I'm sure you don't care about the minutiae unless you're considering buying the things for a child, but the point is, since I wasn't too sure about the product, I took a chance by buying an old version of the game and a single figure both at 50% off, and the total cost was $32, which is way less than I usually spend on videogames. The gamble paid off, the game is fun, and now I can worry about upgrading what I bought to the current generation. But even then, I don't remotely feel like I “need” the toys; nothing is a scam if you feel that the money you spent is equal to the value of the goods.

This... this is what I've been spending my time and attention on. I've gone like three or four years without television now, which means I haven't watched any football in just about that time, and other than being curious about this Sunday being Peyton Manning's probable last game, I could not give less of a shit about the Super Bowl. How odd that my hobbies are basically anti-maturing as the years go on.

I wonder where WWE lies in that scale between Skylanders toys and the National Football League? Regardless though, you came for WWE, and that's what you're getting! Here's how SmackDown broke down this week...

Segment 1 [Singles Match]: Roman Reigns defeats Rusev (w/ Alberto Del Rio & Wade Barrett) by disqualification. We're getting right to business tonight, it seems. No opening promo.

A short feeling-out process to start as the guys do a collar-and-elbow tie up. It doesn't get anywhere and both guys break clean, but ADR grabs Reigns's ankle to distract him. Reigns exits the ring to yell at him, giving Rusev a chance to exit too and throw Reigns into the steel stairs.

The fight reenters the ring as we start the heel beatdown sequence already, though Reigns rallies a minute later and goes on his comeback sequence with a dozen lariats. Reigns then calls for the Superman Punch, but ADR and Barrett attack him to draw the DQ.

They pull him out of the ring and throw him shoulder-first into the barricade, but before they can do more, Ambrose hits ringside to make the save. He manages to dispatch Rusev, but when he exits the ring to deal with ADR and Barrett, Ambrose comes flying in with an elbow... that nails Reigns in the face. Ambrose hesitates over his mistake, giving ADR and Barrett a chance to attack him. But by the time they get organized, Reigns recovers and grabs a chair. The heels bail, and Reigns doesn't seem too concerned about Ambrose's accidental hit as they watch the heels celebrate and prance their way up the ramp.

A very short match, but it melded a couple stories and works as a standard setup to whether Ambrose and Reigns are really on the same page. Plus, as we see after ads, it sets up a tag match as the main event tonight.

Segment 2: Speaking of after ads, Renee Young finds Ambrose in the back and asks him if Ambrose was just giving us a preview of their triple threat match at Fast Lane. Ambrose insists that today's elbow was just an accident... “When I come after Roman, he'll know it.” Heh.

But Renee asks questions like an actual interviewer, quotes Ambrose back at him, and says “Are you going to go after Reigns tonight in your tag match?” Ambrose denies that, and says that he and Reigns have an understanding about when they beat the shit out of each other, and when they beat the shit out of others. Ambrose runs off, Renee just stands there, both smile, and we're out to the next segment.

Segment 3 [Singles Match]: Kalisto defeats Kevin Owens by flash pin. Dolph Ziggler is out on commentary for this one.

It's a heel beatdown from the very first second, since Owens pearl harbors Kalisto as he turned his back to give the US Title belt to a stagehand. Kalisto does hit a desperate suicide dive when Owens stumbles out of the ring, but he can't keep any momentum in the face of Owens's power. Owens is in control as we go to ads.

Back, and it's more power offense, and Owens shoots a few looks and shouts at Ziggler in between sequences. It's one of those moments of arrogance when Kalisto starts his comeback, which includes a neat spot where he kicks Owens down to his knees, bounces off the ropes, then delivers a low headscissors that slams Owens's face into the mat. It was like a combination of headscissors and DDT... maybe a “spike headscissors”? Very cool.

Regardless, Kalisto can't close the deal, even after delivering a full headscissors-to-DDT. Owens bails from the ring to catch his breath, and Kalisto tries to follow, but gets caught in a fireman's carry position. Owens then drops him across the barricade, and at some point, a piece of the “tail” of Kalisto's mask ripped off, and Owens has it firmly in his jaw. Weird.

Owens enters the ring long enough to reset the count before coming back out and clearing the commentators' table. He readies a powerbomb... but changes aim at the last second and powerbombs Kalisto into Dolph Ziggler himself. Ziggler pops up to his feet but eats a superkick from Owens, which nearly sends him over the barricade into the front row.

Owens grabs Kalisto and flings him back in the ring, but watches Dolph as he scrambles back to his feet. He taunts Dolph, who slips and slides his way toward the apron but doesn't actually enter the ring. Still, Owens enjoys himself by screaming insults at Dolph... which is why he doesn't expect Kalisto to steal one by rolling him up in a schoolboy pin. Dolph pumps his fist at Kalisto's win—or, perhaps, just as Owens's loss—as Owen's himself can't believe it. Owens his Kalisto with a forearm out of frustration, but with the match over, Dolph doesn't hesitate sliding in the ring for a save. Owens bails immediately and looks frustrated as he heads back up the ramp. Good match, both in quality and story.

Segment 4: Jojo tries to interview The Miz, who insists he doesn't interrupt anyone, which he states by interrupting Jojo. Heh. He goes on to verbally shit on AJ Styles, which includes tying him to Daniel Bryan again.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Ryback defeats Erick Rowan (w/ Braun Strowman) by pin. Hm, Ryback isn't wearing a singlet anymore. In the four months I've been not paying attention, Ryback looks more cut than he used to. Is that just me?

Regardless, Ryback plays the roll of a cruiserweight as Rowan starts the beatdown from the start, going all roughneck offense. That includes squeezing Ryback's templers with his fists as a resthold, a move I don't really buy since Ryback could simply, you know, move a few inches. But Ryback eventually fights out of it and hits... a missile dropkick off the second rope? Really? Holy shit, he really has gotten in better shape.

The dropkick starts a rally that concludes with him signaling for the Meathook. As he does though, Strowman pops up on the apron to talk some shit. Ryback notices him, grabs Rowan, and flings him head-first to send him as a battering ram into Strowman's gut, knocking him off the apron. Ryback bounces off the opposite ropes meanwhile, so as Rowan finds his feet, Ryback beheads him with the Meathook. Pin, three, done. The clean win was actually a surprise to me in this serviceable match, and its short length was actually a positive given its flow and pace. Solid work from everyone.

After the match, Strowman entered the ring and pearl harbored him, but the momentum took Ryback out of the ring. Ryback found his feet immediately; though Rowan and Strowman stood tall in the ring, Ryback was no worse for the wear and kept his eyes on them as he headed up the ramp.

Segment 6: Renee Young interviews Becky Lynch... or tries to. After a replay of the RAW divas situation, Renee asks why Becky would have saved Sasha Banks once she was attacked by Naomi and Tamina on Monday. Before Becky can really answer, Sasha magically appears and declares she doesn't need any friends or any help; Becky replies that she just tries to help anyone who needs it. They bicker like an old married couple, but in the course of it, they somehow agree to form a temporary tag team. Renee is confused as both ladies storm away from her. Heh.

Segment 7 [Singles Match]: AJ Styles defeats The Miz by submission. Chris Jericho is out on commentary for this one. He does his full entrance, including with the Lite Bright jacket, but discards it once he gets behind the commentary table.

Striking offense back and forth to get started, though Styles gets the “win” on the flurry exchange. Miz tries a cheap shot to get back in control, but Styles defends against it and sends him out of the ring. Not content to leave it like that, Styles follows up with a vaulting springboard press, except at the last second he slows down gravity to throw a punch. It's a like a Super Superman Punch. Good stuff.

Styles doesn't follow up, and just flings Miz back in the ring, then hops up on the apron. Miz recovers and charges; Styles pulls the top rope down, but and Miz is sent flying, but again recovers quickly and pulls Styles off the apron, then drives him into it. Thus, Miz finally has a little offense as he also flings Styles into the barricade.

Miz returns the fight to the ring and goes for dirty offense as he targets the head and neck. Whenever Miz goes for pins, Styles always kicks out at one. That's probably a weird detail for me to notice and call out, but it's unusual enough that it did stand out. Is there something to it, or is it just his faster pace?

Miz continues his dirty and striking offense, but AJ finally gets a breath when he blocks a corner charge, and in the course of fighting back, he and Miz nail each other with simultaneous clotheslines. Strangely, the pacing seemed a little off here to the normal TV pace: it sounded like Mauro Ranallo was trying to throw it to commercial one minute before they did, but he was interrupted by Jericho, and then Miz and Styles started pinning each other, so they still couldn't throw it to commercial. Finally doing so when both guys were down from double clotheslines was weird, as it removed the tension from the moment. Once we were back, Styles was in the middle of his comeback, which is also unusual timing. Once again, these are the things I notice. I wonder if it's too late in my life to consider going into entertainment production. Probably... man, I wish I could redo the last fifteen years of my life.

Anyway, my personal regrets aside, Styles continues his rally but can't close the deal with a fireman's carry-to-backbreaker. Miz responds with a DDT, but only gets a two as well.

Both guys continue going back and forth, and the fans are digging it, but the commentary seems a step behind as Styles teases a Styles Clash. Miz counters it into a pin, which Styles re-counters to a different pin. That's how Jericho lost to Styles on Monday, but Miz learned the lesson from that match and slipped out. However, Styles rolled with the counter and turned it into the Calf Crusher. Miz resisted for two seconds before frantically tapping out.

Good match, and easily the best one I've seen from The Miz in a long time. My only complaint is that the commentators were way too far into the “whatever you did outside WWE doesn't count!” rhetoric that always annoys the piss out of me.

Post-Segment 7: After the match, Jericho grabs a mic and enters the ring, essentially cutting a promo for him. “We all know you're good, or you wouldn't have beaten me. You're good... but are you great?” Nice line.

Jericho repeats the question, and asks if Styles is good enough to beat Jericho twice. Jericho has lost sleep over his loss, so he challenges Styles to a rematch next week on SmackDown, and encourages a hashtag campaign for no reason. Jericho offers his hand, Styles shakes it and accepts the match. Then they glare at each other without releasing hands; the camera mic picks up that Styles tells Jericho “I'm phenomenal, Chris. And you'll find out... again.”

Jericho wryly smiles, and they continue glaring at each other, even as Jericho exists the ring and heads up the ramp.

Segment 8: Jojo interviews Reigns in the back, who says that Ambrose is crazy, but that's awesome. He admits that he and Ambrose aren't ever on the same page, but they might be in the same book. Doesn't matter; he knows the elbow earlier tonight was an accident, but that “Fastlane won't be an accident. It'll be an 18-car pileup.” Nice.

Pre-Segment 9: The New Day hits the ring and blathers about how awesome they are since they have their Tag Titles. They also start quoting the shit out of Talladega Nights, and conclude that even Ricky Bobby knows that New. Dayrocks.

Then three members of the Social Outcasts pop out to talk shit, mainly from Adam Rose, who points out that the Tag Titles are actually made of bronze, and they're totally going to take them. Everyone argues with each other, until Curtis Axel points out their horns make them rhinoceroses, a word he can't pronounce apparently. This is enough to piss off New Day enough to take things seriously, and it's on.

The segment was... kinda droll, but not great. And heel-vs-heel matches are usually less than stellar, but let's see where this goes.

Segment 9 [Six-Man Tag Match]: The New Day defeats the Social Outcasts by flash pin. Woods and Slater start off with a short exchange that causes both guys to fall out of the ring, which draws both teams to bicker with each other. This takes us to ads.

Back, and Slater is on offense with Kofi playing the face in peril. Quick tags, striking offense, you know the drill. After a tag to Rose, he couldn't maintain the offense, and Kofi tagged out to Big E. The Unicorn Stampede kept Rose contained, thus their roles were reversed as New Day started their own heel beatdown.

It didn't take long for Rose to make a hot tag, which resulted in a stellar chain wrestling exchange between Kingston and Axel, one that features about a dozen slips and counters. Axel finally delivered a stiff running knee after Kingston whiffed on a Trouble in Paradise, and that caused things to break down into a Pier Six Brawl. The result of that was Kingston hitting a Trouble in Paradise on the illegal Rose, and Axel trying a flash pin on Kofi. Axel dirtied up the pin by putting his feet on the ropes for leverage, but Woods put a quick stop to that from outside the ring.

Axel shot up to his feet and bitched out Woods and E, who beat the shit out of his tag partners outside the ring. This gave Kingston a chance to try the exact same pin, a schoolboy with his feet on the ropes. The ref again didn't see the rules being broken, but Axel didn't have anyone left to make the save and took the loss. Fun little match that didn't drag, though Kingston and Axel's mid-match chain wrestling was the absolute standout moment. Both teams look good afterward too; the Social Outcasts didn't lose a thing aside from the match itself.

Segment 10 [Singles Match]: Charlotte (w/ Ric Flair) defeats Alicia Fox (w/ Brie Bella) by submission. Simple exchange to get started as Alicia wins the first, but Charlotte wins the second, both on strikes. Charlotte gets the first big strike as she throws Alicia in the corner; Alicia tried a flip kick between the ropes but Charlotte caught her and turned it into a neckbreaker drop, then literally kicked Alicia out of the ring.

Charlotte hesitated getting back in the ring since she talked some trash to Brie, and Alicia delivered several forearms once she did. But Charlotte quickly regained control from there with strikes and submission headscissors. Alicia fought to her feet, and both women kicked each other with big boots. It looked good in the moment, but a little silly on the replay.

Both women back to their feet, Alicia went punchy-kicky and kept Charlotte contained. Alicia punctuated it with a backbreaker, but couldn't close the deal.

Alicia pulled Charlotte to her feet and continued the attack with a bridging suplex, but Charlotte kicked out of that too and delivered a chop block. Charlotte quickly transitioned from there to a Figure Eight, and Alicia tapped shortly. Overly short match I feel, but it was well-worked and clean from start to finish, giving Charlotte a little momentum back from her recent loss streak.

Segment 11: In an Earlier Today, R-Truth is arguing about his hotel bill. Why the cameraman is there for this I'll never know, but regardless, Goldust arrives dressed as a bellhop to once more sell them on teamwork, though it just results in Goldust accidentally dumping all his clothes all over the floor. Goldust then asks to borrow Truth's underwear, which is my exact strategy in picking up girls. I'm sure the fact that I haven't been laid since 2003 is a total coincidence.

Segment 12 [Tag Match]: Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose defeat the League of Nations (w/ Wade Barrett) by pin. Ambrose and Rusev to start, and it's actual technical wrestling, which seems kinda weird given the guys involved, but it looks good. It also serves to give Ambrose a way to “overpower” Rusev just by working on his joints and such, which looks legit. Ambrose does pretty well and continues the offense by driving him to the faces' corner, where he tags out to Reigns. The match goes more power-oriented from there, with an exchange of heavy blows that concludes with Rusev hitting a solid roundhouse kick.

Reigns is then on dream street as ADR tags in and works a rest hold targeting Reigns's head and neck. Quick tags and heavy strikes help the heel beatdown, and Rusev throws in some suplexes and other slams as well. Reigns finally gets a prayer by hitting a Samoan Drop out of nowhere, but it's enough for him to hit a hot tag.

Ambrose goes house of fire—nearly bowling over the ref in the process—as he puts Rusev down. During the flurry, he hit a middle rope missile dropkick; ADR ran over on the apron too late to knock him off. It got Ambrose's attention, and he took a swing at ADR. It missed, but ADR hopped off the apron to dodge it. Rusev then charged Ambrose from behind, but Ambrose ducked it and took the top rope with him, sending Rusev out to join ADR. Ambrose, sensing a moment of crazy, hit a suicide dive through the ropes to take Rusev down.

Not sure where ADR went during that, but Ambrose hit the move without interference, then threw Rusev back in the ring. After an exchange, he tried a Dirty Deeds but was fought off with a big kick. Ambrose hit his wacky lariat, and both guys went down. Second hot tag as Reigns got control, and he cleaned house before signaling for the Superman Punch. Barrett unsuccessfully tried a distraction, and Reigns hit his finisher.

The pin attempt was broken up by ADR, so Ambrose made the save. ADR muscled Reigns out of the ring, and they jockeyed for position as Ambrose tried another suicide dive. ADR dodged it, so Ambrose nearly struck Reigns. Reigns caught him so neither was harmed, but Reigns did interrupt the match to have a little heart-to-heart chat about things. The heels tried to take advantage of it by attacking both guys from behind, but the faces had each other's backs: Rusev ate a second Superman Punch, and ADR got his head bounced off the commentators' table by Ambrose.

Reigns tossed Rusev back in the ring, hit a Spear, and shot the half. ADR was already halfway up the ramp by then, so there was no save coming. After the match, Reigns and Ambrose chatted, and they were all smiles.

Final Thoughts: This was a surprisingly packed SmackDown episode. To quote Rick on Monday, it had a high floor: there's nothing here that will be talked about after a few days, but it had more matches than usual, all solid at worst, some with interweaving storylines, and a good mix of finishes. And I confess the main event went in a slightly unexpected direction, since the usual wrestling writing pace means that it would be Reigns hitting Ambrose with an accidental (or “accidental”) strike to “even things up.” But instead, Ambrose looks like he has no control, which is perfect for is character and can tease one or both turning, but giving them enough wiggle room to have neither turn. Either way, it gives a few possible storyline branches that can work, and it'll keep us guessing.

I said everything else I needed to say in the body, and I'd recommend giving this one a watch if you have nothing better to do this weekend.

Episode Grade: B