Truly, life moves at a breakneck speed when you're a Falkon. Or a Michael. Or whatever the hell I'm pretending my last name is for the purposes of this bit.

Was that awkward intro? That was an awkward intro. Let's just get to the recap.

Opening: RRRRRROOOSSSAAA!!! Well that's the best way to start off SmackDown, and thank goodness Rick had me recap this one! Fandango (and My Rosa Mendes) are in the middle of their entrance as we start the show. Fandango gets to smooch her, making him the luckiest son of a snake on the planet.

...Or not, since he's against Roman Reigns. Well, this one is a foregone conclusion.

Segment 1 [Singles Match]: Roman Reigns defeats Fandango (w/ My Rosa Mendes) by pin. It was technically a full-length match for a weekly show opener and billed as competitive, but—as Rick is fond of saying—let's not pretend this was something it wasn't.

So... would I be willing to take a beating from Roman Reigns if it meant I got to go home with Rosa? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Yes. The answer is yes.

Segment 2: TLC recap, leading to...

Segment 3: ...Dean Ambrose hitting the ring to talk. He says how awesome the fight with Bray Wyatt was on Sunday, since violence solves everything and helps to get one's anger out. Also, he was happy to see actual fear in Bray's eyes on Sunday, since Bray was for once facing someone who was just as crazy as he was. And since Ambrose is still nice and healthy, their fight will continue! Tomorrow on Tribute to the Troops anyway, which we won't be recapping. [Ed. Note: the recap is "All the babyfaces won, and in between, some band I don't care about played two songs." Done and done.]

Anyway, Bray appears on the Titantron to assure Ambrose that he (Ambrose) just doesn't get it: Bray can't stop fighting and won't stop until “all the heroes fall and all the cities crumble,” since he is a battlefield, and he's going to watch it all burn down, whatever that means. Apparently the challenge is accepted. [Ed. Note: as soon as he said "all the heroes must fall," it lent a ton of credence to the rumor de jour that it's Wyatt vs. Undertaker at WM31.]

Segment 4 [Six-Man Tag Match]: Erick Rowan & The Usos defeat The Miz, Damien Mizdow, & Luke Harper by pin. Luke Harper hits the early offense against Jey Uso, using power and roughneck offense to do the damage. Miz tags in after Harper does the work to continue the beatdown sequence, but Jey fights back as Mizdow gets into his role on the apron. Miz bails from the ring, while Jey gives chase. Harper intervenes, though no punches are exchanged; all six men scream at each other at ringside as we go to break.

Back, and the Usos are in control as they weaken Miz. Jimmy sends Miz flying out of the ring, though he somehow somewhere makes a tag that I didn't see. Jimmy wants to do a suicide dive through the ropes to take him out, but Harper comes him and cuts him off with a big boot. Thus begins the heel beatdown, with Harper and Miz taking turns.

There are a half-dozen teases from Mizdow to tag in, to cheers, until he can't, to boos. Mizdow finally tags himself in off Harper while Jimmy is trapped in the heels' corner. Mizdow jumps in the ring to a huge pop, but when he moves to charge in with a clothesline, Miz is there to stop him. Miz even leans over Jimmy's body as if protecting him, but only so he can reach over and tag himself in. Massive boos, and Mizdow looks disappointed, but he accepts his fate and goes to the apron.

As Miz tries the same charge Mizdow tried, Jimmy manages to recover and beheads Miz with a clothesline, then gets a hot tag to Rowan. House of fire to Miz ending with a full nelson slam. Pin attempt, but Mizdow breaks it up.

Pier Six Brawl from there as the Usos superkick Harper and Miz, then hit double suicide dives through the ropes to take down Harper. Miz meanwhile lies flat on his back in the ring (with Mizdow flat on his back at north ringside), and Rowan decides to hit a splash off the top rope. No, I did not mistype that: Rowan is the one who hit a top rope splash at the Usos' encouragement. Rowan got some vertical air too; it wasn't just a freefall, but a legit body splash. Pretty scary visual, between Rowan's body size and facial hair. Good stuff.

Segment 5: Naomi is warming up in the back for a match of her own, and Jimmy arrives to wish her good luck. Interestingly, there may have been an odd off-script moment as Jimmy says, “Sorry about getting mad earlier tonight... you know, on MizTV... on Main Event.” It was a weird stutter almost as if he thought, “Whoops, shouldn't have mentioned Main Event was taped before SmackDown for the two fans who still believe this is all 100% real.” Or maybe he's that good of an actor? I dunno. It was just striking since Jimmy usually delivers his lines without too much of a mistake, if any.

Bah, I'm being picky. Anyway, Jimmy is all, “I'm going to be at ringside to cheer you on!” And Naomi's all, “No, I need to do this on my own, and I hope you understand.” Jimmy's cool with it, and he promises to root for her from the backstage. Smooches, luck-wishing, and fist bumps take us out of the segment.

Segment 6: RAW recap, leading to Seth Rollins and J&J Security hitting the ring for a match. That'll happen after ads, which for you, is a short as a line break!

Segment 7: Ryback hits the stage from gorilla for his entrance, but he's ambushed by Rusev. Rusev kicks him off the stage, then follows him down and kicks Ryback over some storage boxes located to the side of the stage.

After a couple replays of that, Seth Rollins (still in the ring with the New Stooges) grabs a mic to say that this is just an example of what happens when The Authority isn't around to run things. But hey, at least he so totally beat John Cena by himself last night! Despite his bruised ribs, he's sad that he didn't get to compete against Ryback. But hey, after what he's been through the last couple nights, he's just going to take the night off. J&J are fine with that, and they start to leave the ring.

And then Dolph Ziggler arrives to the stage. He's here to remind Seth that the Authority ain't coming back, and that Dolph is the one who pinned Seth to make that happen back at Survivor Series. Seth would rather forget that moment, but Dolph twists the knife by saying that he (Seth) is probably contractually obligated to wrestle, so how about he does so against Dolph himself? Seth declines at first, but then Dolph calls Seth a coward, which instantly changes Seth's mind.

Hm... if it's that easy...

Hey, Seth Rollins! You're afraid to give me a hundred bucks! You're so afraid of giving money to some dude on the Internet, I bet you weep under your bed every night since you haven't send me a check! Yeah! Take... take that, coward!

...I'll let you know how that works out for me.

Segment 8: Another vignette of The Ascension. After Rick said that they're doing an intentional homage, I'm down. They're really good at pulling a modified Legion of Doom promo, and I'm eager to see them in the ring.

Pre-Segment 9: Oh, I see, Main Event was aired on WWE Network live, so it's canon. We get a short replay of Jimmy Uso on MizTV to provide us some context from Jimmy's earlier promo. Good deal, even if the whole thing seems a little silly and overdone.

Separate but also in the pre-segment: Brie Bella looks darn good when she keeps her hair in a simple high ponytail like that. I like the look.

Segment 9 [Singles Match for the Divas Title]: Nikki Bella (w/ Brie Bella) defeat Naomi by flash pin. Good chain-wrestling to start with each woman getting their own share of the offense. Several near-falls from quick flash pin attempts, all of them convincing enough for the first stage of the match. Nikki gets momentum after an Alabama Slam, and from there she goes slammy offense such as a rebound vertical suplex using the top rope as leverage. Then she slaps on a sleeper and channels Chris Jericho by screaming “Ask her!” a couple times. Heh.

Naomi fights out of it and hits and arm drag, then backs up a step. Both women charge each other, grab each other's head, and twirl each around in midair. It shouldn't make sense, but good lord was it violent, and they looked like they may have collided heads in midair. Excellent spot.

The double count is on, and it's Miz who hits the ring to cheer Naomi on. She ignores him, but his presence lights a fire under her, and she hits her hope flurry concluding with a forward flip lariat. She guillotines Nikki on the top rope as well, but can't close the deal.

Things settle down a bit as Nikki drives a knee to Naomi's face. Nikki also hits a middle rope cross body but Naomi rolls through for a failed pin attempt. Nikki tosses Naomi out of the ring, and Miz tries to encourage her to get up.

That's when Jimmy predictably hits ringside to punch Miz in the face and chase him up the ramp. Noami allows this to distract her, and she's slow to reenter the ring. Nikki rolls her up clean in a small package, and Noami can't kick out.

So, this was a quicker match than Nikki/Alicia Fox from last week, but it was much better booked. There was an actual story to this match, in addition to the storyline of Miz's presence, which is something divas matches sadly don't often get. Nikki can be ring capable, but Noami is still far better; still, Nikki can clearly hold up her end of the bargain if she's got someone good to work with.

Oh, after the match, Jimmy and Naomi glared at each other. Or rather, Naomi glared, and Jimmy looked like he was accepting that he was sleeping on the couch tonight.

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Kane reverse-squashes Adam Rose (w/ Rosebuds) by pin. Nope. The Bunny got more onscreen time than Rose did during his actual match.

After the match, which ended on a chokeslam, Kane started to leave by saw The Bunny standing there. He grabbed him by the neckbrace (worn after getting Tombstone Piledriven on Monday), then threw him in the ring. Kane hit him with another Tombstone Piledriver just to be a jerk.

Segment 11: Goldust and Stardust appear on the Titantron. They're feeling festive, with Goldust wearing a black Santa hat and Stardust sporting green paint instead of the red or gold. They cut a very short promo about how much they hate the holidays, then idly threaten “Ho-Ho-Hogan,” who is going to be on RAW to do the Santa thing next week. Pretend you're excited!

Segment 12: Renee Young interviews Seth Rollins in the back, who says that he beat helped Brock Lesnar beat the shit out of John Cena on Monday to help encourage Cena to bring The Authority back. That... seems counterproductive and stupid, but okay. Seth frames it that he'll work with Lesnar and Paul Heyman just to weaken Cena, but that doesn't really make any sense.

Seth adds that he helped direct Lesnar to attack Jericho on Monday as well just... because. I mean, his weak reasoning was that he wanted to attack Jericho for just randomly appearing on RAW, or something. I dunno.

Anyway, Seth promises to continue beating the crap out of people until The Authority gets to come back, and he's starting with Dolph Ziggler next.

Cut Scene: Pretty much every wrestler on the roster participates in a little ad to hype that SmackDown is moving to Thursdays starting January 15. It's kinda cute, since it's framed as every wrestler doing an inkblot test for a psychiatrist, and in a single word (“Thursday”), they answer in their particular idiom, including Bray holding a lantern inches from the doctor's face. It's worth a chuckle.

Segment 13 [Singles Match]: Dolph Ziggler defeats Seth Rollins (w/ J&J Security) by pin. Seth opens the match by running to ringside, playing up the chickenshit heel role to perfection. When Seth finally participates, he loses the first exchange (and takes another little break) but wins the second and gets the first near-fall. He can't close the deal and Dolph is able to win the third exchange, making Seth want to run again. Dolph catches him but quickly loses control after a Seth-delivered mule kick in the corner, and the heel beatdown is on. Dolph gets a breath and even tries a Zig Zag, but Seth blocks it and throws Dolph out of the ring. The New Stooges deliver a few cheap shots behind the ref's back as we go to ads.

Back, and apparently the guys were exchanging blows over the commercial. Dolph has a hope but Seth snuffs out the rally, then the heel beatdown is on for good. J&J help out with more cheap shots as Rollins does punchy-kicky offense.

The fight eventually spills outside, and Rollins tries a double axe handle off the apron. Dolph sidesteps it and throws Seth ribs-first into the edge of the table, then throws him ribs-first into the stairs. Dolph can't capitalize as he gets guillotined on the top rope, but he dodges a top rope something-or-other from Seth.

Another rally for Dolph, and this one seems like it'll do some damage as he delivers some solid kicks and an elbow drop to the chest. Dolph even hits his signature jumping spike DDT, but still only gets a two from the pin attempt.

Back-and-forth from there as Seth catches a kick and replies with a signature no-look enziguri. He can't close the deal, and Seth goes to the rope, but Dolph catches him and hits a top rope facebuster. Pin attempted, only two.

After a beat, Dolph whiffs on the Famous-Er, but back body drops Seth over the ropes to flatten J&J. Back in the ring, Dolph hits the Famous-Er but fails the pin. Dolph tries to follow up with a Zig Zag, but Seth partially blocks it by holding onto the corner ropes. Joey Mercury punches Dolph in the face to fully break the attempt while Jamie Noble distracts the ref in a different corner. Mike Chioda didn't see Joey's punch to Dolph, but he's had enough of this happy-crappy and banishes J&J from ringside.

The New Stooges sulk up the ramp while barking their displeasure. Seth watches them go, allow Dolph to take his back and hit a Zig Zag clean. Pin, three, done.

Well, not done, since J&J never really left. They slide in the ring and go after Dolph, who slips out of their grip and scrambles up the ramp. No further action or punches, and Dolph gets the moral and actual win.

Final Thoughts: Decent night I guess, nothing special. This felt like a finish rather than a build-up, probably because WWE isn't going to try anything major for the next couple weeks. Several crowd-pleasing matches don't really make for sustainable episodic TV, but they make for a decent night, especially as a year-end throwaway show. Naomi/Nikki worked well too, and I wish it wasn't just a one-off week of the divas actually being given something solid to do, but I know how WWE is, and I'm sure it won't be that good again for a while.

So... my apologies once again for giving my “goodbye and good year” last week, but the offer to you all still stands: My part may be done for Online Onslaught the next few weeks, but I'll still be working and maintaining my usual presence online! E-mail me if you want a copy of my novels, which are still in progress, and you can even help shape their content! You can also catch my daily shows on my YouTube channel at 4pm Eastern, or my weekly shows on Hitbox every Sunday at 8pm Eastern. I hope to see you there during the holidays and beyond, but either way, enjoy your holiday weeks, stay safe, and I'll see you back at OO in 2015!

Episode Grade: C+