No Mercy

• The pay-per-view begins with a custom-made video highlighting the specific incidents of rivalries that have manifested in matches signed for tonight’s event. Your announcers are the usual suspects, and we head to the ring where MR. MCMAHON stands, microphone in one hand and the WWE Championship belt in the other.

McMahon awards the championship, vacated as a result of former champion John Cena’s recent titty twister injury, to Cena’s would-be opponent for tonight’s show: RANDY ORTON.

Powering his way into yet another WWE Championship reign, HHH comes to the ring, insults both McMahon and Orton, and talks his way into an impromptu title match with the new WWE Champ.

• MATCH ONE: HHH defeats RANDY ORTON for the WWE Championship by using his patented, Arn Anderson-like spine-buster.

• In a backstage bathroom, SANTINO MARELLA sits on a toilet, grunting and screaming in pain. He eventually calms and wipes his brow. Santino pulls up his Italian flag boxer shorts, and ponders aloud why we, as humans, feel compelled to look at our own feces after a nice potty session. He stands, looks in the toilet and gasps.

“Look, Maria! You won’t believe this size, the sheer volume of this crap!” he calls to Maria, who he coerces into looking in the toilet. The camera follows her gaze to find multiple DVD copies of “The Condemned (Starring Stone Cold Steve Austin)” in the crapper.

“I told you, Maria, my dear,” Santana says, laughing, “That movie is nothing but a pile of crap!”

• Elsewhere, Smackdown General Manager VICKIE GUERRERO, reviewing nondescript paperwork in her office, is interrupted by ECW’s newest talent acquisition, JASON.

“Welcome, Jason,” Vickie says with a wide grin, offering him a Root Beer served in a chalice adorned with a picture of his face. “I’m so glad you decided to accept my invitation and meet with me.”

Jason, admiring the craftwork (read: his image) on the chalice, seems relieved. “I am relieved,” he says, pulling a twisty straw from his back pocket and plunking it in the chalice. “I am relieved to be in civilized company, cultured company, as opposed to those untalented freaks and wannabes over on ECW.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Vickie says. “What if I could help you bring down ECW and free yourself?”

Trying to hide his excitement without success, Jason spews root beer from his nose and attempts to quickly reassert his confidence. “Go on,” he says, soda dripping from his nose.

Vickie says they share a goal, and that is the demise of ECW. She promises him funding for his crusade, and, when the job is complete, a Smackdown contract complete with a guarentee for a World Championship title match at a time and date of his choosing.

“I like what you’re saying, “Jason says, making hard slurping noises with his straw before detailing why he is happy with her proposal. “I can’t believe that I returned to the WWE under the ECW umbrella. It is terrible there! You have no idea the junk they pass off for entertainment! Dancing girls! Fat guys with punny names! A one-hour show! I, Jason, the brightest of all ECW stars, deserve a one-hour show to myself and shouldn’t be expected to share it with guys who have a job only because of their ‘dedication to the business.’ Please, Tommy Dreamer is so dumb he can’t do anything else but get beat up for a living. This is a dead brand, a shell of its former glorious, gritty, revolutionary self—and I hate it. I hate working there. I hate performing my flawless and entertaining craft on this talentless, neutered, juvenile brand!” He takes another sip of root beer, and raises his eyebrow when he catches sight of a bag of Snyder’s Pretzels. “I don’t just want off the ECW brand, I want it dead! I want to put it out of our misery. I watched the legacy of WCW be bastardized into a joke by our company, and, as a wrestling purist, I was not proud of my boss doing that. And now, it is happening again, and another brand has been so mangled it must be put to pasture so we, as the WWE family, can get back to focusing on ourselves and not these silly, side projects Mr. McMahon starts up. ‘Extreme Championship Wrestling’…More like Extremely Crappy and Boring and Lame and Insomnia-curing Wrestling, show—thing.“

“True,” Vickie says. “We all remember how you brought down the XFL, Jason.”

“Let’s not talk about that right now,” Jason says, shoveling pretzels into his mouth. “I still have trouble eating mustard after that night…” he continues, trailing off.

“Jason, let me be up front with you. I want ECW to fold into Smackdown,” Vickie confides. “I want the bulk of the ECW guys to revitalize Smackdown’s greatest asset, it’s cruiserweight division, and I want to trim the fat of those guys you mentioned…’Mr. Dangerous’s’ old beer buddies. We both get what we want. You kill ECW and keep the credit for doing so, and return to the big leagues with a guaranteed World Title shot, and I get a rejuvenated Cruiserweight division and another big name star—the biggest name star, in fact—in Jason!”

The two scheming stars agree to do business together, with Vickie providing Jason the resources he needs to kill Extreme Championship Wrestling.

• MATCH TWO: Smackdown’s REY MYSTERIO and FINLAY wrestle to an unsatisfying double-disqualification, setting up an inevitable return gimmick match for next month’s CYBER SUNDAY.

• Mister McMahon barges into HHH’s dressing room and tells him not to celebrate, because his scheduled match against Umaga is still on tonight, and it is now for the WWE Championship.

• “So this is how it’s going down?” ECW’s General Manager Armando Alejandro Estrada bellows, marching into Vickie Guerrero’s office. “You hire a mercenary within my own company to destroy ECW?! Why?! Because I refused trades between our brands with you when you took over for Teddy Long?! This is what you do?!”

Vickie calmly tells Estrada that him turning down her proposal was, in hindsight, a great decision, because she soon came to realize there was no need for her to give up a single one of her stars in trades with ECW when it would be so much easier, and rewarding, to simply absorb the entire show. “This is war,” she says, “and to this victor goes the spoils. I’m taking ECW all for myself.”

“Oh, its war, indeed,” Estrada sneers, “but it’ll be fought with EXTREME MEASURES! Just sit back, enjoy the show, and see how ECW brings war to your front door, Vickie Guerrero.”

• MATCH THREE: CM PUNK wins his ECW title defense against BIG DADDY V when MATT STRIKER, for no apparent reasons, interjects himself in the match and gets his man, V, disqualified.

• There is smooth scene transition, from a live feed of events in the ring to a monitor displaying the live feed. “This is the crap I am talking about!” Jason says, kicking the TV displaying the in-ring events over.

“Hey!” ECW GM Estrada yells, revealing the TV Jason kicked over was in his boss’s office. “You’re gonna pay for that TV and, Jason, I can’t begin to describe the ways in which you’re going to pay for what you’re doing with Vickie Guerrero! You are betraying ECW and every one of its fans! You are going to pay!”

“Oh, don’t even!” Jason screams back. “Me pay? Why don’t you pay me? Why don’t you pay me back and pay anyone else back the money we spent to watch this PPV and see another ECW crap-match like that! What was with that ending? It made no sense! This is a prime example what is wrong with this brand, why it’s so far removed from the classic world title matches of old ECW, and why it needs to die! I need to kill ECW and free us all!”

“Get out of my office right now before I—”

“Oh, I’ll get out of your office,” Jason interrupts, “but NOT because you told me to, but because I have somewhere else I need to be!”

Estrada looks at his unruly employee, dissecting Jason’s face with his discerning eyes. “No you don’t.”

Jason looks nervous.

“Where do you have to be?”

Jason looks around the room and rubs his hands anxiously. “Sure I do, I have somewhere to be. But I’m not telling you where.”

“GET OUT OF HERE!”

“Well, I won’t be running to ECW, that’s for sure!”

“GET! OUT!”

“Smell ya later, punk,” Jason says, closing the door with a smug look on his face that reads: “Gotcha! I totally dissed you!”

• Randy Orton seeks out Vince McMahon, but McMahon is unresponsive to Orton. He gives Orton a look of great disappointment and walks away with speaking a word. The camera pans to Chris Masters, donning a button-up sweater, half-moon glasses, and freshly parted hair, watching from the shadows. He lays his pointer finger on his bottom lip, considers what he just saw, before exclaiming “Aha!” and rushes off.

• MATCH FOUR: HHH, wrestling his second match of the night, pedigrees UMAGA to retain the WWE Championship.

• Randy Orton happens by CHRIS MASTERS, who is concentrating on the book in his hands, Psychology for Dummies. Masters sets the book down, tightens his sweater-jacket across his chest, and in a low, psychology 101 voice inquires about Orton’s depressed demeanor.

“What do you want, Masters?” Randy asks.

“Well, Randy, I was worried about you. What you are feeling is rejection and you shouldn’t be feeling that. You see, Mister McMahon was not shunning you, he was showing you something we in the mind field—“

“Psychology, you mean, not ‘mind—”

“—whatever. You experienced something we in the field call ‘Rough Love’—”

“—Tough Love—“

“Tough love, exactly, you see. He’s not angry with you, just disappointed in you, but he still cares for you—or, to be more exact,” Masters says, growing more confident with his voice, as though someone or something else, like intellect, was powering his voice, “to be more exact it’s not so much that Mister McMahon still cares for you, but it’s more that he wants you to hurt the person he really, truly doesn’t care for, this being HHH and you let Vince down by losing the WWE Title to the man Mister McMahon hates. Mister McMahon is challenging you to impress him. Be proactive, Randy. Vince’s reaction to you earlier in the back wasn’t about anger,” Masters says, laying his hand on Randy’s shoulder. “It was about love. Rough love.”

“Tough love,” Orton corrects, staring blankly into the void.

“Exactly,” Chris says, his eyes closed signifying sanctimonious self-pride. “Rough, Tough Love.”

Orton stares at Masters as though an alien were standing before him. “You’re…you’re right. Thank you, Chris,” he says, heading off in the direction of McMahon’s office.

Master’s, feeling intelligent and self-satisfied, picks up his Psychology for Dummies book, turns, and walks into a glass door, knocking himself out.

• THE GREAT KHALI, because he is, like, Indian or something, is meditating.

Elsewhere, WWE Champion HHH runs into World Champion Batista. The two men hug, trade baseball cards, and Batista repeats what HHH said to him at the previous PPV, that “it’s harder to keep the World Title than it is to win.” They say goodbye, but not before trading myspace addresses.

• MATCH FIVE: A terribly misguided, on the part of the show writer’s, PIZZA EATING CONTEST between MATT HARDY and MVP ends with a segment redeeming beat down, courtesy of a contingent of ECW superstars destroy the two Smackdown superstars.

ECW GM Estrada emerges on the entrance stage, telling Vickie Guerrero “this war just got Extreme!”

• Vince McMahon enters HHH’s dressing room. He tells the new WWE Champion that he is happy to see war spreading in his kingdom, and he is most interested to see how the battles are fought between ECW and Smackdown, but his own personal crusade is at the forefront of his own mind, and he can see the final battle to end his war with HHH: Randy Orton has demanded to exercise the rematch clause tonight, and Vince has decided to honor the request. To top it all off, the match will be fought as originally planned: The Raw Main Event to feature a Last Man Standing WWE Title match, now between HHH and Orton, tonight.

• MATCH SIX: BETH PHOENIX becomes the second new champion crowned at No Mercy, defeating CANDACE MICHELLE for the Women’s Championship.

• Khali ends his meditation, kicks down the door of his dressing room, and marches to the ring.

• MATCH SEVEN: BATISTA successfully defends the World Championship, defeating THE GREAT KHALI in a LETHAL LINCOLN LOGS DEATH MATCH.

• MATCH EIGHT: RANDY ORTON soundly defeats HHH, who wrestled his third match of the night, in a LAST MAN STANDING MATCH. Vince comes to the entrance stage to applaud Orton.

• Roll Credits!

• Coming up on…
- RAW: Will the war between HHH and McMahon/Orton continue? Tune in to find out what happens on the first night of the Orton Era, Part Deux!

- ECW & SMACKDOWN: War has ignited between the brands! How will Vickie Guerrero respond to MVP and MATT HARDY’s mugging at the hands of ECW Extremists? How will Jason attempt to destroy ECW? Will Chris Masters wakeup?