WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 12/06

Queen of the Ring Tournament (Round 1): Sol Ruca VS Charlotte Flair VS Jade Cargill VS Lyra Valkyria

After Jey Uso told Cody Rhodes that he’s coming for his Undisputed WWE Championship at Summerslam, this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown kicked off with the final First Round match in the 2026 Queen of the Ring Tournament as Sol Ruca, Charlotte Flair, Jade Cargill, and Lyra Valkyria battled for the right to face Liv Morgan in the Semi-Finals! It was a positive to see SmackDown start with a match for once; that doesn’t often happen, but that doesn’t mean that the quality was that high! Like Monday, Sol Ruca and Lyra Valkyria worked well together, but Jade Cargill seemed more interested in protecting her hair than trying to do anything of note! During the match, Michin and B-Fab were constantly trying to get involved, which led to Alexa Bliss and Tiffany Stratton running down to take care of them! Whilst it was a weird choice to have Sol in this match, it didn’t exactly matter as she didn’t win! Ultimately, that honour fell to Charlotte Flair, who forced Valkyria to tap in the Figure-8! Flair VS Morgan should be interesting!

Grade: C+

Brie Bella and Paige VS Fatal Influence, Sami Zayn Calls Out Cody Rhodes, Rey Fenix VS Axiom: AAA Cruiserweight Championship

Tiffany Stratton explained why she came down to the ring to take care of Michin and B-Fab, with Chelsea Green arriving with a kendo stick as Tiffany’s backup! Jacob Fatu then told a surprised Usos that he’s been sent to SmackDown by Roman Reigns to go and have a chat with Solo Sikoa, before Blake Monroe set the next chapter of her journal to Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair! We really need to see Blake wrestle soon! Anyway, after a bizarre segment between Finn Balor, R-Truth, and Damian Priest, Brie Bella and Paige returned to Tag Team action against Fatal Influence! I’m really confused as to what the point of bringing Paige back was; she’s stuck in a pointless Tag Team that’s going nowhere, when she could be challenging for singles gold! Anyway, I’d hoped that this match was going to highlight Fatal Influence, with either Fallon Henley or Lainey Reid scoring the victory! Instead, after the referee chucked out Jacy Jayne, the Champs once again cheated to score the 3! What on earth are we doing here?!

Grade: D

Some words of advice from Candice LeRae seemed to set something off in the mind of Sami Zayn, whilst we then got a bizarre backstage segment that included Danhausen, Los Garza, Matt “Zack” Cardona, The Miz, and Kit Wilson! I can’t praise this segment enough; Danhausen taking Cardona’s watch was hilarious! Anyway, Sami Zayn was now in the ring as he was set on calling out Cody Rhodes! Before that, though, Sami had to point out the fact that the European crowd were lovely towards him, a sentiment that the Americans don’t seem to want to continue! This then brought out Cody Rhodes, who was treated to a bit of a bashing from Zayn, who went on about all of the people that Rhodes has fallen out with over the Undisputed WWE Championship! Cody then followed this up by stating that he knows that this Title is the reason Zayn has been so off recently, apologising for the fact that due to him being Champion, Sami will never hold it! This resulted in Sami Zayn slapping The American Nightmare, before Rhodes returned the favour with a slap of his own! This was a pretty good segment; I hope Sami wins this feud!

Credit: WWE

Grade: B

Jacob Fatu approached Solo Sikoa to tell his former leader that Roman Reigns wants him to come home, something that Solo Sikoa wants nothing to do with! Jacob said that whilst he understands, he’ll come after Solo if The Tribal Chief tells him too! What I liked about all of this was that Solo wants Roman to come after him; that makes sense! We then got treated to a surprise Title defence as Rey Fenix put his AAA Cruiserweight Championship on the line against Axiom! I’m all for seeing matches like this; WWE has multiple different brands at this point, so it makes sense to give us different types of matches! Unfortunately, the crowd didn’t care, which sums up the problem with American wrestling fans! Like, the action was good here, but it couldn’t be anything more than good due to the quietness that the crowd was giving off! As expected, Rey Fenix was able to successfully retain his AAA Cruiserweight Title with a Mexican Muscle Buster, so I’ll end this segment off by saying it’s nice to see Fenix winning on SmackDown for once!

Grade: B-

Trick Williams Gets Interrupted, Tiffany Stratton and Chelsea Green VS Michin and B-Fab

After choosing Special Guest Referee for the stipulation between himself and Cody Rhodes next week, Gunther told Nick Aldis that he’d chosen Sami Zayn to take on the role for the big Undisputed WWE Championship match! Trick Williams and Lil Yachty were then out next as the reigning United States Champion was feeling angry over losing in the King of the Ring Tournament last week! Despite this, Trick is here to prove that he’s the face of the new school, which brought out both Ricky Saints and Carmelo Hayes to state that they want their shot at the United States Championship! Williams agreed that he’d fight the winner, with the segment ending with Trick standing tall after Melo dealt with Ricky! If we do get Trick-Melo at Night of Champions, I’d want to see a Part 2 at Summerslam!

Grade: C+

After Solo Sikoa told Royce Keys that The Bloodline are here, Chelsea Green and Tiffany Stratton teamed up to take on the duo of Michin and B-Fab! Chelsea was over the moon to be teaming with Tiffany; she looked like a proper fangirl, and this story can only work if Stratton’s the one who eventually turns Heel! After being beaten down for the large majority of the match, Green attempted to tag Stratton in, only for Jade Cargill to pull the Women’s United States Champion off the apron! Michin then took advantage of this, dropping Chelsea with a Styles Clash to get the win, before Cargill, Michin, and B-Fab all stood tall! This was totally missable!

Grade: C

King of the Ring Tournament (Round 1): Jey Uso VS LA Knight VS Finn Balor VS Royce Keys

Credit: WWE

After Giulia slapped Kiana James, Tama Tonga wished Finn Balor luck, and Sami Zayn did the same towards Cody Rhodes, it was Main Event time on this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown as Jey Uso, LA Knight, Royce Keys, and Finn Balor collided in Fatal 4-Way action in the final First Round matchup of the 2026 King of the Ring Tournament! The entire King of the Ring Tournament up to this point has given us surprise after surprise, like I genuinely didn’t expect any of the winners so far to actually progress (besides maybe Oba)! Because of those upsets, this tournament was wide open, with it feeling very much there for LA Knight to win, as he’s sort of been foreshadowing a feud with Roman Reigns since WrestleMania! However, there was another direction that WWE could go in here, and that was to finally push Finn Balor back into the true World Title scene by winning this whole thing! Gunther VS Finn Balor at Summerslam is a move that I think would go down quite well with the WWE Universe; it’s something different, but I think it would work really well! Unfortunately, we’re not getting either of those things, as after LA Knight dropped Royce Keys with a BFT, Jey Uso managed to nail both men with an Uso Splash, pinning The Megastar to advance to the Semi-Finals! Another shock result in this tournament, and whilst I’d like to now predict that Jey is going to win the whole thing so he can challenge Roman Reigns at Summerslam, I honestly have no idea anymore!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C+