By Shane McKinkley, Torch specialist

"They're off to find the hero of the day
But what if they should fall by someone's wicked way
Still the window burns
Time so slowly turns
And someone there is sighing
Keepers of the flames
Do ya feel your name?
Can't you hear your babies crying?"

-"Hero Of The Day" by Metallica

Got to tune in, bro. They're showing one of those pallbearer cars and playing some generic organ music.

Yep, that's how Raw started. It's hard to explain to non-wrestling fans why exactly they should check out wrestling. Undertaker showing up on Raw was rare. Now it's common place.

Undertaker "will respond" to '90s HBK being a jerk. "Will respond." It's like foreign nations will respond to NATO.

You have heard the following lines repeated ad nauseam on WWE programming for the past three weeks:

"2/3rds of the Wrestlemania main event"
"I'm sure that person X is watching"
"Stay tuned for the same banality you saw on ECW and Smackdown"

And yet more Cena movie hype. Many people will point their fingers and blame the economy, blame Hollywood, or blame Dwayne Johnson. The simple answer is this: for wrestling fans, they went on "overkill mode" with the Cena hype. For non-wrestling fans, the Cena movie was assumed to be nothing more than a Bourne knockoff from one of those stupid wrassling companies. They probably figured to save their money to go see Vin Diesel in "Fast & Furious."

Maybe they could take a hint and release straight to DVD, but as proven by Kennedy's movie, fans would still see endless and useless snippets talking about the movie on WWE content. The WWE movie madness won't end, and it's a good reason why many people hate WWE (credit to media4.comcast.net for pic).

It's nights like these I'm grateful to have my DVR.

It's an 18-Diva match. I wondered why they even bothered to have a match at all. Some unknown diva won (Katie Lea with blonde hair? I have no clue these days). Not looking good for the divas at the big show, considering that Santino is going to steal whatever thunder the crappy "Miss WrestleMania" match has.

At least somebody knows that I fast-forward through these matches. Blinked and it was over.

Santino comes out and flaunts his mankini to a song that had the lyrics of "I want to get y'all stoned." You see, they were trying to do the Borat's swimsuit, but they chickened out and had Santino wear his usual garb. If the wrestling thing doesn't work out, Santino can find work as a male stripper. Yes, after the last Raw and probably thousands of complaints WWE has gone so far down the "harmless" route that in some parts it's insulting.

And by the way, this opening bit is supposed to be selling non-wrestling fans on buying WrestleMania. Heck, don't even bother watching the rest of the show. Ugh.

Hey, yet another recap of the Trips-Orton feud. Shows like this one goes to prove that WWE does not give a flying poo about their old fans.

Hey, I've seen this Vince-Cena Gillette commercial before. Like a year ago.

They show a recap of Jericho beating up an old man and Lawler doing nothing about it. No shots of Flair bleeding. I mentioned before that WWE went so far down the "harmless" route that it was insulting. Example? They went to white and black on one part of the recap. Hardly, if any, blood was shown. Maybe a speck on Jericho's shirt. Compared this to the last Raw. Or any Raw from five years ago. Hypocrites. Nah, HypoWWEcrites.

Pay to watch Jericho lose to some old guys. Yeah. It's like paying to watch Tiger Woods...ok...Phil Mickelson to lose to some guys from the Senior Tour. I'm wishing that during the Jericho WM match they settle their differences with the "Legends of WrestleMania" game. Those goofy bastards are probably staying up late thinking up a WrestleMania skit of Piper playing that damned game and going, "Wow! The graphics are so realistic!" If I hear that phrase one more time, I'm going to kick every game developer's ass from here to Shanghai. Or try to shove an Xbox controller up where the sun don't shine.

Speaking about that "Legends" game...look, I know we are all up in this "casual video gamer" bizness. But how about those who like a real challenge? Not everybody is a Wii owner (Wii owners, you know it's true. Your system has tons and tons of shovelware). And not everybody goes crazy for button-pressing minigames in their wrestling videogames (Which "Legends" consist mainly of).

Lawler still gets a nice reaction. Perhaps it could have been Jericho vs. Lawler, but Lawler and Jericho were both disappointing in this match. Cole announced this match like he was trying not to wake a sleeping baby beside him.

Signs of the night: Who is Bryon Bank? Pena. And my favorite: I'm surrounded by marks.

Hey, everybody is a mark. Some are just markier than others.

To prove how much of a mark I am, there will always be a soft place in my heart for one Bam Neely. Awww. Bam Neely, how I cherish thee so.

Ahem...Apparently the focus of this match was to make the Walls of Jericho look like a relaxing yoga stretch. Cole and Lawler tear out their hair at just the sheer destructive megaton power of Show's right hand punch. Walls of Jericho? Hey, look's who is back from that match already! It's Lawler!

You know, you don't always have to put out filler. Watching shows like these, I can only think of one word: sabotage.

"Lawler shuts up Jericho for now?" That's not an effective WrestleMania push. Jericho squabbles on about making Mickey Rourke eat his words that he said on the red carpet. That's not an effective WrestleMania push either. I forgot what Rourke looks like anymore. Jericho might as well be talking about making a magical droll that lives under the bridge.

So if you are a Jerichocholic, this WrestleMania doesn't look to be your bag, baby. We get it. Push your crappy match that you are stuck with. Hit the bricks, junior.

Was that Eric Bischoff saying "You're out of your damn mind?" on that Cena movie hype? Cena replies with "Maybe." It's understandable the amount of venom that is lashed out on WWE for the piss-poor numbers "12 People Saw This Movie" is receiving. By comparison, "Escape to Witch Mountain" is a gutless affair, tried and true Disney format. But people take their kids to it and they enjoy it.

I think the "The Marine" and "The Condemned" cemented the fact to many people that WWE films were a joke and largely a scam. The DVD sales might be big, but the poor performance on opening weekend by "12 Rounds" means something is way off. I'm just hoping they cut down the amount of movie hype they have on their shows.

I'll always remember when Lawler and JR were talking about Lawler's involvement in Jim Carrey's "Man On The Moon." JR quipped that only three people saw it. Classic.

It's Show. He's a badass that can kill ya, but he's a loveable teddy bear. Huh. "Cena won't walk out with the title." Yep, the same storyline they had for every Cena match pretty much since he came back at Scummy Series. Um. Edge and Cena babble on some more. Zzzzz. Somebody bail me out from this Raw. I'm seen more fire in cut scenes in one of those WWE videogames.

Ted DiBiase: Hold on, Cody. Got to slather on some baby oil before this interview. Remember, I've got to say "the entire WWE Universe."

Apparently if Orton wins, the entire WWE will change. There will be a massive influx of whimpy male models who get owned by CEOs and Executive Shareholders. Sort of like TNA nowadays.

HBK: your mouth is moving but I can't hear any words. Sabotage. My goodness. I sat there with my sullen look on my face and thought, "this might be the worst Raw before a WrestleMania ever."

Commercial break: Metallica blows up a house! Yeah! Ride the lightning! They're a bunch of badasses over 150! Take that, kids who illegally download our music for free!

I like Metallica, but this commercial was a little interesting. First off, they tied up to what looked like Kobe Bryant and Tony Hawk (the first dudes who slid in their underwear in that Guitar Hero ad) to a tree. Metallica then blows up the house. Too bad the resulting explosion caused the tree to catch on fire, thus burning those poor guys to death. Maybe you guys should have just whipped out your guitars and smashed it over their heads. Because you're badasses.

Main reason was because they were just too metal to pose around in pink underwear. It's odd. Anybody check out their lyrical booklet to their album "Load?" Kinda weird that the members of Metallica are dressed like models and posing like boy band members in that one. That whole "Some Kind Of Monster" documentary. The "Black Album". Or that whole "Metallicats" thing (credit to oyvindhauge.com for pic).

One time my lady friend and I were watching TV. Out came a commercial for those Pussycat Dolls. She asked me why there was so damn many of them. I replied to probably cover up their bad singing. Nichole Schwarzenegger will be at Mania. Great. This show was like a big Dallas Cowpie. Right on my face.

Raw comes back. Cole plugs Quiznos. "Mmmm...Toasty!" I wish you were toasty, Mr. Cole. Burning alive. Just like those innocents Alcholica tied to the tree before they blew up their house.

Hey folks, we're going to show you the ultra-important words HBK said that you didn't hear. HBK: "You were expecting somebody else?" Wow. Thanks. That was important.

Sabotage.

Lawler, after his relaxing back stretch, comes back to announce. Kind of weird that he would announce the rest of the show with one man boob hanging out. Cole highlights the travesty so far:

"We've seen Santino in a maninki!" (ooh)
"We've seen Jericho vs. Lawler!" (wow)
"And now a Wrestlemania preview-in fact, this show is probably no different from the rest of the shows from the past three weeks! Enjoy!"

Mysterio comes down the ramp. Can I get a real match here? Apparently it's Mysterio vs. JBL. This feud had really nothing going for it, so Mysterio vs. JBL with Mysterio getting a win over JBL...fine. But it doesn't hide the fact that they wasted their time with Mysterio fighting Knox and other forms of wasting time. Not the best plan put out. Or maybe they were just paranoid that Mysterio would miss Mania with an injury and didn't bother giving him a storyline till the last second.

Didn't JBL promise something big? Apparently now the "big surprise" is going to be JBL winning in a dominating fashion. Throw a party. Come on. I'll take JBL riding a white horse down to the ring.

Cole and Lawler then talk about how they lost their damn minds when it was HBK in the casket! Oh boy! I'm wondering if those writers are planning to have Undertaker play peek-a-boo with the audience. Where did he go? He vanished! Oh, there he is! Oh wait, he vanished again! He's not under that sheet! He used magic and fairy dust! Other cliches follow. You would think that for frickin WrestleMania 25 I wouldn't be tempted to turn the sound off. The horror won't stop.

Tomorrow night, they plan to show the replay of ECW from last week. Or the week before that. Can't tell anymore. This WrestleMania build-up has largely been one long miserable drudge through the WWE swamp.

Those hardass Metallica dudes were all dressed in black, trying to pretend like they're young. They should have worn their suits (credit to
image.guardian.co.uk for pic).

It's Show vs. Cena. Show does Step-o-mania with Cena. I swear, he must have done eight of those moves.

It's around 1:02 that this Raw begins to go into "watchable" mode. Some nice love here for Show, as indeed Show looked dominant and mighty Cena takes a lost. Edge is there, but just barely. He needs a kick-ass segment on Smackdown.

In the old days, Edge would have snapped Cena's legs with a chair.

Recap of that Smackdown bit of HBK shaking his white ass. I think they were trying to break the record for number of recaps.

HBK needs music with his promo? Uh, no. The Hardy Boys need extra crap with their promos. Matt needs to get smoochy with a damn dog and Jeff needs to give tortured promos from the closet of shame.

Undertaker and HBK do their magic tricks ("Hey, he's in the casket you dummy. Wait, no he's not. Now HBK is in the casket, you dummy. Wait, no he's not. Oh, he was under the casket all along! I'm surrounded by marks!") I felt that Taker should have called up those Metallica boys and blown that damn casket to pieces.

And it's not hard to play Metallica songs on your guitar. "Master Of Puppets?" Easy. (credit to voig.com for pic).

Strongest buildup has definitely been HBK vs. Taker. Good way to make people want to see that punk HBK get his.

Commercial break: See the movie "State of Play," where Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder seeks to find out the truth from the U.S. Government. I feel like a better man for pointing out that hey, Russell Crowe in this movie does look like Vedder. That's why pwtorch.com pays me the big bucks. And denial is just a river in Egypt.

More Cena movie hype. Jeffrey Lyons from reel talk says, "Move over Jackie Chan." For record, Cena has done a grand total of two, count them, two movies. By comparison, Jackie Chan has done...

Hey, the same Stone-Cold video package. I guess I don't know what to expect. Maybe new music or something. A Kazoo playing. Something to keep me from fast-forwarding it.

Eight-man tag team match coming up.

But first...Variety mag hype. Then Jeff vs. Matt recap. Uh, what happened to the eight-man battle royal? Oh wait, there it is. I'm hoping that WWE TV after WrestleMania aren't just cowpies like this one. That's too much to ask. I know.

Legacy's new shirt is "L is for Losers." Maybe that can be Legacy's new gang sign. Holding an "L" to their forehead. Guh. Orton and his shirts nobody wears in public. Orton's all oiled up and he's ready to cut a promo.

Okay, that "Trips screws Orton" video package was relevant. And no blood in this one either! More back-pedaling.

Holy cowpies, how I hate this "I waited ten years to pay you back" crap wrestling does. Nobody waits that long.

You had to wait till you found some male models whose main contribution is to be human punching bags?

It's like saying Jericho waited to take his revenge on HBK after their WrestleMania 19 match after getting Lance Cade by his side. Orton's great master plan. Shaddup.

Yet another recap in Orton's promo. Recapmania. We're getting somewhere with this whole "take you down by taking down your family" idea. But wait...

Another $#@&$*$ recap?

Looks like Orton was lying about IED all along. At least he doesn't have to bring it up again. "Born Better." I like that.

What the fudge? You're telling me you're trying to connect the rampant Tripsmania (Trips chases after you with a sledgehammer and you run away with piss running down your leg, Trips kicks your ass in your own house, Trips takes out one of your boys inside a steel cage using connections) as your grand master plan? This was just to trick Triple H to "feel confident?" This hurts my head.

I hate when they do this. They try to backpedal and say, "See? It all works out in the end." No it doesn't. It's a confusing mess that didn't make sense then. Now it's just infuriating that they tried to tie it in with Orton's master plan. To soothe my head, WWE replies with...

Another $#@&$*$ recap.

Orton then goes on a big spiel about how Vickie Guerrero made their Mania match have the special "If Trips gets DQed, I win the belt" rule. You know what kinda shot that whole thing to pieces? The return of Vince "CEO of WWE" McMahon and his son Shane-o McMahon.

Even if WWE is too preoccupied with playing childish games with their audience like "peek-a-boo" and "Santino likes to play with Barbies," every body in the entire "WWE Universe" understands this simple rule.

Vince McMahon > Vickie Guerrero.

But probably that "special rule" will remain in place. Because we're mostly idiots to them. Peek-a-boo! Where did Undertaker go? I don't know.

Of course, they could plan to have Orton punt Vince and Shane-o in the head again on Smack. But they won't. So I'm wondering if that "Trips get DQed, he loses the belt" rule will remain in place. Or if they will even bother to address it. And how they will address it.

For me, personally, Trips vs. Orton does not need that "Trips gets DQed" rule. It should be two guys going to war against each other. Orton vs. HBK had that "If HBK uses the superkick, he gets DQed." Which was fine and dandy. The same rule should not apply for Trips and Orton at WrestleMania 25. Not only do I not care of seeing a WrestleMania main event match built on a gimmick (Fatal Four Way With McMahons In Each Corner You Marks!), but it's a sucky affair if Orton does win (thus providing Trips with a lame out).

Orton wraps up his promo and says that there's going to be a new sheriff in town. He's gonna run the WWE. So Orton wants to become the new Trips? Hey, at least it's more digestible than Orton threatening to shut down ...sorry...ha ha ha...snicker...WrestleMania.

I was kind of scared that we were going to see Vince vs. Legacy. Then it was Vince and Shane vs. Legacy. Aieee! It then turned out to be a TNA PPV main event with the McMahon boys vs. Legacy.

You want an example of last week's Raw biting them on their ass? After getting clocked with a sledgehammer and watching his wife get beaten up and kissed, Triple H responds by giving Orton some love taps like two schoolchildren in a weak fight. It was like John Woo taking "Hard-Boiled" and having water guns in it after criticism. I understand that WWE's hands were probably tied and they couldn't have Triple H run over Orton with a steamroller.

Only two more WWE shows to go and then hopefully after WrestleMania they back to making things that don't sucketh so much...(credit to s.bebo.com for pic).

Why is Metallica outside my house?

RAW'S FINAL VERDICT: A Fiery Inferno Of Absurdity

Email is mckinley.torch@gmail.com.

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