I caught The Men Who Stared at Goats today, which I had been interested in when it first came out. I enjoyed the story: it’s sorta based on a real-life program the United States military had during the Cold War, where it tried to train its soldiers to kill with only their minds. The title comes from the fact that in one test, a soldier was staring hard at a goat, willing it to die, and it eventually just fell over and was, indeed, dead. The thing is, that was the single instance of the method actually working; the other soldiers and other goats tested couldn’t do it.

The movie casually sidesteps that, in favor of delivering a rather surreal comedy of combat techniques and the failure of actually putting them to good use. The acting is well done but the whole thing really bored the hell out of me, which is rather surprising. I thought I would really enjoy it, given the subject matter, but it just didn’t engage me or give me any entertainment at all. Like, AT ALL. One star out of five. 
  

Conversely, over the last week or so, I’ve gone through the whole “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series thanks to Netflix’s Instant Watching. I had heard good things about it, but good lord, there is no substitute for watching it: the whole series is absolutely fantastic. There are a few slow parts (you can’t have 30 hours of television without some lag unless your show’s name is “Burn Notice”), but the whole tale is so amazingly well done and well-told that I’m surprised Nickelodeon didn’t explode at the sheer genius of it. I’ve had one person on the planet call me a “brilliant writer,” but even my best efforts are chicken scratches compared to Avatar. I love how the writers weren’t afraid to make all the heroes rather dramatically flawed: usually heroes anymore are almost completely perfect and always make the morally right choice in any situation. One particular character in one particular storyline of Avatar made me verbally assault him every time he was on the screen, even though he was a hero. He redeemed himself, which makes him one of the good guys, but still…

And I’ve heard that they completely hosed the movie, although that makes me curious. I’ve heard the movie shit all over the original material, including getting everyone’s names mispronounced, which is a major feat considering it was an American English-to-American English translation.

Anyway, the TV show at least gets five stars out of five from me. The best part of the show is that the creators knew when to end it: it’s not like sitcoms or other TV shows where it just keeps going and going past the point of tolerance. Avatar set out to tell a story, it told it, and now it’s done: no more additional BS, unless you count the movie. I sort of hope to see a new chapter of Avatar being written, just as long as M. Night Shyamalan stays away from it.

I’m still sitting on my GI Joe disc for God knows what reason, so I’m still not sure when I’ll get to State of Play. Considering my heavy workload, I’m not too concerned at the moment anyway. Stupid school. At least I got through the Human Motivation class, though I’m still not sure what my grade is going to be. Human Motivation would have been a fascinating topic to me—it was an elective class for me after all—but the part they left out of the class title was “as it applies to business,” making the topic a hell of a lot less entertaining or interesting.

But, at least that one is done. Five more classes and I can pretend that I’m somehow smarter or more skilled than 84% of America. If that’s not the biggest crock of shit in the world, I don’t know what is. So let’s get to RAW already!

Segment 1: Sheamus is out to start the show. You know, I’ve been playing a bit of The Saboteur lately on the Xbox, and I’m learning a few new fun Irish phrases. I want to hear Sheamus refer to anything as “a piece o’ piss” one of these days.

So Sheamus is out here to insult everyone because American kids are spoiled. After he gets done pointing out a few kids in the front row who are so totally undeserving to see him in the ring, WWE’s Turd Generation Wrestler is even less deserving, because he’s even more spoiled… “spoiled” in this case defined as the fact that he beat the fuck out of Sheamus last week twice (once after the PPV match and once for the hell of it on RAW) and didn’t get into trouble. And Sheamus is sick of it!

But Sheamus is the champion, damnit! And in a few weeks is the PPV called Night of Champions, and Sheamus begs the anonymous GM not to reward Orton’s delinquency by giving him another shot at the title that night.

As if on cue, GM Windows Vista does indeed e-mail Michael Cole, who reads that the GM so totally respects Sheamus. The GM even wants to reward Sheamus. A couple stagehands pop out of the back and put up a throne on the stage. Cole reads that Sheamus is going to sit up there and watch a series of match, and then he will announce his own opponent for Night of Champions.

Sheamus still looks pissed as he thanks the GM and declares that thank god there’s justice, and it’s about damn time. And then he has to haul ass up to the stage, because the first of these, uh, “qualifying matches” I guess is right the hell now.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Edge defeats R-Truth by pin. Decent match but nothing special. Most of the good came from Edge; when Truth was on offense, things were pretty slow. There wasn’t anything sloppy per se, but it just seemed like Truth needed an extra split-second to figure out how best to approach a spot instead of just doing it. It’s not a massive complaint, just an observation.

After the match, Edge grabbed a mic and talks a little shit, then says that until Sheamus beats Edge, he hasn’t beaten anyone. Anyone of consequence, obviously, is the point there.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Chris Jericho defeats Khali (w/ Translator) by submission. Good to see CJ win one on RAW finally. Match wasn’t awful, per se, but you know anything with Khali isn’t exactly compelling television. They did a damn fine sell job of the final Walls of Jericho at the end though: CJ struggled to apply it, failing the first time, and taking forever to actually earn that tapout after it was finally successfully applied.

After the match, CJ grabbed a mic and talked some shit too, saying that he is after all the first undisputed champion in WWE history and the best in the world at what he does. By the time he finishes talking, Khali is on his feet. CJ decided to make his little pitch from the top rope, and Khali slapped him off and to ringside.

Segment 4: Josh Mathews interviews John Cena in the back, who says that Miz is totally an asshole for beating down Daniel Bryan. Cena says that Miz has had an attitude problem since winning Money in the Bank, so he’s going to totally apply an Attitude Adjustment. You’re not fooling any of us who have hit puberty, Cena: you really wanted to say that you’re going tell Miz “FU.”

Pre-Segment 5: As we come from commercial, Jillian is in the ring, putting herself over, then sings and blows eardrums. Except for Cole, who starts singing along.

MELLLIIINNNAAA!!! …Yep, she’s going to make everything better. Ooo, and she’s wearing black tonight, with spaghetti straps no less!

Segment 5 [Singles Match for the Divas Title]: My Melina defeats Jillian by pin, and retains. Watchable, and not as sloppy as her and Alicia Fox’s match, but not exactly going to set the world on fire.

My Melina did a bizarre dodge early in the match. She went for a kick, but Jillian caught her foot and tried to pull her off balance. Melina went with it, just dropping into a forward/backward split. She sold a minor discomfort in her left hamstring (which she wants me to rub for her) as Jillian bounced off the ropes to Melina’s back and reading a kick to the back of Melina’s head. Melina felt her coming for some reason, and did like a reverse-Matrix dodge: while still in the forward/backward split, she leaned completely forward so her chest, stomach, and forehead were down against her left leg, completely ducking the kick attempt. I’ve always said—in all seriousness and away from my terrible perversion—that Melina’s best in-ring feature is her flexibility, and the more they allow her to use that in creative spots, the better she’ll look. (I still think a match between Gail Kim—busting out every submission she knows—and Melina would rock this and possibly other universes.)

Shortly after that came a spot where Jillian had Melina’s back with both standing. I was actually hoping Jillian would do a German Suplex since it’s, you know, an actual wrestling move. It’s like she tried, but couldn’t lift her completely: Melina countered by falling forward and rolling. Even though her feet or legs weren’t really hooked on any part of Jillian’s body, Jillian nonetheless magically fell forward with her, slamming her own face into the mat.

Melina pulled out a conventional Matrix dodge a moment later to dodge a clothesline. Then came a hilarious spot: Jillian through Melina to the corner, but she did a pretty lame “jump on the ropes and springboard backward” spot to dodge Jillian’s charge. Jillian said, fuck that, you’re not ruining my move, and just shoved Melina in the face to take her down. This also marked the point of the match where Cole pointed out how much both girls were shrieking (probably to mask the fact that the crowd was as silent as a funeral), and then rhetorically asked what it would be like to be married to My Melina. I sure as hell would like to find out, wouldn’t you?

The endgame was signaled a moment later, when Melina was down in the corner. Jillian climbed to the second rope, sang a note that has yet to be invented (and that I’m pretty sure is only audible to zebras in the Serengeti), then busted her ass as Melina rolled out of the way of her leg drop. As Jillian held the ropes and tried to get her spine back into place, Melina hopped her on back, then fired off the Screaming Orgasm Pyro’s Fantasy Powerbomb. So hot.

After the match, Michelle McCool and Layla appear on the Titantron. They’re here to talk some shit, and then remind everyone that next week is RAW’s 900th episode. They’re here to tell us that they’re going to be here for it (for no damn reason, apparently), and they have an offer My Melina can’t refuse, probably my phone number.

Segment 6: Josh Mathews interviews Miz in the back, who says that, sure, he beat the fuck out of Daniel Bryan last week… but Cena insulted Miz’s attitude, and Miz counters, what about Cena’s attitude? See, after the title match as SummerSlam, Sheamus was completely destroyed… but Miz chose not to cash in his MitB briefcase, because he wanted to help Team WWE, and instead, Cena chose Daniel Bryan (“a nobody,” says Miz) instead of Miz, a proven veteran. Which means that Cena forced Miz to let an opportunity at the title slide by. Miz says that Cena at least should have told him he wasn’t going to choose him for Team WWE, so Miz could have actually helped himself to Sheamus’s corpse. It all comes down to Cena’s ego and selfishness.

As far as who Sheamus picks for his opponent, hell, Miz isn’t worried about it, because with the MitB briefcase, maybe Miz will pick Sheamus, because he can any damn time he wants to. And, who knows… maybe Miz will “choose Sheamus” tonight.

Wow. I forgot how easy Miz makes it look to cut a promo. He’s actually making it difficult to cheer against him, because everything he said about Cena was absolutely true. This is the best promo RAW has had in awhile.

Segment 7: So here comes Nexus out on the stage, with Sheamus kinda bobbing his head to their entrance music, oddly enough. Sheamus says hi, but before Nexus is allowed to respond, GM Vista sends an e-mail to Michael Cole. Cole reads that the GM had requested Nexus to come here to inform them that, due to how impressive they were collectively last week, the ban that no one in Nexus can compete for a title is now lifted.

Things are a lot less rosy for Sheamus, who hops to his feet and scowls. Wade Barrett simply tells him: “Consider our truce… over.” Nexus leaves, and Sheamus does a perfect “Oh shit!” look as he sits back down on his throne.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Miz defeats John Cena by disqualification. Match was decent but nothing special, typical John Cena affair. Eventually Cena chucked Miz out of the ring after like 10-15 minutes, and then Daniel Bryan came running down and smacked him in the head. The ref called for the bell as DB threw Miz back in the ring, right into Cena’s waiting arms and hitting him with the FU.

At that point, Cena was satisfied and left, but DB wasn’t. DB slapped on the modified STF; Miz tapped, but DB didn’t care, and it took five refs together to separate the two. DB walked away satisfied, amazingly drawing a few boos in the process.

Segment 9 [Tag Match]: Vladimir Kozlov & Santino Marella defeat the Uso Twins (w/ Tamina) by pin. Decent match but nothing special. It concluded with Jay booting Santino in the gut and sending him out of the ring. Vlad was legal though and managed to finish Jay, making the win.

After the match, Jimmy wanted to do a further attack on Santino, but Tamina blocked him. Jimmy stormed off upset as Tamina helped Santino to his feet, then wound up even blowing him a kiss. Pretty much everyone involved are wtf-ing this, except Tamina herself, who seems to know what she’s doing. Don’t know if this part of some grand plan or if she just wants some Italian sausage, who knows.

Segment 10 [Triple Threat Match]: Randy Orton defeats John Morrison by pin and outlasts Ted DiBiase (w/ Maryse). Match was mercifully short and entertaining enough. Match ended when JM went for a springboard crossbody, and Orton caught him in midair and nailed him with an RKO. Then Ted ran in the ring and went for a cheap shot, but Orton RKOed him too for good measure.

Segment 11: Pretty much as soon as the previous match started, Sheamus got up and left his throne and the stage. I wasn’t going to mention it, but in the back, Josh Mathews (who seems to be earning his paycheck tonight) found him and interviewed him about it. Sheamus said that he didn’t need to see any more of Orton… but he does know who he wants to face for the title. We’re getting a pregnant pause for commercial first.

Pre-Segment 12: Sheamus is in the ring as we come back from commercial. He said he not only has his opponent picked, he wants to face his choice right now. A ref is summoned, and Sheamus says that he got the belt all because of “opportunity.” So he’s giving an opportunity to someone right now, who hasn’t ever had a title match before… Zack Ryder!

Zack pops out of the back, and is all smiles. He says that Sheamus totally made a bad choice, because everyone is seeing the next WWE Champion. So, uh, I guess we’re rolling with this?

Segment 12 [Singles Match for the WWE Title]: Sheamus squashes Zack Ryder by pin, and retains. Blarney Boot, pin, done.

Post-Segment 12: Sheamus gets the mic again and says that he’s now had yet another successful defense. And oh, by the way, because WWE rules state that he only has to defend his title once every 30 days, he doesn’t have to for Night of Champions, so he’s just going to take that night off.

Enter Wade Barrett, alone, oddly. Wade says that, sure, legally, Sheamus doesn’t have to defend his title. However, also legally, Wade won Season 1 of NXT. The grand prize of that was a title match at any PPV of his choice… and Wade chooses Sheamus at Night of Champions.

Here comes GM Vista with another e-mail. GM Vista says that he agrees with Wade’s demand… but the GM also thinks there are other people just as deserving too. So GM Vista is going to make this a six-way match (because I refuse to call it a “six-pack challenge” that WWE wants me to). We’re going to see Sheamus, Wade, Jericho, Orton, Edge, and Cena.

Everyone makes their entrance, but then Sheamus grabs Wade and throws him in the middle of the other five. Wade talks some shit, but allows Cena to make the first kick, and the other five all beat the fuck out of him. Sheamus chucks him from the ring… then eats a Codebreaker by CJ… who then eats a Spear from Edge… who then eats an FU from Cena… who then eats an RKO from you-know-who.

Final Thoughts: Not a bad night, and a pretty neat visual of the multi-finisher ending, but I’m not exactly stoked for a six-way match. Not that I was planning on getting Night of Champions anyway.

Nothing else to talk about: I got my commentary out of the way during the recap. I’ll see you on Saturday for SmackDown, everyone.

Rating (out of 5): 2.5