WWE SmackDown 11/21/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show that has at last finalized all WarGames teams for WWE Survivor Series! We actually have quite a bit to say about the women's WarGames segment that closed Friday's show, as well as Cody Rhodes helping Carmelo Hayes advance in the Last Time Is Now tournament — and cut a frankly amazing promo afterward. That leaves us without much space to cover things like Penta beating Finn Balor or the Fraxiom vs. DIY match, but we will discuss Ilja Dragunov's latest open challenge US title defense, and in contrast, the absence of women's US Champion Chelsea Green (or any women's wrestling whatsoever).

For any who missed the show and need to catch up on everything, you can always fall back on our "SmackDown" results page. For those who want to know what the WINC crew thought of Friday night's events, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 11/21/25 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"

You'd think as Wrestling Inc.'s resident Carmelo Hayes fangirl, I'd be more happy about "WWE SmackDown."

Hayes took on Bronson Reed in one of two "The Last Time is Now" first-round tournament matches on Friday's episode of "SmackDown," and in a shocking turn of events, Hayes managed to advance in the tournament over wildly popular and incredibly dominant Bronson Reed, thanks to...the arrival of the entirety of CM Punk's WarGames team, and a fast count from the referee. We got a Hayes win in the big '25, but it was only thanks to Cody Rhodes literally chucking that poor man back into the ring.

It truly sucks that I have to Hate this, because the match itself was very good. After some extraordinary dominance from Reed, Hayes' inventive DDTs allowed him to gain ground in the fight to be John Cena's final opponent. I have to commend Reed: he took quite a lot of top-rope offense in order to make the agile Hayes look magnificent. It would have been easy — expected, even — of someone of Reed's size to either pluck Hayes out of midair, or to completely no-sell Hayes' athletic offense. Instead, Reed made Hayes look like a hundred bucks. That is what we call a great worker.

I knew things were going to be messy when Bron Breakker and Logan Paul began interfering in the match, but Hayes managed to hold his own surprisingly well. Hayes managed to flatten all three men on the outside with a gorgeous Suicide Dive, and for one guy, he was certainly bringing the fight to three men who are in the midst of incredible pushes. Things began to unravel, however, when Jimmy and Jey Uso came in to neutralize the ringside Paul and Breakker. If things had ended there with a victory for Hayes — one he earned on his own, no outside hands on his weakened frame — then I would have been happy.

I guess I should be happy about a Hayes win, especially over someone as heavily pushed as Reed, but I just can't see this as a total win, nevermind celebrate it as such. Sure, Hayes and Reed had a splendid match, where even in loss, Hayes may have turned heads. He might have advanced in the tournament. He might have gotten a win in his record. Did Hayes, however, really show Denver, and the rest of the WWE Universe, that he was "him," in the end? No. He got handed a victory — literally, spoon-fed a win by Rhodes' hands — and even then, it was immediately overshadowed by WarGames tensions — and an admittedly brilliant promo from "The American Nightmare." Which speaking of...

Written by Angeline Phu

Cody Rhodes has reminded us just who the hell he is.

Bronson Reed and Carmelo Hayes' "The Last Time is Now" tournament match was nothing short of chaotic, and yet, the most standout portion of that entire segment did not come at any point during their explosive match-up. It didn't even come in the form of Hayes' shocking win against "The Original Tribal Thief." No, the best part of that entire segment came in the form of Cody Rhodes, disheveled and irate, barking into the microphone as he verbally flayed and displayed every member of The Vision's WarGames team.

You might as well have lined up Drew McIntyre, Bronson Reed, Bron Breakker, Logan Paul, and Brock Lesnar and shot them, one by one. That's how gruesome and methodical Rhodes' promo was. He went down the list, and made a dig at every man destined to stand across from him in that hellish, two-cage nightmare. He acknowledged how long and drawn-out his feud with McIntyre is, but instead of underselling what has become an admittedly-tiresome cycle of events, he doubled-down on his intentions to rip McIntyre limb from limb. I can't wait to see Rhodes rip his head off in WarGames.

Rhodes then turned his sights to The Vision. He looked to be teeing-up Reed for a nod of recognition, but instead highlighted how dim the Australian was to be aligning himself with a group as treacherous as one led by Paul Heyman. Rhodes tore into Breakker with an old Steiner/Rhodes callback and spent a perfectly appropriate amount on Paul — which is to say, as little as possible — as he denounced his flashy, vlogger antics.Rhodes highlighted how he slayed "The Beast" not once, but twice — much like he has overcame nearly every Heyman Guy, current and former.

Rhodes cut at every one of his opponents, but his frenzied speech was what made this promo a show highlight. Rhodes only pulls out this tousled, primal version of himself for special occasions, and every time, it works. It's incredibly satisfying to see the prim and proper, PR-trained Rhodes shed the pleasantries and bare his teeth. It's extremely gratifying to see Rhodes remind the WWE locker room and audiences just who the hell he is, with a hoarse voice, heavy breathing, and not a care in the world for his lisp. Rhodes' raspy promos give him an edge, and even with his decorated career — both in and out of WWE — these promos do more to build him than any title does.

I know this promo style is special because Rhodes seldom uses it, but a selfish part of me wants to see more from the polished "American Nightmare." Let Rhodes loose in WarGames!

Written by Angeline Phu

WWE is oftentimes only really good at focusing on one main women's storyline at a time, though to be fair, it's one storyline per show, and that was never more clear than it was tonight. The star of the show, on the women's side of things, was WarGames, which of course, for good reason, since that match is coming up next week, but with the "Last Time is Now" tournament and the men's WarGames match storyline, that left very little time for any other women tonight.

Poor Chelsea Green, the greatest women's champion of all time (or, at least that's what she's calling herself, and she's certainly the greatest Women's US champ) didn't even get to have her big title celebration, the one that was promoted throughout the week. Sure, WWE isn't exactly treating the Women's United States Championship as anything special, but Green has made history as the first woman to win the belt twice. And, Green is the only woman to have held that belt to make it feel like anything special, so she really deserves some credit. If you were going to do one other thing with the women, maybe by shortening up Ilja Dragunov and JD McDonagh's match, it should have been Green's celebration, even if you didn't set up a challenger for her tonight. 

Or have her start some kind of extravagant celebration, only for it to be interrupted by a challenger, only for Green to continue to attempt to hold a celebration in every city for the rest of the year. I hate to say it, but Green's acting, and I hope they weren't real tears, really drove this all home tonight. I totally understood what she meant when "the vibes weren't vibing," because they certainly weren't for the women's division outside of WarGames tonight.

Even Jade Cargill, the WWE Women's Champion, only got an extremely short backstage segment with Alba Fyre tonight. They belted up Cargill at kind of a strange time, with all the WarGames stuff going on, but she at least could have done something more substantial, and in front of the live crowd.

There were also no women's matches tonight, which was really surprising, as WWE loves to do its tag team matches, or singles matches involving one person from either team. It was strange to me that it wasn't done tonight, with a women's match as the main event, something like a Nia Jax versus IYO SKY or Lash Legend and Alexa Bliss. Of course, those matches usually don't end with a clean finish, but that would have actually worked well, with the fifth members of the WarGames team coming up in a post-match brawl to make everything official.

Written by Daisy Ruth

This week was the fifth week that Ilja Dragunov defended his United States Championship in an open challenge during "SmackDown," with JD McDonagh answering the call this week and looking to do what Axiom, Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black, and Nathan Frazer had all failed to do previously. To put a long story short, he didn't. And while that in itself is a good thing, the match itself was really good and that generally is the main thing when it comes to a match. 

On a slightly bitter note, Dragunov's reign has been thrown very little in the way of creative development. The main storylines for him at the moment are the ongoing "This is an open challenge for anyone but Tommaso Ciampa" and "Tama Tonga stares at him for a little bit backstage," and that does leave much to be desired. But when the bell rings, there can be no argument that Dragunov – as well as each of his competitors – has given his all to ensuring this title reign goes down as one of work rate and endurance. McDonagh's issue has never been that he isn't good in the ring, and that was on full display in a regrettably great performance as the challenger for the night. 

Dragunov is also just win away from equaling the defenses of his predecessor, Sami Zayn, having dethroned the former champion on his seventh attempted defense. And that in itself should throw up an interesting plot point for the one answering the challenge as he looks to pass the milestone. Even without that speculation, the weekly open challenge has proven to be a consistent promise of good quality wrestling between those on the lower end of the card. That's not only continuing the standard set by John Cena and Zayn before him, it's establishing Dragunov as a workhorse among the best of them, and to be honest it's about time he gets the flowers he deserves on this stage.

Written by Max Everett

It's no secret that I've enjoyed the build to the Women's WarGames match far more than I have enjoyed the build to the Men's WarGames match. With that said, this was the one part of the build that I think WWE really fumbled the ball with.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the actual promo segment and subsequent brawl that broke out between the two teams in the two Women's WarGames match. While a lot of Rhea Ripley said in the promo portion of this was pretty standard, it still worked to highlight that herself and Charlotte Flair have come to a mutual agreement to work with one another despite the underlying tensions meant to set up Flair's inevitable turn. The revelation of Becky Lynch and AJ Lee as the fifth members of their respective teams wasn't too hard to see coming, but it was also still an exciting moment. The thing that brought this entire thing down, however, was just how rushed the entire thing felt.

In contrast to the build up for the Men's WarGames which was given several segments including the opener, Drew McIntyre's attack on Cody Rhodes, and Rhodes helping Carmelo Hayes beating Bronson Reed via countout, this was the only thing on the show that was done to build up any storyline for the Women's WarGames match outside of two brief backstages/videos with Flair and Ripley working out their issues. Instead of having the time that was needed here to build up proper anticipation as to the fifth members before the big reveal like what should've done, it felt more like something on the show had gone over its intended time spot and left little time for what was otherwise a pretty solid segment. It was just a small and short portion of the show when it should've been given more shorter segments to really highlight the tensions between Ripley and Flair or a longer amount of allotted time for this one main segment on the show.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Friday saw not one but two of the respective teams' fifth women confirmed for Women's WarGames at the top of the show, with the night building on the tensions between prospective teammates Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley. Flair had said during last week's show that she could not pretend she trusted Ripley, walking out on her, Alexa Bliss, and Iyo Sky to leave them vulnerable to attacks from Nia Jax, Lash Legend, Asuka, and Kairi Sane. 

This week, Bliss was shown to have tricked her best frenemy into meeting with Ripley, who asked for some time alone with "The Queen" so they could hash out their differences. A subsequent, better-produced segment showed them hashing said differences, with Ripley saying that, with all having been said and done, she would love to go to war with Flair. In response, Flair didn't drop any superlatives or compliments to her contemporary, but rather stood up and said that she will – and nothing else. At the top of the show, the four of them stood together to affirm their alliance, introducing AJ Lee as their fifth member. 

But the night would not be theirs to own, with Lee making her entrance as the opposing team ambushed Ripley, Flair, Sky, and Bliss in the ring. Once she had noticed, Lee ran down to the ring to provide support, only to then find herself floored by Becky Lynch to confirm herself as the last competitor in the bout. Lynch and Lee's rivalry is one inherited from the arch-rivalry of their husbands' Seth Rollins and CM Punk, with Lee getting the win alongside Punk in mixed tag team action and then costing Lynch the Women's Intercontinental Championship during "WWE Raw" on Monday. It's a logical next step for their animosity to enter the double steel cage at Survivor Series, and it ensures that there are stacked teams on both sides of what can only be a really exciting match, at the very least. 

The build throughout the night made sure to let everything breathe as it was, and the pay-off in the main event made for a great picture as the show went off air. There is a question over the longevity of the alliance between Ripley and Flair, as well as the repercussions of the former's relationship with Sky and the latter's relationship with Bliss, while Legend and Jax are being established as the new monster heel duo, and Asuka and Kairi have their own push-and-pull relationship in proximity to their turn on Sky. The addition of another dynamic, the one shared between Lee and Lynch, provides both an improvement in general excitement (really great performers) and intrigue for the eventual match.

Written by Max Everett