I was so enamored with blathering about my college issues last time we spoke that I totally forgot to mention I finally got around to watching Law Abiding Citizen. I wasn’t disappointed per se, but the movie was a little confused within itself to fully enjoy. I mean, it was so far up its own ass about its message that it forgot how to tell a good story. The performances of Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx were great, but ultimately their material just wasn’t up to their ability. Don’t get me wrong: the movie was entertaining, but you had to EXTREMELY turn off your suspension of disbelief to get into it. Two stars out of five.

Not much else going on in my neck of the woods at the moment, so let’s get to RAW.

Segment 1: Triple H comes out to start the show, and begins by talking nature. Yep: a volcano erupted in Iceland, and it’s causing massive chaos around the world. This is Triple H, for CNN…

“We’re not bothered here in WWE. We’re used to giant gaseous eruptions. It’s just, normally it involves Big Show and Mexican food.” Ha!

Trips goes on that the reason this is significant is that 90% of the roster isn’t here, because they’re stuck over in Europe. Whoops! That… that means… no John Cena… no Randy Orton… and the heavens opened and the angels sang!

…Wait, this also means no Gail Kim or Maryse. Goddamnit.

Trips goes on that though we would so totally be enthralled to see Triple H vs. Frank The Audio Guy for a two-hour Iron Man Match, it’s not going to happen. Instead, Trips is going to kill some time by cutting a damn good promo against Sheamus (“I’m going to beat him every color but white”)…

But then he’s interrupted by the Straightedge Society. Looks like SmackDown is invading RAW! Oh noes! (…Where the fuck did that Internet meme get started, anyway?) Jesus Punk says that, clearly, SmackDown is the superior show because they managed to suplex their way through the ash… though he’s not happy about being in Jersey. “Hey, I know the DX phrase! Let me try… I’ve got two words for you: Jersey sucks!” BOO!!!

Punk goes on that he knows he might wind up on RAW via the draft, and if that happens, he promises, he’ll bring the “entire” Straightedge Society with him. Trips takes a quick census and realizes this isn’t exactly very intimidating, what with the other two members being Mr. Mediocrity and a bald chick. This turns to hair talk, and Punk says that his hair is pure of chemicals, hence while the others get shaved heads, he doesn’t need it. Trips suggests that what his hair is free of is shampoo. Trips also promises that since his match is against Rey, he’ll be coming to RAW not just as the president of the Hair Club for Men, but also as a client. Tee hee.

Punk rolls his eyes and promises that Rey sucks and will lose. That will also prove to everyone that Straightedge is the strongest force in the universe… stronger than a volcano even. In fact, Trips could so totally make a change for the better in his life by being Straightedge too.

Trips says that he does make a good point… but then goes for some cheap pops by saying this is America! Where we believe in freedom! Where the fans have the freedom to be in the arena!

…And this leads to him heading to the front row, randomly grabbing people and saying how they can be free to do as they please. This includes Trips making a gay joke about two old guys, which gets him a ridiculously huge pop. How strange. Then Trips moves on to Lilian, who—

Wait, Lilian? Lilian Garcia is back for a night? Rick has just started worshiping the volcano, ladies and gentlemen. [Ed. Note: I am a simple man, with simple ways. Do not mock my belief system!]

Anyway, Trips says even Lilian has freedom. Trips gets back in the ring and says that even he has the freedom… the freedom to kick Punk’s ass right now. Punk backpedals, saying that just like RAW is stuck in Europe, he is stuck here, and doesn’t want any trouble. Clearly, Trips doesn’t want to be part of anything new and special, and Punk is disappointed in that. But the thing is… Punk isn’t asking Trips to join the SES, he’s telling him.

Mr. Mediocrity grabs Trips to begin the two-on-one assault. Trips fights them off for a bit but succumbs to numbers. Gallows grabs a chair and forces Trips into it, and the clippers are brought out… but then Rey Mysterio hits the ring to make the save, and the faces make real short work of the heels, ending with Trips holding Punk for Rey. Rey actually manages to get a chunk of Punk’s hair off, but Gallows gets back in the ring to distract everyone before further damage is done. The heels retreat, the faces celebrate over Punk’s now-unattached hair, and we’re out to our first commercial.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Drew McIntyre defeats Matt Hardy by pin. Decent match, above-average but nothing special, and better than their last outing together. Story of the match here was head-targeted offense against Matt, which started outside the ring. Matt had DM against the barricade, but DM pushed him with his legs, causing Matt to spill backwards and bang his head on the steel steps.

After that, the match looked sloppy, but only in the sense that Matt was all disoriented and bouncing around. Drew took advantage of this; though Matt got some hope spots, he finally fell to a reverse neckbreaker, and that was it.

Segment 3: Damnit, I thought we’d get out of this without John Cena. He’s here (via satellite) to cut an absolute vanilla, CNN-caliber apology and update on the ash situation. (I do appreciate him saying that everyone is safe and fine, but still, this seems a little… extreme.) Then he cuts a vanilla promo against Batista for their match at Extreme Rules. Thankfully, it was nice and short.

Segment 4: Vladimir Kozlov in the ring… and he gets moderate cheers. Heh. Vlad demands Jerry Lawler to get in the ring so he can read Vlad’s statement to… uh… well, we don’t know to who yet, but Jerry is game and gets between the ropes. Jerry reads that Vlad is issuing an official protest against the RAW guest hosts, that he is an elite athlete seeking elite competition. The statement then turns to cheap heat against America in general and Jersey in particular. How nice.

Vlad snatches the mic back and demands his elite competition… and here comes the MacGruber cast. And, as expected, Lilian doesn’t miss a step with the way she announces these idiots. She is, clearly, the true guest host tonight.

So the guy and the girl from MacGruber—yes, I could look up their names but I really don’t fucking care—come bearing their own statement… this from Vince McMahon, who has booked a six-man tag match tonight: SES and Jericho vs. Trips, Rey, and Edge. Now that is a main event!

MacGruber then cuts a stupid promo in-character defending Jersey and its wonderful smog, and calls Vlad “a giant pile of suck.” Vlad says he’ll end MacGruber if he’s insulted again; MacGruber says that he won’t insult Vlad anymore… but his mother, however: “Based on how you turned out, I’d say that the single most dark, cobweb-infested, depressing place on Earth isn’t New Jersey: it’s your mom’s uterus!” BURN!!!

Hilariously, the crowd (a tiny piece of it) fires up a “You can’t say that!” chant. Don’t these idiots know that saying the anatomical, scientifically accurate name of any part of the anatomy is always allowed by censors?

The girl knows that wasn’t the smartest move by MacGruber, and tries to be diplomatic by telling Vlad, “I’m sure your mom’s uterus is awesome.” That doesn’t seem to help; can’t imagine why.

Vlad demands a match. MacGruber says that he’d love a match against him personally, but after Vlad’s blathering, he needs a dose of… THE TRUTH!!!

…Oh god, I die a little inside. Truth pops out, raps the first verse of his song… but stays on the stage? MacGruber gets back in Vlad’s face, tells him that he’s rigged the entire arena to explode in case Vlad “runs like a Russian schoolgirl.” MacGruber turns back to R-Truth… and Kane’s pyros go off. Or rather, the stage “explodes,” and R-Truth “explodes as well,” which is code for “runs to the back off the stage but went a hair early and everyone can see him leaving.”

But the story is that Truth exploded for now, leaving nothing but some smoking shoes. See, this is what MacGruber does, which is why it’s funny… for those of you with low IQs, anyway. So Vlad demands he gets his match against MacGruber, and MacGruber nonsensically agrees, even though he could, I don’t know, book Vlad against Kane or something. Sigh.

Segment 5: MacGruber is in the back, and Trips finds him. And oh, MacGruber has peed himself in fear. This, sadly, is stretched into several minutes. Apparently, part of the WWE “Creative” Team’s bible is, “When in doubt, use toilet humor for as long as possible.” Entertaining children under six since 2001!

Segment 6: Goddamnit, here’s Randy Orton via satellite. Even remotely, he lacks personality… though he had noticeably less spray-on tan, which was interesting. He cuts a 15-second promo against Jack Swagger, nothing interesting.

Pre-Segment 7: Here comes Swagger, after a commercial to say that he would absolutely destroy Orton tonight if he was here. So Swagger is going to show Orton what’s up, and asks for an open challenge. He goes on that he’s seen RAW before too, knows that usually open challenges result in a monster coming down and destroying the challenge-issuer, but that’s not going to happen because he’s Jack Swagger, the All-American American!

…Lights go out. Oh. Shit.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Undertaker defeats Jack Swagger by pin. Great match! The best part here is that Swagger showed last week he can hang with the best in a technical match, and here he showed he can hang with the best in a striking match.

Both guys traded offense early, but Swagger got momentum when he shoved Taker against the same steel steps that smashed Matt’s head, though this time it was the legs that took the damage. Jack proceeded to be stompy-stompy on Taker’s legs all the way to the endgame. Triple reversey abound, but the crux of it was pretty sweet. Taker was flat on his back in the corner, so Jack tried his jumping springboard splash. However, on his way down, Taker shot his arm up and grabbed Jack’s throat. Taker calmly stood, issued a Chokeslam, followed it up with a Tombstone, and that was it.

You know, this marks the second match Jack has lost since winning the title. Sure, he defended his title in the triple threat, but he lost here to Taker and lost a couple weeks ago to Orton. Not good for the All-American American, is it?

Segment 8: Jericho is talking to SES in the back, hyping them up for the main event, and promising that if they just follow his plan, they’ll totally win. SES dismisses that but CJ heads down the hall and runs into the guest hosts. As CJ talks to MacGruber, the chick takes a quick peek at his ass. Jericho then proceeds to sing a parody of MacGruber’s theme to insult him, to the delight of the chick. Heh.

Anyway, MacGruber wants some advice against Vlad. CJ advises that he offer his hand as a pre-match gesture. MacGruber is sure Vlad won’t accept it, and CJ says that’s the point: but Vlad won’t expect it, will be totally off his game, giving MacGruber the opening to slap him and kick his ass. Sure, we’ll see how well that turns out… though MacGruber is a believer it can work!

Pre-Segment 9: So the match starts, and Vlad starts to kick his ass, but then we hear a voice. Some douche—another star of the movie—pops out of the back and says that Vince McMahon called in and changed this match for some reason. Does that make any logical sense?

Anyway, this is now a handicap match, and MacGruber’s tag partner is… Khaluber? Who the fuck?

Oh Jesus, it’s Khali in a MacGruber outfit. Guess that Indian hiatus was pretty temporary, wasn’t it?

Segment 9 [2-on-1 Handicap Match, with some really fucked up rules]: MacGruber & Khali (w/ stupid chick) defeat Vladimir Kozlov by countout? Or something? MacGruber stayed outside the ring the whole time, implying this was tag rules. But then Khali went on a tear, basically squashed Vlad, who then ran like a bitch. Khali followed, the ref ran up the count, but somehow only Vlad got counted even though Khali was legal and was out there too. Oh god, my head hurts.

This also means, using the Dick Vitale Transitive Theory of Basketball, Vladimir Kozlov just jobbed cleanly to Dolph Ziggler also. The WWE “Creative” Team in action, ladies and gentlemen! [Ed. Note: Hey, is it really any worse than if "Carli-ber" "turned" on Kozlov after their interaction the previous week? That damned volcano may have saved what remains of Carlito's career... once again, I bow down in worship.]

Pre-Segment 10: As Trips hits the ring for his entrance, Sheamus appears on the Titantron wearing a loose tie and sweater vest combo popularized by Japanese girls. (Amazingly, Sheamus has the exact same skin tone that Orton did earlier. That is some amazing artificial lighting going on overseas.) Sheamus says that he heard Trips earlier, saying that Sheamus was lucky Trips wasn’t over there with him. Well, Sheamus wants to respond… but he’s going to respond with action!

So Sheamus does a running bicycle kick to Some Audio Guy who’s over there. He drags the man back to stage-center and gives him a knee and a punch as well. Trips looks unimpressed, because, just like Dolph Ziggler, nothing says “badass” like beating up some random guy with no ring training.

Segment 10 [6-Man Tag Match]: Triple H, Rey Mysterio, & Edge defeat Straightedge Society & Chris Jericho (w/ Serena) by pin. Good match, but nothing extreme. A fun match though, with a fun finish, no complaints.

One cool spot early saw Jericho and Punk out of the ring on the ramp side. Mr. Mediocrity ran over to attend to them. All three faces got in the ring, and Edge whipped Rey off the ropes on the opposite side. Rey ran into Trips, who back body dropped him over the ropes and into a flying senton against the heels… though Rey almost overshot, leading to a slight oversell, but a forgivable one.

After that, things were basically formula. Rey was False Face In Peril, tagged to Edge who became True Face In Peril (as everyone was targeting his SURGICALLY REPAIRED~! ankle), tagged to Trips who went House Of Fire. Pier Six Brawl, ending with Rey hitting a 619 to Punk, who stumbled backwards into Trips’s waiting arms for a Pedigree. Good night, Gracie.

Final Thoughts: Bah. So much cool stuff they could have done, so many missed opportunities. And the probably future Mrs. Falkon is still crying over the distinct lack of John Morrisons in attendance.

Swagger proves he is all kinds of awesome. He’s solidified his spot on the card, if he hadn’t already. Amazing… is there anything the guy can’t do? And the main event, as I said, was fun if not functional.

But then, there was the rest of the show. WWE has proven that it doesn’t matter if they have the full week or an emergency: the show is going to suck. It’s a weird dichotomy: just as Swagger reminds me why I’m a fan, the rest of it makes me second-guess myself. I would give them a pass that this just was them trying to polish a turd, but really, it didn’t have to be this bad.

Swagger’s match, while not epic, is a should-watch. Skip the rest, and you’ll thank me.

Rating (out of 5): 1.25