He starts to say how he’ll bring honor back to the title, but that patronizing cheap pop crap is cut off by Jeff’s music. He comes out presently and says that he’s not here to bitch about losing his title, but that he doesn’t agree that Punk earned the title. Further, Jeff says Punk is screwed because he’s messed with the wrong guy.

Punk replies that it isn’t his fault that there was a ladder match between Jeff and Edge. From that moment, Punk admits, he knew he was going to cash in the briefcase that night, and it just happened to be against Jeff. So it goes, Punk says… and Jeff says yes, so it goes, and where he wants it to go is a title rematch tonight!

Enter Edge. He puts the nix on that, and says that he wants his title rematch tonight! A bit of arguing ensues, and it takes a bit to get on track, though Edge finally somehow gets around to saying that Punk wants to be so totally like Edge himself. “You call this style ‘straight-edge’? You named it after me!” Bwa ha ha ha!

Edge continues that Punk will never be like him, and he’s totally better, so he’s going to get the first chance to get his title rematch. Jeff responds by kicking Edge (to make him powder out), then gives Punk a Twist of Fate followed by a Swanton Bomb. Well, that accomplished a whole lot of nothing, other than planting the Punk-as-heel seeds.

Oh wait, here comes GM Theodore Long. T-Long says that Punk has to defend his title on RAW next Monday (the whole “3-for-all” deal), so we’re going to have a #1 contender’s match tonight between Jeff and Edge to see who exactly will be against him.

Segment 2: After the commercial, T-Long returns to his office to find Chris Jericho. Jericho wants to know why he doesn’t get a shot at the top title tonight, but answers his own question by saying the whole thing is disrespect, especially considering he’s got the IC title now. T-Long replies that he’s got a hard time to argue with that… so since Jericho is already dressed to compete, he’ll face Punk in a non-title match. Alrighty.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Dolph Ziggler defeats Khali (w/ Translator) by countout. Lame as fuck. Basically a squashed, but when Khali went for his finisher, Dolph bailed and ran around the ring. Khali was dumb enough to chase him, and Dolph got in the ring at 9 so Khali was counted out.

Segment 4 [Tag Match]: Michelle McCool & Layla (w/ Alicia Fox) defeat My Melina & Eve Torres by pin. Match was short, too short. One cool spot saw My Melina trying her Matrix dodge-and-kick, but Michelle caught her leg and tried to whip her backward. Melina basically just backflipped through it, so she re-countered. Very neat.

Endgame was neat, with Melina getting the hot tag and cleaning house. Layla tried to mess that up, but Eve stopped her, making both powder out. Melina then setup for the Pyro’s Fantasy, but Alicia Fox jumped up on the apron. Although Fox didn’t get to do anything, Michelle took that momentary distraction to pull Melina successfully in that squish position… the finisher is called the “Faithbreaker”? Did I already mention that several weeks ago? I don’t remember. Anyway, Michelle did the Faithbreaker to poor My Melina, causing me endless desire to massage all that pain away.

Segment 5 [Tag Match]: John Morrison & R-Truth defeat Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin. Damn good match, here, with tons of crazy athletic spots, though nothing that is exceptionally noteworthy (other than the match-ending Starship Pain, anyway). Well, wait, I take that back: a lot of it was amazing, such as JM’s practically uncontrolled slingshot vaulting body press after getting the hot tag, but the thing is that JM, RT, and SB make all this look easy in all their matches anyway. I’m almost being desensitized to their awesomeness just because they’re great in every match they do. This one is definitely a must watch, just because of how easy they all make it look.

Pre-Segment 6: Chris Jericho is out for his match, but blathers first that he’s truth-teller, that we’re all liars, that with the mask in hand (and he holds it up just to punctuate his point) proves Rey is now free from the shackles of being a coward. Or something. And Jericho complains that Rey hasn’t thanked him yet, and has instead just ran off to do more mask shopping. Jericho repeats that he’s the best wrestler in the world, and he’ll keep beating up old people and stealing masks from short guys until we believe him.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: CM Punk defeats Chris Jericho by pin. Damn good match, plenty of awesome triple reversey stuff. They each either hit or attempted their finishers like three times each, though Punk’s final Go To Sleep ended things.

Segment 7 [Singles Match for #1 Contendership of World Heavyweight Title]: Edge defeats Jeff Hardy by disqualification. Match was all right, but obviously these guys aren’t going to pull out all the stops on free TV. Further, the match ending, while in-line with the story, felt a little anticlimactic after the clean endings of the last two matches… See, CM Punk came out for commentary. At the end, Edge whiffed a Spear, and Jeff hit a Twist of Fate. As Jeff went up for the Swanton, Edge bailed to ringside. Jeff dived on Edge, but once both were up, Edge tossed him into Punk. Punk, the petulant dumbass that he is, immediately attacked Edge… which drew the DQ and gave Edge exactly what he wanted.

Post-Segment 7: After the match, Jeff attacked Punk, then gave Edge another Twist of Fate. Punk recovered and hit Jeff with the GTS. Punk then posed with the belt over his rivals’ corpses.

We cut to the back, where T-Long is talking to ECW GM Tiffany. Tiffany is very excited for Christian vs. Tommy Dreamer for the ECW title, but T-Long one-ups her with the obvious triple threat match.

Recommendation: Not a “must-watch,” but definitely a “should-watch.” The night was match-heavy, which you may or may not enjoy, but most of the matches were good. Don’t take my light skimming of the matches as signs that they were empty of content; conversely, the matches were crisp and well-worked. SD is greatly living up to the image of being the “sports” side of WWE compared to RAW’s “entertainment” side. I’m rather stoked for Monday, and maybe I’ll be free enough to write a standard-length recap!

Pre-Segment 1: We cold-open to CM Punk