Best: Booker T Has Found His Calling

I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed Booker T as much as I did last night, when he stopped being a Poor Man’s Stevie Ray on commentary and became the most prepared-with-a-response hype man in Raw history. I enjoyed every moment of him spinning the Raw Roulette wheel, from his ever-present AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW to the way he just instantly f**king responded to everyone like he was Andy Bernard on The Office.

Kofi Kingston: “It’s going to be a one-on-one match…”
Booker: “I LIKE THAT.”
Kofi: “against”
Booker: “WHAT”
Kofi: “Dolph”
Booker: “TELL ME YOU DIDN’T JUST DOLPH”
Kofi: “Ziggler”
Booker: “NO WAY”
Kofi: “with Vickie Guerrero”
Booker: “YOU DON’T SAY”
Kofi: “banned from ringside!”
Booker: “GET OUTTA HERE”

… and so on. It was wonderful, and I enjoyed how impossibly friendly he seemed. I also liked him turning it completely off to sell R-Truth’s insanity. I can only think of two things that would’ve made it better:

1) Camo face paint
2) Racially slurring Hulk Hogan

Worst: Hmm, Wait a Minute, These Stipulations Don’t Mean Anything

I never thought I’d type this sentence, but the fulfill your fantasy Pillow Fight is pro wrestling’s Chekhov’s gun. You don’t introduce it on the wheel and talk about how much you want to see it if you aren’t going to land on it later. Raw Roulette always does this — there are few things that would get me more excited than a night of matches with legitimately random stipulations decided by chance, but with the exception of the tornado rules in the tag team match, the stips all seemed like unnecessary tack-ons to normal matches or excuses for wrestlers to be beaten without losing their heat. If Del Rio beat Big Show in a cage match it might be a big deal, but not so much when the cage is just there for some low impact/high give No Mercy strong grapple cage smashes and a prop finish. If R-Truth pinned John Cena it would matter, but if he just pushed him through a table unfairly, nobody really cares.

You’re not only sacrificing my perverse need to see Kelly Kelly vs. Nikki Bella in a barbed wire match and Sin Cara vs. Evan Bourne in a lucha libre pillow fight, you’re making your bad guys look like Miz-level wieners who can’t get it done without a bunch of “buts”. And if there’s one thing wrestling should never put together, it’s wieners and buts.

Best: Everybody Hates Jeff Jarrett

Speaking of buttf**king, how about Jeff Jarrett getting name-dropped on Raw for the first time since Vince McMahon bought WCW? And it was exactly like the last time — somebody mentioning how much Jeff Jarrett sucks. Jarrett is like a 40-time NWA Heavyweight Champion, a 34-time WCW Champion, a TNA H-Division Champion and a multiple time Intercontinental Champion, but the only thing he’s going to be remembered for is sucking on mainstream television and bagging Kurt Angle’s cross-eyed wife. Poor guy. Haha not really a poor guy, but you know what I’m saying.

Also, a secondary best goes out to Diamond Dallas Page for showing up and fitting right in with Booker’s zippered dialogue like a couple of walking Legos. Page should probably have Booker’s spot right now, but f**k it, he gets to do Yoga and bag convention floozies for a living.

Worst: Drew McIntyre Gets Work-Shot By the Millionaire’s Club

I didn’t give Shawn Michaels his own best or worst this week because no free-thinking adult human being should be excited to see his “Born Again Can’t Stop Killing Things” reality camping trip with weapons show on the Dirt Network. I didn’t complain when Shawn beat up the tag team champions by himself while a third guy stood there helplessly, even if one of them was David Otunga, because the other was McGillicutty, and it evens out.

But I have to say something about him superkicking Drew McIntyre, if only for that bullsh** D-Generation X thing he did afterwards where he’s all “oh whoopsie did I do that heh heh hey guys insider jokez”. He might as well have whipped off his sleeveless hunting Polo and Katie Vick’d McIntyre’s lifeless corpse. McGillicutty sucks, and Otunga isn’t much better, but McIntyre is GOOD AT HIS JOB and could be contributing to your show, whether you believe Me On The Internet or not. Watching him flatline while Michaels makes Monday Night Wars jokes with Booker T and DDP is pretty obvious symbolic statement about the state of your industry, you dumb jerks.

Somewhere Chris Jericho is hopping onto Twitter to post “uh maybe Drew McIntyre getting superkicked is part of a STORYLINE?? EVER THINK OF THAT” because he used to be McIntyre, and is now Shawn Michaels.