Episode Recap: February 26, 2015

It’s been a long, hard and occasionally glorious road for Daniel Bryan since his recent return to the WWE Ring. The "Yes!" Man's chances of taking on Brock Lesnar for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania were thwarted by Roman Reigns at WWE Fastlane, though the two opponents made for quite the team when they defeated Seth Rollins & Randy Orton at Monday's Raw.

Tonight, Bryan opened SmackDown with an impromptu squabble with Bad News Barrett, who recently had his Intercontinental Champion belt stolen by Dean Ambrose. The Lunatic Fringe himself joined the fray and teamed up with Bryan to deliver some really bad news to Barrett.

Ambrose later brought his inimitable brand of anarchy to SmackDown in his match against The Miz. However, during the action, Bad News Barrett managed to creep in and steal back his Intercontinental Title from The Lunatic Fringe.

There was plenty of Total Divas Drama on display as Natalya pulled a fast one on Naomi by pretending to be injured. The ploy managed to catch her opponent off guard and The Queen of Hearts delivered a sudden Discus Clothesline for the win.

Meanwhile, Rusev and Lana continued to taunt John Cena by refusing him a rematch after his loss at WWE Fastlane. This raised the patriotic ire of Jack Swagger, who confronted The Hero of the Russian Federation ... only to be locked in two excruciating Accolades.

Daniel Bryan and Bad News Barrett then faced off in a more official capacity, which ended with Barrett being defeated by The Beard's out-of-nowhere Running Knee. During the scuffle, R. Truth managed to steal the Intercontinental Title that Barrett had reclaimed earlier that evening and gave it back to Dean Ambrose. It's been a bad month for Bad News!

Other highlights included Fandango defeating Curtis Axel via the Last Dance and Goldust defeating Adam Rose (and taking on his own brother, Stardust, who was disguised as one of Rose's Rosebuds).

Finally, Dolph Ziggler, Ryback & Erick Rowan got a chance to redeem themselves when they faced their Fastlane opponents once again: Seth Rollins, Big Show & Kane. And this time, The Authority trembled rather than trampled!