“They who try
Will be wasted
Fear in my eyes
Now you've sewn them shut”
-“Man In The Box” by Alice In Chains

Raw this week was from Pittsburgh, Transylvania. Don't you wish Kurt Angle were here? He's too busy threatening his ex-wife in TNA. As a luvable babyface. D'awww.

Here's Cole dressed up as good ol' J.R. to start the show. Smackdown will open up with Michael Cole dressed as Jerry Lawler and do Jerry's shtick: shouting out, "Puppies!" nonstop as young girls walk beside him.

Triple H does a promo where he sounds like a normal human being. Yup, Trips vs. Taker will be the last match at Mania. The Streak is bigger than any championship. And Trips-Taker is sure overshadowing Miz vs. Cena. You hope that it's a classic, but you have doubts that it might turn into a brawling farce. As for the rest of the card, there’s fear in every WrestleMania that it might turn out to be SpectacleMania. It’s nice to have star power, but you want the best WWE matches of the year to happen at Mania as well.

Consider the following scenario...

"He did it! He did it! Triple H ended The Streak! The Streak is over!"

"Oh man! He ended The Streak and he starred in the funniest, bestest movie of all time 'The Chaperone!' What great achievements!"

"Um, what are we going to do about next year's WrestleMania?"
"Oh. Um, we have those thingys wrestlers wear around their waist."

"You mean championship title belts?"

"Right. Plus we'll give Snooki another call."

Here's Ted DiBiase walking out to get punked out. You know what happens next: the Human Guillotine Triple H destroys Teddy. While DiBiase was receiving those barrage of chair shots, he was thinking, "Well, at least I'm on TV. My plan worked! Muhahaha!" If Sheamus had the "King Of The Ring" curse, what curse does DiBiase have? The "I just really suck" curse.

So Evan Bourne makes his big comeback and pins Sheamus two weeks ago. Next week, he's not on television. And then the next week he gets killed by Sheamus. Oh-kay. That WWE sure don't like small wrestlers, uh huh. I sure hope Bryan wins back the belt for America from that pale foreigner, Sheamus.







WWE All-Stars commercial: Man, how good do Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler sound as announcers? Booker T in that commercial: "These guys got to be taking steroids, man! That ain't natural! Somebody call Congress! Alberto Del Rio grew up a fighter! Brodus Clay is so lightning quick and agile!" (Book's words, not mine).

Randy Orton is pimping out his new tour bus to the backstage guy who's not Todd Grisham or Matt Striker (you know, that guy), because, well, tour buses are exciting to talk about. Apparently Orton's fake wife is in there, but wasn't shown on camera. Fail. I was led to believe that I was going to see C.M. Punk destroy Orton's bus with a rocket launcher like in the good ol' Attitude days. It's not like another dude would trash your ride that you were randomly hyping up, dude.




It's Eve vs. Maryse. It's not Vickie vs. Snooki, so naturally WWE craps all over it. Perhaps after Mania, Cole starts a feud with the Divas who are tired of him interrupting their cat fights. That's the only reason why I can think of Cole interrupting Diva matches, because when Cole does that, WWE might as well scroll a banner saying, "This Diva match is garbage and you should hate it." Or maybe Cole will go after Triple H for that wedgie Cole received from DX in the late '90s.

I'm not sure I would follow up a Divas with a Corre vs. Santino/Kozlov match. A while back, it seemed like Nexus was going to have a Mania match. Thankfully, Orton punted all of the Nexus members back down to FCW and now it's Kane/Big Show in a match you're just going to have to grit your teeth and accept.

Anyone else wonder what Rock will actually do at Mania being the host? It's not HostMania, it's WrestleMania, and that's what the fans want Rock to do. Granted, WWE has to give Rock some sort of "official role" at the gig. WWE WrestleMania ad: "Rock's going to be there! And...he's going to do something! Plus the tag team of Stone Cold and Snooki, so buy the PPV!"

Here's a "Rock is live in the flesh on next Monday" advert. It's risky saying, "Rock's not here tonight" because viewers could have gone to ABC to watch Jericho toe-tap instead. This lackluster Raw felt like a plug in order to buy some time until next week's extravaganza. This Raw's most often used phrase was "next week."

It's the top of the second hour, so it's time for the man in power, the man in the box, Mister Michael Cole.

Jack Swagger: "So, after Mania, you guys got something for me? Can I at least be in a feud?"

Creative: "...Um...here's a lollipop."

Jack Swagger: "Score!"

Creative: "Um...it goes in your mouth, not in your ear. No. Your mouth. It's on your face. No. Don't pull the lollipop there. Especially not there! Sigh..."

Jack Swagger: "Help! It's stuck! I'm about to go out! Please help me! Ahhhhh!"

Swagger is standing in front of Loser Lawler like a tool while Cole calls Lawler a failure who won the gold medal at sucking at life, a poopyhead, a human trash bag, and the scum of a roadside public restroom. Uh-oh, Cole's talking about Jerry's dead relatives again. I hope this thing got its ratings. Cole blabbering about how rotten Jerry bored me stiff. Cole's big-time line: "Your family is nothing but a bunch of losers." Eh. Maybe Cole should be like Bully Ray and use a homophobic slur.

Anyone else want the "Cole Mine" to hover above the ground?

And yet another recap of last week's Raw that involves Snooki for them Jersey Shore fans. It feels like every bit on this Raw is either talking about last week or next week.

That Morrison-Ziggler match felt "cheap" in it being lengthened into a tag match after the commercial break. It's hard not to feel like you've wasted two hours of your time watching Raws like this. On the road to WrestleMania, this was definitely “Highway Hypnosis..

WWE Tough Enough Ad #2: Stone Cold shows his sensitive side to the rookies, before he stuns them on top of a trucks and hog-ties them.

Trish Stratus "Ric Flair chops" Layla's chest, eliciting “woos” from the crowd. She's going to be corrected. Vickie pins JoMo. At WrestleMania, it's Vickie vs. Snooki and JoMo, leaving Ziggy, Trish, and Lay-Cool to resemble leeches. But, at least JoMo and Ziggles are involved, in which is sort of saying you’re proud in being a backup singer to Rebecca Black.

Here's Orton vs. Mysterio. I hope Randy Orton's tour bus is okay. Hell, if Orton rolled around in an old P.O.S. RV, I would care about that too.




It's C.M. Punk! No, you stay away from that tour bus. Orton's wifey is in there, and since Punk doesn't drink or smoke, he has his other vices. Really, really didn't need wifey here in this feud. I think the wife was more concerned about the state of her nails than about her hubby, Randy. I hated her more than I was suppose to hate heel C.M. Punk. And the tour bus didn't get destroyed? Damn economy. You know they're itching to pull the "Orton Home Invasion Stupidity" again.

Ex-fired Alex Riley is here to rain on Miz's new killer streak as Miz's lackey. Come on, we were just starting to accept Miz as a bad man.

Do you ever get the sense that before Miz crafts his promos, he pulls out several history books? Because Miz is not Rock, Miz talks about Rock a lot. Amusing bit with Miz turning the WWE logo into the Miz logo. Small things like that stand out and make a wrestling character unique.

But...the WWE logo turned upside down as a belt? The MMƏ Championship? Um...Why in 2011 are new championship belts so goofy looking? Granted, the "Miz belt" is not Jeff Hardy's belt, but it still looks ... odd. A red dash on top of a white M? How about Miz’s duck face on the belt instead? He likes to trot that out a lot.




Cena is here to remind everyone that like Superman, he gets hurt, but at the end like S-man, he always wins. Cena wasn't here live via satellite, jabroni. What a jackwagon liar. Now he's coming out to his living room to take out the trash. Bye-bye badass, Miz. Miz runs away in his pink shirt while A-Ry is a-tappin' to Barney the Dinosaur's STF. So that's why A-Ry was brought back. That and WWE pays him in booze. Too soon?

Nothing much happening on this Raw. WWE went through their WrestleMania hype checklist, but for the show itself, it was a snoozefest. Other than the continuance of the Trips-Taker hype, this was a Raw you could pass. It makes you wonder what they have in store for Jericho after Mania, other than dancing his way into our hearts once again.




After Raw, the "Raw Road trip" aired. Three wrestling fans who don't resemble any wrestling fans I know got some Domino's pizza before heading out to a sold-out Raw. How adorable. They should head on down to a "happy" TNA live event and get scammed out of their money. High five, dudes! Yeah!

Raw’s Absurd Verdict: Very Absurd

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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