…Who then sees Hornswoggle. Horny ruins the meal by fondling the Christmas turkey, and T-Long tells us to holla holla holla. Meh; pointless but harmless.

Segment 2 [8-Man Tag Match]: John Morrison et al defeat Dolph Ziggler et al by pin. Match was pure formula with no high spots. The faces beat the heels, with JM and Finlay being the heroes after an R-Truth Face In Peril. An entertaining Pier Eight Brawl and the Starship Pain were our conclusions to the match.

Segment 3: Chris Jericho pops out and heads to the ring, where he proceeds to blather how stupid it was to have DX on tonight’s show. It’s all so totally a conspiracy against him by WWE; he’s a victim because he’s been “banished from RAW by malefactors” and disrespected on SD, where he is so totally the face of the show.

CJ reasonably asks what the Hart Dynasty has done to earn a title shot, since he and Show didn’t actually lose their rematch against DX. This summons the electric guitar wail, followed by two awesome wrestlers and the third-hottest diva in WWE who come to the ring presently. Jericho says he respects them, and trained with their family just like they did… however, he remembers when they were wee little lads, and that’s how he still thinks of them. What, exactly, have they done to prove themselves worthy of a title shot?

DH Smith answers that they never run or complain from adversity, that they just take on the problem directly. Tyson Kidd stupidly says he’s better than the best, including Jericho.

CJ wants to retort, but DX’s theme fires up. DX appears on the Titantron, standing in front of a tree. After some allegedly witty banter, Shawn presents the foursome with some gifts. Which, of course, leads to some cheap plugs first. Aside from that, they are going to give him something to remind him of Show: a Tickle Me Big Show. Which sounds funny, but the resulting Photoshop picture is stupid, as is the succeeding fart joke.

DX moves on to give their gift to THD: a one-way ticket to Canada. Which is an excuse to show a Canada-related collage of pictures. This is also stupid.

CJ voices my thoughts and says that this is what DX is all about: sophomoric jokes and pandering. So if THD wants to really make an impact, then frickin’ beat them tonight. CJ then turns and addresses them, saying he will get the titles back from them, so screw you.

Then he turns around and walks into the Hart Dynasty’s team finisher, the spinebuster + Hart Attack combo. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is making an impact. Poor CJ.

Segment 4: Mickie James in the back when she is come upon by Michelle McCool and Layla. The heels give a faux apology and give MJ an oversized card. She opens it, and inside is a gift certificate to Jenny Craig. They continue calling her first-grade names while Mickie looks pissed. At least, I hope that’s “pissed” and “not about to cry again”; knowing WWE, it could go either way.

Segment 5: Rey Mysterio is in the locker room to prepare for his match against the Undertaker. Josh Mathews appears to ask him what his chances are of winning this year. Rey responds that by beating Batista last week, he has momentum. Though he knows he’s the plucky underdog, he’s sure he’ll pull off a Christmas miracle and pull out the win.

Segment 6 [Singles Match for the World Heavyweight Title]: Rey Mysterio defeats Undertaker by disqualification, but Undertaker retains. Match was decent, with the standard “beat the hell out of Rey for 15 minutes while he does hope spot after hope spot just to be beaten down again.” Eventually, Undertaker got onto a major tear, even hitting a Chokeslam… and that’s when Bats appeared.

Everyone started beating on everyone in an awesome bit of chaos. It finally ended with Taker eating a Spear and Bats eating a 619, leaving “the little guy” standing above them.

*sniff sniff*

Smell that? I think I catch the odor of a triple threat match in the air!

Segment 7: Cryme Tyme and Slam Master J blather in the back. SMJ is dressed as Santa, so he bitches about getting his lap sit on by fat kids, or something. So Shad kicks him. Does anyone really give a shit?

Segment 8 [Tag Match]: Cryme Tyme squashes Some Guy & Some Other Guy by pin. I refuse to recap squashes.

Segment 9: T-Long and Vickie are still arguing in the back when the latter realizes that the camera is on her and needs to get her Rachel Ray on. This ends with the two of them teasing that they’ll slam pies into each other’s faces… but they stop, and T-Long promises he would never throw a pie into her face.

Along comes Hornswoggle again as Vickie continues to talk. T-Long taps her on the shoulder, she turns, Horny throws a pie in her face. T-Long laughs, and Horny throws a pie in his face. Ha ha?

Segment 10 [Tag Match]: Mickie James & Maria defeat Layla & Beth Phoenix by pin. Match was decent but nothing special. Layla showed some massive improvement in her in-ring ability since she started… she really impressed me tonight.

Maria became Face In Peril, Mickie got the hot tag and went House of Fire. After ducking a roundhouse kick by Layla, MJ countered with a reverse spinning heel kick. Beth Phoenix was down at this point, so Mickie made the pin.

Michelle was out there for commentary, so directly after the match, MJ went after her. Michelle managed to dance around and behind the announcers’ table to avoid taking any shots, and Beth came over to plant a forearm into Mickie’s head. Maria tried to make the save and got clotheslined for it. Mickie then got in a couple shots on Beth, but Beth grabbed her and flung her into the table. MJ stayed down; Michelle tried to pose over the corpse, but Beth glared at her, scaring her off. Beth maintains her tweener status, and some more fuel has been added to this fire.

Segment 11 [Tag Match for the Unified Tag Team Titles]: Degeneration X defeats The Hart Dynasty (w/ Natalya) by pin, and retains. Technically speaking, this was the best goddamn match in SmackDown in months. Awesome from start to finish. THD has proven their place, showing they can play with the main eventers. There was absolutely no flaw in this one, and you owe it to yourself to check out… though I’ll qualify that with the fact that there weren’t any “get off your ass and cheer from the bottom of your lungs” moments. Considering what WWE has become though, this was a phenomenal pure wrestling match, one of those that reminds you why the hell you’re a fan in the first place.

A great spot came about halfway through the match. Well, not a spot per se, just a cool move I haven’t seen before. Shawn was in the ring, stunned. TK headed to the apron, and waited. As Shawn rose, TK jumped up on the ropes to springboard, then did a forward flip, grabbing Shawn’s neck while in flight, and finishing with a falling neckbreaker. Beautiful.

Shawn got even toward the end. Shawn was down, crawling to his corner to make the tag. Again TK got to the apron, and again TK jumped on the top rope. He springboarded from there toward Shawn, staying upright this time for a vertical crossbody (or splash?). Shawn’s back was to him, but Shawn turned in exact time to turn that into a reverse atomic drop. Amazing!

Shawn got the hot tag at that point, entering the end game. Trips went House of Fire, but wound up eating that joint finisher. Shawn managed to break the pin. Tyson tried to hit Shawn with an axehandle from the top rope to the floor, but Shawn dodged. In the ring, after some finagling, Trips whipped DHS to the faces’ corner, where Shawn planted Sweet Chin Music. As DHS stumbled back from that, Trips hit the Pedigree, and that was it. Excellent ending; thank god we didn’t have any dipshit like Jericho or Show interfere for a dirty finish.

After the match, Horny came to the ring. “We’ve got two words for you!” says Shawn. “Merry Christmas!” says Horny. Aw… Merry Christmas to you too, buddy.

Final Thoughts: I came in knowing this was a Christmas special, and as such didn’t expect anything major to happen. These are the types of shows that are purely “feel good,” with faces winning and no stories really advancing. In that regard, the episode happened as I thought it would; however, WWE put on a pretty solid show, which I didn’t expect. I figured that all the matches would be lame, cheap throwaways that were barely adequate.

Color me surprised: all the matches other than the squash tag match were solid affairs. The main event was amazing, the eight-man tag match was pretty fun, and the divas were pretty watchable and were given time to actually do a frickin’ match rather than have it all time-compressed into 90 seconds. Taker/Rey wasn’t as hot as some of Taker’s matches lately—or perhaps better stated, it was pretty much how his matches have become rather than the red-hot Match of the Year—but it was entertaining in its own right. Definitely worth a watch, guys.

Rating (out of 5): 3.7