by Shane McKinley, PWTorch specialist

"Got to listen to the vision
Some may say a dream
Words from the unseen
They can make you tired
Tell you lies, make you fall"

-"Traveling Woman" By Bat For Lashes

If you can get the chance, check out the Boston Celtics vs. Chicago Bulls series. It's been a great playoff series so far. Guess what's happening on Raw? Randy Orton's soul is being possessed by the devil.

Biggest thing out of tonight was not Orton pinning Trips but just how desperate those "WWE Did You Know?" propaganda bits would go. To recap, this is what they showed to millions of people around the world...

"For males under 34, WWE.com ranked #1 for Entertainment Websites." Fine. Dandy. Beating out aol.com, cbs.com, whatevs. But...hold on a sec. Oprah.com? Gee, I can't imagine a hell of a lot of males under the age of 34 cruising on over to Oprah.com over going to WWE.com. You gotta beat your chest and go, "Look! More young males visited us than a site devoted to women! Yay for us!" It's like when you step on ants and pat yourself on the back for being so unbelievably awesome. Is this what Joey Styles is doing now? Writing WWE propaganda?

Let's do a quick test here. If you are male under the age of 34, visit the glory of oprah.com and then convince yourself that WWE isn't throwing any random crap that paints them as #1.

"Yeah! I used to visit Oprah.com, but WWE.com is just so kickass!" (credit to therandomshop.co.uk for pic).

Give credit to Trips and Orton. They resisted the urge to fight on that double decker by the stage.

Yes, it's Raw over the pond. Raw is "the most watched show in the WWE Universe." And yep, Smackdown's Y2J is on Raw. Draft smaft. It's Backlash hype time.

On one hand, I understand that WWE needs to pump up the weak Backlash PPV as well as push certain Raw superstars (Big Show, etc.), but it did make the draft look largely useless. Well, it is useless, but at least we had that pretense that it was semi-important.

Come on, Jericho. Restore my faith. Apparently this is Jericho's last appearance. There really shouldn't be any absolutes used in wrestling. Words like "final" and "forever" should be banned.

Yes Jericho, without you, we're left with stupid heels. Heck, Orton even gave a promo later in the show claiming he's the best and talking about how it is not about people getting counted out or disqualified...which he pointed out (the whole "I can win by one of you hotheads getting counted out!") on his Smackdown promo. Yep.

WWE DID YOU KNOW: Did you know that more males under the age of 34 visited WWE.com than cuteoverload.com?

Steamboat got a mixed reaction. They loved Jericho and Orton. Jericho just blew Steamboat out of the water with his promo skills. Jericho's so good. Kudos to the fan in the background trying to pick Mr. Anti-Sycophant's nose. Suddenly, Cena's music hits!

Ta-Da! It's Cena. Cena should think about wearing pants...I mean, slacks. Never mind the bullocks and all of that. It's gonna be Cena vs. Jericho. At Backlash it will be Y2J vs. Steamboat.

Later it's gonna be the "final" appearance for Rey Mysterio.

WWE DID YOU KNOW: Did you know that more people visit WWE.com regularly than bicycle-for-slugs.org?

Got to admit that I'm liking Chavo's character of playing the coward and being Vickie's errand boy. The whiner Chavo faces bored Dave. Powerbomb and it's over. "I'm sorry, Aunt Vickie! I wasn't ready!...Wait! I was ready!" Another Batista bomb. Thanks for coming.

Sweaty Batista and Shane-o meet backstage. Shane gets all huffy and says, "I didn't appreciate blah blah blah." Meanwhile I was silently urging Dave. Come on, Dave. Give in. Snap his chicken legs. You'll never work in WWE again, but you'll be my hero. Greasy Dave leaves and we're treated to seeing Shane smiling. Please go away.

In their final appearance on Raw, it's the ho-hum feud of Kane and C.M. Punk! Will WWE really keep their wrestlers on their respective brands? Probably not. The whole "final appearance" was supposed to keep us glued to the TV set. Uh, "final appearance" teases can't overcome useless mid-card matches and a putrid Santino bit.

WWE DID YOU KNOW: Did you know that WWE.com does not suck like wwesucks.com?

What's worse? TNA announcers playing dumb with Dr. Stevie or WWE announcers playing dumb with Santina? Enjoyed the silence during the Santino bit. Turns out that Santina got a blister on her mouth from "performing acts" on WWE executives. That's been known to happen. A "Red Bull" reference gets a pop. But yeah, this wasn't Santino's finest moment. A poem by Santino? Eh...wha? The Queen Fly Beth Phoenix comes out.

The whole bit reminded me of a bad Saturday Night Live skit that was bombing and all you heard was an uncomfortable silence. Turns out that Khali and Santino will do their PG men kissing other men comedy on Backlash. Amazing that they don't promote that for their PPV commercials. You've got issues, WWE.

And hey, receiving zero hype for the TV audience, it's a WWE women's championship match starring Beth and Melina! Beth contorts Melina like a pretzel. Nice finishing move.

Hey, it's Shane slapping hands with Trips. Why? Because the Executive Vice President is cool. Shane goes into the huge spiel of WWE laying the groundwork for a swerve or supreme letdown. "Did you know Hunter that if one of us gets disqualified Orton wins your belt blah blah blah."

I've got to give credit to Trips. This was his response: "Uh, Shane? It's not your belt. I'm pretty sure that a 13-time world champion doesn't need to be taking advice from a pencil pusher. Now hit the bricks." He then smashed Shane's head into the lockers and walked out (credit to wrestlingsuperstars.org for pic).

Of course, the above didn't happen. No smart-ass Trips. Just "hey, bro. You're my cool bro. Later, bro" stuff.

It's the graphic for Cena and Edge for their Last Man Standing match. Both are looking so cute! They look like they are getting ready to go to a water park! Yay!

It's Cena vs. Jericho. At this point, WWE could announce that Jericho will be wrestling himself and I would trust it.

Lawler: "British people just love to boo Cena!" It's okay to acknowledge that not everyone loves that big babyface. Lawler and Cole then start talking about Jericho's bandy Fozzy. I thought it was my pretend job to bring up semi-useless information and then try to blast wrestlers for it.

If you missed watching the Ultimate Warrior while growing up, Cena is the replacement. "Cena's got incredible strength!" Works for kids. I wonder if he's a damn mutant. Probably at Backlash, Edge will shoot him in the face with a gun and ... Cena will throw the bullet back at him! Wow!

Hair-pulling Edge breaks up a great Jericho vs. Cena match. (Did I mention that I luv Jericho?) Edge in his Green Day's "American Idiot" T-shirt lands the conchairto on Cena! Yay! (credit to weblogs.baltimoresun.com for pic).

However, Edge then begins to...count to ten while Cena is in la la land. Can't you just punch yourself instead? Edge didn't have his finest moment when he tried to count to ten: "6, 7, 11, 5, 3, 5, 2, 1, blastoff, uh, 9, 10!" He also tried to do his best Trips growly voice.

I understand portraying Cena as a superhero to kids, but sometimes it goes overboard.

It's Big Show vs. Mysterio in their final appear...Show palming Mysterio was nice. Show punches Mysterio's lights out and Cole lets out a subdued Joey Styles "Oh My God!"

Show's the man.

Okay. Pretend that you just tuned in. You see male models Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes say the following lines...

Rhodes: How's your back?
DiBiase: It's fine. How's your face?

What the hell have I stumbled on? Oh, they are talking about their previous matches.

WWE DID YOU KNOW: Did you know that WWE.com features articles not written by hacks like this guy? (Author is me.)

Trips vs. Orton. Trips goes after the legs and Orton flops like a fish, begging for mercy. DiBiase, Rhodes, Shane, and Dave come out. Yawn. Pretty sad to see Shane as a house on fire, but thankfully it was short-lived. Enjoyed the match, but the Trips-Orton feud...eh. Two great matches tonight on Raw, but the rest? Hard to sit through.

RAW'S VERDICT: In The Middle Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com

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