Ah, the hell with it. I hope I’m past the ad box because we’re going to SmackDown…

Segment 1: Rey Mysterio hits the ring to start the show. Rey kicks off with a generic promo about how he tried his best at SummerSlam, and it sucks he lost, but at least he didn’t end up in the casket. Further, it’s great that his name is cleared as far as who put Undertaker in the Veggie Tales state, since it’s totally Kane’s fault.

And here comes… Alberto Del Rio? Really? They’re giving him an immediate push that he gets to interrupt a main eventer? That’s rather shocking. ADR heads to the ring dressed in a suit with a douchebag scarf, and is all too happy to talk about he is debuting tonight, and how he and Rey are so totally brothers of heritage. ADR also seems to be permanently doing the People’s Eyebrow.

Anyway, ADR turns heel immediately, basically saying that Rey is a no-good commoner, because he’s so totally part of the upper class. This goes on for entirely too long, mostly because ADR speaks Orton-speed. But Rey isn’t going to take that shit and cuts a generic “the rich aren’t automatically better than everyone else!” promo. Man, maybe I’m getting jaded with WWE, I just already hate this. Of course, it features this awesome exchange…

ADR: “You peasant!”
Rey: “Who’re you calling a peasant?”
ADR: “You! …You peasant!”

…Brilliant writing there, asshats. It winds up with Rey challenging ADR, and ADR says he’d love to. He gets in Rey’s face and does a little douche wink, so Rey slaps him, then hits him with the 619 and leaves.

Whatever. This matchup can’t possibly intrigue me less.

Segment 2: Cody Rhodes gives us another beauty tip. It features the phrase “manly moisturizing lotion.” Jesus Almighty, give me strength.

Segment 3 [Singles Match for the Intercontinental Title]: Kofi Kingston defeats Dolph Ziggler by disqualification, but D-Zigg retains. Match was watchable but nothing special. Kofi got on a tear toward the end, went up to the top rope for something… but then Vickie Guerrero shoved him off the ropes. The ref saw it, threw down the DQ, and it was lamely over.

After the match, Kofi confronted Vickie, getting in her face, but not smacking her. It gave Dolph the chance to sneak up on Kofi, smacking him, throwing him in the ring, then hitting him with the Zig Zag and the scissored sleeper.

Kofi was completely knocked out, and it looked like Dolph was leaving… then changed his mind and got back in the ring. Kofi was lying near the ropes, and Dolph walked over to him. While holding the top rope for extra leverage, Dolph raised his leg, as if he was considering peeing on him. But instead, Dolph just dropped his foot down and smashed Kofi’s jaw and throat. He sorta no sold it, that is, selling that he was completely unconscious from the sleeper and didn’t feel the stomp. Dolph was finally satisfied and left as refs appeared to attend to him.

Segment 4: Michelle McCool and Layla are in the locker room, blathering about being upset that Teddy Long is going to punish them for beating the shit out of Melina at SummerSlam. But apparently, they have something else planned… BUT IT’S SO TOTALLY A SECRET SO DON’T TELL ANYONE AND DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO THE TITANTRON.

Oh, and then we see that Hornswoggle was hiding in a plant and overheard everything, then ran off when the ladies left the room. Wherever he’s been for the past month or two, he needs to go back.

Segment 5: The Straightedge Society is in their locker room and aren’t happy that CM Punk left them to lose at SummerSlam. Or rather, the guys aren’t happy. Serena said it was a lesson, because it was so they would learn to stand on their own. Serena is confident that she and Luke Gallows will win their mixed tag match tonight, and it’ll prove that they deserve Punk’s admiration.

Punk himself comes in then and says that they totally don’t deserve his admiration, or anything really. He says he saw RAW, and was intrigued by how Nexus acted. He applies the same rules here: if Serena and Luke lose their match, they’re out of the SES. Serena looks worried, but Luke just looks annoyed. Hm…

Segment 6 [Mixed Tag Match]: Serena & Luke “Mr. Mediocrity” Gallows (w/ Joey Mercury) defeat Kelly Kelly & Big Show by pin. Basically a diva’s match, Luke tagged out pretty early, leaving it to the women. It wasn’t pretty to watch, but that was mostly K2’s fault: it seemed Serena knew what she was doing, and whenever she was on offense or taking a move that she was controlling (like a tilt-a-whirl headscissors), it looked good. When left to her own devices, K2 wasn’t that great.

Anyway, K2 got on a tear toward the end, and made a pin. Luke appeared and broke the pin by pulling K2 off Serena. Big Show came in and the fight spilled outside. Serena stood, and K2 went for her little leg flip thingy, but Serena wiggled out and got K2 up on her shoulders. Serena then dropped K2 forward and brought out a knee, hitting her with a rather sick gutbuster. Todd Grisham called this an “homage to CM Punk’s Go To Sleep,” which I guess it sorta was.

Speaking of Punk, after the match, Punk came out from the back but stayed on the stage, and started applauding their efforts. Serena even got herself a hug when she went back up the ramp.

Segment 7: After a commercial, we basically cold-cut to Kane, standing in the ring and covered with red light. See, he’s here to explain why he made Taker an eggplant. Although, he doesn’t really answer the question: he opens by saying that it was Taker’s pride that allowed him to “lose his powers” over the years, and it was the same loss of pride that allowed Kane to beat the shit out of him, even ending with the Tombstone Piledriver.

Kane prattles (interspersed with footage from quite old matches) and, basically, says that Taker always wanted to be the famous brother, and his pride of wanting to stay in the spotlight. Kane goes on that Taker lost whatever humanity he had left a decade ago during their Inferno Match, when Kane lost and was set on fire.

But then Kane wanted to hatch a master plan, for some reason, kicked off when Taker took his mask. So over the years Kane sat back and schemed, despite a couple losses, including one at WrestleMania. Then they reunited as tag champs for awhile, but Kane says that they only reunited so he could keep an even closer eye on Taker and build up his trust.

Kane digresses by saying that over the years, Kane realized that any time Taker fell, his pride would force him to get back up. He puts that idea on the backburner after one sentence to say that he knew his plan could come to fruition when he saw Taker give Shawn Michaels an ounce of mercy at WrestleMania 26. So that’s when Kane Veggie Taled him, and then Kane was sure he had his vengeance when Taker appeared all weak at SummerSlam.

And now their roles are switched, because Taker is in the shadows, and Kane is the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. So now the plan is all complete, with Taker being nothing anymore, and Kane being “the Devil’s teammate.” Blow corner pyros.

[Allow me to digress: Now, you may be asking yourself why I wrote that, because it is clearly all sorts of retarded. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that it was retarded is the precise reason.

I know WWE is pro wrestling and, by its nature, rather silly. But is it too much to ask for a coherent plot that stays consistent within itself? Note that Ididn’t say that I want a realistic plot. Taker is undead? Sure! Kane is the love child of the devil and, uh, pure fire? I buy that! Michelle and Layla say they’re so totally telling a secret even though the camera is in their face? Directorial genius! (Not really, but roll with me here.)

But what we got here for Kane’s explanation is code for the writers not knowing how the fuck to explain it. What we got was a series of tag lines for horror B-movies while retconning the plots for their feuds over the years with absolutely no transition between any given pair ofsentences , let alone paragraphs of a whole idea. And then, bringing the title into the conversation just served as another reminder of how the whole thing was retarded, because Kane (or rather, his words) couldn’t decide whether the title was the point of the feud or just a sweet prize.

The saddest thing about this is that the story could have worked within the context of WWE’s own little universe of stupidity, because I can see what they were going for. Everybody Loves Raymond devoted an entire character to the premise of a jealous sibling, and they managed to not fuck up that basic plot for nine seasons. Do I need to start listing off the movies based on the premise as well, movies thatdidn’t involve retarded lines like “And now, because of your pride, I’m WWE Champion!!!”?

It upsets me that the writer monkeys can’t tell a coherent plot when even dumbass 15-year-olds can craft Final Fantasy fan fiction that tells a story, albeit with shitty grammar and spelling. I can actually fix this plot, and it’s pretty fucking simple.

First, you tell Glen Jacobs that he’s going to have to ad-lib a bit to fill some time because a) he knows how to talk, and b) it’ll sound more natural that way. I know that in today’s WWE, telling the wrestlers to actually say what they want to and not over-write the scripts or over-book the matches is a new and scary concept on part with riding an ICBM to work, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

Second, you give the guy some good-quality talking points about what he needs to get across and what he feelings he has behind every word he utters. This is, of course, called “direction,” something that no one in WWE seems to have any of at this point.

So, here are the talking points. First: Kane is motivated by jealousy because he wants to be the alpha sibling. Second: Kane attacked Taker because, after witnessing him give the moment of mercy to HBK, Kane knew that Taker is NOW mentally a shadow of his former self. (Kane could even complain, “Where was the mercy for your own brother the last time we met in battle?” Don’t fucking bring the ringspecifically into the conversation because that’s where things start getting stupid.) Third: after Nexus’s little tirade, Kane realized that Taker is now PHYSICALLY a shadow of his former self too. So he beat the fuck out of Taker.

Just like that, three talking points give Kane his motivation. Now to tie up the loose ends to what happened after the assault. Fourth: Kane took out Taker and figured, what the hell, let’s snag “your Holy Grail” in the process. This line is punctuated by Kanetapping the title belt, and not talking about it . It almost amounts to the same thing, but if the camera quick-cuts to Kane tapping it, then cuts back to his face—or even better, just frames the shot so everything is in-frame—it removes the momentum-killing “WWE Heavyweight Champion” phrase from the monologue, and keeps focus on Kane’s overall motivation as solidly as possible.

Fifth: Kane saw an opportunity after that. Taker’s history is in facing his enemies in a relatively honorable fight, just with some powers of the dark side thrown in (which is a lie, but it’s WAY less of a retcon than what they were actually trying to do), and was weaker because of it. Sixth: Kane wants to prove his superiority to his brother by eliminating his threatsbefore any sort of prolonged match (“battle”?) can take place, which is why he was falsely accusing everyone and chokeslamming people into the Gulf of Mexico. Seventh: And it worked, because when Taker finally came back, Kane was still pretty fucking healthy without having to deal with constant attacks other than from a 5-foot-3 Mexican pussy, and was able to put Taker in his place.

So finally, eighth: this goes to prove that Taker has lost his edge. He is old. He is frail. He has shown too much mercy. He has shown too much weakness. Honor gets you nothing but an early, permanent grave. (See how that line works within the idiom?) Then we just give a pithy punch line, perhaps even the same one becausethat , at least, didn’t entirely suck on its own, and then we blow the corner pyros and we’re out. A coherent thought, a coherent plot, with motivation for action, the action itself, the fallout of the action, and the possible future action that will result.

There. I just fixed WWE’s supposed #2 or #3 storyline in about ten minutes and made it coherent. It’s cheesy and not going to sell much at the box office, but at least it would pass for pro wrestling TV. The idiots in the target demo are occupying themselves with Ben 10 and Yu-Gi-Oh! (or whatever other crap kids watch nowadays), so WWE should at least aspire to that low level when it’s trying to explain the actions of its characters.

End rant.]

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Christian defeats Drew McIntyre by pin. Match was all right but nothing special. The story here is that Christian still has a bit of an arm injury, so Drew did tons of arm-related offense. Christian still pulled out the victory with a school boy pin. He looked good doing it; Drew, less so.

Post-Segment 8: Cody Rhodes was out on commentary, revealing to the world that he and Drew currently have a bromance going. After Drew lost, Cody did what any good boyfriend does: he stepped up to defend the honor of his laddie by beating the hell out of Christian. Matt Hardy, who has a beef with Drew too for having his ankle snapped, hobbled down to help. He managed to hit Cody with a Side Effect but soon fell to the heels, getting his metal ankle brace ripped off and his tender little joint assaulted again. The finish was Matt eating a Future Shock DDT, and Christian eating a Cross Rhodes.

Segment 9: Jack Swagger is in the back, blathering about how much WWE hates him to… someone off-screen… uh… oh, it’s Rosa Mendes, who is ignoring him. Oh, she’s listening to an iPod and wasn’t paying attention. Jack isn’t happy.

But then he turns around and sees MVP, who gives him a sarcastic pep talk, before saying that Jack is good at some things, but probably just isn’t that good at holding onto WWE gold. Jack says that he’s better than MVP at everything, and will prove it with a series of contests that his dad will sponsor.

Uh… doesn’t this sound like a very similar storyline MVP had with Matt Hardy several years ago? Yes, yes it does, which again goes to prove: WWE Writer Monkeys can barely eek out any original ideas, and instead just copies itself incessantly because, hey, kids have shitty long-term memories.

Oh wait, here’s something new: if Jack wins this (and apparently it’s called the “Jack Swagger Sr. Invitational,” so you know it’s going to be fair), Jack gets to host an MVP Lounge segment. If MVP wins, then MVP is going to throw a party and Jack has to pay for it. Yep, there’s some quality TV entertainment right there, boy.

Segment 10: Kane is in the back, talking to T-Long, who says that Taker will be on SmackDown next week. Kane responds by looking like he smells a fart, but then promises that this just means that SD “will be Hell on Earth” next week. Whatever, buddy.

Pre-Segment 11: It seems Alberto Del Rio has his own ring announcer, Ricardo Rodriguez. And then ADR makes his entrance by driving a Rolls-Royce to the stage. When he pops out, he’s still got the scarf, but that’s about it other than his gold man-panties. Do you mind if I simultaneously cry and vomit?

I’ll give him this, though: his entrance music is a little catchy. Nothing that will set the world on fire (it’s generic Latin crap), but not bad.

Segment 11 [Singles Match]: Alberto Del Rio defeats Rey Mysterio by submission. A rather surprising result, and fairly convincing too. Well, “convincing” in the sense of the finish: in the ring, ADR was pretty sloppy. Not as bad as a diva’s match, but still pretty sloppy.

The story here is that Rey is like Christian, with a bad arm injury. ADR did tons of arm-related offense, including one counter where Rey was on the top rope facing away, and ADR smacked his ankle. This caused Rey to fall first into the Tree of Woe, but his feet weren’t hooked, so Rey’s momentum took him the rest of the way into the canvas, falling directly on his shoulder.

ADR took advantage from there. Shortly thereafter, as Rey got up, ADR hit what I assume is his finisher. He put Rey’s head between his legs like a powerbomb, but only for a split-second. ADR then lifted one leg up and over Rey, intentionally falling forward while wrapping that leg around Rey’s right arm. After they both hit the canvas, ADR had Rey in an armbar, one with ADR’s legs crossed and his calves in Rey’s throat. Todd Grisham called it an “armbar crossface,” which is somewhat inaccurate but is just as good a name as any.

Rey tapped almost immediately. After the match, ADR put him in it again just to be a jerk.

Final Thoughts: And then we faded out. I’ve said all that I’ve wanted to say (and more), so I think I’ll call it a night. See you on Tuesday for RAW!

Rating (out of 5): 1.5