This is the end, my only friend, the end…

The last Smackdown on the road to Wrestlemania and my last regular column. With just the Mania live blog and going away column after this I’m starting to get wistful. I know next to nobody reads this but I hope you’ll miss me too. The show opens with a rematch for the Intercontinental Championship. Wade Barrett come to the ring alone. We get some decent wrestling. Kofi Kingston escape Barrett’s Wasteland Finisher and hits his own, Trouble in Paradise. But as he covers the champ the rest of The Corre run in and attack him for a DQ. That means Barrett keeps the title. Santino and Kozlov run in to make the save but can’t pull it off until Big Show and Kane join them. And Kofi will be in some kind of Battle Royal dark match at Wrestlemania. They usually have one to throw everyone on the card for the big show. Dark means untelevised by the way.

We recap the Cody Rhodes attack on Rey Mysterio before Matt Striker interviews Cody. Not as good as some of Cody’s recent work but he works in that he’ll have both the face mask and the knee brace for Wrestlemania. I expect he’s going to lose anyway. Todd Grisham and the Bellas are at Fan Access, probably taped well after Smackdown itself. Todd introduces the HHH/Undertaker promo video. A commercial is followed by another promo. This one is for CM Punk versus Orton. The Score reveals that Sin Cara debuts on RAW Monday. I guess they want him away from Rey Mysterio for now. Now the Road Warriors video again. Is this a clip show or something? Then they have a promo for playing the recap of The Rock, Miz and Cena from RAW coming later tonight. After another commercial we get a recap of the Jack Swagger versus Jerry Lawler match from I’d like something live to happen so I can start a new paragraph. If I were at this show live I would be demanding a refund.

Ok at least Jerry Lawler is coming out to talk. Cole has vamoosed. Boy is Lawler looking old. Lawler cuts a fine promo reminding Cole just why he’s mad at him and also that Stone Cold Steve Austin will take care of Jack Swagger at Wrestlemania. That will leave just him and Cole. And Lawler will do what the entire WWE universe wants: shut Cole’s mouth.

Wrestlemania press conference. This is a sad Smackdown to go out on. Now a long, long HHH/Undertaker recap from RAW. Now we get The Miz on Conan O’Brien. It’s cool but I’m just sour on the whole show by this point. Sin Cara video. We’re seeing more from Fan Access than a live show. Maybe there was no Smackdown taping this week and the little ring action we’ve seen was taped before or after RAW. Snooki storyline promo. Chaperone trailer.

Del Rio and Edge get a promo and, woah, we have another match! Cody Rhodes will be in action. More Rhodes recap before that. Rhodes’ opponent is Chris Masters so this shouldn’t be much of a match. And with 22 minutes left and the Miz, Cena Rock recap still to come this will be the last Smackdown match I cover. Cole is coming back, accompanied by security. Cody is in total control. He wins easily but Rey Mysterio runs in. Back and forth affair until Rhodes is in the 619 position and he reveals a knee brace of his own. But Rhodes slinks away and Mysterio is denied vengeance. Recap of Chris Jericho on Dancing With The Stars where Jericho is tied for fourth.

Fan Access trio throws us to the last video of the night. The promised Rock, Cena, Miz promo. I can stand watching this again. What exactly The Rock’s roll will be at Wrestlemania is one of the big questions left. Plus there’s Austin to watch for. And Trish is back in the ring. The Hall of Fame class will be introduced but will HBK have an even larger role? This was one the weakest Smackdowns of all time but I’m still psyched for Mania.

Wrestlemania Predictions

• Triple H versus Undertaker – Undertaker
• John Cena versus The Miz – John Cena
• Edge versus Alberto Del Rio – Del Rio
• Lay-Cool and Ziggler versus John Morrison, Trish Stratus and Snooki – Snooki
• Sheamus versus Daniel Bryan – Sheamus
• The Corre versus Big Show, Kane, Santino and Kozlov – The Big Red Ukrainian Cobra
• Cody Rhodes versus Rey Mysterio – Mysterio
• Jerry Lawler versus Michael Cole – Lawler
• CM Punk versus Randy Orton – CM Punk but it could easily go either way

Sunday is my last column. I hope you’ll drop by.

My last RAW recap for the foreseeable future starts with CM Punk in the middle of the ring in front of a cheering Chicago crowd. Punk toys with the crowd for a bit before making them hate him. Punk doesn’t care about the New Nexus or the Chicago crowd. Punk stole Orton’s family’s respect from him. And he will end this sick and twisted story at Wrestlemania. But Orton is here, limping at tortoise speed, with a heavily taped knee. Orton still manages to fight and hits his rope assisted DDT. Orton tries for the punt but his bad leg gives out. That leaves Orton at Punk’s mercy and he delivers the Go To Sleep to look strong going into thebig show.

Edge and Christian are teaming up again. Apparently the RAW GM has no problem with Edge laying hands on Alberto Del Rio. The opponents are the rather obvious Alberto Del Rio and Brodus Clay. Clay starts and Edge and Christian end up double teaming him. Then a commercial before Del Rio is even in the match. Back from commercial Edge and Del Rio have not been legal at the same time yet. Christian takes the face in peril role. When he finally does tag out Clay comes in. Christian and Del Rio mix it up on the outside which allows Edge to Spear Clay for the win. Del Rio has the Cross Armbreaker on Christian but runs when Edge nears. When Edge turns back Del Rio comes back and ambushes him. Del Rio again hit Edge with his finisher and we won’t know who comes out ahead until Friday.

Cole has an iPad, which looks more like a netbook, so he can read the GM’s emails without leaving his Cole Mine. GM wants to see if Jerry Lawler is ready so tonight he will face Jack Swagger. Yet another great HHH versus Undertaker promo that continues to ignore that HHH already lost to Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Kane and Big Show are at ringside as Justin Gabriel (accompanied by The Corre) faces Santino Marella (accompanied by Vladimir Kozlov) and they finally announce a Wrestlemania match for these people. It will be an eight-man tag with The Corre facing Big Show, Kane, Kozlov and Marella. Sucks to be Kofi Kingston right now. Also means neither the tag belts nor the IC title will be defended at the biggest show of the year. The faces keep order at ringside, Santino hits the Cobra and a very short match ends happily. Have Kozlov and Tamina been doing Santino’s trombone motion for a while? Big Show doing it is funny. Kane doing it is even funnier.

Here’s Undertaker. Here’s Trips. Taker steals HHH’s thunder this time around by interrupting his water spit with a peal of the gong and the lights going out. I have some cable problems as they stare each other down. Neither has a microphone. Then HBK shows up. HBK plays to the crowd for ages before actually getting a microphone. HBK has a ghost of a beard and he is in dire need of Just For Men. HBK recaps the whole situation before asking his best friend what makes him he think he can do what Shawn couldn’t? HHH tells him he went soft. Cared more about being the Showstopper than winning. HHH turns to Taker and rhymes off how amazing he was when Hunter started out. But now HHH has to respectfully tell him it’s time to go. He can’t do it anymore. And if he can’t accept it then it’s Hunter’s job to take him out. He even steals “Rest in Peace.” Now Taker grabs the microphone. Taker respect Hunter and if it were time to put him down he’d want Hunter to do it. But it ain’t that time. The streak will live. Ask HBK. Taker runs down Michaels until he tries a Superkick, which is caught. Hunter pushes Shawn out of the way and stares down Taker before asking Shawn to tell him why he’ll beat Taker at Mania. But Shawn has nothing to say. Oh great a “One more match” chant. Shawn retreats to the entrance ramp before admitting he thinks Hunter won’t win. Taker just tips his hat triumphantly and heads off to the sound of Johnny Cash. Top notch segment from three of the best of all time.

Swagger versus Lawler leaves only Josh Matthews to call the match as Cole is at ringside. Let’s see if Matthews can do what Joey Matthews did for years. It spills to the outside right away and Lawler just grabs a chair and wails on Swagger getting DQed. Josh Matthews sits silently. Lawler threatens Cole with the chair and Cole retreats to the Cole Mine. Lawler beats on it with the chair as Josh tries to warn him he’ll be fired. Lawler does what seems most people should have thought of and climbs over the top. But with security holding him back he can’t reach Cole who throws what looks like ginger ale in his eyes.

Vickie Guererro makes fun of John Morrison then Snooki. Dolph Ziggler joins her to wrestle a tag team match. His partner is Sheamus. Let me guess: John Morrison and Daniel Bryan will be the opponents. Yep. This close to any PPV the match-ups are fairly predictable. We get a commercial early in the match. Daniel Bryan gets a La Bell lock on Ziggler but Sheamus breaks it up. Fast forward a bit and he almost gets it on Sheamus but the Celtic King is able to escape and hit a Brogue Kick to win the match. Since Morrison is probably winning at Mania and Bryan is probably losing I would have gone with a different finish. Sheamus pinning Morrison would work better.

New interviewer guy asks Orton if he’ll make Wrestlemania. Orton has anger management issues and he despises CM Punk more than anyone else. It’s not if he will make it to Wrestlemania; it’s if CM Punk will make it out. The final Hall of Fame inductee of the year is, actually are, the Road Warriors. Snooki has been training with Trish. Not to speak proper English though. They’re live via satellite at a bar so Lay-Cool can attack them in a new and interesting location. They manage to fight them off only to have their calls of “bitches” bleeped by USA Network.

Time for a main event promo. The three-way faceoff between The Rock, John Cena and The Miz. This show is going to go way over time, I can tell. Rock is out first. He long-windedly, and catch-phrase heavily, calls out Cena. And yeah, of course he shows up. All Cena wants to say is Rock is still awesome and this is where he belongs. But Cena actually fights back by pointing out that Rock has been making fun of Cena for colors, music and appealing to kids. Who the Hell is he? And a potential fight is cut off, finally, by the arrival of The Miz. He’s sick of being overshadowed by Overhyped and Overrated. But at least Cena will go down fighting. Rock’s a movie star too scared to risk Miz hurting him. Miz has flipped the W on his microphone again. It takes Alex Riley and The Miz together to even give The Rock pause but he beats them off and delivers a People’s Elbow to The Miz. Cue John Cena to return to camera range and hit The Rock with an Attitude Adjustment, or FU if you prefer the original name. Cena gets to play his music at the end of the show and the last RAW on the road to Wrestlemania.

See you Friday for one last Smackdown!

Welcome to Daylight Savings Time. It was light when I got home. Pitch black on the way to the subway in the morning though. Wrestlemania is 20 days away as RAW begins. Tonight Sheamus puts his job on the line to try to win the US title. We have The Rock via satellite and we get to watch him have a fake phone conversation then diss a child Cena impersonator. This is weak sauce. Rock has to be nice to the kid and that’s not what I want to see from him right now. It’s when he turns his attention to The Miz that Rock gets serious and it’s far better. Rock promises he’ll be on a live RAW before Wrestlemania.

Snooki is the guest host. Most of what I know about her comes from SNL.

They have Cole in a plexiglass cell now. Sadly, there are air holes. He calls it his Cole Mine and it’s for his protection. Now we get The Miz out to respond. Rock’s dad and grandaddy were never WWE champion. And generally Rock sucks. The E-GM pipes up book Miz and Cena against opponents they have never faced before. Later tonight, Cena gets Del Rio. Miz gets… The Great Khali. Being as big as he is Khali is given a lot of offence against The Miz. Alex Reilly, who was supposed to have been fired, attacks Khali for the DQ but Miz absolutely brutalizes Khali with a steel chair after the match. Multiple shots to the back, one of which opens a small cut and we see some blood on WWE TV the only way we can, by accident.

We get a lengthy Triple H promo and still nobody is mentioning Trips already lost to Taker at Mania. Annoying interchange between Snooki and Vickie Guererro. These may be the two people I least want to see on WWE programming. Charlie Sheen would be a step up from this.

US Title Match time. This is a good match and it goes two segments. I’m really not sure where they are going with this so the outcome is unpredictable. When Bryan comes off the top rope straight into a Brogue Kick Sheamus becomes the new United States Champion. That was a completely clean win as well. No cheating of consequence in the entire match.

Cole takes to the ring promising his guest will reveal Lawler for what he really is. The guest is Brian Christopher, aka Brian Lawler aka Grand Master Sexay. Yes, Lawler son gets another WWE paycheck despite being a long time screw-up who blew all his other chances. I do love hearing “Bangin’ It” again but it’s on my MP3 player so it’s not like I rely on this rare guest appearance to hear it. Brian plays the neglectful dad card but he’s not exactly on fire on the microphone. Lawler calls him a bigger screw-up than Charlie Sheen. These two are showing no hint of insincerity in running each other down. Brian points out he wrestled at Mania before his daddy. Brian starts slapping and shoving his dad as Jerry just eyes him up from his chair. Cole continues to run down King when BOOMER SOONER it’s good ol’ JR! JR (Aka Jim Ross, long-time RAW announcer) tries to be the voice of reason and get Cole to back off. Apparently you can say “rat bastard” on TV. I actually am a rat bastard. My teenage biological mother was not married and I was born in 1972, during the Chinese year of the rat. JR starts taking off his coat and tie fixing to fight Cole. But Jack Swagger shows up, takes out Lawler and heads for JR. It’s an easy matter to beat down JR and he taps immediately in the Ankle Lock. Lawler recovers enough to try to make the save but the Ankle Lock does it again. Even Cole locks an Ankle Lock on JR. Dear lord that was long.

Randy Orton faces Mason Ryan to see if Punk will have anyone in his corner at Wrestlemania. My money is on Ryan. Ryan has an ugly new haircut. I’m wrong. Ryan loses to an RKO out of nowhere. The punt to the head looks terrible since it clearly hits the shoulder. Who knew The Corre would fare better than the New Nexus?

Flashback to the fun moment when Drew Carey entered the Royal Rumble. But that’s a pretty weak reason to induct him into the celebrity wing of the Hall of Fame. Snooki approves of Zack Ryder so I can’t totally hate her. But she’s connected to Vickie Guererro wrestling again so that’s a big strike. It’s a No-DQ match. So Lay-Cool run in and hand Vickie the match and a job. Is Trish going to wrestle at Mania or something? Then Snooki ends up in the fight and she and Trish get the upperhand. And remember kids, it takes years of training to do these moves. John Morrison is also involved, as is Dolph Ziggler and, yep, six-person mixed tag match at Wrestlemania. I bet both John and Dolph wish they still had a Money in the Bank match.

Main event: Alberto Del Rio (with Brodus Clay) faces John Cena. I would love to see Del Rio win, although it would have to be because of Miz-terference, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Del Rio is a great heel because the crowd is actually solidly behind Cena. It’s a good match and it’s competitive. But when Cena gets Del Rio set-up for the Attitude Adjustment Brodus Clay attacks him and we get an inconclusive DQ finish. The heels try to beat down Cena but The Rock’s music plays and The Miz comes out in a bald skullcap. Cena can’t fight off the other two and Miz hits him with a Rock Bottom. A brief three-way beatdown segues into Miz alone doing a solo assault. Miz uses a microphone as a weapon, When he rips his shirt off I’m reminded Miz has gotten into much better physical condition since he started out. He’s intimidate me if I met him. We tease a Cena recovery on the stage but a Skull Crushing Finale end that. Miz slamming Cena into the giant spinning W prop then another SCF on its base caps the show with Miz looking better and better every week. I’m sure he’s going to lose the title but he may be able to remain a star.

I’m invested in Wrestlemania but I did not need Snookie.