So I hopped on Newegg where, like Rick, I experienced several happy hours of girlish delight as I looked at pretty much everything BUT a power supply. Then I got depressed, considering I can’t afford a goddamn thing on the site, so I turned back to the task at hand. I found an exact same power supply for a mere $14, with free shipping, and got it two days later. I popped it in, and it worked! This marks the first time I’ve ever successfully diagnosed a technical problem on my first attempt.

Strangely, once I got things functioning again, I developed another issue: my keyboard started to do all sorts of bizarre things. After dealing with it for awhile, I finally gave up, and am now using my backup keyboard until I can buy a new one. This leads me to a question though: I know that with electronic devices, it’s possible to power spike them. My keyboard was a USB keyboard: is it actually possible that because of my old power supply’s problem, it somehow power spiked my USB keyboard and destroyed it? That’s actually not a rhetorical question: if you know if it’s possible, drop me an e-mail. I’m really curious.

Coincidentally, I wanted some waffles this morning, but my toaster is now having the exact same problem as my power supply. I have a feeling I have power spiked my toaster, and of course I never cleaned the damn thing, so it’s not bothering to even lock the bread into place, let alone toast it. Oh well… I can live without the toaster, but having no power supply (ergo, no computer, ergo, no college work) just can’t happen.

In the meantime, it’s time to get back to my recapping duties, at least for tonight. I watched RAW last week—can’t say the same for SmackDown—so at least I know what’s going on. Hopefully it won’t take me more than a paragraph to get back into the swing of things, even if I have an overly rambly precap…

Segment 1: Can’t get better for my return recap than to hear the electric guitar squeal of Bret Hart’s music! And man, Bret seems to have a bit of fire in his step tonight. Could be because we’re in Canada tonight, and the crowd is absolutely on fire.

Bret is flabbergasted that Miz challenged him to a United States Title match tonight, but he immediately speed-dialed Stanford and agreed to it. He’s taken the week to think about the match… See, he doesn’t want to be “one of those old wrestlers who hangs around too long like so many of them do,” so after thinking about it, he changed his mind. BOO!

Here comes Chris Jericho, before Bret can go on. CJ asks why Bret came back to WWE in the first place, being a shell of his former self. “You don’t want to be one of those guys who hang on too long? Well, it’s too late for that.” Ouch. CJ goes on that Bret is the biggest hypocrite ever, that he doesn’t care about closure, that he came back for the same reason he left: because he’s a shameless, ego-driven phony that deserved everything that happened to him in Montreal. BURN!

Bret counters that that’s the pot calling the kettle black. Bret accuses CJ of being the real phony, that he begged the Harts for training in the Dungeon but spent most of the time being lazy; he needs to look in the mirror and see a real phony. CJ counter-counters that he did look in the mirror this morning and just saw a man who was better than Bret. “In fact, now I’m the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be,” which is pretty much the trigger to draw the most boos from this whole segment so far.

CJ goes on that he knows Bret only came out here to pander, just to hear his name chanted one last time, and to trick himself into thinking he still matters. Well, CJ says, you don’t matter, only I matter! And, by the way, all your old fans are sickened to see you, because you suck, and no one likes you or wants you here anymore.

CJ concludes that all anyone is going to remember of Bret now is that he backs out on his word and runs away from fights. Stu would be totally ashamed.

CJ turns and starts to leave. Bret holds him up, tells him to tell Miz to lace his boots up, because Bret will fight tonight. CJ smirks and says, fine, but we all know you’ll just intentionally draw a DQ so you can say you did a match. CJ says that if Bret’s a real man, he’d make it no-DQ so there are no excuses.

Bret takes the bait, wants it no-DQ, and says that he’s no hypocrite. He is a man of his word, and he makes one more promise: he’s going to be walking around with the US Title tonight and, further, the Hart Dynasty will continue to be the Unified Tag Champions on Sunday. So there!

Play out Bret, and I’m already jazzed for tonight.

Segment 2: RAW is commercial-free tonight, but WWE does a Geico commercial parody for themselves. It’s lame as fuck, not the least of which for featuring both Khali and Hornswoggle. Ugh.

Pre-Segment 3: Edge is out here for a stupidly named pick-your-poison match (his secret opponent chosen by Randy Orton, which means it really should be called “pick the other guy’s poison match”), but he wants to talk first. He cuts a vanilla promo, asking rhetorically if Orton feels he can just go around RKOing everyone at random. He assures Orton that he’ll totally beat him this Sunday.

…And he’s cut off by Christian’s music. Christian vs. Edge on the same show as a Bret Hart match? I haven’t been this excited since I was on Newegg!

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Edge defeats Christian by pin. Great match but no major high spots. Great technical action, no blown spots, everything was smooth, and we saw a little of everything from both guys. The match ended with some triple-reversey craziness, involving Edge wiggling out of an attempted Killswitch, hitting the ropes, then nailing the Spear.

After the match, Orton appears on the Titantron. He congratulates Edge three times for winning, because that’s about the best he can talk. But then he announces he wants to know why Christian is out there, because that’s not who he picked to face Edge!

Lights go out.

Post-Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Undertaker defeats Edge by countout. Lame as fuck. After making his entrance, Taker stood in the ring as Edge hopped out and just nodded in taunt.

After the match, Christian appeared out of nowhere, tossed Edge back into the ring, and Taker gave him a nice stiff Chokeslam! Taker looked at Edge’s corpse for a moment, then left. Heh.

Segment 4: Maryse is in the back getting her makeup done, and she holds up a magazine for Rick’s pleasure. Trish Stratus is on the cover of Top Voice or something, some magazine in Canada, and Maryse is displeased that she is not on the cover. Maryse blathers on that she’s so awesome since she kicked Eve’s ass last week… then Eve sneaks up behind her. A little catfight breaks out, nothing more happens.

Segment 5: Fallen Hero Buzz Aldrin is here with his wife, as he’s GM. Vickie Guerrero appears, and she and Buzz start to argue about whose office this is. Vickie says she’s the GM of RAW, so it’s her office. Buzz points out that she resigned last week, so he checked with WWF [sic] Headquarters… awkward pause… WWE Headquarters… awkward pause as he tries to remember his line… and confirms that Vickie is so totally not GM anymore. In fact, Buzz says, he replacement will be here next week.

Vickie continues to complain. Buzz continues to blather to pimp his own purposes. Vickie demands to stay. Buzz calls over the Bella Twins from off-screen to escort Vickie out. Whatever.

Segment 6: Mark Henry is out here for a match against Batista, but Bats comes out during Mark’s entrance and assaults him. If anyone cares, let me know.

Segment 7: WWE does another parody, this time a MasterCard commercial. Aren’t “Priceless” parodies about 8 years out of pop culture relevance? It’s all an R-Truth promo video against Ted DiBiase, so I suppose it makes some sense.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Ted DiBiase (w/ Virgil) defeats Yoshi Tatsu by pin. Meh. Match ended on a Dream Street, nothing noteworthy. Well, other than the fact that Ted got the real Virgil, since he couldn’t find a Virgil of his own.

Post-Segment 8: Ted gets a mic and says to R-Truth that, guess who isn’t ashamed to be the new Virgil? The original Virgil! Oh my! Oh, and Virgil will be in his corner on Sunday.

Ted goes on that his trust fund is operational, so now, he can buy anything. And if he can’t buy it… he’ll beat it.

Wow, that can be taken so very, very wrong.

Pre-Segment 9: Miz is in the back, WALKING~!, while also talking to-camera. He cuts a basic promo, concluding with the fact that he himself is excited to be taking on Bret. He pauses his blathering as he hops up to the stage.

Camera switches to the ramp, where Miz makes his entrance without his music. He continues on that he is going to destroy Bret, decimate his name, and spit on the Hart family legacy. Obviously, this is pretty unpopular news. Miz goes on that Bret is going to be lying on his stomach and screaming in pain very soon. It’ll be so bad that Bret will be calling out to the ghosts of his family, because he’s going to make him tap out to his own Sharpshooter! Because he’s the Miz… and he’s awesome!!!

Segment 9 [No-DQ/No-Countout Singles Match for the United States Title]: Bret Hart (w/ The Hart Dynasty) defeats Miz (w/ Chris Jericho, Vladimir Kozlov, & William Regal) by submission, and is the NEW WWE United States Champion! Match was a total clusterfuck, but it hides Bret’s weaknesses, and it was entertaining, which is all you should care about.

Directly after the match starts, Miz leaves the ring, grabs a mic, and announces that he knows Bret has the Hart Dynasty waiting in the wings. So, he paid a couple guys to protect him in case that happens.

Here comes Vladimir Kozlov and William Regal… but they only get to the foot of the ramp when they are assaulted by THD. They brawl a bit, but away from the ring, so Bret focuses his attention back on Miz…

And just then, Chris Jericho slides in the ring. But then so does Natalya, who slaps the taste out of his mouth! Natalya tries to slap Miz too, but Miz blocks it. Bret punches Miz, but then Jericho materializes to assault Bret. Then Miz tosses Natalya, then DH Smith comes back down and tosses Jericho.

Finally we’re back to one-on-one action. Miz goes on a tear, starts to put on the Sharpshooter, and then Tyson Kidd is there to take Miz down. DH Smith and Kidd do the Hart Attack to take him down, then Bret slaps on the Sharpshooter. New champ!

Segment 10: Another commercial parody, I guess, but I don’t know what it is. It featured Santino, and wasn’t funny. Bah.

Segment 11 [6-Diva Tag Match]: Maryse, Michelle McCool, & Layla defeat the Bella Twins & Eve Torres by pin. Match wasn’t much of anything, other than the fact that Layla really kicked the athleticism into overdrive. Other than that though, nothing noteworthy was going on.

Segment 12: Josh Mathews interviews John Cena in the back, who cuts a generic promo that he is he going to take out Sheamus tonight so the giant mayonnaise jar doesn’t interfere in his and Bats’s match on Sunday.

The promo then takes a nice turn when Cena goes on that the reason he doesn’t want a rematch if he loses is because, if Bats gets him to say “I quit,” he doesn’t deserve the title because the champion shouldn’t be a quitter. Nicely said… then he fucks it up by screaming “I WILL NOT QUIT!!!” three times. Ugh.

Segment 13 [Singles Match]: Randy Orton defeats Jack Swagger by disqualification. Edge picked Swagger, apparently, which the announcers tried to sell as a “good choice.” Swagger tried his damnedest, and admittedly he made Orton look good, but it wasn’t a very exciting or entertaining match.

The match ended after Orton humped the ring and readied and RKO. Edge chose that moment to run in and assault Orton. Orton went for an RKO on Edge, Edge pushed him away, Orton was pushed right into Swagger so he hit an RKO on him. Then, from the rebound of that, Edge hit the Spear and stood tall over Orton.

Pre-Segment 14: Buzz hits the ring, cuts a ridiculous hype promo, and sounds like he’s fairly drunk. He puts over NASA and that the space program should be all awesome, and gets “What?” for his trouble, but so it goes.

And here comes Zack Ryder? And Alicia Fox, who walks with a swagger in her hips that will probably lead to some joint problems later in life. Zack gets some cheap heat (“Canada doesn’t have a space program! Their technology peaked at maple syrup!”), but sadly it goes downhill from there.

Buzz said that he wants to punch Zack in the face (who doesn’t?), but won’t. Instead, he’s going to make a match. And here comes Evan Bourne and Gail Kim, and Buzz tries to announce their names overtop their music. It doesn’t quite work out, but who cares.

Segment 14 [Mixed Tag Match]: Gail Kim & Evan Bourne (w/ Buzz Aldrin) defeat Alicia Fox & Zack Ryder by pin. Meh. Gail actually got time to wrestle for once, reminding us all that she’s the best technical wrestler in the women’s division since, well, probably forever, and that she’s greatly underutilized.

Segment 15: WWE does another Geico parody. Ugh.

Segment 16 [Singles Match]: John Cena defeats Sheamus by disqualification. Meh. Basically a reverse squash, with Sheamus doing most of the damage, until Cena went on a tear and delivered an FU on Sheamus sending him over the ropes to the floor. From there, Cena turned around… right into a Spinebuster.

Bats continued the assault, hitting a couple more Spinebusters, then hitting that submission move that’s like a double armbar. Cena screamed while held in the move, but refused to say he quit despite Bats’s screaming. That’s our last image as we fade out.

Final Thoughts: Not a bad episode, but nothing extremely crazy entertaining either. It fed the flames for this Sunday’s PPV, which is good I suppose. I don’t know… maybe I’m more burned out than I think.

Next week’s guest host is Jon Lovitz.

…Yeah.

Rating (out of 5): 2.5