WWE SmackDown 4/25/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," with this episode being the first to come after a momentous WrestleMania 41. To close this episode, WWE gave fans a match that certainly deserved to be on the 'Mania 41 card last weekend, so better late than never, we guess. Prior to that, we saw singles gold change hands and a No. 1 contender's match interrupted, the outcome of which ... wasn't really ever made clear at any point; guess we'll find out later? And, oh yeah, we got our first official Backlash 2025 match. It's for the world title and maybe the future of the WWE or the wrestling industry, if you're into the whole "gravitas" thing; no big deal or anything.

If you just want the night's results without our opinions — which we admit can be extreme — head on over to the April 25 "SmackDown" results page. But if you're interested in what our team thought about this Friday's installment — including events like the three-team TLC tag title main event, the men's U. S. title No. 1 contender's party being crashed, and a former AEW star returning to WWE — then you're in the right place because these are three things we hated and three things we loved about the "WWE SmackDown" episode from 4/25/25.

When Randy Orton surprised John Cena with an RKO to open up Monday's episode of "WWE Raw," my cousin — who has not watched professional wrestling in over a decade — excitedly texted me, and informed me that she was about to start watching WWE again now that her childhood idols have been given an opportunity to have one last ride together. I told her that I will gladly keep her up to date on all of the storyline's developments, as I was also anticipating a hot feud going into Backlash.

I think I might omit this segment from my weekly update to her.

No matter how you feel about Cena's new heel persona, appropriated therapy-speak and all, I think that we can all collectively agree that this promo was disappointing. For a feud that is as high-stakes as this one — you have the guys who carried the 2000s and 2010s eras of WWE — this segment was so ridiculously low-stakes. Everything, from the attempts at invoking parental guilt to the overall lack of consistent motif throughout the entire thing, just sucked, and it's disappointing. It's so disappointing to have such a hot feud like this, and to have their first real promo segment flop.

Cena's heel character has been hit or miss for me, just in general. I understand — and, at times, appreciate — how he's trying to break the mold of what a heel traditionally is in this genre of entertainment (egotistical, barbaric, or some intersection of the two), but I think, in this context, the therapy-speak has got to stop. You can't continue cutting "you people" promos — you can't continue to appropriate therapy-speak and spout out what a "functional" and "dysfunctional" relationship is — when you are across the ring from the rival who made your career. You cannot keep playing by February 2025's script when your career rival is right there, ready to dissect you on a microscopic level. That's what you should be doing! Cena has to have a well full of content to use in order to really be a heel against Orton, and instead he chooses to divert his attention to the crowd. I get the crowd motivated his heel turn, but it is just so dissatisfying. Maybe I'm confirming all that Cena has prophesied, but if the shoe of disappointment fits...maybe that's the reason people turned on you, Cena.

Orton cooked Cena like, 80% of the time, but that bit about having children, though, just felt so contrived that it soured the rest of the promo for me. Keep everything else, why are we imposing parental guilt onto a guy who you've had a rivalry with for nearly two decades?

For what this feud is — two legends in the business revisiting their primetime rivalry one last time — this promo was, truly, shameful. It feels like there should have been higher stakes, more passion, in this segment, and what we got instead were the same Cena talking points since February and some off-handed comments about children. Geez.

Written by Angeline Phu

I'm not saying I told you so, but I am here to remind you that I manifested this happening in our "Where Do We Go From Here?" piece after WrestleMania 41 and despite the overbooked aspect of the No. 1 contender's match tonight on "WWE SmackDown," I absolutely loved this. Drew McIntyre finally recognized he's been screwed over one too many times in the main title picture on both brands, and he realized he's going to get nowhere with Undisputed WWE Champion John Cena right now because, in McIntyre's words, Randy Orton "jumped the line," so he's moving on to something else and it's certainly something that makes sense for him.

The promo segment ahead of the number one contender's match for the US gold tonight was excellent all around. Solo Sikoa attempted to take all the credit for Jacob Fatu's WrestleMania win, and he went as far as to say no one in their family wanted Fatu in WWE but him. As Sikoa was talking, the camera caught the perfect shot of Fatu giving him some epic side-eye before finally ripping the microphone out of his hands. Knight came out to ask for his rematch, as was to be expected, but when McIntyre's music hit shortly after, I was ecstatic (in part, because I was right.)

McIntyre made Fatu seem like the star he is with the way he hyped him up when demanding a match. He said he wanted to face the baddest dog in the yard, the baddest champion there is, and that's Fatu. That's a new match I absolutely want to see here very soon, as McIntyre desperately needs a new opponent and Fatu could certainly use some bigger guys to go up against during his reign, which is why McIntyre and Damian Priest both came to my mind immediately when thinking about where Fatu went from WrestleMania.

While the No. 1 contender's match wasn't my favorite thing on "SmackDown" tonight, I did enjoy how strong it made Fatu look when he wasn't even in the match. After everyone interfered, Priest, Knight, and Sikoa, Fatu got in the ring and took everyone, outside of Sikoa, out to further prove his dominance. I'm assuming it was McIntyre to win that No. 1 contender's match since it was Priest who came in to attack him, disqualifying Knight, but I also wouldn't be surprised if we saw another No. 1 contender's match next week, a triple threat between Knight, McIntyre, and Priest, with this being treated like a No Contest. I wouldn't hate that, as long as it's McIntyre to stand strong at the end.

Written by Daisy Ruth

After the biggest scalp of her career in a vicious match with Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania, you'll have to forgive me for thinking there could have been something new in the pipeline for Tiffany Stratton's run as WWE Women's Champion. 

Instead, "WWE SmackDown" gave a taste of that with an impromptu bout between Stratton and Jade Cargill — fresh off her own WrestleMania scalp over Naomi — only for the match to be called to an abrupt end thanks to the interference of Cargill's unresolved rival. Naomi costing Cargill is understandable since there's is a feud with so much weight behind it and is still relatively fresh off the press. But then Stratton's next title feud was made clear in the form of Nia Jax, returning to blindside the champion and hold the title she lost aloft her fallen body. 

Personally, Jax has established herself as a credible contender in the upper echelon of the women's division throughout her second WWE run, and her title reign last year saw plenty of high moments. It also saw the rise of Stratton from Jax's lackey, to Miss Money in the Bank, to Women's Champion at the expense of Jax in January. But it feels like their story ran its course with that cash-in and the subsequent matches. They had a one-on-one rematch in February, though it would end in disqualification through Candice Lerae's interference on behalf of Jax, and then they met again in tag team action with Stratton teaming with Trish Stratus against Jax and Lerae at Elimination Chamber. That match saw Stratton get the clean pin on Jax, thus seemingly ending their feud. 

Alas, here we are two months later rehashing things once again, with all of the other talent on the "SmackDown" roster and even in "NXT" if you consider that FrAxiom got their call-up this week. It just feels like a waste of Stratton's reign to keep her in the cycle with Jax when she has already worked with her for the past year, and to do it when her stock is the highest it has been throughout the run feels even more like one step forward and three backward. 

Written by Max Everett

Tonight's episode of "SmackDown" closed with a match that could've headlined a pay-per-view. At the very least, it should've been on one of two nights of WrestleMania 41. In fact, I made that very argument in this column last Friday. Whether it was the title match between Street Profits and No. 1 contenders Motor City Machine Guns or the TLC match that included #DIY, these three teams have been the focal point of tag team wrestling on Friday nights and earned a spot on the 'Mania card. Los Garza and Pretty Deadly have also been involved in the last few months. This division is much more fleshed out than the "Raw" division and they got 'Mania match (To be clear, I've been a New Day fan since the early days when y'all hated them and I've liked the Raiders since they were in ROH & NJPW).

It feels like all six men took being left off of "The Showcase of the Immortals" personally because they delivered the best match of the week that wasn't IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley. They wanted to make Paul Levesque and The Powers That Be regret leaving them off the biggest show of the year (and made them look even more dumb). We got a pay-per-view quality match for free from three of the best tag teams in all of wrestling. MCMG paved the way for modern tag teams and #DIY is a testament to that, but so are Street Profits. Each team played to their strengths and then some. The Guns did a Skulls & Bones through a table. Ciampa paid homage to one of the greatest TLC moments by dangling high above the ring while holding on to the belts with nothing beneath him. Ford used a fan's prosthetic leg as a weapon.

During the match, Joe Tessitore said all six men were "proving themselves." All they did is prove me right in the match deserving a "WrestleMania" spot. Those three teams have nothing to prove to anyone. They did what tag team wrestling fans already knew. The only thing that came as somewhat of a surprise is that the Street Profits retained. The titles have been hot potatoed between them for months, so a title change wouldn't have been a surprise. I'm glad to see the Profits retain and would like to see them hang onto the titles for a while. Let's hope WWE follows up on this match and continues to allow the tag division to flourish.

Written by Samantha Schipman

Don't get it twisted: I appreciate WWE bringing back a talent on the first "SmackDown" after WrestleMania 41 and instantly reverting them back to their old character with the same name, old entrance theme, and otherwise all of the same elements. It's something that hasn't really been done in recent memory, and automatically makes the man in question, Aleister Black, stand out by doing something a little bit different than with other returning stars. That being said, presumably putting Black straight in a feud with The Miz instantly took away from that hype.

Black's return to WWE should be treated as a big deal, especially because he's been away from the company for several years and it was heavily rumoured for a number of weeks. However, with The Miz's current position as a lower midcarder and the manner in which he's been booked as of late, choosing him as Black's first opponent seemed like both an illogical and random decision. While the idea of Black coming back and taking someone out straight away is perfectly fine, choosing someone like The Miz's tag team partner Carmelo Hayes would've made far more sense as he's coming off the back of some momentum from his Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal win and has been searching for a storyline over the last several weeks. It's pretty hard to dispute that seeing Black in WWE once again is exciting, but if the company wants to keep the interest in him from waning, then they may perhaps consider keeping the interaction between Black and The Miz as simply nothing more than a one-time occurrence.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

In our post-WrestleMania 41 "Where Do We Go From Here" piece, I posited that Bianca Belair would need to get involved in the Naomi-Jade Cargill situation on "WWE SmackDown," and that Naomi/Cargill would need to up the ante if this feud was to go anywhere. While I'm glad that I was right, I'm even more glad that they're handling this feud progression with thoughtful intensity.

Okay, it's a bit stupid to be this excited over a feud that is still very much in its infancy — especially in a business like wrestling, where anything can happen — but you know what? All three women have made a good first impression, and I have faith that this trio can tear the house down with this feud.

First case in point: I'm so pleased that Naomi's heel turn is not going to waste. Changing her whole modus operandi with her new, caution-taped inspired heel persona was a risk, and I'm glad that, even with a WrestleMania loss to her character's name, all of her effort is not being put to waste. Naomi stormed the ring during Cargill's exhibition match with WWE Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton, and absolutely tamed Cargill's storm with a few choice tosses into the metal posts. It's great that she is still being posited as a threat, and if her backstage snap at Nia Jax later Friday evening tells us anything, she's not letting her loss against Cargill slow down her momentum either. Naomi continues to sink her teeth into this deranged, violent heel persona every week, and it is working.

I also have no issues with Cargill's brief detour to a match with Stratton. While I don't think she should start a full-time run towards Stratton's world title, I think having her briefly show her stuff in an exhibition match with Stratton — combined with the understanding that she does have intentions on gunning for Tiffy — has its merit. It establishes her as a threat not just within the admittedly-limited context of her feud with Naomi, but within the ecosystem of the women's roster. She is not just good at beating up Naomi — she can go toe-to-toe with anyone.

Belair's involvement this week was admittedly thin, due to finger injuries sustained during her own WrestleMania match; however, for what she lacked in physicality, she made up for in eloquence during a backstage interview. Belair just makes you want to listen to her. Whether it's her cadence or her overall disposition, she is great on the microphone, even during these small moments. It is these moments of quiet confidence and power that can empower a wrestler, even when there is no in-ring physicality to back it up.

Naomi, Cargill, and Belair aren't just setting up a great feud; they're setting themselves up for success post-feud through their impeccable in-ring and out-of-ring skills. While nothing much has happened yet, we can trust and believe that, when the time comes, these three will show up and show out, just like they did tonight.

Written by Angeline Phu