We get started with Alberto Del Rio in the ring.  He’s about to have a lot of bad luck because it looks like he’s wearing Greg Brady’s Tiki idol around his neck.  Del Rio calls himself the greatest of the great.   This brings out… the best of the best!  Bret Hart is on Raw and the Canadian crowd cheers like its 15 years ago.  Ha!  Del Rio says Bret looks like one of those illegal Canadians he hires to clean his house.  Nice flip on the cliche.  Its finally time for John Cena to come out and team jorts unite!  Challenges and words and all that crap.  Cena tries to make a match.  Johnny Ace comes out and makes one instead.  Huge tag match tonight with two people who don’t usually wrestle, made by a man who still hasn’t been properly introduced or explained to the casual fans.

Its a possibly unoriginal episode of Raw tonight!  Lets see if business eventually picks up!

 

Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler (US champion, with Vickie Guerrero) vs. John Morrison and Alex Riley

The match is over before I realize its begun.  Jack and Dolph argue over Vickie.  Alex hits a neck breaker on Jack and Dolph refuses to break up the pin, thus letting Riley get the pin.  Wow that was fast and meaningless.  It was the food court meal of WWE.

Josh Matthews interviews Truth and Mizery about their match against Air Boom.  Miz cuts a walk and talk promo.  The team deserves the title shot they get next week.  For what?  Did they rack up a great win loss record?  They’ve been together less than a month.  Then Truth busts out the “ninja please” line.  Oh WWE how you oh so cleverly toe the line of subtle racism!  But its OK because the black guy said it.

Miz (with R-Truth) vs. Kofi Kingston (with Evan Bourne, WWE Tag Team Champions)

At least this is fairly good booking.  High profile tag match coming up on the PPV?  Have them fight in singles matches as a warm up!  The match is rushed and its obvious from the start that Miz is going over tonight.  Does that mean that their partners will have a match later tonight to balance it out?  Or is it obvious that the heels will win at the PPV?  Anyways, Miz hits the Skull Crushing Finale for the pin.

Vickie Guerrero complains about everything, upsets Teddy Long, gives Kelly Kelly some shit and is now put into a match tonight.  Well that should be just as competitive as the usual Divas matches.

John Cena and Bret Hart find some stage equipment to stand by.  I guess its the most private place in the backstage world of WWE.  You would think Cena or Bret would have earned their own locker room by now.

Michael McGillicutty asks if Jerry Lawler knows who his father is.  Shit son, lots of people don’t realize who your father is.  Because you wrestle under the name McGillicutty!  How about Joe Hennig?  He might have some charisma.  Lawler’s partner is a surprise to say the least.

Michael McGillicutty and David Otunga vs. Jerry Lawler and… Sheamus.

In case you didn’t know, the heels are about to get buried.  Everyone agree with that?  I don’t mean agree as in you would book that way as well, but as in you are aware that its about to happen.  OK, we’re all good there.  And Sheamus hits the Brogue Kick for the pin.

Alberto Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez speak back stage.  Ricardo looks like Juvi minus any drugs.

Bret Hart doesn’t get entrance music.  Because, what, he hasn’t earned it?

John Cena and Bret Hart vs. Alberto Del Rio (WWE Champion) and Ricardo Rodriguez

Two guys that are in the main event in 6 days, and two guys who cant look strong based on the fact that they’re too old or a comedy character.  Yeah, this will be a great match.  Cena plays matador with Ricardo.  Because ninja please wasn’t enough.  Del Rio ditches his young boy.  Ricardo eats an AA and then we have to put over Bret in Canada.  Hart locks on a sharpshooter on his already defeated opponent and the super heroes get the win.  Captain America and Captain Canuck celebrate their victory.

Hmmmm how do I feel about WWE showing off their live Smackdown show two days after the 9/11 attacks.

Kelly Kelly (WWE Divas champion) vs. Vickie Guerrero (with Dolph Ziggler)

You really have to give credit to Vickie for how hard she’s working.  Not only is she one of the greatest heels of all time, but she has worked long and hard to improve her body since becoming an on air character.  The match starts, but no one pays attention because Jack Swagger comes down to yell at, then punch down Dolph.  Vickie gets upset, then gets pinned.  Beth Phoenix tries to sneak attack Kelly but Kelly blocks it and takes off, thinking she’s triumphant.  Um… no Natalya?  In Canada?

Mark Henry talks about his Hall of Pain.  There is no physical Hall of Pain and so far that  means its equal to the WWE Hall of Fame.

Randy Orton (World champion) vs. Cody Rhodes (Intercontinental champion)

I realize we’re now doing this “super show” thing but what is the point of separate titles for each brand when we no longer have a brand division?  We’ll get to that somewhere else.  Mark Henry comes out once, and gets scared away.  Henry comes back out with a steel chair and sits.  Cody uses this distraction to gain an advantage.  The crowd is very much not at all into this match.  And that’s rare for Canada to just not care about a match.  Mark Henry symbolically straddles the chair.  I don’t know how one does that.  Maybe a stripper with a love of metaphors can pull off such a move.  But not Mark Henry.  Henry gets everyone’s attention and Cody Rhodes uses his face mask on Orton as a weapon!  Cody pins Randy!  Holy shit that was worth the lame match.

Mark Henry comes in the ring and attacks Orton with the symbolic chair.  I really really want to see Mark win the title on Sunday.

Triple H and CM Punk have their “final confrontation”!  Well, depending on how much money they make Sunday of course.  Punker says that Hunter is ignorant and doesn’t know talent, the usual.  Punk says Hunter and Vince only go for the body builder look and ignore those who don’t have the right look.  Trips says guys like HBK, Foley, etc certainly aren’t body builders and are some of the greatest WWE Superstars of all times.  I’ll agree, but a lot of the men mentioned succeeded in spite of WWE, not because of it.  CM Punk continues to use history to his advantage.  Its like he’s been taking notes and remembering all of these details just to throw them in someone’s face later on.  Hunter says that WWE has given Punk titles and awards so maybe its not WWE holding Punk back, but maybe he’s just not as good as he thinks.  “”This is Phil Brooks talking to Paul Levesque” and its about to get real good when someone cuts off Punk’s mic!  They cut off both mics!  Johnny Ace strikes again!  Punk takes a new mic from Hunter and clobbers him with it!

Damn, this dueling mic battle did more to sell Night of Champions than anything else tonight.  Punk is on fire and cant be stopped.