Whoa, Saturday already? Well, I was being productive, as I put the finishing touches on my second novel. Just one more short chapter to go! Now I just need to convince someone—ANYONE—that the first novel is worth taking a chance on before anyone gets view the second.

Sigh. Maybe you'll be a half-decent author one day, Pyro. Maybe.

And here's hoping I stop moping and get to SmackDown! Because... uh... because SmackDown! Get excited!

Opening: It's Vince! Except he's live via satellite. He pimps WWE Network, because if you sign up, you get the whole month of November, that includes Survivor Series, for free. Yay! He caps it off by leading the fans in a Yes! Chant.

It does fuck-all for those of us who have already been subscribed since Day One, but whatever. They loop the footage of the crowd doing the Yes! Chant to give the commentators time to further pimp the Network. [Ed. Note: IT'S ALL A LIE~! WWE didn't announce the free November until Thursday, so to get this reaction on Tuesday night, they had Big Show implore the fans to give Daniel Bryan a big "YES!" chant so that it'd make him feel better now that he's getting another surgery... ahem.]

Pre-Segment 1: What... what is Paige wearing? A bleached-blond wig? WHY? FOR THE LOVE GOD STAY A BRUNETTE!!! I can't even dig her skimpy yellow outfit; it's all just too ridiculous. Why is this happening?

Oh, because the episode aired on Halloween, and this is a “Halloween Costume Battle Royale,” as Rick mentioned in the RAW recap.

Wait... is Paige dressed... as Kaitlyn? It works on a meta level since she's trying to piss off AJ, and I have to confess, Paige absolutely nails Kaitlyn's face and facial expressions. It's actually a little creepy.

...Wait again, she's supposed to be Summer Rae. That makes less sense. And doesn't work. At all.

JBL is on vacation, and AJ is on commentary. She's in full hipster mode as she wears only a tank top with the word “Boo” on it. Because she's a ghost.

Other divas arrive, and their costumes are stupid and awful, except Natalya as the Queen of Hearts. Naomi is wearing full camo that is basically painted on, and I never appreciated Naomi's booty until now. Pretty hot, but the others aren't all that—

RRRRRROOOSSSAAA!!! Vampire nurse! New favorite for everything! Dear god, I will give her all of my candy, even my coveted pumpkin cream things!

Oh, also during the Pre-Segment, we see why Brie Bella isn't part of this thanks to orders from Nikki. I'm not going to recap it, because it's stupid as hell. I'm just going to watch Rosa's entrance a half-dozen times instead.

Also, AJ breaks the fourth wall as she states that everyone is dressed as a “sexy everything. Just everyone is sexy.” Cute.

Segment 1 [Diva Battle Royal, winner is #1 contender to the Divas Championship]: Nikki Bella defeats everyone by being lucky. My Rosa Mendes was eliminated after about three seconds, so I stopped giving a shit. Honestly, it doesn't matter, since this whole thing is a joke. AJ doesn't care, but manages to make her apathy into entertaining commentary. My borderline harassment jokes aside, AJ's commentary is by far the best part of this whole match.

The finish saw Alicia Fox spearing Paige through the ropes, eliminating both at the same time. Nikki Bella was the last one standing, so she wins and gets a title shot. AJ smiles at her and says on the headset “Wow, it's great she owned something for once!” Ha, burn!

Segment 2: Kane hits the ring with Seth Rollins and the New Stooges. Kane blathers about Halloween and tries to make it creepy as he turns it into a discussion for Survivor Series, and it's stupid, so I'm not bothering with it.

Kane then pimps the main event tonight, and I'm not going to talk about that either, since you'll read it a bit later on down the web page. I will say this: Kane calls it a “Trick or STREET Fight.” Is... is that supposed to be a pun? Or a play on words? Both? It really just reminds me of a “Before-And-After” category on Wheel of Fortune, except still done wrong. (A real “Before-And-After” would be like “10 Downing Street Fight,” which would be one hell of an awesome event, I must say.)

Dean Ambrose gets to play in the main event, so Rollins is sure that Ambrose won't even get to the main event since Bray Wyatt will so totally kick his ass. Then Rollins puts himself over while garnering cheap heat. It works, but it's uninteresting. It concludes with Kane bitching out Dolph Ziggler, who is his opponent right now. Nice how that works out.

Dolph makes his entrance for the match, and they cut to the videogame version of Dolph's entrance. And... just... ugh... uncanny valley, baby. Dolph looks just close enough to his real-life counterpart that he just looks also wrong at the same time. I can't take it. Even though I'm totally buying the PS4 version on release day.

Then we have a commercial, just because.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Kane (w/ Seth Rollins & The New Stooges) defeats Dolph Ziggler by pin. Dolph gets about 14 seconds of offense before the heel beatdown sequence commences. Power and roughneck offense with Dolph's usual slight overselling, you know the drill. The commentators are so happy about it that they give us yet another hard sell for the WWE Network. Kane European uppercuts Dolph off the top rope to send him to the floor to send us to commercial.

Back, and Dolph gets a breath with an extended hope sequence that ends in a Famous-Er, but Kane manages to kick out of the pin attempt. Then Jamie Noble runs distraction, and Dolph eats a big boot. He kicks out at two, then reverses a chokeslam attempt into a sunset flip. Only a two, followed by a super kick. But when Dolph tries his running flying DDT, Kane catches him and buries him with a chokeslam.

After the match, Kane chokeslams Dolph again. Then the Cruiserweight Division slides in the ring to kick the shit out of Dolph. It's just to send a message to the WWE locker room so no one joins Team Cena for Survivor Series.

Then Kane grabs a mic and says that Dolph so totally has another match right now, and it's against Seth Rollins. Uh oh.

Post-Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Seth Rollins (w/ Kane & The New Stooges) squashes Dolph Ziggler by pin. Curb Stomp, done. Message received, jerks.

Also, The Authority apparently just made it so I recapped a squash. I'm part of the problem!

Segment 4: Breast cancer awareness recap, not just what WWE did on the shows, but for some of the out-of-ring stuff too.

Segment 5: Heath Slater is dressed as a scarecrow, and is standing in the middle of the ring as we come back from commercial. Ugh. Just, ugh.

See, Slater got FU'ed a couple times by John Cena during the post-show brawl, so now Slater is feeling super confident that he can handle anything.

And then the redebuted new-face Ryback hits the ring. Uh oh.

Segment 6 [Singles Match]: Ryback squashes Heath Slater by pin. Yep, this happened.

Segment 7: The Exotic Express is collectively trick-or-treating in the back. Sin Cara is dressed as a Ninja Turtle. That's... pretty much all you need to know.

Well, then they bump into R-Truth, who says that Adam Rose gets upstaged week to week by the bunny. Are they teasing a match? And then R-Truth gives Rose a rock instead of candy? I don't... I don't know what's going on.

Segment 8: WWE Network is still free for November, but we needed to know it again since we're in the second half of the show. Ten cookies say we're going to have to deal with this at least three times on Monday too. Have fun with that, Rick! [Ed. Note: I'll cope. I want more people to buy the Network. I'll spread the word. I don't want to have to go back to paying $50 a month to be disappointed when I feel damned good about spending my NINE NINTY NINE!]

Segment 9: MizTv, with Damien Sandow helping out The Miz, so we're short-handing.

Miz recaps the Mark Henry heel turn then introduces him down to the ring, Henry sees it that he attacked Big Show because Show was so totally jealous of Henry getting all the attention. Also we get an exclusive camera angle that shows Mark Henry smiling when Show tapped out to Rusev. Henry says that Show just wanted to beat Rusev for personal glory, not America.

Henry concludes that Show isn't great; Show is just big, and even that's from an overactive pituitary gland; while Mark Henry is strong and an Olympic athelete.

Then Show appears, and Henry backs out to the apron. Miz and Sandow act as guards I guess, but Show gets to the ring and shoulder checks them. Henry tries to bail, and Show catches him out of the ring, but Henry is the one who gets the advantage. Henry throws Show into the timekeeper's barricade, which collapses the entire corner of the barricade; sweet visual.

Henry looks a little regretful as he walks away, but then he screams “That's what I do!,” because that's what he does.

Segment 10 [Tag Match]: Los Matadores (w/ El Torito) defeats Gold & Stardust by flash pin. Simple formula to start with both teams exchanging advantage. The heels start a minor beatdown sequence when Stardust does a sick rebound dropkick off the top rope, except he didn't use his hands to do the vault, which was pretty sweet. In fact, it's the heels on top as we go to commercial.

The heels continue the beatdown as we come back. We even see that during the commercial, El Torito hopped up on the apron to cheer on his buddies; Stardust saw him and bounced off the ropes to send him flying off. Jerk.

A Pier Four Brawl happened after, which included Stardust taking down all four (including Torito) down in a flying hip check. Then Torito beat the shit out of Stardust, which somehow didn't draw a DQ, and one of the faces hit a flash pin while Goldust was distracted. So, that happened too.

Segment 11: Erick Rowan is watching See No Evil 2 in the back while wearing his goat mask. (Of note, we hear the movie dialogue line “You're such a prick!,” which I'm mildly surprised was allowed to air.) Kane arrives, looks around, then takes a seat beside him. Rowan turns his head, lifts his mask, and deadpans, “You scared me.” He lowers his mask, then looks back at the movie. Cute.

Segment 12 [Singles Match]: Rusev (w/ Lana) squashes Khali by submission. That happened too.

Post-Segment 12: Lana grabs a mic, a promo is cut, Rusev helps, and he calls out Sheamus, promising to win the United States Title and present it to Vladimir Putin. Huh. Sheamus pops out an accepts the challenge without hesitation.

But Sheamus says that when it comes to the US Title, he takes personal pride in everything it stands for... almost as much pride as doing this. And he slides in the ring, goes for a Brogue Kick, and whiffs. Rusev bails, but whatever; Sheamus gets the moral victory.

Segment 13: Here comes Bray Wyatt, walking solo as he hits the ring with his magic smoking lantern. He not only gets his full entrance, but they commentators stay quiet, letting the crowd and the fireflies do the talking. Very cool.

Bray plants ass on his rocker in the ring. He talks crazy nonsense, but makes it Halloween themed, and it's absolutely awesome. Why do we love the holiday so much? Because we love masks and camouflage since we hate our normal everyday lives. Tomorrow we get to take our masks off and meld back into the crowd, but Dean Ambrose is different and can't take off his lunacy, and we love him for that.

But for Bray, all that means is that Dean is like him: a monster. And he can understand everything about Dean, even the feeling Dean must have had when he got to beat the shit out of Rollins in the cage, with Rollins on his last legs. Bray understands that power all too well: in that moment, he's not just a man, but he's immortal. But Dean doesn't get to have that power; not while Bray has his eyes locked in on him.

He promises Dean that “she” still cries for him. He drops the mic and poses. Follow the buzzards.

Excellent as always for what it needs to be.

Segment 14 [Street Fight]: Dean Ambrose defeats Cesaro by pin. Oh, I get it, there's a bunch of Halloween-themed props around the ring. This is going to be a spotfest, baby. Ambrose gets us started early with a candy corn-colored Kendo stick. Beautiful.

Punchy-kicky to start, but Cesaro gets things going with about a hundred Kendo stick shots when he steals it from Ambrose. Then he piles the jack-o-lanterns together, shenanigans occur, but we don't get the payoff yet as the guys tumble to the outside. Cesaro grabs a pail of candy outside, but eats a baseball slide, and he flings the bucket and its treats absolutely everywhere. It was one hell of a visual.

Ambrose tries to follow up with a move off the apron, but Cesaro catches him and flings him over the table. Dueling Kendo sticks from there, and Ambrose gets the advantage.

Crazy bullshit from there (including Cesaro getting back body dropped through the jack-o-lantern pile), and they tangle in the corner outside the ring. A plastic skeleton is hanging from the... uh... what do you call it? The brace? The thingy that connects the actual turnbuckle to the ring post? Whatever it is, a skeleton hangs from it, and Ambrose wants to use it as a weapon. He pulls it down, but the skull snaps off, so Ambrose just beats Cesaro with a headless skeleton. Somehow, that makes it more violent and hilarious. Cesaro one-ups him by double-suplexing Ambrose and the decorative skeleton onto the mats. Heh.

Cesaro sets up a table from there, then beats on Ambrose with a chair. But Ambrose fights back with a witch's broom because Halloween, then climbs to the middle rope. Then he sticks the broom between his legs and flies off the ropes with an elbow drop to put Ambrose through the table.

The battle gets back in the ring and almost resembles an actual match for about five seconds until Ambrose puts a jack-o-lantern on Cesaro's head, then hits a Dirty Deeds. Alrighty then.

Okay, I'll give that one its due: it was fun and entertaining. After the match, Ambrose grabs the broken skull and starts reciting Shakespeare, then hits Cesaro with another Dirty Deeds.

Final Thoughts: Oh, that's it? Huh, at least they ended strong. Well, at least they ended fun, even if it was a throwaway match.

I don't know... am I just an old man? I didn't dig this episode beyond My Rosa Mendes in rocking a vampire nurse thing, and the main event. Sheamus/Rusev sounds fun, and Bray's promo was solid as always. Everything else... meh, I'd rather stay home, figuratively speaking. (And literally, since this was taped five days ago.)

Nothing more I can state that I didn't already, except that it seems Rick's prediction of the Boogeyman's cameo never materialized. I'm absolutely okay with that, because fuck eating worms.

I suppose I can forgive the episode since it is just supposed to be a one-off fun bit, but c'mon: you can do somewhat compelling storylines and make advancements that can still run next to a Halloween-themed show. Rollins/Kane's promo is a perfect example of stupidity, or at least pointlessness, because it did nothing to further any developments since it was at best 8th grade-level jabbering. You can't tell me with a straight face that that was worth five minutes of everyone's time.

All right, I'm out here. NBA 2K15 calls. Thanks for reading, all, and I'll be back next week with another one.

Episode Grade: D