Well, whatever. As usual, I’m going to write this assuming you’ve read Rick’s report of Extreme Rules, so you better check that out first if you don’t know what went down last night.

Segment 1: Batista is out to start the show tonight. He speaks some vanilla words about ending the Orton Era for Ric Flair, for himself, for the fans, and so on. Orton predictably pops out presently, who is selling things like he’s been absolutely been beaten down. Eventually—on the second verse of his song—he gets to the ring, just as the rest of Generation Douche appears from the rear with a steel chair. Bats does a decent job defending himself, but eventually the numbers catch up with him.

The finishing move here is that, once Bats is on his stomach, they shove his arm in the chair. No one comes to rescue him, and Orton stomps the chair a couple dozen times. Finally, Orton lays down and grabs Bats’s hand like it’s third grade, then pulls backwards, snapping it hand. Or wrist. Or arm. Something.

Orton takes the belt and retreats as EMTs hit the ring to attend to the new champion.

After a commercial, we get an extended scene of Bats being led to the back, and being helped onto a stretcher, and then further loaded into an ambulance.

Pre-Segment 2: Kofi Kingston is out here for a match. Regal follows suit shortly, saying that we don’t need a Jamaican for our US Champion, because someone from England will be so much better. Really. Even though this isn’t a title match, I guess he just wanted to share that with us.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Kofi Kingston defeats William Regal by pin. If Regal got in any offense, I didn’t see it. Kofi was on a tear, and it was practically a squash.

Segment 3: Generation Douche is in the locker room. Cody Rhodes is assuring Orton that Bats is indeed finished forever, so they’re all safe. Josh Mathews comes in to ask Orton about the situation; Orton replies that he’s totally awesome for finishing off Bats’s career. Orton then declares he’ll totally be champion by the end of the night. Huh?

Segment 4 [Singles Match for the WWE Divas’ Title]: Maryse defeats Kelly Kelly by pin, and retains. Mickie James was out on commentary, and called Michael Cole on the fact that he mistook Maryse as the “Women’s Champion” rather than the “Divas’ Champion.” That tickles me in places it probably shouldn’t.

Match sucked, as expected. Well, it was watchable, but we all know by now that neither Maryse nor K2 are really full of any wrestling psychology.

Segment 5: Mathews is now interviewing Vickie Guerrero in the back, who assures us that Orton will indeed have his rematch against Bats tonight in the main event. If Bats can’t show for the match, then Orton will win by forfeit and become the new champ. Mathews wants a follow-up, but Vickie tells him to shut up because she’s got an announcement, then leaves.

Segment 6: Miz finds Maryse in the back. Miz says something about Maryse being afraid of Mickie James. Maryse replies in French, and Miz says that that’s totally HOTT~! Even with two Ts! Maryse replies that Miz definitely can talk, but until he does something about Cena, he’s just a big fat nothing. Miz boldly declares that he IS Miz, and he IS awesome, then gives the air around Maryse’s cheeks kisses to her disgust, and walks off with a whisper of “hasta luego.” Bwa ha ha ha!

Segment 7 [6-Man Tag Match]: Santino Marella, Goldust, & Festus (w/ Hornswoggle) defeat Jamie Noble, Chavo Guerrero, & Brian Kendrick by pin. Quite a random match here. I guess some would find this a “fun little match,” but I found it pretty frickin’ lame. Match ended with some Hornswoggle-related distraction, allowing Santino to get a quick schoolboy on Noble to end things.

Segment 8: Lilian Garcia starts to announce the next match, but he interrupts her and gets his mic. He says that tonight, he goes one-on-one with Cena finally. We get a camera shot of his arm sock, currently holding at 6-0. Miz says that it’s not his fault that Cena hasn’t responded to his callouts, that it’s not his fault no one thinks he can back up his words. He calls all the Cena apologists pathetic, a sentiment I resented three years ago and think is hilarious now.

Miz assures us that there are no 6000-watt search lights around, but he doesn’t need him. He calls Cena the most overrated wrestler WWE has, that he’s a hero to prepubescent boys and girls, and that though he’s not Tim Allen, it’s going to be “tool time.” Alrighty.

Cena makes his entrance, and it looks like it’s gonna happen… but no, here comes Big Show, who saunters down to the ring. Show stands on the apron, and Miz moves in to attack. Cena kicks him once in the stomach to make him powder out, then Show gets in the ring. Cena immediately tries an FU, but that doesn’t work, and Show chokeslams Cena. Show immediately slaps on the Camel Clutch, and Cena fades.

And then Miz reappears with a steel chair and beats the fuck out of Big Show. Dear god, I don’t recall anyone drawing unanimous boos followed by unanimous cheers to this degree in a long time. Miz then looks at Cena’s unconscious body, tells him he’s got nothing on the Miz, and smacks Cena with the chair, drawing some boos again… although now it’s about a 70/30 mix in favor of cheers. Wow.

Show gets up, and Miz bails immediately. He retreats, and makes eyes with Show the whole way. When Miz gets to the top of the stage, he taunts a bit… and the crowd gives about 60/40 in favor of boos. Amazing.

Pre-Segment 9: MVP hits the ring for a match, but wants to talk first. He says he has no idea what’s going on with the WWE Championship, but that he does know that next week, there will be a championship match on RAW, and it will be him trying to recapture his United States title. He’ll prove that by beating Matt Hardy right here, right now.

Segment 9 [Singles Match]: MVP defeats Matt Hardy by pin. Match was decent but nothing noteworthy. Considering how well these guys click, and considering this is on free TV, this is no big surprise. Match ended without shenanigans with the Playmaker.

Segment 10: Vickie hits the ring and proceeds to whine for 10 minutes about how much she hates us. It all leads to her tendering her resignation, right here, right now. Crowd pops almost as much as they did for Miz smacking Big Show.

And here comes Edge? Huh. He swaggers down to the ring and says that he wants to make things right with Vickie for bitching at her last night, or something. Vickie is happy for a moment… and Edge says that now that Vickie has quit being the general manager, he doesn’t have to. Vickie asks for clarification; Edge replies “The sky is blue, the grass is green, and I married you for your power.”

Wow, the story finally has an out? Awesome! Vickie wants this to be all a sick joke, but Edge says that in public, everyone thought that Vickie was his mother rather than his wife! He calls her a she-beast, and says that he dry heaved every time he ever kissed her. He says that the only benefit here is that he never slipped her the doodle, and he wants a divorce. This leaves her shrieking in the middle of the ring as he cockily walks away… and the crowd picks up the “Hey hey hey, goodbye!” song.

Segment 11: Mathews, pulling triple duty tonight, interviews Cena in the back. Cena says that he’s a little sore, has definitely felt worse “but can’t remember when.” Uh, maybe the pectoral surgery? Anyway, Cena says that he thought his Show troubles were over since he beat Show in a match that he supposedly could never win, so he guesses that rivalry isn’t over.

Meanwhile, he addresses Miz, saying that he’s trying to make a name for himself by “picking a fight with the toughest guy in the bar.” Cena respects that overall, but that it’s suspicious how Miz always seems to have someone nearby when they’re supposed to fight. He says that they’ll find each other eventually, and he’ll see how “awesome” Miz really is.

Wow, that was a half-decent promo. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that Cena can sound plausible when he’s not got his superwigger dialed up to 11!

Segment 12 [Tag Match]: Ted DiBiase & Cody Rhodes defeat Primo & Carlito by pin. Match was non-title, but because Priceless won, they get a title shot soon.

Match was decent, with some damn good double-team work from both teams. End of the match involved a minor distraction by DiBiase to the ref, who turned his back as Rhodes (illegal) snapped Primo’s (legal) neck and throat across the top rope. As Primo stumbled backwards from that, he walked right into DiBiase’s Dream Street, which is like a sleeperhold reverse suplex or something. That did it.

Segment 13: Orton comes out—where Priceless still haven’t left—and immediately reminds us that Generation Douche is now the #1 contender for the WWE Unified Tag Titles. He then goes on that he hopes Bats doesn’t use the assault from earlier as an excuse, and we get a video recap, which by now I hope you know how we react to recaps of crap we’ve already recapped. Essentially, he tells us exactly what we’ve known for the whole show, though it takes him a good five minutes to do so. Hilariously, you can clearly hear some kid yell “YOU SUCK!!!” as he shuts up. I love it.

Bats’s music starts up, but dies without any appearance of the champ. The ref, on Orton’s insistence, rings the bell then starts counting to ten. At 8, the Titantron shows an ambulance, and somehow everyone “knows” this is the same ambulance that Bats left on, so obviously he’s back. The ref then stops the count, even though Bats isn’t in the ring, and hasn’t even appeared. Whatever.

So the cameraman hauls ass up to the ambulance, and after a bit of delay—too long, so I bet someone had timing issues—the ambulance doors open.

And it’s Triple H.

Generation Douche collectively shit themselves as Trips and Sweet Lady Sledge beeline to the stage. He pops out with music, though Rhodes and DiBiase run up to meet him. In the match of chair vs. sledge, sledge wins, and GD is left laid out.

Trips then beelines to the ring, drops the sledge in a sign of honor or something, then gets in and the brawl is on. Orton tries to introduce a chair into things, but that doesn’t work, even as the fight goes near the announcers. Trips readies a monitor, but Orton blocks that one and vaults the barricade.

Trips shakes off the little kick to his gut and follows Orton into the crowd, slamming him into the rail separating the floor from the seats of the arena, then drags him back to the ringside barricade and flings him over. Orton crawls to his chair, grabs it, and rolls in the ring. Trips sees this but gets in the ring anyway, and when Orton goes for a chair shot, Trips picks him up and delivers a spinebuster. He then picks the chair up, smacks Orton in the face, then slams him a half-dozen times in the back, then another half-dozen times in the knee and gut.

As the final shot, Orton lays on his stomach, and Trips puts his foot on the back of Orton’s head. Trips then raises the chair, and slams it onto the base of Orton’s skull. Trips drops down and says something evilly to Orton, then stands as the crowd chants for a Pedigree. Trips says what the hell, then delivers a Pedigree on the chair.

Trips flexes—causing the possibly future Mrs. Falkon to point out he’s better shape than he used to be with his so totally awesome abs—and poses over Orton’s corpse as we fade out to black.

Recommendation: Overall, it was meh, but that was because the beginning of the night was lame, and the end was pretty good. I don’t know how they’re going to handle the whole Batista thing… I mean, Bats didn’t show, so he should forfeit, but maybe whoever the new GM is going to be won’t make him? Who knows. The real story here is that Trips is back, and I’m sure next week RAW will get a bit of a ratings bump.

Other than the main event story, nothing really major was going on tonight. This is “sustainable episodic TV” though, as it was all a good build-up for next week. Next week, by the way, RAW starts one hour early, as it’s a tri-branded supershow for apparently no reason. All three world titles are going to be on the line, from what I gather, so that should be pretty cool.

I guess if you’ve DVRed this one, you can skip the majority of it, but be sure to check out the last half, especially the fun Trips/Orton brawl at the end.