WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 06/03

Randy Orton Starts the Show, Carmelo Hayes’ United States Championship Open Challenge

This week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown kicked off with Randy Orton coming down to the ring to celebrate his victory last weekend inside the Elimination Chamber! Randy talked about how he’s been on WrestleMania on 20 different occasions, and yet he’s only Main-Evented the show twice! Randy said that he’s grateful that that’s about to change this year, and that he will make sure that he leaves Las Vegas as a 15-time World Champion! This brought out Trick Williams, who felt like Orton had disrespected him, before The Viper just floored Trick with an RKO! Randy Orton is feuding with a lot of guys right now!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C+

After Nick Aldis hyped him up, El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. made his SmackDown debut when he challenged Carmelo Hayes for the United States Championship! The crowd were pretty flat here as they clearly didn’t know who Dr. Wagner Jr. is, and that’s honestly quite sad as I think he’s really good! I’ve seen Wagner before, both on NXT and AAA, and he’s a very accomplished talent, with him currently holding the AAA Latin American Championship! I also really liked that we got to see someone completely different face Carmelo Hayes; this suited him well, in a similar way to how Ethan Page found great success with the North American Title down in NXT! Eventually, Hayes was able to secure another successful defense courtesy of Nothin’ but Net, and Melo’s charge shows no signs of halting!

Grade: B-

The Irresistible Forces’ Championship Celebration, Giulia and Kiana James VS Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair, Tag Team Turmoil

Ilja Dragunov explained why he doesn’t feel like he deserves a shot at the United States Championship right now, before both The Miz and Kit Wilson talked themselves into a future beating! Damian Priest then found out that he’s going to be teaming with R-Truth tonight, before Drew McIntyre rightly pointed out the wrongs that Nick Aldis has given him! Aldis didn’t care one bit, however, before The Irresistible Forces arrived to celebrate becoming the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions! Neither Lash Legend nor Nia Jax said much of note; they basically just screamed how great they are, before Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair’s interruption led to a Tag Team match against Giulia and Kiana James! The quicker I talk about these two segments together, the better, because this wasn’t good! I will never change my opinion that this Alexa x Charlotte partnership has worked, because I honestly find it to be really jarring! The wrestling here also wasn’t that good, with neither team gelling well together! Flair also just won with a Natural Selection on Giulia, so that was incredibly anticlimactic!

Grade: C-

Sami Zayn confronted Cody Rhodes backstage, with Sami clearly very annoyed at the fact that Cody was being gifted another shot at the Undisputed WWE Championship, despite the fact that he lost at Elimination Chamber! Rhodes seemed shocked by this, but that in itself tells you everything that you need to know! Anyway, we then headed into Tag Team Turmoil to determine the brand-new Number 1 Contenders for the WWE Tag Team Championships! This match started off between FRAXIOM and the Motor City Machine Guns, and as expected, it was pretty good fun! Both of these teams are great, and they deserve both a better spotlight and far louder crowd reactions! There was also an interesting finish here, with the referee missing the fact that Alex Shelley had put Chris Sabin’s foot on the rope, meaning FRAXIOM moved on to face Los Garza! Again, both of these teams put on another fun contest, with Axiom and Nathan Frazer giving their best before eventually, Angel and Berto delivered their finishing manoeuvre to eliminate them! The Wyatt Sick6 were then out next, but this is where things started to go down in quality (for me), as the MFT’s just showed up and distracted Joe Gacy and Dexter Lumis, allowing Berto to steal one with a roll-up! Why are The Wyatts and the MFTs still feuding?! Anyway, the final “team” to enter this match was Damian Priest and R-Truth, and that in itself is already stupid! I understand that Priest doesn’t have a major feud going on right now, but this feels like quite the demotion from where he was back in 2024! Also, this was simply done to allow Truth to act, dress, and deliver moves like John Cena, with a South of Heaven being enough for Priest to earn his team a shot at the WWE Tag Team Titles! I’m guessing that these two are also going to win these Titles, and that’s a very questionable decision!

Grade: C

Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley Come Face-to-Face, Oba Femi VS Johnny Gargano

Sami Zayn went and found Randy Orton to ask him how he can show a killer instinct towards a guy he likes so much (in Cody Rhodes)! Randy said that sometimes, “you have to listen to the voices”, and Orton believes that that is the way forward if Sami wants to finally become a World Champion! We were then set for a face-to-face confrontation between Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley, and my goodness me, this was bad! The idea of a Cargill-Ripley feud is incredibly uninspiring for me; I can’t see them having a good match, and the story that was told here is that their feud is about “whose shoulders are bigger”! I’m not joking, that’s literally something that was discussed here, and to make matters worse, neither woman is that good on the mic anyway, let alone with terrible material! I can’t believe what I watched, to be honest!

Credit: WWE

Grade: E

Alex Shelley was checking in on Johnny Gargano backstage (to Chris Sabin’s displeasure), as Candice LeRae finally reminded Johnny of who he is! Gargano then stormed down to the ring, reminding everyone (including himself) that he’s Johnny Wrestling, one of the best wrestlers on the entire planet! Johnny was so fired up that he issued an open challenge to anyone in the back, but this was a mistake as Gargano’s challenge was answered by Oba Femi! As expected, Oba Femi decimated Johnny Gargano here, putting The Rebel Heart away with a Fall From Grace! NXT Oba VS NXT Johnny would’ve been too much for anyone to handle!

Grade: C

Undisputed WWE Championship: Drew McIntyre VS Cody Rhodes

Credit: WWE

After a funny segment backstage between Danhausen and The Miz (and a less exciting one between Jade Cargill and Michin), it was finally Main Event time as Cody Rhodes challenged Drew McIntyre for the Undisputed WWE Championship! Even though this match was never hyped like this, this was a No Disqualifications Match, with the ref not counting Cody Rhodes out or calling for any rope breaks! Multiple ref bumps also occurred, with Drew McIntyre Glasgow Kissing one of them due to feelings of corruption! Then, when Drew was attempting to wreck Cody with a steel chair, Jacob Fatu stopped this from happening, opening the door for Rhodes to drop McIntyre with a Cross Rhodes to get the win! Yes, Cody Rhodes beat Drew McIntyre to become a 3-time Undisputed WWE Champion! What are we doing? Cody didn’t need to win here; Rhodes VS Orton isn’t interesting, and why on earth would Jacob Fatu cost Drew and then just disappear?! This show!

Credit: WWE

Grade: D