Due to the issues at work I discussed on Friday, I’ll be unavailable for SmackDown again this week. I’ve sent an emergency e-mail to ArsonMonkey, who last I knew was lighting his poop on fire before flinging it at random passers-by. Provided he washes his hands, he’ll probably be the one to give you another dose of a Gail Kim-flavored recap this Friday (well, this Saturday, since Rick is lazy and doesn’t post ArsonMonkey’s awesomely prompt recaps until the next day). 

Segment 1: Randy Orton and Generation Douche hits the stage… stands there… stands there… sigh… stands there… stands there… finally the monkeys in the truck get bored and kill his music. Stands there… stands th— oh, he’s talking!

“The McMahons pride themselves on listening to you, the audience.”

Sigh. It’s going to be one of those episodes, isn’t it?

Orton’s point this time around is that the McMahons need to stop listening to us because we suck because we allow others to oppress us, that we’re too cowardly to do anything but live vicariously through guys like him. Somehow, after a video recap of crap ArsonMonkey already recapped, he magically appears in the ring, then he drags Batista’s name into the conversation, and randomly tells us Vickie Guerrero ordered a no-violence policy between them leading up to their PPV match.

Orton says that this is predictable, and though they can’t kiss, they can still whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears, so why not come down here for a little verbal cuddling?

Batista does indeed hit the ring… stands on the apron… stands on the apron… gets in the ring… stands there… stands there… stands there… and then Orton is the first to talk, telling Bats that he so totally will never win the WWE Championship, so there. Strong words, if they had come from a five-year-old.

So instead, they… stand there… stand there… Orton will give Bats “an opportunity” that will ftotally blow his mind: he wants Bats to join Generation Douche for literally no logical reason! Ted DiBiase assures Bats that that’s a good plan, and literally says that Orton’s Punt Kick of Doom was the best thing for his career as it’s a wake-up call.

And then Orton starts talking again about how he and Bats were so totally unstoppable in Evolution; that if he joins up, Generation Douche will be bigger than Degeneration X, Four Horsemen, and Evolution itself. Orton continues his pitch, but I honestly don’t want to keep typing it.

Bats finally just says no, practices using his thesaurus to use a few different adjectives to say how much he dislikes Orton, and Orton flips out and yells at him that he’s so totally lucky about the no-physical-contact rule, or Orton would kick his ass. Bats shrugs, says ruck fules, so let’s just beat the shit out of each other right now.

Vickie appears, and makes a match with a retarded stipulation: we’ve got DiBiase and Rhodes vs. Bats. If Bats wins, then he gets Orton one-on-one in the main event tonight. If Bats loses, then he takes on the whole of Generation Douche three-on-one in the main event tonight. This is supposed to be somehow a good deal?

Segment 2 [2-on-1 Handicap Match, Tag Rules]: Cody Rhodes & Ted DiBiase defeat Batista by disqualification. Match was boring. Eventually Rhodes introduced a steel chair behind the ref’s back. Bats quickly picked it up, the ref saw that, and DQed Bats. So now Bats has to take on all three later tonight. Meh.

Pre-Segment 3: Maryse is in the ring and speaks French; we all know that normally when a wrestler speaks in a foreign language (a la Vladimir Kozlov), they get booed. I guess it’s different when it’s a sexy French chick? Anyway, after she blathers, she says: “If I wasn’t Maryse… [hair flip] I’d want to be!” There’s a good use of time.

Segment 3 [Tag Match]: Mickie James & Kelly Kelly defeat Maryse & Jillian by pin. Match was sloppy as hell… KK might be damn athletic, but she has crap technical skill at the moment. She tries, god bless her, but at best she looks like a slowed-down version of a standard cruiserweight, and at worst, she telegraphs spots she has bad timing. In this case, that bad timing came late, during the formulaic Pier Four Brawl spot. She laid on the canvas near the ropes, and pulled down the middle one. Jillian saw this, then quickly ran toward her and dove between the ropes to the outside. Oops.

The match ending saw Maryse trying to do her finisher, the super DDT that I don’t remember the name of. Mickie grabbed the ropes and stopped herself from going down, then countered with her own super DDT that ended the match.

Segment 4: Josh Mathews interviews Orton in the back, who says that… wait, DiBiase appears to report “Cody’s gone.” Orton and DiBiase immediately conduct a two-man search party for their missing buddy, who I bet just ran to the store for some Corona with Lime and didn’t tell anyone.

Segment 5: Chavo and Vickie are in the office, and Chavo suggests that Vickie should force Cena to compete in an “exhibition” match, just to prove that he isn’t milking his injuries from Backlash. Vickie somehow believes this is logical, and I still have no fucking clue how they even tried to sell it to us, let alone to her.

Segment 6: Orton and DiBiase are still looking for Cody. Orton tells DiBiase to go down a certain hallway. Orton continues on alone, and… finds Cody! He was just going to buy some beer and chatted up Lilian on the way out! Orton scolds him for not telling Daddy before going out, and tells him to come on so they can find Ted and stick together. Naturally, you all know where this is going: they find DiBiase again, but he’s flat on his back screaming for a doctor just that fast.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Brian Kendrick defeats Carlito (w/ Primo) by pin. Finally we get a decent match tonight! Amazing! It was a bit on the short side, and didn’t feature anything completely absurd, but it was solid and entertaining, which is all you can really ask for.

Post-Segment 7: BK grabs a mic and says that this win was just “Step 1.” Step 2 will be finding a totally kick-ass partner, and Step 3 will be winning the newly unified tag titles. Hmm…

Pre-Segment 8: Big Show hits the ringside… and is walking… and is walking… and is walking… and is walking… and finally sits on the commentator’s table to watch the next match.

Cena pops out and hits the ring, staring down Show. Miz hits the stage shortly after, talking as he walks down to the ring, telling Cena that being chucked through the spotlight is nothing compared to what he is going to do to him. Cena keeps his back to Miz, which pisses him off and prompts him to yell “Look at me, Cena!” Cena does so with a sideways glance more than anything, and then goes back to staring down Show.

Miz feigns empathy at “poor, poor Cena,” then says “Don’t worry Cena, this is an exhibition match, not 12 Rounds: people are actually going to see this!” Cena turns at that, which Miz is quick to point out… Miz says that while he makes fun of Cena’s movie, his rap album sucked too. That also pisses off Cena, but not enough to do anything stupid yet.

Miz finishes the blathering by saying “Vickie may call this an exhibition match, but I call it three-and-zero, because I’m the Miz, and I’m awesome!!!” Heh.

Segment 8 [Singles Match that can only end on Vickie’s command]: Vickie stops the match after Cena does the Five Knuckle Shuffle and sets up for the FU, but doesn’t actually get to use it. Match was alright, but nothing special.

Vickie got on the Titantron and stopped the match, saying clearly Cena has no chance against Show. Cena turned around from this and ate a DDT from Miz, who then declared himself the winner, and blew his nose on Cena, I guess. Show laughed and left; nothing further transpired.

Segment 9: Oh good, I was just saying I haven’t seen enough of Legacy tonight. Cody says that if Bats really did take out DiBiase (what, there’s a question about it?), they need to take out Bats now before he beats on either of them. Orton agrees, and tells Cody to go find Bats and take him out alone… which of course completely conflicts with what he said earlier about them watching each other’s backs. God, I’m getting a migraine…

Segment 10: Chavo and Vickie are in the back, and Santina appears (showing more chest hair than normal). Chavo tries to rip off Santina’s clothes to prove Santina… sigh… is really Santino. “I’m not that kind of girl,” Santina says.

Which is fine, Vickie says, because she has a way to… sigh… prove this one way or another. So she summons Beth Phoenix and Rosa Mendez, who are off-screen but Santina had no idea they were there until they walked within the camera lens’s range. Oh god, the migraine is getting worse.

Vickie orders Rosa to give Santina a good luck kiss for her match, which makes everyone in the room confused. She kisses Santina’s cheek, and hisses “good luck… Santina!” Santina grabs Rosa’s face and suckles her lips like a baby pig to its mother’s teat (and continues to do so as Rosa pulls away). Chavo demands Santina to “admit it,” so she admits… that she’s a lesbian. She leaves, and gives Rosa a nice little firm ass spank on the way out. Yeah, that’s what I’d do to My Melina if given the chance.

Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler find this about a million times funnier than it really is.

Segment 11: …but they turn uber-serious as the Titantron cuts to some low-lit area of the back, where Cody is armed with a pipe and is looking for Bats. He hears a noise in a room, opens the door… it’s Hornswoggle! Horny runs off… and Bats appears and flings Cody into the room, shutting the door behind tehm.

Segment 12 [Singles Match]: Santina Marella defeats Beth Phoenix (w/ Rosa Mendez) by pin. Match was lame and the less said about it, the better.

Segment 13: Josh Mathews interviews Cena in the back, who assures us that despite his pain, he’s going to do his best at the PPV, because despite how hard times are in the country, we adapt and overcome hardship. Waving the flag again, buddy?

Segment 14: MVP hits the ring, because he’s got his talk show segment back (and he’s got his pyros back too!). He blathers a bit, and then William Regal comes out. Regal reminds us that just a year ago, he was the GM and King of the Ring, and was ejected from his position. But now, he’s returned, and is ready to compete again. However, the draft picks came from SD and want to jump above him in “the pecking order.”

MVP says that he gets what Regal’s problem is: he’s boring, and he waits for his shots. Unlike MVP himself, who is the US Champion, and— And Regal cuts him off, saying he does truly represent the States, because he’s an arrogant douche, and because everyone hates him.

Regal disrobes, but Matt Hardy appears. He wants to voice his own protests, crying that he hates being forced to compete with a broken hand, and tells Regal that he needs to wait, because Matt has so totally deserved a shot at the US Title because he’s beaten MVP more times than anyone else.

This summons Kofi Kingston for some reason, who beats on Matt Hardy. Chavo pops out of the back and orders that we’ve got a little tag match immediately… after a commercial break to clear the ring of furniture.

Segment 15 [Tag Match]: MVP & Kofi Kingston defeat William Regal & Matt Hardy by pin. Match was all right but nothing special, although Regal busted out more technical goodness than we’ve seen in awhile. No major spots or anything, although at the end of the match, Matt just left after getting a swift kick to his broken hand. MVP finished off Regal with the Playmaker.

Pre-Segment 16: Orton hits the ring and tries to make a deal with Bats so they don’t have to have their one-on-one match. Bats’s music cuts that off, and he makes his standard entrance. It’s on!

Segment 16 [Singles Match]: Randy Orton defeats Batista by disqualification. About 30 seconds into the match, Bats grabbed a chair and started beating on Orton with it. Huh. Unless they kept it short.

Post-Segment 16: Bats continued the assault, targeting Orton’s leg to avenge Shane from last week. Bats even grabbed the stairs and tossed them in the ring… but Rhodes appeared before Bats could use them. It was enough to cause a distraction, but Rhodes ate a Batista Bomb. DiBiase then appeared, and at first it looked like Bats would be taken down. Orton even tried an RKO, but Bats blocked that and Speared DiBiase.

Orton tried crawling away up the ramp. Bats grabbed his steps and threw them at Orton, who dodged, then sold the wrong ankle as he laid there. Camera cut to Bats, who was steaming; camera cut back to Orton, who was then selling the correct ankle.

Sigh.

Recommendation: No. Just… no. Avoid it, and thank your lucky stars that I screen this crap for you so you don’t have to waste two hours on it.