But they played his condition straight, and only as an underlying issue, which was unexpected. However, his final lines about how he would never remember he even had a daughter, let alone that she was murdered by a terrorist lunatic, was absolutely out of nowhere. And even for 24, known for its cheese and its occasional eye-rolling lunacy, that moment was so incredibly grounded and emotional that I was left speechless. I didn't have any emotions to show; just to hear a person, albeit a fictional character, be so calm and accepting about what would be his degenerating mental abilities, even to the point where he almost seemed to accept death as inevitable and not necessarily a negative, really resonated with me. Holy shit, was that a powerful moment. “There's nothing you can do. There's nothing anyone can do.” So pragmatic and accepting... Amazing. I wish I had that kind of mental strength.

I suppose I must have some mental strength if I continue to do recaps of the B-show every week. Let's get to the wrestling.

Segment 1: Dean Ambrose, dressed like a cross between Fonzi and your mom, hits the ring all pissed off after getting the beatdown on Monday. That said, after a montage, they still advertise Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins on Sunday. So either he's not as hurt as was feared, or they're going to have to pull something out of their asses.

Back to “live,” and Ambrose is pissy that Rollins was known as the “architect of The Shield,” but all the architect could do is get his buddies to attack him on Monday. But Ambrose is still standing, and getting beaten won't stop him from destroying him on Sunday. So he asks again: is that all they've got? And it's not rhetorical: he wants to know, and he challenges anyone The Authority wants to send at him.

No one comes out; instead, Rollins appears on the Titantron. He says that he'd love to beat the shit out of Ambrose, but he's so totally not medically cleared due to tweaking his knee. So, you know, no go.

Ambrose shrugs that off and says that he understands Rollins is just scared, but reissues his challenge. Rollins dismisses him but says that Ambrose does have a match... against Kane, on behalf of Triple H.

Segment 2 [Tag Match]: Dolph Ziggler & Sheamus defeat The Miz & Fandango by pin. Solid match, if a bit formulaic. Nothing special, but worth watching.

Dolph and Miz to start, with Miz playing chickenshit heel to avoid having his face touched. Miz couldn't get anything accomplished as a result, so he tagged out, but Fanny didn't fare any better. Sheamus tagged in soon and kept up the momentum.

JBL made a really awesome joke during this sequence that I have to cheer him for. JBL started by suggesting that Fandango wasn't doing great without his “dance partners.” Michael Cole replied that maybe he could focus better without the girls hanging around. JBL, without further context, says, “I don't know, it didn't work for Tiger Woods.” Ha! It's so easy, yet so funny and accurate.

Whatever Fandango's reason for his suckitude, he managed to get in about three punches before getting flung out of the ring. Miz tried to help out despite being illegal, but when Sheamus feigned a face-targeted punch, Miz bailed out of the ring on his own accord. That took us to commercials.

Back, and Fandango manages to guillotine Sheamus over the top rope, then stands on the apron to taunt. Sheamus tries to take that moment to hit him with a 10 of Clubs, but Miz runs distraction, and Fanny goes on the offense... even with some wicked athletic jumping kicks.

Sheamus becomes the face in peril thanks to the heels' cutting the ring in half. As the heels do their beatdowns, JBL continues to amuse me by listing what movie stars Miz could beat up, like Don Knotts, which should be pretty easy since he's been dead for eight years. I probably shouldn't find it as funny as I do, but I do.

Sheamus gets a breath when he hits White Noise during yet another Fandango dance. This leads to a hot tag, and Dolph goes house of fire. Dolph wants the Famouser but Miz slips out of the ring. Sheamus flings him back in, and Dolph hits his jumping leg lariat. Always impressive to see, but it only gets a two.

Another exchange, and Dolph hits a spike DDT. Fandango breaks up the pin at two. Sheamus hits Fanny with the Brogue Kick, Miz dumps Sheamus out of the ring, Dolph hits Miz with the Zig Zag, and we're done.

Cut Scene: I love big boobs, probably as much as the next guy or lesbian... but Nikki Bella was stuffed into an overly tight tube top, and Wonder Bra Technology loses its luster when the lady in question doesn't need it in the first place. It literally is too much of a good thing, and it doesn't look good as a result.

Ah well. She's the ref for the next match, whatever it is, after commercial.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: My Eva Marie and Alicia Fox wrestle to a double-DQ, I guess. Eva and Alicia do a few random holds that are probably learned on the first day of wrestling school. Then they beat the shit out of Nikki, and literally pat each other on the back.

Segment 4: Stardust tries to tell a knock knock joke by himself, and then Goldust appears to, uh, talk some batshit lunacy. It's awesomely entertaining, even though it really shouldn't be. Also, Cody Rhodes is fucking amazing at making faces. [Ed. Note: I'm now officially trying to decide where this is going. They've done this same basic promo three times in a row, and it COULD be leading to Goldust getting annoyed at Cody and turning on him. It COULD be leading to Goldust loving "new" Cody and BOTH turning heel. It could be nothing other than the sheer, unadulterated freakazoid fun that it is, and they'll take over as top babyface tag team from the Usos. All three are equally plausible at this point.]

Pre-Segment 5: Chris Jericho hits the ring for his next match. The Wyatt Family follows; Jericho is only facing Luke Harper, but the whole family is there for now. Bray Wyatt cuts a crazy promo, mostly targeting Jericho's former “Save Us Y2J” thing, mostly Bray saying that Jericho can't save shit, and needs to worry about saving himself.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Chris Jericho defeats Luke Harper (w/ the Wyatt Family) by flash pin. Good match, but nothing really special. Still got a “This is awesome!” chant from a small minority of the crowd. I thought that was a little overselling it, but it was good regardless.

Harper with the early offense as he's able to out-power Jericho with roughneck offense. Jericho gets a breath and is able to dump Harper over the east ropes, which takes us to break, but he's back on defense afterward.

This lasts for a few minutes, and isn't bad to watch, but it's also nothing you haven't seen before. Jericho gets his rally with a top rope axe handle and an enziguri, but can't close the deal. Harper gets a breath, Jericho counters with a top rope crossbody, still can't end him.

Jericho tries his signature running bulldog from there, but Harper counters with just a straight big boot. Follow up with a powerbomb, and that's it. One, two... kick out? Holy shit!

Harper has no idea what's going on, so it takes Bray screaming at him before he can get himself together. Harper tries a corner-to-corner charge, but Jericho dodges and flings him into the turnbuckle. Jericho follows up with the Lionsault, tries a pin, gets a two.

Both men to their feet, Jericho tries a Codebreaker but is caught. Harper tries a powerbomb, but Jericho reverses it into the Walls. Bray sends in Erick Rowan; Jericho breaks the hold but knocks him off the apron with his signature jumping rebound dropkick.

Harper tries to take advantage of the distraction with a discuss clothesline, but Jericho ducks it and rolls him up. That's all it takes, but...

Post-Segment 5: ...Jericho doesn't have time to escape before the Wyatts charge the ring and kick the shit out of him. But then the Usos hit the ring and manage a couple punches before the heels bail entirely. Wyatt laughs his ass off, but is pissed enough to slap his rocking chair, which jobs cleanly.

Cut Scene: The Real Americans are WALKING~! I've long since stopped caring about writing out the transition cut scenes, but this one was special: they're walking to Sgt. Slaughter's old music. That was unexpected. That's not their permanent theme, is it?

Segment 6: Nope, they're still using the normal theme. Huh.

Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger are in the ring, and Zeb blathers to put down Russians in general and Rusev in particular, and I don't really care. I mean, it's decent, but this isn't exactly compelling television, here.

He hits the catchphrase, and then Rusev and Lana pop out onto the stage. More shit-talking, less interesting.

The fans are eating it up though, as Rusev and Swagger wave their flags at each other, which is literally the exact thing Rusev and Langston did last month. It's going over about as well as it did then too, but... I don't know man, this is a little too unsubtle and well-tread for me to care.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Alberto Del Rio defeats Kofi Kingston by pin. Above-average match, nothing special. High-paced match throughout, which was really fun. The finishing spot Kofi holding onto the top rope in the corner while his legs were through the ropes... basically, it was like he was doing a sit up from the ropes, like a military crunch. ADR was on the top rope over him, so he jumped off and planted both feet into Kofi's chest, like a modified curb stomp. Kofi played dead and took the three.

Segment 8: My Summer Rae (still with her boob-window top, which needs to be her staple from now on) is hanging out with Layla, and Fandango arrives. Seems like they're keeping this crap going some more. He wishes them luck, and Summer isn't buying it. Fanny is confident that they'll still fight over him once he totally wins the Intercontinental Title.

But Summer and Layla declare they want nothing to do with him, since they deserve better. They flip their hair at him, then leave. Okay, maybe they're not going to do more crap.

Bo Dallas arrives to give Fandango a pep talk, and Fanny... well, he looks like he's really buying into Bolieving. Hm... gimmick change? Or just a red herring? I wouldn't mind seeing Johnny Curtis getting freshened up a bit.

Pre-Segment 9: Summer and Layla didn't quite form a Hip Voltron, but they did bump hips a couple times. I'm totally into it. (But for the record, while I do confess to being a heretic in that Hip Voltron is better than Ass Voltron, Ass Voltron is better than a tiny hip bump.)

Segment 9 [Tag Match]: AJ Lee & Paige defeat My Summer Rae & Layla by submission. You know how I usually overly describe women's matches? Yeah, there wasn't anything to talk about this time. Very surprising given who was involved.

At the end of the match, Paige had Summer on the ropes metaphorically, but then AJ tagged herself in just to apply the Black Widow. Summer tapped, but Paige was making angry face during the whole thing.

Finally, AJ and Paige faced each other, and Paige was still making face. AJ offered a handshake, and Paige grabbed her hand... and pulled her into a backrubbing hug. Kinky. And weird, given that they're against each other on Sunday. Is Paige really just “frenemies” with AJ, or is it all a sham to take her off-guard? Smell my indifference!

Segment 10: The Usos are drinking Sonic drinks, because buy Sonic. Sonics hamburgers: when you don't care about a high grease-to-burger ratio, eat Sonic! [Ed. Note: in my defense, I never said Sonic made good burgers. But they are the world's leading leader in the field of slushies, plus they have tater tots (which I love thrice as much as any other form of fried potato), and an entire section of the menu dedicated to glorified grilled cheese (various "melts" and also: grilled cheese). You do three awesome things no other fast food place does, do them affordably, and yeah, I'll be your huckleberry!]

Oh, then Hornswoggle arrives (without any hair) and gets brain freeze after stealing their drinks. I guess now that 3MB is no more, Horny has nothing to do but be relegated into the a slapstick comedy role.

Segment 11: WWE did another one of those weird “let's recap the whole story about the WWE World Heavyweight Title” montages that shouldn't be shown outside a pay-per-view pre-match. Are they just out of ideas this week?

Segment 12: Rollins is chatting with Kane in the back as he tries to play peacemaker between Kane and Randy Orton. Kane doesn't want to hear Rollins's bullshit, as he's confident in his “plans” for Ambrose. Rollins is fine with that, but begs for Kane to leave a sliver of life in Ambrose so he can finish the job.

Kane leaves a moment, but comes back to tell Rollins, in no uncertain terms, not to cash in the Money in the Bank contract when he inevitably wins the title. Rollins is cowed and says nothing.

Segment 13 [Singles Match]: Dean Ambrose defeats Kane by disqualification. Meh. This was about the story, not the match.

Ambrose launched the first strike before the match officially started, as he attacked Kane from the back during his corner pyros. But Kane didn't really take much damage, and it was all his offense after the match officially started.

From there is was shoulder-targeted offense, as Kane hit power move after power move. Ambrose did have a breath, and he used it to dump Kane over the west ropes and do a suicide dive anyway, despite the shoulder. But Kane took over soon after by introducing Ambrose to the steel steps. Kane wanted a Tombstone out there too, but Ambrose pushed him away.

And then Rollins came down and beat the shit out of Ambrose. Guess Rollins is fine.

Post-Segment 13: Kane pushed the steps into the ring as Rollins went in, but Ambrose fought back. That didn't last long since Kane got in the ring too, and a chokeslam (though onto the canvas) was enough to keep down.

Rollins then ordered Kane to set Ambrose on the steps, and hit a Curb Stomp. Ouch.

Final Thoughts: Well, that happened. Solid night overall, and pretty good in a vacuum, though as a lead-in to the pay-per-view, it wasn't their strongest outing. Not the worst either, just... pretty by-the-numbers, I guess.

So I have nothing to say that I haven't already. Have a good night everyone, and Rick will have the Battleground recap on Sunday shortly after the conclusion of the PPV. For me, I've got to get back to Divinity: Original Sin. Damn, that game is hard... but that's why I write guides.

Episode Grade: B-