WWE Smackdown preview (June 6, 2014): Strong at the broken places

What you need to know

Hey, did you guys hear about this Seth Rollins cat? What a dick, right?  Anyway...

Well, there is no anywaying it away.  Triple H promised us that he'd make The Shield no more, and he did it.  Batista left, Seth hugged it out with Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose to celebrate the Hounds victory over Evolution and then took out his brothers with a steel chair before rubbing elbows with The Game and Randy Orton.  Many hearts were broken.  And still are.

For more information on these shocking events...click on any link posted on this website this week, basically.

Other stuff did go on in the fallout from last Sunday's Payback show, I promise.  United States champion Sheamus and Rob Van Dam got a tag victory over their opponents from the pay-per-view (PPV), Intercontinental champ Bad News Barret and Cesaro.  Barrett didn't like that he ate the pin in that match due to Paul Heyman's guy bailing on him, and let the world know it.  As a result, the Tuesday night rematch between Barrett and RVD on Main Event ended in a no contest, when The Swiss Superman hit the ring and laid out both men.

Damien Sandow's cast of characters now includes a good impersonation of Indiana Pacer's blowhard Lance Stephenson.  It doesn't get him anything more than a WMD from Big Show, though.  Bo Dallas win streak now includes a victory over Kofi Kingston, but it didn't earn him much more love than what Sandow got from the Indianapolis crowd, and Kofi definitely doesn't seem like a BOliever.

Stephanie McMahon needed someone to take out her anger on, and with WWE World Heavyweight Champ Daniel Bryan not there, she found a couple of surrogates.  One was John Cena, who dueled verbally with the Billion Dollar Princess, and got destroyed by THE DEMON KANE as a result.  The other was Bryan's sister-in-law, Nikki Bella, who almost got a win in a two-on-one handicap match against Alicia Fox and Aksana, but ended up just as destroyed as her man.

Adam Rose and Jack Swagger got about a month of build so that the newcomer could beat the former World Heavyweight Champ in about two minutes.  A program that's still building saw Cody Rhodes recruit Sin Cara as a "better partner" for his brother Goldust.  Goldy still couldn't return to the win column against Rybaxel, though.

The first man to qualify for a Money in the Bank ladder match that just might be for the WWE WHC was Alberto Del Rio, who defeated Dolph Ziggler on Raw.  Rusev only qualified for a fake Russian medal, but he gets to hang out with Lana, so I wouldn't feel too bad for him.

And in a match that surely would have been the talk of the town if it wasn't for that damned Seth Rollins, Luke Harper proved he could talk and work, Erick Rowan showed more in-ring prowess than we've seen from him to date and The Usos reminded us that they're great fun as long as they don't talk when The Wyatts took out the tag champs in a non-title affair.  Harper & Rowan also took out Goldust and another Cody-replacement in Kingston on The WWE Network on Tuesday.

What to look out for

Previews are spoiler-free, but this show was taped on Tuesday night in Dean Ambrose's hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.  You can read them here.

WWE.com tells us that Bray Wyatt returns to speak on his defeat in a Last Man Standing match against John Cena at Payback.

Reading the headlines of the preview post tells that Seth Rollins will address his shocking betrayal of his Shield-mates.  Unfortunately, the real response we want to hear - what Ambrose and Reigns will say to Seth - will probably be held back for Monday.

There seems to be a real commitment to getting the IC champ and his burdgeoning feud with fellow tweener Cesaro a bunch of airtime this week, so that will probably show up in some form or fashion.  And it sure would be nice to see the Divas champ once after her win on Sunday...

What they should do

Let Dean and Roman stomp a mud hole in that treachorous Rollins, that's what.

I'm still too mad/sad to fantasy book anything.  I'm going to go stare at the picture of Bo Dallas with an eagle for a while.  Although that might remind me that the Swagger/Rose program may have come and went with only a tease of some Soaring.

(sniff)

What we're afraid they will do

I'm a fan of all kinds of wrestling.  Hardcore. Comedy. Puro. Women. Lucha. Minis. Catch.  Even TNA (I kid, I kid).

So, I've enjoyed quite a bit of the El Torito vs Hornswoggle/Los Matadores vs. 3MB program - up to and including Sundays mask vs. hair showdown between the two little people.

But I did not need to see it continue on to Raw, and I don't need to see it tonight on Smackdown.

And if it's going to proceed on into its (I think) sixth month tonight, then maybe we could get some character development and motivation other than bad guys vs. good guys? (Come to think of it, I don't know that they even initially developed that.  They just trusted us to know that a guy in an animal costume is adorbs and guys in black leather are douches)

Their actions have shown us who the heels and faces are, but those actions have run their course.  Give us something new, or hire some new little people.

Can our broken hearts mend enough to enjoy some WWE sports entertainment tonight?

Join the Cageside Seats support group and tune into Smackdown with the open thread tonight!