Best: Okay, I Can’t Hate On Sheamus Singing Deep In The Heart Of Texas

See, Sheamus drove Alberto Del Rio’s car around San Antonio and all he could find to do was eat, visit the Riverwalk and stop by the Alamo to make Pee-wee’s Big Adventure references.

Before I moved here, suddenly clapping and singing ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’ with local strangers was on my bucket list, and I can proudly say I’ve done it a few times now. Watching the video on Tout is weird, because it’s missing all the clapping and jovial kinsman-ship and puts a little too much emphasis on Sheamus talking about THE STORES AT NIGHT.

The only thing that would’ve made it better is if that screaming religious guy who hangs out outside the Alamo sometimes was in the background. Or if Sheamus had walked across the street to the lobby of the wax museum and attacked the John Cena figure from behind.

Best: I Can’t Hear Jerry Lawler, Woo Hoo!

This was the very best part of the live Raw experience. No, I don’t want to know what he said. Here are a few guesses:

1. “Alberto Del Rio really dropped the chalupa this time, Cole!”
2. “Ricardo Rodriguez always looks sleep and is probably packing a gun!”
3. “Sheamus is so funny!”
4. /indistinguishable oral farting

Worst: I’m The Guy Who Can’t Enjoy This Until Brock Lesnar Starts Snapping Dudes’ Arms

I’ll talk a little more about Shawn Michaels Appreciation Night on the last page, but last night’s Inappropriate Head Shaped like A Thumb Theater was another example of a modern Triple H story’s biggest downfalls: taking six weeks to say or do stuff that should take you 20 minutes, and always falling back on the Shawn Michaels crutch.

Shawn is dumb for saying Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman “attacked Triple H’s children”, because they didn’t. Paul brought up the children in conversation because Triple H was acting like a ripe asshole, H took offense to it and got his wife to stomp out and say stuff about Paul’s children and punch him repeatedly. Objectively, Triple H got his feelings hurt when Lesnar punked him and bailed, so now he’s overreacting to the one thing he could find to overreact about and justifying it as “right”. As I wrote about extensively last week, Triple H and Stephanie are the bad guys here, and there is no imaginable episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ where I’m gonna say “man, I really hope the Mexican cartel sociopaths beat the shit out of Saul Goodman, they’re the coolest”.

Shawn doesn’t have a reason to be in Triple H’s corner, either, but at least he’s not going to play special guest referee again and have Emotion Faces. I’m guessing the “I’m gonna be in your corner” promise (coupled with Brock’s threat) is a week-long pause to set up Brock incapacitating Shawn on the go-home show to build STAKES THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN HIGHER when everybody already knows Shawn is Triple H’s Best Good Friend and they could’ve done it two weeks ago. Brock Lesnar has a finite amount of dates, so you use one to have him stand behind Paul Heyman and threaten a retired guy 1/3 his size. Cool! Makes perfect sense.

I think I started yelling KILL HIM, JUST KILL HIMMM indiscriminately during this segment.

Dolph Ziggler shirt autograph

Best: My Dolph Ziggler Shirt Came With An Autograph For No Reason

A few observations about the WWE Merch Table:

1) Dolph Ziggler’s shirt was released right around the same time as Daniel Bryan’s YES YES YES shirt, so I bought that instead and never got around to picking up the pink thing I promised to buy if it existed. I remedied that last night (for thirty dollars, Jesus) and it came with a free autograph, because I guess they need to get rid of them. I wanted to give a Worst to Ziggler’s autograph being initials instead of a signature, but at least it’s better than that vague line John Cena draws because he’s stuck signing 70,000 photos for Make-A-Wish and doesn’t want his arm to fall off.

B) The merch table is the worst smelling place in the building. Destiny had to stand like 30 feet away so she didn’t pass out.

III) The WWE Merch Table is the ultimate place to watch people who have never seen wrestling and just work there interact with wrestling fans who can’t read or pay attention but want stuff. Every shirt hanging up had an ASK FOR # whatever on it in big letters, but sure enough every time a guy’d get up he’d lean forward right in the lady’s ear and say I WON’T THE PUNK SHIRT. She says “which number is that”, and he points at it (from 10 feet away, so you have no idea what he’s pointing at) and struggles to describe it (“it’s the um, gray one with the uh… with the …” *tries to draw the shape on his chest to illustrate*) WHEN THERE IS A GIANT ASK FOR NUMBER THREE ACROSS THE TOP OF IT AND SHE ASKED FOR THE NUMBER. They eventually work it out and she brings him his shirt (“that’ll be 30 dollars”) but he also wants two Cobra puppets, and when she brings those back he also wants a Zack Ryder headband AND WHAT’S THIS I’VE DEVELOPED THE ABILITY TO BEND FIRE AND BURN YOU ALL TO DEATH

Worst: Jericho’s Right, Losing To Alex Riley Is Probably The Most Embarrassing Thing Ever

People assure me that the Jericho/Ziggler interaction was the best part of the show, but from up in the stands where I couldn’t hear anything it seemed a hell of a lot like Alex Riley getting a win on Raw because the white board read “face distracts heel, heel gets rolled up and pinned”. Also, Alex Riley. Christ, dude, you’ve been off TV for months, couldn’t you have gotten a haircut? You look like Beavis.

But yeah, when I’m a fully functioning awake human without blogging responsibilities for five f**king seconds I’ll revisit the segment as it appeared on TV and probably love it. Ziggler and Jericho are perfect for each other, and any feud that makes both guys look better (and keeps Ziggler from getting directly Brogue Kicked by Sheamus every week) is a Best.