The battle royal for the United States Championship does open the show and features a bunch of people. Let's see, I saw The Usos, Curtis Axel, Rusev, Big Show, Erick Rowan, Miz, Mizdow, Stardust, Goldust, Los Matadores, Slater, The Gator, Adam Rose, Sin Cara, Justin Gabriel, Cesaro and Tyson Kidd. This was your basic battle royal with the highlight being that after Miz was eliminated, Mizdow eliminated himself because he's committed. The final four would come down to Cesaro, Rusev, Swagger and Kidd. I continue to love the shine that Kidd has been getting. Rusev retained after lastly eliminating Swagger. I guess we are going to get Swagger/Rusev again at TLC.
Concessions Kane is working the WWE Shop stand and has a funny little skit with Santino. I would like to see Santino run Raw and Smackdown. He could be Mick Foley like in the comedy department. Bray Wyatt comes out to cut a promo, saying that Dean looked like an angel atop that ladder, but there isn't room for people like he and Dean in heaven. This was a good promo. Bray is either hit or miss, but his delivery is always on point. I hope that he and Dean go nuts at TLC.
Divas Champion Nikki Bella faced Emma, while Brie was outside with the Divas Title. Why is Brie still accompanying Nikki? Isn't her time as Nikki's assistant up? Emma takes the loss in just about a minute and a half and Nikki gets on the microphone after the match. She claims to be what a real champion looks like and calls AJ pathetic, manipulative and a little girl. AJ makes a run in, so Nikki escapes while AJ brawls with Brie. I'm okay with AJ/Nikki continuing so I could get an actual match between them, but having Brie and Nikki be okay with each other is dumb. They wasted a ton of our time on stupid Jerry Springer like segments, only for them to be okay? I really hope this is all just Brie faking it because if not, it's dumb.
Kane has left his merchandise post and the table is broken. Daniel Bryan needs to understand that Kane is a terribly employee. He fave out free stuff on Raw and now broke his stand today. Time for Seth Rollins vs. Ryback, just a day or so after CM Punk's podcast appearance dropped and he called Ryback "steroid guy" and an unsafe worker. Seth was, of course, with J&J Security. Along with his match against Cesaro a few weeks ago, this would be one of the better Ryback matches ever. Smackdown is known for non-finishes but this one made sense to protect both guys. Kane came out with a chair resulting in a DQ. Ryback and Kane went at it, but Rollins helped swing the momentum to Kane, who laid out Ryback with a chokeslam.
On Raw, it seemed like New Day was going to make their debut on Raw next week, but instead we get it tonight. I'm okay with this, and they looked damn cool. New Day had matching attire and PYRO! They worked a six man tag against Heath Slater, Titus O'Neil and Curtis Axel, because they needed three random lower mid-card guys to go over. The New Day guys are really good friends in real life, which helped them be very crisp in their team up moves. The cheers during their entrance sounded extra dubbed in, but I think they can get over. They worked incredibly well together, everyone got to shine and they won. My only issue is that this is basically the same Kofi that we've seen for years, but at least it should be fun with the other two guys.
Renee Young, in her infinite perfection, interviews Daniel Bryan. He calls Ryback THE Ryback and announcing that at TLC, Kane will meet Ryback in a Chairs match. I'm okay with this feud because it should get Ryback a win over someone who can afford to take the loss. Renee asks if Bryan will be back soon, to which he responded with a loud "YES!" After a Raw recap, Gold and Stardust are shown and they're upset that they're missing the cosmic key. The main event would be the Intercontinental Title match, and I love seeing that title be a focal point, even if it is on Smackdown and not Raw. They fight outside and Dolph superkicks Harper over the announce table, before getting in the ring and earning the countout win. I enjoyed the match, but I felt that the countout win was lame. If Dolph wanted to win the title he would have rolled in and out to break the count. Maybe Seth/Ryback should have ended in countout with Kane pulling Ryback out and this end in a DQ. Regardless, it was a good match.
After the match, Harper attempts to attack Dolph but Dolph ends up with the upper hand and hits the Zig Zag. You know what? I enjoyed that episode of Smackdown. It didn't seem like throwaway stuff. The Nikki Bella/AJ Lee stuff was solid, Seth/Ryback and Dolph/Harper were both really good and I loved seeing New Day. 7.5/10.
