I just... I don't know. I mean, I'm not going to pretend that my mom and Piper and anywhere close to each other in regards to how they mean to me. I've spent the last week or so running through a zillion different “what if” scenarios regarding my mom, who is literally the only family I've got at this point who still talks to me. Then I hear she's basically got a clean bill of health, and she's the one who tells me about Piper's passing. My first thought was, “Aw, that sucks! He's awesome!” And my second thought is, “At least it didn't happen to you.”

I'm embarrassed that that was my second thought... but should I be? I need to reiterate here that I'm not trying to take anything away from Piper's passing at all. He will be dearly missed by anyone who's even remotely a wrestling fan, myself included, and he's always seemed like one of the more human, down-to-Earth guys still in the public's eye. Yet I've spent a week on pins and needles, and like... I'm having trouble seeing past my mom for the moment.

Does that make me an asshole? It does, doesn't it? I feel like an asshole, which probably means I am an asshole, though I desperately don't want to be one in any context. I just... I don't know.

Well. Whatever words I could say about Piper are basically worthless next to Rick's always well-written obituaries. I'm just going to move on to the episode....

No Piper: SmackDown aired Thursday, so even though I'm watching the Hulu cut on Friday, he will not be mentioned. I'm sure RAW will be all over it though, and if he doesn't get the ten-bell salute, I'm going to riot.

Pre-Segment 1: Seth Rollins hits the ring to talk. He gets a “You sold out! You sold out!” chant, and he opens by screaming “So what?” to the fans. I thought he was playing the crowd, and the fans did too.

But: nope. He's quoting the fans, stating we all said “So what?” in relation to his achievements in WWE. He coerced John Cena to put The Authority back in power last year, and we all said “So what?” He won the WWE World Heavyweight Title at WrestleMania, and we all said “So what?” And he survived against Brock Lesnar with his title at Battleground, and still he hears “So what?” The fans, apparently thinking “So what?” to themselves, just start up another “You sold out!” Heh.

Anyway, Rollins just blathers that all this So What-ing has made him angry, and he channeled that rage into breaking Cena's nose. Rollins says that he is an artist, and John Cena's splattered face is his masterpiece. Jesus.

Uh, here comes Cesaro of all people, who says that Rollins is a douche who puts himself over way too much. Cesaro also reminds us that while Cena may have had a broken nose, Cena also made Rollins tap out. Rollins denies that: he only tapped because he just had better things to do that night and wanted to go home. Heh.

Cesaro just shrugs that off and, oh, since they have a match tonight against each other, they'll totally just deal with each other tonight.

Cesaro starts to leave until Rollins tells him to get out of the ring. Cesaro then says that since they're both in the ring anyway, how about Cesaro makes him tap out right now? Rollins surprisingly is game, referee John Cone materializes out of thin air, and it's on.

Segment 1 [Singles Match]: Cesaro defeats Seth Rollins by disqualification. Decent match, nothing special, more about the story than the action.

The match opens with Cesaro hitting a few Dragon Whips, followed by an attempted Sharpshooter. Rollins only slipped the attempted finisher and rolled out of the ring. As he stood there to catch his breath, Kevin Owens sauntered down the ramp. Not sure what he's doing yet, but we go to ads.

Back, and Owens is on commentary while Cesaro and Rollins are doing the chain wrestling thing. Also, some asshole in the south side of the arena has a laser pointer that he's shooting at Rollins. I didn't realize it was still 2006.

Cesaro gets the better of the chain wrestling, so Rollins does what he does best: chickenshit heel tactics. Both guys pretty much go for strikes during their relative offense, though Cesaro mixes in some slams and suplexes for variety. However, he doesn't go for any limbs; has he given up on the tap out threat already?

Apparently Cesaro doesn't care, though he does get a bit of a rally and sets up the Cesaro Swing. That's when Owens just slides in the ring and beats the shit out of Cesaro. Rollins helps out, and both heels leave after four refs break everyone up.

Pre-Segment 2: The Lucha Dragons, Las Matadores, and The Ascension hit the ring for a match. The Prime Time Players are on commentary. Do you know what means? That's right: The New Day comes out to talk shit and remind us they exist! Yay?

The three members of New Day verbally fellate each other for a couple minutes before taking their place with the Ascension, Xavier Woods being the odd man out. The promo was lovely, if forgettable, but immensely entertaining.

Segment 2 [Eight-Man Tag Match]: The Lucha Dragons & Los Matadores (w/ El Torito) defeat The Ascension & The New Day (w/ Xavier Woods) by pin. All four teams have “The” in front of their names, and with the Prime Time Players on commentary, with Jimmy Uso representing “The Usos,” that's all six teams involved. Huh.

It's all about the heels as they cut the ring in half against Sin Cara and, once Cara starts to rally, Xavier Woods nails him behind the ref's back. Jerk.

Back, and everyone is stomping the hell out of Cara, the clear face in peril. This lasts a good five minutes or more. The offense was formulaic and uninteresting in the grand scheme of things, but entertaining enough in a vacuum, and the PTP's commentary was fun to listen to.

Chaos ensued with the hot tag as Kalisto did his flippy thing as he bounced around and kicked, slammed, and otherwise put down basically everyone who got in his path, Big E included. Woods decided to run interference again, so El Torito decided to channel Rey Mysterio and hit a modified 619 with the ring post to put Woods down. Konnor then teased a fallaway slam to El Torito, but both Matadores put an end to that with simultaneous suicide dives to take him down.

Back in the ring, Kofi Kingston whiffed on a Trouble in Paradise aimed at Kalisto, but it was enough of a distraction that Big E nailed him with a running charge. He then teased the Big Ending and offered his hand to Kofi, who had just recovered on the apron, to do their Super Big Ending combo. However, Viktor was there to take the tag instead, causing E to get caught up in bitching him out. That allowed Kalisto to slip out and shove E into Viktor while Matadores grabbed E's foot from the outside and drag him out.

Back in the ring, Viktor reentered the ring and grabbed at Kalisto, who reversed it into a sunset flip. The angle was good, and Viktor took the three. The faces bailed as Viktor looked on in shock, while The New Day and The Ascension just bitched at each other in the ring.

Segment 3: Kevin Owns is WALKING when he's run into by that one male interviewer with the stupid haircut whose name I still don't know. The interviewer wants to know Owen's thoughts on his upcoming match. “What match?” asks Owens. Uh oh.

Turns out The Authority (another “The”!) made a match: Owens and Rollins vs. Cesaro and a partner of his choosing. Owens runs off angrily, but promises that he's going to make Cesaro's partner “sorry,” whoever he is.

Segment 4: Hype for Sasha Banks.

Segment 5: Smash cut from that to Bray Wyatt on the Titantron, which is basically two parts of insanity.

Wait, it's Luke Harper too, and Harper rattles off some crazy stuff about how he's committed to Wyatt again now that Wyatt has shown him the light. Wyatt talks some crazy shit too, essentially saying that Harper is loyal to Wyatt, and that Dean Ambrose pretends to be loyal to Roman Reigns but that it's a false promise and it'll so totally end badly.

It's a decent enough promo, short though. However, WWE ruined it by setting it to a bass-heavy “song” as if Jim Johnston was desperately experimenting to hit the brown note. It's too much: Wyatt is fucking creepy as he is without “help,” which honestly just detracts from the overall package. It'd be like setting up a jump scare in a movie or a pizza place, but punching the viewer in the face too.

Segment 6: Rusev and Summer Rae hit the ring, or start to before the ads interrupt them. Back from that, and Rusev is in the ring as he waits for the crowd to calm down. He talks shit about Lana while simultaneously saying that she's so totally jealous of Summer.

It gets a little weirder as he creeps on Summer, but it's not noteworthy.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: Rusev (w/ Summer Rae) defeats Jack Swagger by submission. Solid match, though the crowd was dead.

Rusev plays the chickenshit as Swagger opens by out-wrestling him. Rusev takes a time out before getting back in the ring, but Swagger out-wrestles him again. That lasts for a moment as their tussle leads them to the ropes, where Swagger breaks cleanly but Rusev strikes him before he gets ready.

Rusev takes momentum from there with strikes and suplexes. Swagger gets a few hope spots, but Rusev's offense lasts a good ten minutes with only a couple disruptions. Rusev eventually locks in the Accolade. Swagger actually resists it and teases powering out, but Rusev's weight and strength kept Swagger contained.

After the match, Rusev teased a kiss on Summer, but decides to belay it in order to hit Swagger with a corner running splash for no reason. Swagger slipped it, took Rusev down, then applied the Patriot to Rusev's PREVIOUSLY INJURED~! ankle. Rusev bailed before much damage could be done, though his pride took a hit.

Segment 8: The interviewer—Rich Brennan, I think, if I heard Tom Philips correctly—interviews Cesaro in the locker room. Cesaro says that he hasn't found a partner yet, but who cares? See, Cesaro is the one who has an issue with Owens and Rollins, and no one in the locker room owes him anything. Ergo, he doesn't mind if he has to go out alone. He smiles pleasantly, then exits stage left.

Segment 9: Hype and recap of the Neville/Stardust feud.

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Stardust defeats R-Truth by pin. Basic offense from both guys, with the standard formula happening with early face offense, heel beatdown middle, and face hope spots and rallies. Entertaining enough, but nothing noteworthy. The match ended with the Cross Rhodes, but it's been renamed to the Queen's Crossbow. Alrighty.

After the match, Stardust says a bunch of crazy shit, quotes the Green Arrow since Truth has “failed this city,” then tries to put a Stardust mask on him for some reason. Truth resists, but Stardust starts to fight him.

That's when Neville hits the ring and makes the save. He teases a Red Arrow, but Stardust bails before that can happen.

Segment 11: WWE does a weird throwback ad that shows Arnold Schwarzenegger as the original Terminator, but with WWE superstars and divas taking place of the extras in the bar. Why?

Oh, because you can play at the Terminator if you pre-order WWE's game this year. Meh. Cute reference, but whatever.

Segment 12: Recap of Monday when Sheamus attacked Randy Orton. Back to “live,” Jojo interviews Sheamus in the back and asks why he did it in the first place. Sheamus answers that he doesn't need a trigger for his attacks: Sheamus is just pissy that he lost to Orton at Battleground, so Sheamus wants to keep kicking his ass. He implies Orton is “plucky and entertaining,” which makes me wonder whether Sheamus and I have been watching the same Orton.

Anyway, Sheamus insists he's going to beat the shit out of Orton until Orton won't be able to be in WWE anymore, which “will be like a rose without a thorn, or a blue sky without a cloud.” Heh.

Segment 13: Hype and recap for the Undertaker/Lesnar feud.

Pre-Segment 14: Main event time. Cesaro makes his full entrance to the ring without a partner, teasing the handicap match. Pregnant pause...

Dean Ambrose. Yay, but not really a huge surprise.

Ambrose slides in the ring and takes it to Rollins, making a Pier Four Brawl. The faces “win” it, so the heels bail to regroup. Rollins orders a charge, Owens is fine with it, and they start another Pier Four Brawl... that ends in them bailing like pussies. Ha!

They regroup once more outside the ring. The match hasn't officially started yet, which is just as well, since we go to our final ads.

Segment 14 [Tag Match]: Cesaro & Dean Ambrose defeat Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins by flash pin. Good match and worth a watch for its second half, though its first half was fairly formulaic (though quite entertaining).

Back from ads, and the match has started. Once again, we're on formula: the faces have all the early offense, though Rollins takes advantage when Owens runs a no-touch distraction from the apron. The heels use quick tags and offense to keep Cesaro contained, and the heel beatdown is on.

Cesaro recovers when he slips a corner charge from Owens. The whiffed charge happened in the heels' corner, so Owens quickly tags out so Rollins can try to stop Cesaro. Cesaro counter Rollins's, however, then makes a false hot tag. Ambrose beats the hell out of Rollins takes down Owens when he tries to run interference, back body drops Rollins over the south rope, then follows up with a suicide dive.

Ambrose throws Rollins back in the ring and scrambles up to the top rope to follow up, but Owens again runs interference. However, Ambrose fights him off once more, and though he whiffs on a top rope double axe handle, he maintains offense with some sweet one-sided chain wrestling that sees Rollins being taken to Suplex... Well, Suplex Township.

Still, Ambrose can't close the deal, and Rollins delivers a corner-to-corner running powerbomb after an exchange. It only gets a two on the pin, but the heels are back in control.

Rollins follows up with a flying knee off the top rope followed by a low side kick to his face. Shoots the half, still only a two.

Owens tags in from there. He runs across the ring to knock Cesaro off the apron, then heads to the top rope. Ambrose catches him and, after a struggle, Owens defends himself and hits a freaking forward superplex. Holy shit, I guess it's Ambrose's turn to go to Suplex Township! He shoots the half and may have taken the win, but Cesaro appeared from nowhere and nailed him with a double stomp to break the pin.

An exchange later, Ambrose gets some space and hits the true hot tag. Cesaro goes house of fire, including deadlifting Owens and hitting a... forward slam? I dunno what it's called.

Whatever it is, Cesaro can't close the deal, so he follows up with the crossface. It works, but Rollins breaks it, so Cesaro catches him and hits the Cesaro Swing. He wants a Sharpshooter too, but Owens recovers by the west ropes, so Cesaro clotheslines him over, taking himself down too.

Rollins decides to go to the top rope, probably to take both guys down with a flying move, but Ambrose catches him and turns it into a superplex. All four men are down, and the legal men are outside the ring.

Ambrose gets to his feet first and keys in on Rollins, waiting for the champ to recover. Ambrose clotheslines him over the east ropes with vengeance, but gets his face kicked off by Owens, who slides back in the ring. Owens then tries for a Popup Powerbomb, resulting in a neat spot. The “Popup” part went without a hitch, but Cesaro slid in the ring and shoved Owens from behind, displacing him and allowing Ambrose to land clean on his feet. Meanwhile, Owens bounced chest-first off the ropes, so on the rebound, Cesaro hit him with a German Suplex to rolling pin... and kept him down! Nice!

Cesaro and Ambrose celebrated their win on the announcers' table for some reason while Owens threw a temper tantrum and beat up the stairs. Heh.

Final Thoughts: Decent night, but nothing overly noteworthy. Not very many stories advanced either. I mean, for all of Wyatt's creepy shit, he didn't actually do anything or bring up new information. I wouldn't call it a wasted appearance by any means, because it was entertaining, but... meh.

Think I'm upset about the lack of divas? Surprise! I'm not! ...Well, maybe a little disappointed, especially since they could have fleshed out the card a little. But the thing is, the divas are getting their shot finally, and I don't think a one-off week where they're just not booked is necessarily indicative of some sort of emerging trend. Same with, for example, Roman Reigns not appearing in the flesh today: who cares? One week without Reigns (or Cena, or Orton, or Big Show, or Kane, etc.) isn't the end of the world for him or his push. As long as the divas are back next SmackDown, I'll be happy. They'll certainly be back on RAW unless WWE goes all-out with memorial packages for Piper.

Ah, Piper... you shall be missed. Like I said in the precap, I hope WWE gives him the ten bells rather than just a splash screen. I don't know where he stood in WWE's pecking order and whether Vince thinks he “deserves” it (especially coming so soon after Dusty's death), but I think it's necessary. Either way, I'm looking “forward” to it, in the sense that I'll be happy to relive some memories, though it certainly should have come from better circumstances.

Bah. No more sad thoughts. Have a good weekend, everyone. Hopefully we'll get back to normal next week.

Episode Grade: C