Friday Night Smackdown Review (1/10/2025)

Friday Night Smackdown was a solid ending to an incredibly good start of 2025, but Friday night certainly gave some of predictions for the year feel very realistic. While there were some down points as well, here are my likes and dislikes from Friday’s show.

Likes

Cody Rhodes and Paul Heyman’s interaction was good, especially setting up Roman Reigns declaring for the Royal Rumble along with John Cena on Monday making this year’s rumble a huge deal. Kevin Owens continues to be a good villain with gripe, setting up their ladder match at the Rumble that will be a good match.

Tiffany Stratton with the WWE women’s championship is what a superstar looks like, clearly one of the next set of women to be the faces of WWE women’s division. The confrontation with Nia Jax setting up the 4-way to decide the number one contender between Jax, Bayley, Naomi, and Bianca Belair were fine but the match particularly good.

Just when you think that the women’s division on Friday nights was getting a bit stale, they had a particularly good match to remind us how awesome Bianca Belair is and how Bayley keeps strengthening her case for being the best of the original four horsewomen. Bayley wins the match setting a title match against Tiffany Stratton potentially the rumble, while Naomi and Belair can continue their tag title story. But may have the team Nia Jax and Candice LeRae coming to challenge for the women’s tag team titles.

And finally, I get to the thing like or excuse me loved the most which was the presentation of Jacob Fatu throughout the show. From cornering Paul Heyman, the backstage fight with LA Knight following the US title match, to the main event makes it clear that Jacob Fatu is set to have a big breakthrough year in 2025, and it is undeniable. Whether it is being a tag team champion, United States champion or dare I say Money in the Bank, the Samoan Werewolf is going to get his hands on championship gold it is just a matter of time.

Dislikes

The rematch between Shinsuke Nakamura and LA Knight was a slight letdown, but the US championship title picture seems confusing, hopefully Nakamura and Knight get a boost from this going into the rumble or elimination chamber. Either a better build for matches between them or a new serious contender comes in to make this title keep its momentum it had from Summerslam.

2025 just started of course, but the tag team division on Smackdown either had an off night or needs some retooling. Too many heel teams are the problem or the absence of the Street Profits or both things should be an easy fix to make tag team division part of the identity of Friday Night Smackdown going forward, making the most of the Motor City Machine Guns while they are in the WWE.

While I had Cody Rhodes and Kevin Owens in my likes for this episode, it also belongs with the dislike because it feels like it is dragging a little bit. Something happens at Saturday Night’s Main Event at the end of the month to give their match some more buzz at the rumble or a long overdue return of Randy Orton will add gas that this feud needs at the moment.