Segment 1: Daniel Bryan hits the ring to open the show. DB reminds us that he's the Intercontinental Champion, but states that winning the title is only one part of being a champion: it's what you do with it that matters more. DB wants to be a fighting champion, and he started that with Dolph Ziggler on last Monday; but worse, Sheamus hit the ring after (“looking stupid”) and beat the crap out of Dolph so badly that he couldn't be on either show this week.

Anyway, DB doesn't back down as the heels head to the ring. By the time they get to the ring, Dolph's music sounds, though it can basically only play one bar before Dolph starts screaming into a mic and insulting the heels. The words don't matter; Dolph joins DB, and they get ready to fight.

Then Big Show hits the ring sand says that Sheamus was so totally right, that big guys are the only ones that matter, especially since he's the newest Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal winner. So he joins the heels, and they all enter the ring together.

But they pause as Roman Reigns's music fires up. I have to admit it's a little silly, just in-universe, that the heels don't just attack the faces right now, since it's taking Reigns thirty seconds just to get through the crowd, and thirty seconds is a long time of just standing around and staring at each other. Anyway, as Reigns comes to the barricade, Show warns him not to get in the ring because he'll totally beat him up. Reigns gives precisely zero shits as he slides under the rope and just immediately starts throwing punches to Show, so DB and Dolph hit the first strikes while they can.

It's a crowd-pleasing Pier Six Brawl that lasts all of five seconds: the heels took all the damage, so they just bailed and made veiled threats from the foot of the ramp. Six-man tag match main event, anyone?

Post-Ad Bumper: Yup, six-man tag match main event.

Pre-Segment 2: So apparently New Day's new thing is for Big E to do his Southern Baptist thing before leaving gorilla. Also, they get booed to hell. E embraces it by encouraging the arena to clap for them. Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods do so, but (intentionally) in the beat so the crowd can scream back “New. Day-sucks.” Kingston and Woods eventually stop, and E says that we need their feel their positivity, damnit! They're here for a New. Day! The crowd adds “Sucks!” Heh.

I suppose they're still not technically heels, but it's coming somehow.

Segment 2 [Tag Match]: Tyson Kidd & Cesaro (w/ Natalya) defeat New Day (w/ Xavier Woods) by pin. Kofi to start with Kidd with some chain wrestling, and it looks damn good as they have balanced offense. That is, until Kidd tries a monkey flip to Kofi; Kofi lands it clean, but his momentum carries him to the heels' side of the ring. Cesaro runs distraction, and Kidd is able to take him down. A couple quick tags and double team moves keep Kofi contained for a minute.

Kofi manages to survive the beatdown and dispatches Kidd to west ringside. Cesaro tries a sucker punch, but E tosses him over to west ringside too. Kofi tags in E, then hits the east ropes. E basically grabs Kofi and flings him over the west ropes, letting Kofi hit both heels with a high-angle hip drop, taking them both down. Kofi slides back in the ring to celebrate, and Woods decides to hop on the apron and dance like a lunatic ostensibly to pump up the crowd, which no one buys. Cute. And we go to ads.

Back, and the heels are in control of E thanks to a chop block. However, during the heels' attack, Kidd tries a top rope something; E catches him and hits him with a belly to belly suplex. E wants a hot tag, but Kidd makes the tag first, Cesaro fucking dead lifts Big E from the ground, then slams him back down. Jesus, Cesaro's pure strength is freakish. (And the sky is blue, I know.)

Rapid tags and cutting the ring in half keep E contained. This eventually results in Cesaro doing a Cesaro Swing to Big E, which pops like 80% of the crowd (rightfully so), especially when Kidd adds his low dropkick to the side of E's face. Cesaro shoots the half, but Kofi breaks up the attempt.

Kofi doesn't follow up with any additional attacks and returns to his corner, then exchanges talking shit to Cesaro. This gives E a chance to recover, and he beheads Cesaro with a clothesline. Double hot tags, and the crowd can't boo Kofi with his awesome offense. They do manage to boo him when he does a new form of his Boom Drop—apparently now called the New Day Drop—since rather than doing his little shoulder shakes before dropping the legs, he just screams “New Day!” at the top of his lungs; the fans dutifully respond “Sucks!”

Kofi retreats to the corner and readies what I assume is the Trouble in Paradise, but again, he goes for the 1, 1-2 clap rhythm instead of his classic overhead “boom” claps, so the fans do their chant again. Kofi looks confused and forlorn, but gets his shit together long enough to dodge a Cesaro cheap shot. E comes in to make the save, but as the ref deals with E, Kidd throws Kofi to the ropes. Cesaro hits the European Uppercut to Kofi, and when Kofi recoils, Kidd traps him and hits the twisting neckbreaker drop. Pin, three, done.

Segment 3: RAW rewind concerning Randy Orton's title shot.

Pre-Segment 4: Curtis Axel hits the ring and declares that Axelmania is still a thing, which is why he wants a rematch with Neville tonight after losing to him on... Monday, I guess? Wait, no, Neville faced Rollins last Monday, if memory serves. I don't know what Axel is talking about, honestly, but I have no doubt that the original match existed.

Anyway, Neville hits the ring, because of course he's going to accept that challenge.

Segment 4 [Singles Match]: Neville defeats Curtis Axel by pin. Neville does a little flippy stuff to avoid Axel's early offense, but Axel's power eventually allows him to hit a flurry of strikes. But then Neville gets a breather, uses rapid strikes to contain Axel, tosses him out of the ring, hits a suicide twirling crossbody, throws him back in, takes him down to the canvas, then hits the... whatever the fuck his finisher it. A... twirling 450 splash? Or something? Not sure if it has a name, but it is impressive. [Ed. Note: it's the Red Arrow. And I have no idea who it'll be against on Monday, but it's RAW in the UK, and it'll be more over than the Baby Jesus. They didn't just cram Neville into the main roster right now to NOT use him on the UK tour... a rematch agaisnt Rollins could OWN, if they gave it another gear that it didn't have on Monday. An actual win over a slightly lesser guy -- I'm thinking Sheamus works PERFECTLy ,given his newfound love of bullying little guys -- would blow the roof off the joint.]

Segment 5: Renee Young interviews Cameron, Alicia Fox, and Natalya in the back. Apparently, they “manipulated Kane” into booking a Divas Battle Royal for the #1 Contendership next week, which also apparently missed the Hulu cut, since I have no idea what's going on. Renee asks if the ladies manipulated Kane to screw Naomi out of a guaranteed title shot, a charge which they all naturally deny. But then they bicker at each other about who will so totally win the battle royal, and it turns into a slap fight between Alicia and Natalya. Renee bails, and Cameron tries to play peacemaker, but it takes a couple of refs to separate them.

Segment 6 [Singles Match, Cameron is the special referee]: Natalya defeats Alicia Fox by submission. Slap strikes to open, and it's very cat-fighty; there isn't much wrestling, but tackles, punches, slaps, and hair pulling. Eventually it settles down into Natalya doing most of the offense, though Alicia takes control by whipping Natalya to the corner and hitting a running big boot, which we see (rather viciously) thanks to the corner camera.

Alicia takes control from there with some solid offense including her trademark Northern Lights Suplex with the punning bridge where she's on her toes, something that causes my back to spasm just watching. Alicia shoots the half but only gets two, preens, then slaps on a chin lock. This lasts for a while, then she preens, tries another pin, only gets a two. Is it live, or is it Memorex? (Does anyone even get that reference? God, I'm old.)

Alicia slaps on another chin lock, but Cameron shows her inexperience as a referee because she stays behind Alicia during the hold, which means Natalya's face is blocked from her view. Alicia takes advantage of this by putting her fingers illegally in Natalya's mouth and yanking back with one hand while maintaining the chinlock with the other arm, and she holds this for a few seconds until Cameron decides to wander over to ask whether Natalya wants to tap. I don't know if that whole thing was a planned spot, organic storytelling, or a happy coincidence, but I really like it: it actually shows Alicia has some ring psychology. Even if it was an accident, I sort of hope they develop it a little to give the women some, you know, depth.

Natalya refuses to submit, so Alicia stands them up while maintaining the headlock. Natalya twists in it and elbows Alicia in the gut to break the hold. Natalya hits the ropes; Alicia whiffs a clothesline, then tries a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, only for Natalya to reverse it in midair and come down with a cross body to pin. Only two.

Alicia pops up first and takes Natalya down with a clothesline, but preens again instead of pushing her advantage. She pulls Natalya up by her hair, they exchange some punches. The strikes send Alicia to the corner. Natalya tries a shoulder charge to Alicia's gut, but Alicia has it scouted and counters with a sunset flip. Natalya rolls through the pin, holding onto Alicia's ankles. She drags her to the center of the ring, then applies the Sharpshooter. Alicia tried to resist the hold but couldn't, and taps out in short order.

You know, aside from the weird positioning on the aforementioned submission attempt, Cameron actually did a really good job as a ref. She had that perfect balance between being animated to show she was engaged and being invisible during actual spots. Her count pace was stellar, and she used her voice to “control” Natalya and Alicia during the match. I can't think of too many “special referee” matches that turn out that well. Damn fine work from all three women.

Oh, and Cameron nails Natalya with a DDT out of nowhere after holding her arm up in victory. Heh, classic heel.

Wait, then she headbutts and DDTs Alicia too, then preens, then looks at herself in her pocket mirror just to pose for the crowd. Nice. The fans dig it, as they should. [Ed. Note: Cameron was the star of that match. The post-match makes her relevant to the Battle Royale on Monday, in the sense that she now "fits" among the other contenders. But I'm with Pyro: her work as the ref was jsut really, really convincing and compelling. I've HATED many "special refs" in the past, because they don't sell out to every near fall like the real refs are trained to do, and if the REF doesn't buy a near fall, why should I? But Cameron was just really, really tight on her calls, and never gave away that she knew the real finish.... for a long time, I've had this idea that WWE needs to do a "female ref" gimmick, but I haven't mentioned it since the days of Molly Holly; I'm mentioning it again now. With Molly, it was just that she had that natural instinct that no other women had at the time, and she could convincingly do ref thing to make it seem genuine... with Cameron, she's more animated, but her animations are in line with Ref Schtick, like she's studied it, and is aping it, and that's not unawesome, in its own way.]

Segment 7: Weird montage vignette of Erick Rowan, covering basically his entire story line to this point. Not sure why, other than the fact that he's against Bray Wyatt next. It felt more like a short version of a pay-per-view hype video.

Pre-Segment 8: Bray hits the ring, but first to talk. He recounts that when he first met Rowan, Rowan had been cast out of town; society viewed him as a monster. But where they saw flaws, Wyatt saw possibilities. So Wyatt took him in, taught him love and family, and was proud to call Rowan a brother after fixing him. But he had to set him free, just to show him what kind of terrible world in which we live. So now, Rowan is broken again, and it's all our fault for infecting him with our evil. Wyatt will destroy Rowan tonight out of love, just to teach one last lesson to him about the bullshit of life.

Then with a chilling a laugh, he says that if he could do that to someone he loved as a brother, what could he do to those of us he hates? Behold his face of fear.

Segment 8 [Singles Match]: Bray Wyatt defeats Erick Rowan by pin. Open roughneck offense from both guys to start. Rowan gets the better of it, getting the first knockdown with a running shoulder tackle that drives Wyatt all the way out of the ring and to the barricade. Wyatt slides back in and grabs Rowan's beard, but doesn't actually attack; Rowan drives him to the corner with several punches. Rowan then backs away and goes for a shoulder charge, but Wyatt slips it, sending Rowan shoulder-first into the post. Rowan escapes the ring for a moment to catch his breath, but when gets back to the apron, Wyatt nails him with a running dropkick, sending Rowan flying to the barricade. Thus we go to ads.

Back, and Wyatt has control with a neck lock. Rowan breaks it with power but just eats a DDT, and Wyatt maintains control with grounded strikes. He tries his running hip drop as well, but Rowan blocks it with his knees, then hits a rally of his own.

After a failed pin, Rowan decides to go to the top rope, but Wyatt just rolls out of the ring. Rowan goes to follow, but gets clotheslined; Wyatt follows up with his running hip drop outside the ring. Ouch.

Back in the ring, Wyatt started Sister Abigail, but Rowan broke free and tried the full nelson slam. Wyatt broke out of that and hit a flying cross body elbow. Wyatt took a moment to breath on the canvas, then popped up with his crabwalk. Rowan rose a moment later, but had no answer as Wyatt nailed him with the Sister Abigail.

Huh. I wonder where they go from there. Wyatt sat in the ring and cradled Rowan's head in his lap while looking up to the ceiling and laughing. Is the Wyatt Family reforming?

Segment 9: Time for a special edition of MizTV since The Marine 4 is coming out, and he needs to hype it. That includes showing us the trailer for it. I didn't realize Summer Rae was the co-star, but she's wearing a skin-tight black tank top, so I think that I may need to watch it. For theatrical reasons, of course.

Back to live, Miz says it's his best action movie. Summer Rae then pops out to say that she's, you know, the co-star, so she should be hyping it too. Miz doesn't like being interrupted, declares that “allowing her” to be in the movie was his version of giving divas a chance, so she should “sit here quietly and speak only when I allow you to.” Summer Rae makes a “Girl, please” face at him, then politely tells him to go fuck himself.

Miz continues to say that Summer is only anything because he allowed it to happen, and that he made her a star, just as he made Damien Mizdow a star. Summer daintily takes a seat in one of the director chairs to say that he did make Mizdow a star... when Mizdow eliminated him in the Battle Royal at WrestleMania. Heh.

Miz gets a little irritated that everyone loves Mizdow, and in fact blames the fans for their rivalry; it's our fault that we made Mizdow believe he's a leading man, when he's barely a bit player. Miz says that Mizdow had been fired twice from WWE and came close to a third one (is that true?) before Miz took him under his wing.

Mizdow then popped out of the back to a massive pop, then struts to the ring. Miz continues talking anyway that the fans can't get Mizdow on track, but Miz can. And Miz will so totally forgive him for all his shit, just as long as Mizdow apologizes for being a jerk to Miz. Mizdow in facts shakes Miz's hand and does instead apologizes... for not doing this sooner. Punch to the face, mounted punches, and when Miz bails, Mizdow flings one of the director chairs at him. Mizdow then signals to the crowd through Broad Gesturing that he has broken off the handcuffs. Then, to put the exclamation point on it, he Frenches Summer Rae in a very theatrical motion. He also hits a cheesy smile as Summer swoons with equal parts happiness and confusion.

Segment 10: WWE hypes itself and shows us some of the pre-WrestleMania events they had.

Segment 11 [Six-Man Tag Match]: Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan, & Dolph Ziggler defeat Bad News Barrett, Sheamus, & Big Show by pin. Sheamus and Dolph to start with some strikes, with Sheamus winning the exchange. Quick tag to Show and more heavy strikes keep Dolph contained until he hits a low dropkick to Show's knee out of nowhere. Dolph followed up with a great jumping DDT, then shot the half but only got two. Both guys to their feet, Dolph does a running jumping lariat... and gets a chest slap that knocks him out of the air. Good lord.

Show drags Dolph's carcass back to the heels' corner and tags in BNB, who goes for a headlock. Dolph breaks out of it but eats the Winds of Change, though it only gets a two.

Tag back to Sheamus, who continues the strikes and other roughneck offense to keep Dolph down. It works for a bit until Dolph answers with his own slaps and punches, and he gets the false hot tag to DB. DB goes house of fire and kicks basically everyone in the face, taking down Sheamus and following up with Yes Kicks. Sheamus ducks the power kick but charges DB only to get dumped out of the ring. DB follows up with his signature suicide dive, then throws Sheamus back in the ring. However, BNB is there to flatten DB with a running big boot, so DB sells it outside the ring so we can go to ads.

Back, and DB is in Big Show's bear hug of doom. DB tried to fight out of it, so Show just slammed him to the canvas and followed up with a big elbow drop. Pin, only two.

BNB tags in then and goes for roughneck strikes. When DB shows a sign of hope, BNB tags to Big Show to put a stop to that. Show knocks Dolph off the apron, then signals for the chokeslam. DB gets lifted but comes down with his legs around Show's arm as he applies the Yes Lock. However, Show just powers DB off and throws him out of the ring, then tags to Sheamus. Sheamus continues the beatdown and flings DB back in the ring, but pulls an Alicia Fox and preens a little too much.

Sheamus puts DB on the top rope and nails him wit ha few strikes, then goes up as well to tease a superplex or something. But DB fights him off with about two dozen punches, knocking him to the canvas. DB wants a flying cross body, but Sheamus catches him and teases the Rolling Senton. But then DB slips out and hits a DDT, both guys down.

Double hot tags to Reigns and BNB, and it's Reigns who does all the damage, then hits the Superman Punch to Show to knock him off the apron. Followed up with a Superman Punch to BNB, pin for two, Sheamus breaks it up, Dolph runs interference, then DB hits Show with an apron flying knee. Holy crap!

No time for a breath as Barrett recovers enough to drive Reigns to the corner, then signals for the Bull Hammer Elbow. But Reigns explodes out of the corner with a Spear, and with the other four men down, there won't be any shenanigans for this pin attempt.

After the bell sounds, we see Barrett stumble away as DB and Dolph join Reigns in the ring, but we don't see the other two heels as we fade to black.

Final Thoughts: Whoa, that was a really explosive in-match ending to night. Good stuff.

The rest of the card was really solid too, and I really don't have much to say about it that I haven't already. Just a good, solid night of wrestling action and storyline advancement, and I didn't even miss anyone who wasn't seen: no Ambrose, no Orton, no Rollins, but no problem.

Episode Grade: B+