If it wasn’t for one of my three best friends coming over tonight—after not seeing him for a year due to him living in Florida—I would have completely forgotten this is a three-hour special tonight. Shit.

And, since he’s here, well, I’m not going to spend too long pontificating about anything. And really, if you were privy to what’s been in my head lately, you really wouldn’t WANT to stay too long.
 

But for now? RAW! And a three-hour viewer’s choice craptacular to boot!

Segment 1: Bret Hart and Teddy Long hit the ring together, and welcome us to this kick ass show. And shortly thereafter, out comes Randy “Bill Gramatica” Orton to join them. [Ed. Note: c'mon, lets make this nickname a bit more relevant to current events. Orton is clearly the equal of Kendry Morales. Randy Orton and Kendry Morales: Brothers in Self-Inflicted Boobery, their injuries suffered less than a week apart~!] Orton demands to face Edge tonight, or he’ll go and beat his ass right now.

Before Bret can answer either way to the demand, out comes Edge himself. Edge is all for giving Billy a match right now… but so he can finish beating Orton down.

T-Long has an idea, whispers to Bret, and Bret says, yeah, let’s fucking do it… and explains that the crowd in the arena gets to fight them. Stupidity ensues, with the “vote” being that they get to fight each other in a one-on-one one-armed match. So Edge has to have his arm behind his back.

Randy Orton, ladies and gentlemen: the only man who can hurt himself and manage to bring down other top-shelf wrestlers with them.

Anyway, the next match up is Big Show vs. Chris Jericho, with one of three stips: over the top challenge, submission match, or body slam challenge.

Segment 2 [Singles Match, Body Slam Challenge]: Big Show defeats Chris Jericho. Whatever. Immediately after the match, Show slapped CJ in an STF, and CJ tapped. And then Show threw him over the top rope. So amazing… and insulting to any of us who have any intelligence. Jesus, it’s going to be one of those episodes.

Post-Segment 2: The Hart Dynasty will now face either the Usos, Caylen Croft and Trent Barreta, or Khali and Hornswoggle.

Segment 3 [Tag Match]: The Hart Dynasty (w/ Natalya) defeat Hornswoggle & Khali by pin. Lame as fuck, ended when Tyson Kidd made a pin after Horny whiffed the Two-Star Frog Splash.

After the match, the Usos came down, but got their asses handed to them and left.

Segment 4: Bradley Cooper pops out of the back. Who is this, you ask? One of the stars of the new A-Team movie. He says they’re all totally stoked about RAW… and then he leaves.

…And then we come to the back, and Jerry Lawler is looking for someone in the back. And he runs into Rampage Jackson and one other douche grab Lawler, and ask what’s wrong with him, as if they care. Lawler has apparently lost his crown, and so these idiots volunteer their services to find his crown.

And they leave to run into the Bella Twins, where more stupidity ensues. I’m sure it’ll go downhill further.

Pre-Segment 5: Santino hits the ring. Apparently he’s going to be taking on Vladimir Kozlov next. We get to vote what they’re doing: a match, an arm wrestling contest, or a dance-off. Ugh.

Segment 5: Santino and Vlad have a dance-off. The most amusing thing here is that Vlad did a damn good job, somehow channeling Dude Love and Michael Jackson in the same bit. Entertaining, if nothing else.

Pre-Segment 6: The divas are getting together. We get to vote for a 12-diva tag match, a diva battle royal, or a champion vs. champion match, which obviously no one want to see.

Segment 6 [12-Diva Battle Royal]: My Little French Fry wins by eliminating Jillian. I’m glad Maryse won, but… fuck it, there wasn’t enough going on here. Gail looked like she messed up a huracanrana and eliminated herself, Layla complete missed a drop kick against a Bella Twin but the twin dove out of the ring anyway, and one of the divas flopped at the end as well… was it Eve? I don’t know. I don’t care either.

Segment 7: Sheamus is WALKING~! and finds Kane. Kane knows that Sheamus eliminated Triple H to make a name for himself, so he thinks he would have done the same for Undertaker. Sheamus says that if that he had taken out Taker, he would be bragging about it, fella. Kane doesn’t appreciate liars, and will so totally face him some time. Sheamus looks like he has no fucking clue who he was just talking to.

And, amazingly, Kane can get his shot! Because now we’re voting for who Sheamus gets to face next: Kane, Mark Henry, or Evan Bourne! SUCH AN AMAZING COLOSSAL COINDICENCE!!!

At this point, I’m bored and annoyed, so I voted for Mark Henry just to rebel.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Kane defeats Sheamus by countout. Well thank God Mark Henry lost that one, because prior to the match, they showed all three lined up, and Mark was wearing a singlet two sizes too small and was clearly aroused by the proceedings. So very, very terrible.

Nothing noteworthy here, other than the fact that Kane looked awfully fucking stiff with one particular big boot. The crowd wasn’t happy about the final result, and I don’t blame them.

Segment 9: Savannah interviews Wade Barrett in the back, who cuts a fairly generic promo to put himself over… until he says that next week, he’s going to have “an achievement” that has never been done before. Interesting…

Segment 10: Ted DiBiase and Virgil are talking, and the idiots from A-Team arrive to question them about Lawler’s missing crown. Ted says that he so totally wouldn’t want it, and asks Virgil to boot them from the locker room.

Stupidity ensues, and then IRS ("Uncle Irwin," says DiBiase) appears, wearing Jerry Lawler’s crown, insisting it’s from Lawler’s back taxes. Even more stupidity ensues: trust me, you don’t want to know.

Next up will be a match, R-Truth in a tag match against Miz, and we vote for partners. R-Truth’s partner can be Christian, or—aw, fuck it, let’s just get this going, you don’t care who the choices are.

Pre-Segment 11: Miz comes out to bitch that he’s totally going kick R-Truth’s ass in singles competition, or something. I just don’t give a shit any more tonight.

Segment 11 [Tag Match]: Miz & Zack Ryder defeat John Morrison & R-Truth by pin. Pure formula, but nothing major here. The match ended with the Skull Crushing Finale after Morrison whiffed on a Spear-like shoulder charge.

Segment 12: Edge is bitching to Bret in the back, but Bret leaves… only to run into Kane. Bret, clearly wishing Kane had a Tic-Tac, endures Kane threatening to put him in a Veggie Tales state if he finds out Bret actually attacked the Dead Man. But then Kane leaves, and Bret is just happy to get the halitosis out of his face.

Segment 13 [Singles Match, Edge has to have one arm tied behind his back because Bill Gramatica is a douche]: Randy Orton defeats Edge by disqualification. You’re ending the match because Edge took the strap off? Are you fucking retarded, WWE??? God, I hate what WWE has become… Jesus.

After the, ugh, “match,” Edge went for a Spear, but decided to stop five inches away to allow Orton to kick him in the head. Orton then tossed Edge out of the ring, then followed, only to eat a chair shot in the OMG INJURED~! shoulder. And Orton responds by holding his elbow, and Matt Striker gives us a shit-eating grin in the background. Really.

Segment 14: John Cena and Evan Bourne are talking in the back for like two seconds, then Evan leaves and is replaced by Savannah. Cena blathers, it’s a bunch of stupid crap, mostly a verbal fellatio for the fans, who aren’t entirely buying it.

Segment 15: Back in the locker room, the one A-Team guy does more stupid crap. Even a very surprising cameo from Mean Gene Okerlund cannot save this from the depths of cowshit it’s buried in.

Segment 16 [Singles Match]: Matt Hardy defeats Drew McIntyre by pin. Drew protests the match, but T-Long explains that Matt was only suspended from SmackDown, so this one is good to go. And Matt beats him, via Twist of Fate, within three minutes.

After the match, Matt beats on Drew some more. Drew bails, but Matt is left with a handful of hair, which he looks at rather… uh… fetishly. Goddamn right, I just made a new word.

Segment 17: Rampage Jackson is chained up to a chair in the bowels of the building, surrounded by IRS, Ted DiBiase, and Virgil. They’re going to do bad things to him, but we hear nothing more for now.

Segment 18: …And after a commercial, they’re all in the ring, although for some inexplicable reason, Jerry Lawler isn’t going after his crown. Ted DiBiase blathers that we’re going to have a special guy here to beat the hell out of Rampage Jackson, and…

And it’s Rowdy Fucking Piper! He gets in the ring, says he kicked Mr. T’s ass before and is going to beat the Mohawk off Jackson.

Then, Mean Gene, the other actor, and fucking Dusty Rhodes hit the ring to make the save. Piper gets away without a scratch, but Virgil eats a chokeslam from Rampage Jackson. Then Mean Gene interviews everyone, because Dusty Rhodes "loves it when a plan comes together," and Liam Neeson has too much pride to show up and say his punchline. And also because, in case you didn’t get the memo, there’s a new A-Team movie coming out, and they really want you to watch it. Because, you know, WWE RAW is really an extended commercial, not a pro wrestling show or anything like that.

Pre-Segment 19: Josh Matthews interviews each potential opponent of Cena tonight. It’s lame.

…But it’s CM Punk who wins, and that makes me happy.

Segment 19 [Singles Match]: John Cena and Jesus Punk (w/ Straightedge Society) wrestle to a no contest. Damn fine match… refresh my memory, has Cena and Punk wrestled before together? They clicked pretty well here, especially because the Straightedge Society stayed the fuck out of it.

Right near the end, Wade Barrett popped out of the back as Cena chucked Punk from the ring. Cena stared Barrett down, but Barrett was in no hurry to get to the ring.

And that’s when everything absolutely went fucking crazy.

Segment 20: Barrett wasn’t the only one there. As soon as he got to the foot of the ramp, Michael Tarver appeared at the corner. Then the rest of the NXT rookies materialized, then beat the crap out of the Luke Gallows and CM Punk. Serena bailed, and the commentators had no clue what to do.

The NXT rookies—all wearing black armbands with an N on them—then surrounded the ring, then hopped up to the apron all at once, then entered all at once. David Otunga punched the ref in the face and threw him out, and all eight rookies stalked Cena. Cena knew he was finished, so he shrugged with a beautiful “Fuck it” face expression, then went right after Barrett.

That lasted all of zero-point-two seconds, when everyone beat the shit out of Cena. But that wasn’t enough. Most of the rookies existed the ring, then went on a fucking rampage against everyone and everything. They tore up the ring, removing the middle rope, tearing off the apron, ripping off the ring cover, then the canvas itself to expose the plywood base. They shredded the mats at ringside, ripped off the protection on the barricades, and threw chairs across the ringside.

Then they focused on the people. Matt Striker was the first to eat a punch that finished him. Then they went after Lawler and beat him down behind the table, prompting Michael Cole to surrender and run as if he represented France. Then Darren Young went after the timekeeper as Skip Sheffield overturned the announcers’ table onto Lawler. Then Heath Slater went after Justin Roberts (the ring announcer), flooring him. Daniel Bryan followed that up by ripping off Roberts’s shirt and choking him with his own tie, resulting in a Face Of Pain that is definitely going to be the new avatar for someone on the OO Forums. Howard Finkel came from the back to actually try to help out for God knows what reason, and that didn’t end well for him either.

Barrett and Tarver finished trashing the other side of the ring, dislodging the steps and tearing up those ringside mats too. Then, the rookies got back in the ring, and took turns doing two man clotheslines to Cena, after Tarver punched Cena in the face with brass knuckles. One guy would Irish Whip Cena toward a corner, only for another rookie to clothesline him from pointblank range.

Skip Sheffield wanted to get in on this, but as his turn was coming, CM Punk recovered enough to get in the ring and make one last desperate act of resistance (to the crowd’s cheers, to tell you how amazing of a moment this was). This ended predictably, with Punk getting his ass beat and Bryan nearly ripping his mask off. Punk powdered out, still masked, next to the corpse of Gallows.

The focus was back on Cena, and Sheffield was pissed at being interrupted. When Cena was Irish Whipped at him, Sheffield did a massively stiff clothesline, dropping Cena like a rag doll. Slater followed up by chocking him with the broken middle rope. Bryan yelled at Cena that Cena is not better than him, lifted him up to his knees, then spit on him… or in him, as I think the loogie went directly into Cena’s mouth, which I’m not sure if it was intentional or not.

They weren’t done. Bryan kicked him in the head with a roundhouse, then Barrett hit him with his finisher, a forward military press slam (sort of). They dragged Cena to the corner so Justin Gabriel could finish things his 450 Splash, a rather dangerous-looking proposition since the middle rope was gone, but it was hit clean. The rookies examined their handiwork for a few seconds, then left; no arm raising, no taunts, no celebration.

The fans started hurling drinks and trash at the rookies as they left. I’m not talking about something as dramatic as the ECW days, or even what happened to Hulk Hogan back in WCW when he first turned heel, but definitely the crowd was rowdier than I’ve seen them in recent memory. The rookies had nothing more to say or do though, and left slowly—exhausted—but without any further incidents or words.

EMTs flooded the area as the cameras did a 9/11-like multi-pass in and around the carnage. Things got a little ridiculous as they killed time, showing the overturned announcers’ table about 100 times, as well as picking the most SHOCKED~! face expressions of the fans around the arena, though they were a bit silly and counterproductive. Cena did a full stretcher job (notwithstanding the “EMTs” pretty much breaking every rule of realistic handling of a victim), and our final shot of the night was Cena being wheeled away… giving a thumbs-up to the crowd.

Final Thoughts: I want to get this out of the way real quick: next week’s guest host is the star of the USA Network show Royal Pains. I don’t know how well that’ll turn out, but we’ll see.

Now, to the ending, and only one word can describe it: Wow.

Wade Barrett told Savannah earlier that she shouldn’t ask him about his achievements in WWE and NXT until next week, and now we know why. I had passed off the comment at the time because, come on, there is no way anyone would have predicted such an overt display of force, especially in this G-rated “safe” era of WWE. This wasn’t just a hearken back to the Attitude Era: this was such an insane display of unprecedented destruction that, short of the lack of blood, it would have gotten a lot of people talking even back then. This really is an amazing amount of destruction that you can’t look away from.

A few questions come to mind. How did Wade pull off this coordination? Why did the “good” rookies like Gabriel and Slater agree to this? And the burning question on my mind: how in the blue hell did Michael Cole escape so cleanly? Considering the heat between him and Bryan, you would think Bryan would have gone right after him… but instead, not only does Bryan ignore him completely, so does everyone else, and Cole makes a clean getaway. Was Cole lucky? Or is Cole somehow involved? What does this gain anyone? Even if it’s a reputation thing, why should Barrett care about helping the other seven gain credibility? Meanwhile, why did nobody come to try to help? What the fuck were Kane and the rest doing in the back? They couldn’t be part of some grand conspiracy… are they actually intimidated by the rookies? Did they not take them seriously? [Ed. Note: The Rick has theories, ALSO over in the OO Forums. But in the forums, opinions ARE kinda like assholes. Everybody has them. So why not join in and show us how much yours stinks?]

I was all set to give this episode an awful rating. And truly, up until the ending segment, it deserved it. The show was commercial-heavy (making up for the commercial-free episode earlier this month?), which may have killed some time to let the votes come into play, but it results in the show being terribly paced. Several times, the combination of video packages and commercials took 50% longer than the matches. I would hate to have had to dealt with it live. Compounding the problem is that the ending was so awesome that it would have been a shame for viewers to get frustrated with the way the show was going and switched channels away to miss it. Seriously: other than the ending, the only remotely entertaining part of the show was Vladimir Kozlov’s dance.

But the ending… it was absolutely amazing, just for shock value of WWE finally taking a fucking chance for once, doing a storyline that was all sorts of shocking and exciting, with a crazy result and some rather intense visuals of the destruction. (Seriously, check out the state of the ring after it was all over, it was pretty brutal.) This is definitely sustainable episodic TV, and has posed all sorts of questions that hopefully will be answered next week (or even on SmackDown). As usual, I have zero faith WWE is going to do something ultimately compelling, but they’ve done the first step about as perfect as you can possibly expect. It is, without a doubt, the best opening act to a storyline WWE has given us in years, and I’m pretty fucking stoked about being a wrestling fan again.

Rating (out of 5), prior to the ending segment: 0.25

Rating (out of 5), the ending segment alone: 5.0