PyroFalkon is going to suspend his normal recapping duties to give you 18 continuous hours (but a bonus 9 for free if you tune in right now!) of news coverage of Mays’s death. We’ll interview normal, ordinary people just like you who will attest to his brilliant technique of screaming 40 decibels above the volume of TV shows to ensure that we knew the Grater Plater was the best thing to improve pasta since the invention of tomato sauce.
 

May you rest in peace, Billy Mays. I shall shed a single tear every time I use OxiClean.

Segment 1: Vince McMahon—who is nowhere near the genius that was Billy Mays—hits the stage to start the show. After blathering, he mentions that Donald Trump somehow made a 15-man superstar trade around all three brands, which is the first I’m hearing of. One idea Vince apparently is going to follow through on is doing a weekly guest GM from now on. This week… it’s going to be Batista.

Bats hits the ring and announces that we’re going to have a four-man tournament to find the #1 Contender for Randy Orton. The first round will be John Cena vs. Miz and Triple H vs. MVP. Huh.

Bats starts to give a little speech that he resisted Vince’s idea for him to come as a GM… and then Generation Douche hits the stage. Orton asks rhetorically why he and his buddies shouldn’t just go down and beat Bats’s ass; Bats replies that to finish his speech, he came because Vince promised him unlimited power, so if Orton decides to get frisky, Bats will just fire all three of them at once.

Orton whines that he got his ass beat by Trips last night… which Bats then mocks by being a faux crybaby, heh. Bats replies for him not to worry that he’s not going to make him defend his title tonight, so chill the hell out. What Orton should be worried about tonight is three of the five wrestlers Trump transferred to RAW in a gauntlet match. “I know you like participating in three-on-one attacks, so I figured now you should see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one.” Yay!

Segment 2 [Singles Match, semi-finals of #1 Contender tournament]: Triple H defeats MVP by pin. Even though Trips’s beard is nowhere near as full as Billy Mays’s, he pulled out the victory after a few minutes of slow action. The story here was that MVP kept targeting Trips’s injured leg (injured from last night, that is), so The Game didn’t have a chance to get set and actually prepare an offense. Still, at the end, Trips was able to wiggle out of the Playmaker, then immediately got a Pedigree, and that was it.

Pre-Segment 3: Chris Jericho and Edge hit the ring with their titles. Jericho talks first and starts to blather about being back on RAW, and how we’re all hypocrites and blah blah blah. Edge cuts him off and says that the only reason they’re there is because Edge is so totally smart and convinced Jericho to team up, because alone, they weren’t getting shots at belts “due to inept management.”

Now that they have the titles, they can appear on any show. And they’re winners, unlike us, because they take matters into their own hands, just like how Billy Mays chose to endorse the OrangeGlo that they totally shine their belts with.

Segment 3 [Tag Match for the Unified Tag Titles]: Edge & Chris Jericho defeat Carlito & Primo by pin, and retain. Match was a bit short but not bad. Primo started things off by getting his ass kicked, but finally got the hot tag to Carlito. Carlito went on a tear, even hitting the Backstabber at one point on Edge, but Jericho broke the pin. Jericho and Primo brawled at the outside, and Carlito tried to finish Edge on the inside. Carlito kneed Edge in the face, then went to the ropes for a springboard moonsault. At that moment, Jericho shoved Primo, whose flailing (something Billy Mays would never do unintentionally) hit the ropes, causing Carlito to fall on his ass. As he got up, Edge nailed him with a Spear, and that was it.

Segment 4: In the locker room, Orton is complaining to GD about Bats, and Bats reappears. He tells them that if either of them interfere with the gauntlet match, both Rhodes and DiBiase are fired, a fate that Billy Mays never had the misfortune of suffering.

Segment 5 [Singles Match, semi-finals of #1 Contender tournament]: John Cena defeats Miz by submission. Match was pure Cena Formula—a product Billy Mays has not endorsed—that saw Miz kick his ass for ten minutes before Cena hit the Five Knuckle Shuffle followed by his funky leg drop and the SSTF. Meh.

Segment 6: The whole of Generation Douche is in the locker room again. Ted tells Orton not to worry about things, that Orton just needs to survive tonight, because everything will be cool next week, as Ted “Everybody Has a Price Except Billy Mays” DiBiase Sr. will be the guest GM. Orton doesn’t look assuaged.

Segment 7 [Fatal 4-Way, winner becomes #1 Contender for the Divas’ Title]: Mickie James defeats Rosa Mendes by pin (Kelly Kelly and Beth Phoenix were also involved). Match was all right, but nothing exceptionally special. The problem wasn’t so much the action or booking, which were actually pretty good: it’s that the divas don’t move as fast as the men, and thus things don’t look quite as smooth as they could.

There was some good stuff in this match though, including a hilarious tri-headlock. Mickie James had a sleeperhold on Rosa, who had a sleeperhold on K2, who had a reverse chinlock on Beth, who was trying to punch Mickie James. Like a Billy Mays infomercial, the best part was at the very end, that saw each girl get pinned about three times, each time it getting broken up by another girl. Beth hit her finisher on K2 but MJ stopped that, then gave a roundhouse kick on Rosa to make the pin.

After the match, MJ and Maryse (who came out for guest commentary) made eyes at each other, but nothing transpired.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Kofi Kingston and Big Show wrestle to a double countout. Match was short. Heel beatdown by Show to start, then a mini-comeback by Kofi, then Show threw him over the rope and followed him out. The ref started counting, but Show was so slow that he didn’t have a chance to do much until the count hit five. At that point, Show picked up Kofi and tried to throw him into the steel post, but Kofi slipped out and shoved Show face-first into it. The count was up to eight at that point, and neither man was able to answer it. Maybe it would have helped to put a little 30-second timer in the corner of the screen like on some of Billy Mays’s late-night commercials.

Segment 9 [3-on-1 Gauntlet Match]: Randy Orton defeats Evan Bourne by pin, then Jack Swagger by countout, then...

…then Swagger gets a mic and explains why he just exited the ring and allowed himself to be counted out with nary a punch thrown. He says he always respected Orton and wanted to make a lasting impression. He shakes Orton’s hand and leaves without incident. Hm… I suppose that with DiBiase leaving Legacy soon to turn face and pimp his movie, Orton needs to find a new young stud to boss around? There are worse things for Cody Rhodes to do to team with Jack Swagger, if indeed that is what’s going on.

Anyway… Lilian Garcia announces that the next and final opponent is Mark Henry, who has a mic. He tells Orton that he too has respect for Orton, and is also here to make an impression. In his case, it means to shove Orton on his ass, then stand on the apron and allow himself to be counted out as well.

Except wait… when the ref gets to five, he grabs the ref’s hand. He smiles and laughs, then shakes a finger. Psyche!

Orton goes from that to begging to have Henry lay off. Henry responds with some power offense. Punchy-kicky as MH is wont to do. Orton tries an RKO, but then eats a World’s Strongest Slam… and is pinned? Really? Mark Henry has turned face (or at least tweener)? I haven’t been this surprised since Billy Mays showed me the amazing absorbent power of Zorbeez!

Oh, since I glossed over it… the Bourne part of the match was all right. Orton did his normal stupid slow crap, Bourne tried to do some flippy hoppy stuff by comeback, and readied the World’s Most Beautiful Shooting Star Press. Orton countered by crotching him on the rope, then did a running RKO, yanking Bourne off the rope. Ouch.

Final Thoughts: I’m not entirely sure I want to know the question if “Mark Henry turning face” is the answer, but it has piqued my interest at least for one week. If nothing else, by putting him over Orton, it gives him some degree of credibility.

The rest of the night, as my favorite phrase has been lately, was all right but nothing special. The nice thing is there wasn’t a single bad match: even the women’s match was entertaining, if a bit jerky. None the matches were especially good, though; SmackDown has nothing to worry about on that front. Jericho/Edge vs. Colons was probably the match of the night despite an awkward ending, but it didn’t come close to showing the limits of any of the guys.

Things set up nicely for next week, where we’ll see Cena and Trips take each other on for the #1 Contendership, as well as (probably) the first step toward the Ted DiBiase face turn in time for his crappy movie that I still don’t remember the name of coming out next month.

All in all, RAW was like when Billy Mays is on the screen: it wasn’t really important to watch, but at least what you see is easily tolerable.

RATING: Age of Billy Mays’s daughter in years. (That’s 3.0, you uncaring jerks!)