WWE SmackDown 01/24/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show that's kind of (but not really) a go-home show for "Saturday Night's Main Event" with Royal Rumble just a week away! Between that and the persistent three-hour runtime (which, it must continue to be emphasized, is not helping anything) there's a lot going on this week, and we can only focus on the things that moved us the most, either in a positive or a negative direction.

Damian Priest coming to "SmackDown," Charlotte Flair announcing her return, the tag titles getting a PLE spot; these are some of the things that caught the eyes and hearts of the WINC staff Friday night. If your fave didn't make the cut, don't worry about it — you can still find coverage of their performance on our "SmackDown" results page, which is both comprehensive and factual. Here in the subjective world of our opinions, only the lucky few make the cut. These are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 1/24/25 episode of "WWE SmackDown."

Week in and week out, Motor City Machine Guns (MCMG) and #DIY constantly elevate WWE's tag team division. Not only have they put on phenomenal matches, all in the name of creating this spectacular revenge feud between DIY's Johnny Gargano and MCMG's Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley, but they have managed to pull out severely underutilized tag teams, like Los Garza and Pretty Deadly, from catering. Now, MCMG and #DIY have done another huge service to the "SmackDown's" tag team roster: they got the WWE Tag Team Championships a spot on the upcoming Royal Rumble card.

In case you needed a reminder, I present this disturbing statistic: the last time WWE featured the men's tag team titles on a premium live event, it was when A-Town Down Under and Awesome Truth won the tag team titles at WrestleMania 40 — nearly a year ago. That becomes even more disturbing when the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships, titles that many consider to be the most inconsequential, ornamental titles in the company, were featured on a premium live event card as recently as Crown Jewel 2024, in November. What reasons WWE had for keeping the men's tag team division stifled and underrepresented, I don't know. What I do know, however, is that MCMG and #DIY are the primary catalysts for bringing the tag titles to their further glory.

Shelley and Sabin are absolutely incredible in-ring performers. Every time they compete, they make their high-octane moves look effortless, and their style fits the palates of both the WWE purist and the independent scene adorer. 2024 was a great year for WWE and new signees, but even among the esteemed class of Jacob Fatu, Giulia, Stephanie Vaquer, and Ethan Page, Shelley and Sabin have had, arguably, the most impact on their division. Seriously — you do not fail to book the tag titles for nearly a year because the division is doing well. Shelley and Sabin's arrival onto the scene has revived "SmackDown's" tag team division, even beyond MCMG's expected honeymoon phase.

#DIY have been the perfect antagonists to MCMG's babyface beginnings. Obviously, there's that historical connection between Gargano and MCMG, but don't count out Tommaso Ciampa. It was Ciampa that enabled Gargano to turn heel against his friends, effectively setting up this storyline that is single-handedly keeping the tag division featured on Friday nights. Ciampa and Gargano are the ones masterminding Pretty Deadly's interference on MCMG, which brings them out of the booking void (and to great results, as Pretty Deadly are endlessly entertaining). Even when you take the sentimentalities of booking equity and personal ties out, MCMG and #DIY just have incredibly compatible styles that make every lock-up something worth watching. They aren't just keeping the tag division afloat, they are making it a spectacle worth actively paying attention to.

On a show that was so full of nothing, MCMG and #DIY brought substance to Friday's edition of "WWE SmackDown." I'll raise my fist to that (after all, nobody will do it for me).

Written by Angeline Phu

Video packages can be an effective way of generating hype for the return or the debut of a talent, but they have to be used sparingly and have a clear purpose to them in order to be effective. Charlotte Flair's promo video to get people invested in her return is a perfect example of one that isn't presented in such a manner, and is a prime example of what happens when they're overused and unnecessary to the show.

There was absolutely no logical reason to have Flair declare herself for the 2025 Women's Royal Rumble when having her appear as a surprise entrant in the match would've been much more exciting for fans to see play out and would make for much bigger headlines about the upcoming February 1 Premium Live Event. Yes, announcing her return date ahead of time does give fans a precise time and allows WWE to tap into her star power, but it also takes away from the surprise itself. We've seen time and time again from the likes of John Cena and Edge in the Royal Rumble 2008 and 2010 respectively how much chatter a surprise return could be, but the revelation ruins that surprise.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I was never a big fan of the "Superstar Shakeups" or even the WWE Drafts of years prior, but this year, I really think the transfer window is working. It's more subtle than a big ol' post-WrestleMania draft, and it was absolutely needed with both "WWE Raw" and "SmackDown" running much longer than their previous two hours. But the shining example of this transfer thing working for me is Damian Priest finally getting away from Judgment Day (albeit, now seemingly a crumbling faction), and more specifically, Finn Balor. We saw Priest take on Carmelo Hayes Friday night, and while that wasn't my favorite match-up (my feelings on Hayes' booking are a story for another day), it was so darn refreshing to see Priest doing something else. And the short segment of him backstage with Cody Rhodes where he says he'll see him soon? It was like a breath of fresh air. I'm a huge fan of Priest, and getting him away from Balor was probably the best thing that could have happened during this transfer window.

There are other smaller moves I'm a big fan of as well. I like the Braun Strowman switch from "Raw" to "SmackDown," because that means we're getting a pretty interesting matchup with him facing Jacob Fatu at Saturday Night's Main Event. A-Town Down Under's move to "Raw" seems random, but it'll be nice to see Austin Theory and Grayson Waller interact with different people on a different brand. I initially wasn't a huge fan of the Wyatt Sicks getting moved to the blue brand for seemingly no reason, but now that it was announced that The Miz is on "SmackDown" with no Karrion Kross to protect him, I'm liking it a bit more, and hoping it actually goes somewhere. There hasn't been any major changes like title or champion swaps like can happen in a Draft, which is often just overkill and unnecessary. I love the way WWE is going about this, and it's cool that all of these changes are pretty unexpected and haven't leaked anywhere until they've actually happened – at least that I've seen.

While I would like to see more "WWE NXT" talent transferring to the main roster, I suppose I can wait until after the Royal Rumble for that to happen. WWE also hasn't announced an official closure of the transfer window, which I'm also assuming will be a week or two after the Rumble. If things keep changing slowly and subtly, I'm okay with that. This feels more fresh and interesting than in recent years, and maybe it'll save us from full-blown draft episodes post-WrestleMania, so "NXT" call-ups can really shine.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The Road to WrestleMania is just beyond the horizon, and everybody wants to try and add their name to the incredibly exclusive lineage of Royal Rumble winners. So, declaring yourself for the Royal Rumble is fine — expected, even! Did we really have to squeeze several Royal Rumble declarations into one promo segment?

What should have been just a champion promo segment with Tiffany Stratton (and perhaps one interruption at most, two if we're being generous) instead devolved into an incomprehensible disaster. In a move that can only be described as WWE's attempt to meet a female performer quota, a total of eight women crowded into the ring to talk about the Royal Rumble, and by the time the fourth woman walked out, I was thoroughly exhausted.

Things started off on the wrong foot when Rhea Ripley interrupted Stratton to say ... next to nothing at all. As Stratton bragged that she would become the center of attention on the Road to WrestleMania, as the WWE Women's Universal Champion, Ripley interrupted her to say that she was also a champion, and could be chosen as the Royal Rumble winner's WrestleMania opponent. Well, yes! Certainly, WWE, you don't think we're that stupid — no need to explain the Rumble winner's championship claims.

Things only spiraled from there. Nia Jax appeared alongside Candice LeRae to declare herself for the Royal Rumble (like that's any news). Bianca Belair and Naomi followed it up with an odd back-and-forth about who was going to win between them, and Liv Morgan showed up with Raquel Rodriguez and poked at Ripley. Sure, there's the precedent for the following 6-Woman tag match for you, but that's literally all that could have come out of such a trainwreck. All of the participants' stories and stances make sense individually, but mish-mash them together, and it becomes exhausting-to-listen-to nonsense.

I was surprised with how much I hated this segment, since I'm typically a fan when promotions choose to showcase a varied assortment of their female roster. Most of the time, though, segments with such a diverse array of women are connected by an overarching theme, whether that is a common enemy or shared participation in a match (such as the Royal Rumble). You could argue that all the women involved had that through line, but that is where their similarities end. Stratton, Ripley, Jax, LeRae, Belair, Naomi, Morgan, and Rodriguez don't even share the same brand, much less intersecting storylines. When you try and squeeze all of their points and distant storyline beats into one segment, the segment becomes exhausting at best, and downright unintelligible at worst. It wasn't even like they couldn't stretch these declarations throughout the show. "SmackDown" is three hours long now, unfortunately! You couldn't have people declare in separate segments?

It's unfortunately looking like booking just decided to dump all of their women into one segment to meet some invisible diversity quota. Nobody came out of this looking good, and any attempts at hyping up the Royal Rumble have, unfortunately, flopped.

Written by Angeline Phu

A specific silver lining in the morbidly grey three-hour cloud that was this week's "WWE SmackDown" came from a familiar place in Jacob Fatu, once again showing in Solo Sikoa's absence that the "Samoan Werewolf" needs pushing to the moon. What's left of the New Bloodline has been forced to the backseat since Sikoa fell to Roman Reigns at the beginning of the year, but it's been a chance for Tama Tonga and Fatu to stand on their own feet without a banner, and a welcome opportunity for the latter in particular to flex his chops further than a simple yet rather infectious "I LOVE YOU SOLO!" Fatu was present as Tonga went head-to-head with LA Knight, cutting an entirely believable and impassioned promo before Tonga jumped in to give his own infectiously funny impression of the Tasmanian Devil. By this point, if you have seen the work of Fatu in the ring and on the mic, it is hard to ignore that he has an imbued sense of legitimacy as a professional wrestler.

He has been mesmerizing since being brought into the fold, with the argument that he even upstaged Sikoa with the gulf in talent between them. Now that his leader has stepped away, Fatu is only cementing that argument and it's clear he has the same aura that endeared fans to Jey Uso – who is actively reaping the rewards of that on "WWE Raw" — with a genuinely compelling character and physicality to add weight to the words he speaks. Very often in wrestling do big guys come in and get tagged as the next best thing, and in that vast sea of rough there are occasional diamonds waiting to be found. It should speak volumes that of a three-hour show with some of the very best names in the sport performing, Jacob Fatu was the one who stood out the most with such little screen time. It's getting time to fold that charisma and work rate into the main plot lines of the show, and since the United States Champion isn't overly active right now there's certainly some werewolf-shaped gaps to fill. Let's put some love on the name of Jacob Fatu.

Written by Max Everett

At the end of 2024, Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens was WWE's hottest angle, with critically acclaimed promo segments culminating in a highly-anticipated match at the rebooted "Saturday Night's Main Event."  Now it's the beginning of 2025, we're on the cusp of another "Saturday Night's Main Event," and Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens has become so boring and predictable that you didn't even notice this picture of them fighting is from the brawl that happened on "SmackDown" two weeks ago, not the one that happened this week.

I want to make it clear that Kevin Owens is still very much one of my two Special French-Canadian Boys, and as a result, by definition, he can do no wrong. I would argue he's been doing most of the heavy lifting of the angle since December's SNME, not just by parading around the "winged eagle" world title belt but by interacting with a wealth of different WWE characters over the past several weeks, from Drew McIntyre to Rey Mysterio to (inevitably) Sami Zayn. All the interesting questions surrounding the world title match at Royal Rumble are on Owens' side of things — will he ally with McIntyre and Seth Rollins, how will his relationship progress with Zayn, etc. Rhodes, on the other hand, doesn't really feel like he's been showing up for the latter half of this feud. He just keeps cutting basically the same promo over and over again, and then either Rhodes or Owens has a match and the other one appears in the aftermath, and they brawl and the show goes off the air.

This week's show couldn't wait to go off the air, and you can't blame the feed for cutting out early when the most entertaining part of the angle involved Owens barking at Matthew McConaughey. We didn't even get any of the interesting What Is KO Up To/Potential Scheming And/Or Plotting stuff this week, it was literally just Owens doing bog standard house show heel work culminating in an even-more-featureless-than-usual brawl. Owens' match with Jimmy Uso was perfectly fine — Jimmy has really been picking up the pace as a singles wrestler lately — but it got only the barest storyline excuse for happening and didn't have anywhere interesting to go during or the finish. In terms of the Rhodes/Owens feud, it was basically a filler episode, and it's a shame that it needs filler episodes because WWE already announced the rematch for Royal Rumble and wanted to save the contract signing for SNME. In other words, it's a shame Paul Levesque isn't better at long-term pacing.

if I have one takeaway from this week, it's that I need this feud to be leading to something actually big, preferably Owens winning the title. There's no more good will to coast on — the SNME segment has to land, the match at Royal Rumble has to land, and some kind of major story beat has to occur (and be well-executed) in order for all of this to have been worth it. I hope it turns out that way.

Written by Miles Schneiderman