You know, I'm actually agreeable with this show being a junk show. It's always been on during the first half of the Super Bowl on the East Coast, and gets amazingly insignificant viewers. Way back when this was an MTV experience, they had Carson Daly imploring us to switch from their network to the CBS Halftime Show, which is kinda silly. If you're going to take one week of, this - better than Christmas and New Years and whatever else - is the week to do it.

Though I'm going to be annoyed if it's all the non SD! specific stuff from Velocity. Best of Heat is RIGHT THERE - why not have some out there fun if you know no one but the hardest of the hardcore are watching?

TV PG LV CC entertainment 

Stills for the Royal Rumble: Batista is your winner. (Let's not mince words with how we got there.)

open

High above the rafters ring, your hosts are Todd and the Coach. Unusually, they seemed to tape the standup while RAW was actually happening; it's usually an empty arena in these situations, but I presume they were awful busy on this day. Anyway, this allows me to fantasize seeing Tajiri and Psicosis down in the ring, so ever far away. (Alternatively, this is giving me a CMLL feel, where the standard is to talk about the upcoming matches we will see while an early card match we won't takes place in the background.) Todd hypes up his partner: "The Royal Rumble entrant! The man who got his shots in on the likes of Kane and Chris Benoit! The man who out lasted 23 superstars to finish seventh in the Rumble!" Coach slips Todd a 20, ha. Oh, man, I figured it out - that's Shelton vs Simon Dean down there. The match isn't better from a billion feet away, by the way.

Oh crap, they are repeating everything. Here's the ticket dealio. I keep wanting this background music to be "California Love" and to be honest, I think that's what the person who wrote it wanted it to be too. (1:00)

Before we get the WM 20 video, they manage to sneak in "Step Up" by Drowning Pool CD cover in here. And here we go. You know, I haven't played on-line or anything - I don't play on-line against anyone I don't know, because that way I can guarantee I won't play a cheap player or a whiny player or whoever else who'd be a waste of my time - but what I've figured out of NFL Street is you can do anything you want to do as long as you have a good runner. Pass skills are nice and of course valuable to keep people from sending everyone every play, but you ought to be able to get a first down given four run plays, and the key to building up the Gamebreaker meter are combos and hotspot wall moves, neither of which you can count on if you're being hit as you catch. I'm dying to see what my created souped up RB will turn out to be in Madden 2006, although I find using created guys in Madden unethical. Oh, it's over. (3:58) 

Still To Come: Instead of Angle/Benoit, we're getting HBK/Bret
Next: in a shocking twist, they're airing the Road to WM feature FIRST.

WM21: Eugene

It's the Hurricane match in the background now. And here's the Road to WM thing, which I didn't time last time, and I'm not going to this time. Why the heck did I type all those cities, anyway? That was really a huge waste of time. Hey, Todd Grisham on Heat, don't see that everyday. What are they going to do for spokespeople when Mark Henry's contract is finally up?

WM Recall, sponsored by Subway: warming up for the Soviet National Anthem - wait, this would appear to be a new one? That doesn't seem right. 

HoF Night. (7:48) And next week.

Slam of the Week, brought to you by Clearsil, is HBK riding down to the ring at WM XII BECAUSE WE CAN'T GO THREE WEEKS WITHOUT SHOWING THIS CLIP. Arrrrrrgh.

Todd and Coach pretend we needed to show that again, as set up to the Iron Man match clip (and I guess it was a slow week for slams?) Looks like the Jericho/Benoit vs La Resistance match? 

Here's the clip - oddly, here, it's courtesy "WWE [unreadable logo - WWE 24/7? that would be logical], but once we're from the entrances and into the match proper, we're back to the safe, secure, pre-cut bit from the Top 10 Matches of All Time. That the WWE wrestlers votes this match the top match in WM history is probably all the proof you'll ever need that wrestlers should be the sole judge of their work. Savvy of GM Eric Bischoff to pick a match featuring a RAW Wrestler beating a SD! Wrestler Bret Hart, hahaha. Wouldn't the world be an awesomer place if Bret was a SD! wrestler? I swear, outside of some choice CMLL guys showing up on WWE TV and laying out EVERYONE, there's no surprise appearance I'd mark out for more than Bret. Even if it was a "Hi! Bye!" thing. (5:34)

Later: Evolution is confined to the last segment.

WM 21: 56 days away.

from RAW: Eric announces some matches for tomorrow. This was really awkward when the music would kick in behind Eric because of all the previous quiet. The crowd seemed pretty distant and badly miced on the night.
RAW: Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho in a submission match
RAW: William Regal and Tajiri vs La Resistance (c) in a World Tag Team Championship match
RAW: Triple H (c) vs Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship

Coach and Todd talk about Coach's ability to hook up in Japan. 

Next: JBL has some words.

RAW Live
Saturday - Steubenville, OH
Next Sunday - Toledo, OH
Next Monday - Cincinnati, OH
Next Friday - Cadillac, MI
Next Saturday - Kalamazoo, MI

WM 21: Triple H

Todd: "What a jackass." Coach yells at him till Todd explains the joke. We're up to the main event of RAW. Stills of HHH retaining his title, and Batista winning the Rumble.

Batista's choices. (3:49)

RAW: Triple H (c) vs Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship
RAW: William Regal and Tajiri vs La Resistance (c) in a World Tag Team Championship match
RAW: Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho in a submission match

Coach is sure Batista - is going to do whatever is best for Evolution. Coach insists on another suckup on the way out, and that's it.