Review: WWE Smackdown (7-11-2025)
7-Eleven! Like the store!
Live from Nashville, so you KNOW Jelly Roll’s gonna have somethin’ to say! Haha! That’s right! JELLY ROLL!
Matches
Alexa Bliss vs Roxanne Perez vs Sol Ruca vs Kairi Sane: Why do they keep putting Kairi in singles matches? I wish I didn’t feel that way. I wish I didn’t feel I was honestly reasonable to feel that way. Three of them have their tag partner with them — Charlotte Flair, Raquel Rodriguez, Zaria. Asuka is not here. Possibly revisiting American Truck Simulator.
Ruca gets to show off her athleticism to a largely new crowd, and Flair gives a big reaction at ringside when she does. When Perez and Ruca get into it, Barrett says, “It’s a whole new test now against Roxanne Perez,” and as he’s saying it you can feel him realize Roxanne just got here from NXT, so he adds, “who I’m sure she knows fairly well,” which is funny.
Roxanne and Alexa match up well as abnormally short WWE Superstars and Perez’s tempo and skill level almost starts bringing out the better in-ring instincts of Bliss, who was never a Roxanne-level ~worker~ or anything but basically coasts on her popularity. Which is fine!
No, wait, Asuka is there. Did she get there late?
Boy, much like the Royal Rumble, this match sure is a lot of Roxanne Perez carrying people and inspiring them to up their game. HEY! Kairi isn’t so bad if you hide her a bit and let her just pick spots. (I don’t dislike Kairi. I never could dislike Kairi.)
Raquel gets involved to help Roxanne not lose, then overpowers and hurls Zaria while footing Asuka in the face, but Charlotte Flair has SEEN ENOUGH and hucks Raquel over the commentary desk. Charlotte seems to be having a good time out here, honestly. I mentioned down below that she and Alexa seem to be starting to have some fun with what they’re doing, and that’s helping.
Alexa pins Kairi to win it. **½
Dexter Lumis & Joe Gacy vs Street Profits: Profits out first because this company does not respect tradition, but they are defending their belts. The dread I feel being about 90 percent sure that the Wyatt Sicks are about to win the tag belts is illogical; I don’t really care who holds the tag belts on Smackdown, it’s not an important issue in my life at all. But it is a real feeling I’m having. I think my main issue is not so much that they are an inferior tag team in an otherwise pretty good division, by the standards of WWE tag team divisions being divisions, but I just don’t like much of anything about this Wyatt Sicks deal.
I’m basically just accepting, though, that they’re going to be regulars, and hoping for the best with it. Paul Creative has figured out a way to work them into the more normal rhythms of a wrestling show, and it’s by just, like, putting them out there and letting the collection of props and costumes just sort of exist alongside everything else. Like, they can’t be doing mass murders and shit, it just doesn’t actually play beyond the initial 30 seconds of going “???” about it; that sort of thing is also the issue Bray himself had with so many of his ideas, surface-level intrigue that had nowhere to go in the setting because it was all meant, at its core, to be a series of social media videos more than part of a wrestling show.
One sincere problem I have with the Wyatt Sicks: Their best wrestler never wrestles. Neither does their second-best wrestler.
Gacy again does some solid work here, and Lumis is at least not barfing a fart weekly like he did in that MCMG match, which honestly (1) is going to be the stuff of legend to me personally, and (2) probably is skewing my feelings on the group overall, because they’re not going to be that bad all the time. I don’t think Lumis is very good, but he’s also not that bad.
Dawkins is excellent as usual, and the Profits are doing what they can here. I’d be happy to get a Dawkins vs Gacy singles match sometime. This gets plenty of time and everyone works hard, and no, I don’t think it’s a bad match. Pretty solid! Pretty decent.
Gacy and Lumis, “The Wyatts,” do win the tag belts, as Lumis dodges Ford’s frog splash and Montez gets doubled up-upon, hitting their Mortis and Wrath ass finisher. ***
Backstage, we see Motor City Machine Guns and Fraxiom reacting, then DIY join. This “the entire division is terrified of the Wyatt Sicks” thing is terribly forced. Rey Fenix and Andrade also join in now. Nothing new or interesting is said.
Aleister Black vs R-Truth: Well, I would tell you how I hope this goes, but it’d make it seem like I don’t actually care about R-Truth at all, and as we all know, everyone truly cares about R-Truth. They clear 15 seconds so I don’t get my wish. Black wants to use a chair and the referee won’t let him, which leads to an R-Truth O’Connor Roll for the win.
Backstage, with Black going after Truth, Damian Priest cuts Big Al off and tells him he’s gotta let it go. Black “relaxes,” then turns back to knee Priest in the skull and kick him and stuff. You know, karate.
Solo Sikoa & JC Mateo vs LA Knight & Jey Uso: Alright, this one is straight up pretty bad. I have more patience for Solo and Co. than a lot of people do at this point, but this is already a match I feel like I’ve seen 10 times, and Knight is not Jacob Fatu. Like, the work is bang average, standard stuff, it’s not horrendous or anything, but without Fatu there’s just so little juice. And the WWE stint is not getting the best out of ol’ Cobber, either; he’s kind of a hit-or-miss guy with me in general, but the hits always came from matches a lot more physical and high-impact than a filler main event Smackdown tag is gonna be with a half-interested Knight and Jimmy Uso.
Devolves into lots of chaos and all that, you know the match, you’ve seen the match, you’ll see it again. Taller Tonga is in the background of Knight and Paul Heyman jabbering ringside, waiting forever, having to keep doing a little pose. Uso rolls up Solo for a sneaky pin, then escapes through the crowd and almost knocks over some fans. *½
Sikoa is livid with Heyman, who provided an accidental distraction, but getting distracted was on Sikoa, not Heyman. Knight hits the BFT on Sikoa then yells at Heyman, leaving him open to a “surprise” attack from Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed.
Other Stuff
Oh, yeah, Jelly Roll is in the intro. Ha ha ha! He runs into Randy Orton, who is “another Tennessee boy.” ??? Apparently? Apparently Orton “always has (Jelly Roll’s) back. ????????????
Later, Jelly Roll performs, or means to, before Logan Paul interrupts. I have absolutely no interest in this so I FF most of it. Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton get involved and Jelly Roll has to get … “physical” with Paul.
LA Knight is here and he says “The Wrestling Business” and talks about things Paul Heyman says a lot. Knight says Seth Rollins is “a little washed,” and joining forces with Heyman was a “desperate move” aided by a “goon trop.” Bronson Reed is a “slophouse” and Bron Breakker is a “dog-brained idiot.” Knight mocks Breakker’s little head shake. Reckons Seth isn’t capable of taking Knight out Rollins’ damn self. He will be kicking Seth’s damn ass ass damn, he is “The Spoiler.”1
Paul Heyman is here. Babbles a bunch about being “The Oracle” and says he knows Knight has no future at all.
And now here’s Solo Sikoa and His MFTs. They have a new shirt! Some people think Tama Tonga not being on it means he’ll never be aligned with this group, but I ask you this: What the absolute shitting fuck would Tama Tonga do in WWE if he’s not teaming with his brother at the very least? The point is they’ll make a shirt of anything, hope to sell however many of them will sell, and then break it up. “Y2AJ” got a shirt, man.
Anyway, Sikoa obviously has history with Heyman, so Heyman is backing down and he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, I guess. Sikoa simply suggests Heyman leave, so he leaves, just walks on out through the crowd. Sikoa shows Knight his U.S. title belt. If Knight doesn’t leave, they’ll injure his legs or back or neck or the like. Knight feigns leaving but doesn’t. So here come Solo Sikoa and His MFTs.
They surround Knight, and then a chair slides into the ring at LA’s feet, and it’s Jimmy Uso here with his own chair, too. A chair is “the ultimate equalizer.” I would say maybe a gun, but wrestling doesn’t have guns.2 Nick Aldis makes a match later between Uso and Knight and Mateo and Sikoa.
Backstage, Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair meet up. For some reason Charlotte is wearing what I can only describe — and it is not a negative judgment — as the outfit a ManyVids model would buy at Party City for a cowgirl-themed video. I don’t know if I care about what these two are doing, really, but they seem to be starting to have some fun with it, and that’ll help.
Fred Durst is here and Joe Tessitore calls him “an all-time great.” Later, their “friends from the UFC,” and Joe Tessitore puts on a little, uh, accent when he sees Daniel Cormier.
Wade Barrett steps into the ring to interview Tiffany Stratton and Trish Stratus. The last time Wade did this Tiffany started screaming at Charlotte Flair about her failed marriages. I don’t think I care about this much more than I did Logan Paul and Jelly Roll. Trish isn’t getting much reaction here, either, so it might not have been a tired crowd last week! It really might just be that so much of this audience did not grow up with her!
I honestly don’t understand who the fuck Stratton is as a character other than to say she behaves as is convenient for the current opponent. Stratton calls Stratus old. Girl, you picked her as your opponent!
Anyway, they get interrupted by Naomi, who is promptly jumped by Jade Cargill, who rains down blow after blow until they do a security pull-apart, so apparently Jade’s attack had no actual effect on Naomi, because she just kinda popped right back up there. ANYWAYS! Good call to not actually let Stratton and Stratus talk all that long.
Three Stars of the Show
Roxanne Perez: Obvious MVP of that four-way.
Sol Ruca: She was also fine.
Street Profits: Bless their hearts!
This was not a good show.
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Actually, that is Don Jardine. Ha-ha-haaaa. Ha-ha-haaaaaaaa.
Well, outside of Brian Pillman that one time. And Puppet the Psycho Dwarf.
Line of the night was Wade Barrett trying to claim that Truth was moving “like he’s 30 years younger”, which — judging by how he was moving — means that Ol’ Ron is about 87 years old.
Bless Randy Orton's heart for fully committing to that "You are DISRESPECTING THIS BUSINESS by not showing the PROPER RESPECT to this ICON OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!!!" bit. Like it was BAD but my goodness was old man Randy locked in.