Specifically, I absolutely love the song “Face Down” by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. There’s a chord or key change or something (whatever it’s called) in the chorus between the lines “When you push her around / Do you feel better now” that gives me a little taste of euphoria and an adrenaline rush that, ironically, makes me want to punch someone in the face. It could be a combination of the chord and the lyrics, I suppose, but I tend to have that little adrenaline rush with any semblance of that chord in other songs from other artists as well. I guess that’s why I actually enjoy that generic rock sound that, intellectually, I know is too simple to be anything genre-busting or innovative, but I enjoy it all the same. It’s like grandma’s fuzzy sweater, you know?: not special or innovative, really, but still makes you feel good.

Actually, if The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’s songs and overall style are similar to “Face Down,” I’m going to have to get the iTunes album presently. “Face Down” is quite energetic, and lately it’s gotten me through some of the long, boring assignments that Marketing is throwing at me. One of these days I’m going to cruise in Saints Row 2 to a different radio station and see if they’ve got another song that has the same effect on me.

Speaking of music, no one has written in about what the title and artist of SmackDown’s new theme song is. Let’s use my cell phone’s music ID thingy…

Opening: “Let It Roll” by Divide the Day! Hooray for Google when my cell phone’s music ID thingy fails! …Still not as good as “Rise Up” by Drowning Pool though.

Segment 1: Theodore Long is in the ring already as we fade to the arena. He opens with, “I know you all watched ‘Hell in a Cell’ on Sunday…” and the crowd responded, in one voice, with a resounding “NOOOO!!!” This is already going to be an awesome episode.

T-Long hypes Bragging Rights, including the Randy Orton/John Cena match, though T-Long hypes this just after saying that SmackDown is the best show ever. I guess his point is that if Cena loses, and is therefore banished from RAW, that he so totally should go to SmackDown since it’s an awesome show?

T-Long is about to go on about something, but CM Punk hits the ring first. Punk actually brings up my concerns, and tells T-Long that SD shouldn’t be talking about a RAW wrestler, that Cena won’t make SD better (definitely that point is true), and that T-Long should be so totally focused on Punk himself and “his” World Heavyweight Title, that he should be the #1 Contender. This is especially because he’s invoking his rematch clause, or at least wants to. He also insists on knowing why he’s booked against Batista tonight, five nights removed from a hellacious match like Hell in a Cell (as if Bats didn’t have a similar match, but whatever). Punk also demands to have Taker in a submission match at Bragging Rights with Scott Armstrong as the ref, and with T-Long at ringside. T-Long starts to argue, and Punk tells him to shut up since he’s totally in charge of this.

Cue Vince McMahon’s music. Vince hits the ring, and T-Long gives him a flowery introduction, but Vince says that he’s still on probation (still, whatever that means). Vince says that he knows what T-Long was about to announce, but that the announcement would piss off both Punk and Taker. Vince then announces, on behalf of T-Long, that Bragging Rights will feature a Fatal Four-Way for the World Heavyweight Title involving Undertaker, CM Punk, Rey Mysterio, and Batista. Hm… that’s a little random, isn’t it? Not a bad thing though, I enjoy Fatal Four-Way matches, and there will be a lot of decent chemistry match-ups in that roster.

Vince then says to get the show on the road, and cuts to Rey Mysterio coming out. It takes Punk awhile to leave, as he’s still pissed off at this announcement, but he does so in peace.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Rey Mysterio defeats Chris Jericho by pin. Good match. Nothing epic, but the whole end-game sequence was pretty cool. CJ was able to reverse the 619 twice, and applied the Walls twice. The second Walls attempt saw RM wiggle out of it and give an enzuiguri kick while sitting (really) to get CJ back in the 619 position for the third time. Rey hit it and followed it up with his signature springboard splash to make the pin.

Segment 3: Cryme Tyme and Eve Torres do yet another unfunny Word Up segment.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Michelle McCool defeats Eve Torres by pin. Match was lame. Nothing was broken or botched, just nothing was entertaining either. The one good spot was Michelle’s finisher, which was sold as a big boot but really looked like just a stiff-as-fuck forward kick to Eve’s collarbone. That’s gotta hurt.

Segment 5: In the back, Vickie Guerrero is cuddling with Derrick or Eric or whatever the hell his name is. T-Long materializes: it’s his office, and he asks what’s going on. Vickie says that last week, it was announced that the guy (Eric Escobar, I think?) is on SmackDown, but this week it’s totally unfair that Escobar isn’t on the show. Somehow she brings this around to talking about Taker and Punk and the screw job.

T-Long starts to defend himself with the words “Look, Mr. McMahon—” and Vickie immediately says that T-Long is implying that the screw job was all Vince’s idea. She whispers something to Escobar, who responds with something in Spanish, then kisses up Vickie’s arm and walks away. I don’t speak Spanish, nor do I yet give a shit about Eric Escobar, so I don’t really care what he said.

Segment 6 [Singles Match for the Intercontinental Title]: John Morrison defeats Dolph Ziggler, and retains. Match was long and decent, but nothing special. Maria came out halfway along to sit and watch from ringside. Most of the way through the match, the fight spilled outside. Maria got up to move away from them, and Dolph moved her chair to the apron.

Later in the match, JM gained a massive advantage, and Dolph found himself on his stomach near the apron. He then looked for the chair he placed there, but Maria had retrieved it and was sitting in it again. Dolph was agitated at this and started to stand, eating a springboard roundhouse kick from JM to put him away.

I’m dumbfounded, really: this match was for the IC Title, and in fact Dolph spent half the match taunting JM that he would be the new champion. That means Dolph’s motivation was the title, nothing but… and yet when the things got rough, he made an elaborate plan to cheat with a chair to win? It would have left him DQed, and he would have lost his chance at the title, you know?

It blows my mind—and maybe I just take the whole thing too seriously—when a heel who is in a title match would blatantly break the rules (or attempt to do so) and risk being DQed. It makes sense in context for, say, when William Regal sneaks in his brass knuckles or something, as it’s a subtle and allegedly crafty tactic. Dolph was going to try using a fucking steel chair, which only seems to be unseen by the ref when there’s someone that can distract him. Unless maybe Dolph figured Maria would distract the ref for him? Regardless, now I know I’m over-thinking it. I’m just going to chalk this up to the writers being idiots and leaving it at that; it seems to be the answer to explain 99% of the stupidity nowadays.

Segment 7: After the commercial, Dolph and Maria are WALKING~!. The former is trying to talk to the latter, and finally Dolph snaps that she totally needs to stay out of his matches, i.e., away from ringside. He says that they needed to separate their personal life and professional life. He says that in his professional life, he sees bright lights and a big future… but in his professional life, he sees her out of it. Dolph then stomps away, and Maria looks like she’s going to cry. Or at least tries to look like she’s going to cry. I’ll hand it to her: she tried her damnedest to act, and compared to the shittastic Undertaker/T-Long segment from a few weeks ago, she was Grace Kelly.

Segment 8: Rey is in the back in the locker room, and Batista comes in. They speak in low tones about something… it’s really fucking hard to hear their mumbles. Oh wait, Bats starts to go up in intensity, and it basically comes down to the fact that they’re a team regardless of who wins the Fatal Four-Way at Bragging Rights. Uh oh, dissention in the ranks!

Segment 9 [Tag Match]: Drew McIntyre & Kane defeat Matt Hardy & R-Truth by pin. What a bizarre random pairing. We had a pure formula tag match, with Truth being the Face in Peril but getting the hot tag to Matt, who went House of Fire. The match ended with a little double-team action behind the ref’s back, with Matt eating a double underhook DDT as Drew’s finisher. Nice move, but no chemistry from anyone, not even any feeling of rivalry between Drew and Truth despite their brawls over the past month.

Segment 10: My boy, the Undertaker, is out here to make his first speech as our new World Heavyweight Title. He prattles in an Undertaker way about the belt being the ultimate prize in the business, and how everyone seeks it for glory… but how everyone will be disappointed, as
“the road to [the title] ends in my yard… and it shall be their graveyard.” Sweet.

Taker goes on to hype the Fatal Four-Way match at Bragging Rights, talking about each of his opponents. He says that Punk only lost his title at Hell in a Cell but will lose his soul at Bragging Rights. Taker says that Rey Mysterio’s valor and heart are admirable but that he will show him no mercy. Taker finally says that while his matches with Batista have been epic in the past (really?), his “rage and power won’t be enough to save your soul.” He says that all three guys will “fall in the shadow of the Undertaker,” and “one by one you will all rest… in… peace.”

Simple (for the Undertaker) and effective. I know not everyone digs Taker or his gimmick, but I’ve long since made known my bias in his favor, and I loved this one, especially due to its brevity. It’s a nice break from the ten-minute monologues of Randy Orton, CM Punk, Chris Jericho, and John Cena… though at least two of those guys are usually entertaining.

Segment 11 [Singles Match]: CM Punk defeats Batista by countout. The ending was excessively lame… and the match wasn’t much better. Punk played chickenshit heel, which somewhat hid the fact that Bats was slow as hell and the match had plenty of unexciting action.

The problem came at the midgame, when Punk entered the ring and slapped on a submission hold. Once Bats broke that, the slow pace of the match came to full view, and was underwhelming. Although they tried a couple false finishes, I just wasn’t into it, and I like both of these guys. They just didn’t click to me: allegedly exciting spots, things like Punk trying a crossbody but being caught in midair, seemed too prepared and spotty rather than dynamic and reactive, like we were watching a rehearsal rather than the match itself.

The endgame was completely unsatisfying. The guys spilled outside the ring, where Punk was basically in the skinning-the-cat position. The announcers were trying to sell us that Bats was going for a Batista Bomb outside the ring, but it just didn’t look… quite… right. I can’t really explain it; I guess it’s just more of that half-speed intensity that made the guys’ faces look constipated rather than actually intense. Anyway, at the eight-count, Punk finally broke Bats’s hold and slithered in the ring. Bats oversold the break and took entirely too long getting up, leading to the countout loss.

After the match, Bats raged outside the ring for a bit, then got in the ring and did a Batista Bomb to Punk anyway for the hell of it. Yay?

Final Thoughts: Meh. No Melina makes me cry!

…Bah, not really. The whole night just didn’t click. Morrison/Ziggler still need to find a groove, the tag match was absolutely random, the divas prove that there’s still only three or four ring-capable women on the roster (and these two really aren’t included, though Michelle is easily on the fringe), and Punk/Batista was too slow to make much of. Rey/Jericho was entertaining without being high-spotty, but nothing to write home about. About my only real draw of the night was Taker’s promo, and that’s more of a personal preference I think than really any objectively high quality.

May as well pass on this one, guys. Even the promos, other than Taker’s, were “meh” at best and annoying at worst. You have better things to do, trust me.

RATING (out of 5): 2.3