Want to know what's happening in the major angles in WWE right now? Get eyes on our Raw preview and Reactions, since everyone knows Monday night is when the important stuff happens.
Want to know what is definitely happening on tonight's SmackDown from Indianapolis, Indiana? Peep our spoiler post.
On Thursday mornings, we'll dig into the mid-card, the interesting and/or horrible stuff happening on the fringe away from your John Cenas and Brock Lesnars (not that any of those guys are around right now, anyway). Plus, pretend for a spoiler-free minute that we're the Legendary Teddy Long and guess at the blue brand's patented tag match of the week!
Gobble, Gobble, Gobbledy-Gooker
If you've read my writing here at cSs over the past few years, you know I have a soft spot in my heart for WWE's goofy holiday-themed SmackDown episodes. At least when they avoid the Vince McMahon puke humor that we got when Titus O'Neil puked in JBL's hat...
My favorite was the Christmas edition where Santa Claus was runover by Alberto Del Rio's luxury automobile, and John Cena vowed to get revenge.
(Any excuse to run that GIF)
But it's not Christmas, and neither Ricardo nor John Cena will be on tonight's show. United States champion Alberto Del Rio will be there, however. And he's scheduled to face his old rival Jack Swagger. Now Swaggie is no Cena, and Zeb Colter is an entirely different breed of cat from ADR's old personal ring announcer. But anything they can come up with has to be more fun than the whole MexAmerica angle, right?
What they should do: Do away with any trace of seriousness, especially in whatever Jack Swagger was saying on Monday about wanting his old friend Zeb - the xenophobe who thinks women should be wearing cutoffs and bring him cold beers - back.
Use the holiday theme to give us a MexAmerican Thanksgiving. Let Zeb invite an assortment of people to break bread with he and Alberto. To mend fences with Swagger, Colter can offer him ribs that Jack can slather in fellow Oklahoman Jim Ross' barbecue sauce. Torito, JBL and Mark Henry can bring Hardees.
When babyfaces like Lucha Dragons or the Prime Time Players show up, the MexAmericans can get heelish and attack them with food from the table. Eventually, Ryback can show up to take apart the bad guys, make a joke about feed me more and send us all home warm with the Thanksgiving spirit.
Sure, it doesn't make a lick of sense. But are you telling me anything that's happened since Del Rio's return does anyway?
What we're afraid they'll do: Give us a long promo from Colter about how Thanksgiving is just haters way of celebrating the divisive spirit of Christopher Columbus. The All-American American then begs for his old uncle Zebediah - the one who used to make fun of Native Americans with him - to come back with him to the compound for turkey and stuffing.
In either of these scenarios, I don't even care if there's a match. I just want this gimmick to go away as quickly as possible.
The Theodore Long Honorary Tag Match goes to...
Our other pre-announced match is a battle for the #1 contendership of...the Intercontinental title. At least that belt feels important over Kevin Owens' shoulder. Dean Ambrose (who is going to win, because all feuds from before Seth Rollins' injury must be re-started now that that pesky tournament is out of the way) will face Tyler Breeze and Dolph Ziggler (whose feud continues, because...well, we already covered this).
So I'm grateful that I can still guess at what tag match we'll get on SyFy tonight. And as long as Big E, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods are running around as tag champs, I know what I'll guess. Especially since Creative looks to be set on giving us a three-way dance for the belts at TLC with Lucha Dragon and The Usos trying to take the tag titles off The New Day, let's say that those fellas and maybe a spare Superstar like Goldust or Ryback ends up in a multi-man fight.
And it'll involve food, and someone will get a pie thrown in their face. And mashed potatoes dumped on their head.
I love this stuff. Happy Thanksgiving!
(Note: I know some folks have come looking for a more definitive match listing - that will be posted behind spoiler text in the comments. If WWE.com releases more information on anything that's officially going to take place on tonight's show, that'll be updated here)