Cena Reaction Report: Finally an interesting one, as we are very mixed with some very audible boos, even though he comes out first when the crowd is at its hottest. It can only get worse from here. Sorry, John.

Cena also has a new shirt. It’s stupid too. Let’s see how long it takes for this one to start rotting on him. He gets on the mic and begins to wonder out loud if he can really trust HBK. A “Cena Sucks” chant starts to build, but peters out. He tells Shawn that if he plans to backstab him, he’s not down with that and HBK can come to the ring and frontstab him; more specifically kick his teeth down his throat. I wonder how many people Shawn’s really done that to? I’m inclined to guess a big fat NONE.

Cue Michaels (and the two member DX music - Shawn and God) and our tag champs are in the ring. I think I saw a piece of one of the tag belts rot off of one, but I could just be straight trippin, foo. Cena tells HBKhrist that he’s only got his back because of the WWE championship, right? Shawn says yes - he wants the belt and he’s done a good job at the whole back watching thing, but then he throws a little curveball by asking how come no one is wondering when Cena’s going to turn on Shawn? CAUSE THEY’D SELL LESS T-SHIRTS IF HE DID THAT. Props to HBK for trying to make Cena’s character a tiny bit more interesting, but it was only trying. Trying doesn’t mean succeeding.

They lock eyes as Shawn tells him that no matter how bad Cena wants the belt, Shawn wants it more. This tender moment is destroyed when the lamest theme music ever (Coachman Super Tool’s) hits and tells the champs that there are plenty of tag teams that want to take the straps from them. What fucking pocket are you hiding all these tag teams in, silly bitch? Well, there are really only three, apparently, as Coach makes a three-team gauntlet match for Chain Gangeration-X; 3 matches back-to-back-to-back, the last one (if it makes it there) will be in a FIFTEEN FOOT HIGH STEEL CAGE. You know, the one that kills careers and is made of sinful, unforgiving steel? The very same one, wanks. Like there’s not going to be a third match in this whole thing, but wouldn’t it be a hell of a swerve if they never did go to three and the cage just hung there for no reason? Based on as much sense as this whole thing makes, the cage will be around the ring for pretty much no reason either…

Backstage, “The Donald” arrives. That’s it. He arrives. Oh, he walks a little bit.

Up next we have our first match! Yippee!

But not before we ask more fucking random celebrities about who they think is getting their head shaved. I don’t care what you think - you don’t care what I think, do you? I didn’t think so. So shut up.

RIC FLAIR vs. CARLITO vs. RANDY ORTON: MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING MATCH

So we’re going to try this one again - hopefully 100% Khali free, but definitely won’t be 100% chinlock free now as Orton has been added to this match; I’m guessing this has something to do with the fact that he’ll probably be winning it.

Ric Flair’s out first w/o chance in hell of winning, followed by Carlito w/o useless tagalong cheerleader, then Randy w/o pyros again. Maybe he’s just practicing for when he finally takes too much HGH and he actually has to cradle his head from the growth. At least everyone in this match has history with each other, so by all rights it shouldn’t be sloppy. This one is elimination, by the way.

Kicks off with both Flair and Carlito, as faces, attacking Orton. This leads to approximately 3,523 chops from Flair and plenty of pointless springboarding from Carlito - now just imagine that switched around; Flair springing off the ropes, but only landing on that one hip. FlairLito finally get to a point where they stop ganging up on Orton, which leads to Flair taking a Backcracker while he tries to put Orton in the Figure-4. For a guy Flair’s age, that shit probably popped some joints back into place. Orton then gets up, tosses Carlito out of the ring, and hits the RKO on Flair for the first elimination. We’re down to two as we go to commercial - when we come back Orton will probably have Carlito in a chinlock….

All be damned. He’s got him in a boston crab instead; for the SECOND week straight! Maybe it’s becoming the new chinlock? Bullshit. Orton’s in control of this match as “no appendage is safe” from his heelish stomping (JR). NONE of your appendages are safe from the Legend Killer - especially not your CHIN, as we finally come to the inevitable chinlock. Y’know, I hope someone accidentally gets their fucking neck broken for real from a chinlock so the “E” bans the move like they did with the piledriver and the shooting star. Orton’s repertoire of moves would be crippled.

Anyway, not much time is wasted in chinlock-land as Carlito counters out of it, and also counters out of an RKO attempt before nailing a headscissors (!). We come to the point where Carlito gets his same old spots in (Cool Spots?). The springboarding was cool the first couple times - now you’re just showing off, dick. There. That’s what you get. Crotched on the top rope and RKO’d. No Money in the Bank for you, pal.

WINNER (AND FINAL MONEY IN THE BANK PARTICIPANT): RANDY ORTON

BEST PART OF MATCH: It was a good length for a TV match with nothing sloppy and the crowd didn’t shit all over it.

OVERALL:

Orton’s celebration goes on for too long as I think up something to put here. Ah, ok - here we go: I don’t think you should be allowed to be in the Money in the Bank match if you’ve ever been a World Champion. Edge, Booker, and now YOU, Randy, don’t belong. Leave that shit to the guys who you think will never get a shot, not book the easy way out. Damn it. Ok he’s gone now.

More footage airs pimping the only match at Wrestlemania that apparently matters. By the way, not even WWE’s video editing awesomeness can make Lashley interesting.

By the way, did you know that there’s a contract signing tonight? I did.

Looks like we get another Masterlock challenge. I wonder if this one can possibly be more pointless than last weeks? Apparently no one cares enough about Masters to take the challenge, so he decides to pick someone. He picks Lillian Garcia, but nothing comes of it because SUPER! CRAZY! makes the save, going super-lucha-crazy on Masters before being super-countered into the super-fucking-duper-Masterlock. It is here that JR says that “not a living human being has broken the Masterlock.” Masters is a human. Masters has broken the Masterlock. Challenge is DONE FOREVER. And it was only slightly less pointless this week.

Another limo? Could it be Vince? Of course it is. “The Donald’s” already here, so now we get “The Vince”. He tells Trump’s driver to mention that “his is bigger than Trump’s”. He means their limos, but he’s implying pecker size. Get it? Ha. Fucking. Ha.

Random thought - why do they show those “Raw Fan Nation” promos during Raw? Ok - so you watch Raw. Guess what, fucker - I do too. How do you think I’m seeing you? Are they trying to tell me it’s okay to watch Raw because people go on TV and say they’re fans, too? That’s the end of the thought, really - I had no point from the start.

Backstage we go to Orton & Edge who have an asshole contest with each other and talk about Money in the Bank.

Lillian Garcia tells us to look up at the ‘tron as someone has a special public service announcement. It’s the fucking ROCK, who says finally, the Rock has come back to Raw (via an obviously pre-taped segment shot on the other fucking side of the US on my off time from making MILLIONS…..and millions of dollars doing something that people outside of the wrestling world actually respect, but nonetheless back to Raw.). He shills the Billionare match, making a joke, in true Rock fashion, about how “Umaga” in Samoan means “shriveled-up monkey penis” and that Vince can’t beat anyone with a shriveled-up monkey penis. The only thing that can beat a shriveled-up monkey penis is a shriveled-up monkey. He didn’t say that part - I threw that shit in because I like to pretend I’m as cool as the Rock (while failing more and more by the minute). He finishes with his whole Smell-la-la-la-ow thing and the crowd goes apeshit. Man, Raw needed that. How sad is it that a taped Rock can draw more crowd reaction than anyone that could possibly walk to the ring on every roster.

We shill the Playboy of Ashley that went on sale today - at the cost of seeing her magic mountains you are forced to deal with her bitch ass being shoved down your throat for the next four weeks, and not in no good way. She looks like every other chick that’s ever posed - plastic & thin; remember, this is the magazine that could make Chyna look hot. The pictorial itself was nothing super special - you’d still bang her, though.

It’s Vince o’clock - and we have a MATCH???!!! First, no post-commercial chinlock, then no Vince at 10 PM??? What sort of bizzaro world have I been transported to? I guess it’s time for the three-team gauntlet match with THREE TIMES the HBK/Cena heel tease. Joy.

GAUNTLET MATCH FOR THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS: JOHN CENA/SHAWN MICHAELS vs.

FIRST TEAM: WORLD’S GREATEST TAG TEAM

Benjamin/Haas should just give up on the whole “world’s greatest” bit. Unless they live on some fucking alien planet where the only thing there is Shelton, Charlie, and a bunch of purple mushrooms and they are the greatest tag team on THAT world, it’s just a bullshit name anymore, friends. Cena/Shelton start off as the heel team works its heel ways (isolating tag partners, frequent tags - a face team should NEVER win the belts based on the strength of strategy alone) before Cena finally makes the hot tag to HBK (who is probably not used to being the one who is TAGGED for the hot tag, but that’s the way shit is when Cena’s your partner). Shawn hits a great DDT on Haas, but Cena makes the blind tag (tension) and jumps in to make Haas tap WAY too quickly to the Machine Gun Face.

SECOND TEAM: CADE & MURDOCH

Murdoch starts off . These guys are not winning - guess we’ll see that cage after all. He beats on Shawn for awhile before Cade comes in and takes over. This is more like the HBK tag matches I’m used to seeing; Shawn taking the extensive beatdown. More heel domination like before; basically the same match again. Damn, somewhere between here and there, Cade turned into a huge guy. I wonder how? Wellness policy? Both guys make the hot tags, but it’s only a TRUE hot tag when you’re the good guy, so Cena cleans up (which is getting a chorus of boos) and goes for his series leading to the F-U, which HBK decides he wants to be a cock this time and superkicks Murdoch while he’s up in the position for the F-U (tension!). Cena looks pissed as he covers Murdoch for the three count. Wow. That was one match stretched and yanked into two.

The cage begins to lower! Who could it be next??

THIRD TEAM: MNM

Ah, yes - MNN; breaking down the restrictions of the booking brainfart that is the brand extension yet again. Week in and week out. I guess you just have to be a metrosexual to be able to jump shows whenever the fuck you want. Either way, we come back from break with this match already started in the cage. Speaking of the cage, I’m assuming the whole cage thing had a point and wasn’t just a way to attempt and make shit interesting. I really shouldn’t assume. Same old shit with the heels doing their heel thing and beating up HBK. Nitro tries for the corkscrew moonsault, which looks cool but is quickly becoming like Angle’s moonsault was in the fact that he’s never allowed to hit anyone with it, only air-ball it.

Both guys tag out as Cena comes in to destroy Mercury by throwing him into the cage. Shawn comes in and they try to one-up each other by seeing who can bury MNM the quickest. Cena finally goes for the F-U to end this damn thing, but drops Mercury as HBK teased the superkick on Cena (TENSION!!!), but instead they get along like good little boys and hit the Chin Music/F-U combo on Mercury for the win.

WINNER: WHO THE BLEEDING FUCK HELL ELSE?

BEST PART OF MATCH: The spot where HBK superkicked Murdoch while he was up for the F-U was cool (not to be confused with the superkick INTO the F-U spot from later. Not as cool)

OVERALL: 3 of the same damn match crammed into one match, even with the cage. It wasn’t sloppy or anything, but it damn sure wasn’t spectacular. A steel cage does not necessarily a better match make, but they make you at least think things will be more interesting. A lot of things would be more interesting with steel cages; having an argument with a sibling? PUT EM IN A CAGE!!! Disagreement with the boss? PUT EM IN A CAGE!!!

By the way, after the match, all of the teams come back in and get their asses kicked by Cena/Michaels to ensure that it’s not just MNM that are totally buried, but two more of the few tag teams in the WWE. Way to go, fuckos. They do yet another heel tease, this time with Cena teasing the chairshot on Shawn, but hitting Haas instead. Pussies.

By the way, in case you didn’t know about tonight’s big deal, I’ll help you out by making it as obvious at they have. Later, we have a

I just realized something - they just put the Cena/Michaels match on at 10 PM. That means our main event of the night is the

*sigh*

Now we get another match.

JEFF HARDY vs. EDGE

Here comes the Rainbow Express Jeff Hardy drying his hands as he prances to the ring, obviously very excited to become immortal like his brother did after being totally fed to Edge. Remember, he got banished to Smackdown, where he discovered that he will not die. Imagine what Jeff would do to himself if he found out HE couldn’t die..

Anyway, back to the ring where Edge is not dressed to wrestle. It looks as if Edge had some tattoo work done recently, as it seems he’s got the Prince symbol on his forearm. He gets on the mic and explains himself. Apparently he doesn’t want to wrestle in front of more “bigots” like last week who have a football team named the “Redskins”. And, also last week, I ask what the hell? Luckily for us, he’s got an Indian friend to take his place in this match. Tatanka? No wait, they fired his ass…..oh, shit. The other kind of Indian. FUCK! Well, let’s just get this over with before it even starts.

JEFF HARDY vs. EDGE THE GREAT KHALI (UNLESS HE’S GREAT AT BEING SHIT)

WINNER: NOT A LIVING SOUL

BEST PART OF MATCH NO-SELL FEST: Jack fucking shit.

OVERALL:

Khali slams him around. Edge laughs. KANE shows up. With a big-ass hook. If his fishing for Khalis, he’d better bait that hook with all the SUCK he can find. Khali actually runs off as Kane proves that he can’t even look menacing with a murder weapon. These two should have the first-ever REAL death match at 23. Not that they need the boost in buyrates because everyone alive is ordering it for Trump/McMahon.

Hall of Fame inductee this week: Mr. Fuji - master of the salt toss.

Re-Todd Grisham backstage with Foley, who shills his book and gets a cheap pop in the same sentence before commenting on Trump/McMahon.

INTERJECTION: Vince has got celebrities from outside the ring, not to mention Bischoff, Austin, Foley, and even the fucking ROCK to shill this match and I still don’t care anymore than I had planned to care from the get-go. I’m tired of this - your audience is probably already ordering the PPV. Stop with the hard sell. We fucking get it.

Back to Foley, who has been interrupted by the Useless Plastic herself (Ashley). She offers to trade her Playboy for his book (co-shilling), which leads to Ron Simmons and DAMN. Damn….

More video bullshit for Vince/Trump. I GET IT!!!!!

Up next we get Milena vs. Torrie Wilson. Hopefully Milena doesn’t kill Torrie this week…then again…

MILENA vs. TORRIE WILSON (NON-TITLE NON-SKILL MATCH)

Chick-tastic offense. Period. Milena is in control for most of it; JR comments that when the girls toss each other by the hair it’s “like a Frisbee”. Yeah - like a 100 pound Frisbee with implants. Just like every fucking Frisbee I’ve ever owned. Jackass. I’d have owned many more Frisbees in my youth if these chick were “like a Frisbee”. Sometimes I want to take a circular saw blade and throw it at Ross’s face “like a Frisbee”. Sorry - small distraction here. Melina wins with a rollup and tights. Shocker.

WINNER: MILENA

BEST PART: I know what Torrie’s nipples look like.

OVERALL:

Afterwards, Mickie James and Victoria run out, then Ashley runs out. You don’t really care what they do, do you? I didn’t.

Another backstage segment with Vince, who’s with Edge this time. Edge tells McMahon that Rated RKO’s got his back and that they’re going to ECW to put Lashley in his place. He asks Vince to make a match for Orton vs. Lashley, totally tossing Randy under the bus. The icing on the cake is when he has Vince apply a stipulation that if Orton doesn’t show up, he forfeits his spot in the Money in the Bank match. What a son of a stinky bitch that Edge is! First home wrecking, then push killing, now former partner backstabbing! Edge - do your heelish ways know no bounds?

Next week it’s “Wrestlemania Reversal” week on Raw, where HBK is going to take on JBL (?) and Cena will face Chris Benoit. Weird - I find myself caring more about those matches than most of the ‘Mania card up to this point.

Main….uhhh….event time?

Vince heads to the ring and nearly eats shit tripping on the ring apron. He starts slamming on Trump as he has for a god damn month straight, playing to the crowd’s “What’s” (which of course are back in full effect). Blah, blah - he won’t have his head shaved because he has UUUUUUUMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAGGGGGAAAAAAAAAA. There’s his cue. Can this savage even write his name on a contract? Or does he not have to sign because it’s not a match with Umaga vs. Lashley at ‘Mania, but rather Trump vs. McMahon overshadowing what will be a sub-par match? The latter. Just a thought - WM 3 had “The Irresistible Force vs. The Immovable Object”. WM 23 pimps itself to be the later successor of no. 3, so at that show we’ll get “The Unstoppable Push” vs. “The Unmarketable Lug”. Works for me.

Vince then teases that Trump has left because he’s scared of getting a “billionaire bitch slap”. If they put that shit on a shirt I’m finding a way to buy them all so I can burn each one into nonexistence. Trump, of course, is not scared as he heads to the ring. And to think this shit all came about from that stupid fucking Trump/Rosie match (the one the crowd loved so much they chanted “TNA! TNA!”). He he - someone is laser pointing Trumps face as he tells Umaga that he’ll have the hardest time in the ring he’s ever had when he faces his guy. I didn’t know Trump changed his pick to Scott Steiner. Oh, he means hardest time BEATING the guy. And it is still Lashley as he comes out to the pyro pop.

Now everyone except for Austin is in the ring - if he were there automatically no one would be listening to either of these guys. You can so not feel the tension in this ring. Trump is trying really hard to put over Lashley here; trust me, Donald - you can’t do anything that hasn’t been tried with this guy. I’ll tell you what would work: in all of his promos, make him talk totally ghetto slang. Like when Vince asked him to apologize, he would have said “sheeit, bitch - I ain’ gon’ apologize - I’m ‘unna bus’ yo’ ass, cracka-man if ya git in my bid-ness, fo shizzle, nizzle.” I promise that would work. I also lie sometimes.

Lot’s of blah blah blah here with them trying to one-up each other before the glass FINALLY breaks and we get Stone Cold, who is looking rather silly wearing white tennis shoes. Kinda like the time Warrior showed up with the hat on. Either way, we get standard fare from Austin as he polls the crowd for who is going to win the match (gimmie a hell yeah!) before thoroughly fucking with McMahon and asking him if he has a problem with bald people. He bottom lines it by saying someone’s getting their head shaved (in case you were still unsure at this point what this was all about), but we’re STILL GOING at 11:11 PM cause Vince has to get one more word in before he leaves the ring. The contract signing table is still intact as we’re about to end the show, but WAIT - THERE’S MORE as Trump shows a bald Vince on the ‘tron and calls him back to the ring - it’s now 14 after - but Vince is a chickenshit about it (even though he’s wrestled fucking Hogan - go fig). Trump sends Lashley away and calls him to the ring one more time, but this time Vince remembers the whole grapefruit thing….jumps in the ring….takes off the jacket…..and then gets the shit shoved out of him by Trump over the table in a spot that we’ll see about 6,000 replays of between now and April 1st. Ross is marking out like Hogan just bodyslammed Andre and ends the show on the line “The Battle of the Billionaires just got richer!!”, to which I literally gave my TV the finger.

Fucking 17 minute overrun - OK for bullshit, not OK for WRESTLING main events.

OVERALL SHOW: TWO actual matches on the show. I’m not counting the chick match or the Khali “match”. TWO. In TWO hours. Sorry - TWO hours SEVENTEEN minutes. WAY too much focus on this Trump/McMahon angle. This shit had better be pulling in a ratings boost or it’s all a supercalafradgilisticexpealiWASTE OF TIME. Two reasons this show didn’t get two thumbs down: First - it had more of a point than last weeks, but not much more. Second - the fucking ROCK. I say no more.

But at least we won’t have to hear any more about the fucking

Sho’nuff.