECW with Zeke, bitching it up and providing another dynamic in the increasingly interesting ECW Title picture (now with Christian, Swagger, Dreamer, and needing another heel to balance things out until Bourne and Kidd are ready to come on up and play).
 
Segment 9: Legacy beat the ever-loving shit out of Shane McMahon, though there was never an official pinfall/submission/decision. A reader sent me a link to Keller's RAW write-up.... errr, sent a link to THE RICK, who then told me about it... anyway, if you want to laugh at an absolute fuckwit, go read that. He figures out someway to be wrong in just about every paragraph, which is stunning considering how long he's been watching wrestling (even longer than me.... err, than THE RICK, who is 10 years younger than Keller, but apparently 100 times more perceptive about what goes into pro wrestling), and everything he says about Shane is ESPECIALLY hilarious and demonstrably incorrect. Go ahead, I dare you to go read that and not laugh out loud.
 
Anyway, the match here was all about Shane having the deck stacked against him, but still fighting valiantly because (as of now, at least) he's the last McMahon not hospitalized. They book it rather well as an "inverted" tag match: Shane, as a babyface, is the one who "cuts the ring in half" and has to prevent his opponent making the "hot tag." Good thinking, and the crowd was into it as Junior DiBiase actually played the "Heel in Peril" and Shane kept making last-second lunging saves to prevent tags, and thus, kept alive his chances of surviving the match. Alas, that streak finally ended after about 10 solid minutes, and the "hot tag" to Orton was made. Nothing "hot" about it, actually, as it played to dead silence since ratings and all other tangible metrics point to nobody caring about Orton. Still, once Orton was in and Shane STILL had one more rally in him, the crowd came back up to earlier levels and was behind Shane-O.
 
Shane's last rally, however, would be his undoing. He and Orton spilled outside the ring, and Shane incapacitated Orton, then laid him out on the announce table. Then Shane went up to the top rope and leapt across the vast expanse... only to eat the table himself when Orton moved out of the way. Shane is broken and defenseless, and Legacy moves in.
 
After some triple-teaming, Orton directs traffic and has Shane's leg wedged against the steel ring steps. Then he takes a chair and whacks at Shane's ankle (not actually touching the ankle, probably, but making a damned nice loud noise when hitting the steps with the chair). Call it "Pillmanizing" Shane's ankle, except using a "Con-chair-to" methodology. Now Shane's REALLY broken and defenseless. So Orton hits a second Pill-chair-to-nizer just to be a dick. Then to be an even bigger dick, he takes Shane's broken ankle off the steps and lays the guy out at ringside and continues his best Annie Wilkes impersonation by just dumping the entire ring steps onto Shane's ankle. Well: his best "Annie Wilkes in the TV edit of Misery where they don't actually show you the gross parts" impersonation, since all the ankle damage was loud and noisy but not so visually-impactful, if you get my drift.
 
Still, the point was VERY clearly made: Shane is now a cripple, and unlike Vince and HHH before him, he has a convincing excuse. He's the only McMahon who has a "babyface gene," and now, he's the only of the McMahons to volunteer to take a real and compelling beatdown to explain his injuries/absence in storylines. Crushed ankle > Bootie Kick o' Doom, any day of the week, baby. In addition to fans being pretty well convinced Shane is destroyed, apparently Legacy is convinced, too, as they finally lay off and leave the scene, and medics tend to Shane to close the show.
 
OVERALL: not a whole lot good in terms of in-ring action (Matt/Kofi and Carlito/Kendrick COULD have been good, but were instead all squashy), though the main event was pretty well put together for the first two-thirds before (necessarily) thudding to a sad ending with Shane taking the lengthy beating... as far as the rest? Miz's promo was stellar: that guy just oozes dickface and like I said above, could see his stock rise much the way Jericho's did when he kept calling out Goldberg in a one-sided "non-feud". Nothing else stands out as even remotely memorable, though. I'd be more fired up for Regal's US Title quest if I thought he might actually be booked competitively. And I guess if seeds are planted for Heel Batista, that's a good thing, but if they've been planted, they won't germinate for months since it feels like they're going slow are are actually gonna keep HHH off TV for a long while (and Batista can't turn until HHH is back). Better than last week's effort, as a whole, but only by the slimmest of margins.