WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 19/06

Linus O'Howell
22 hours ago
5 min read

Undisputed WWE Championship: Cody Rhodes VS Gunther

This week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown started commercial-free as Sami Zayn acted as the Special Guest Referee for the Undisputed WWE Championship match between Cody Rhodes and Gunther! With this being the opening match of the night, it was pretty obvious that there wasn’t going to be a Title change, but what this match did benefit from was the continuation of the Sami Zayn story! Sami wasn’t having any disrespect from either Cody or Gunther, leading to Zayn getting physical with both! Eventually, Gunther floored Sami with a Powerbomb, leading to a new referee needing to run down! However, when The Ring General was set to get the win, Zayn pulled the referee out of the ring before he counted incredibly fast, leading to a successful retention for Rhodes! However, after lots of arguing backstage, The American Nightmare asked to restart the match as the fans deserved a proper ending! That wouldn’t come, though, with Sami Zayn wrecking Gunther with a Helluva Kick to throw the match out completely! Then, after the match was over, Sami "accidentally" floored Cody with the Undisputed WWE Title to end the segment! In fairness, this was all executed better than expected!

Grade: B-

WWE Tag Team Championships: Damian Priest and R-Truth VS MFT, Carmelo Hayes VS Ricky Saints: United States Championship Number 1 Contender’s Match, Jey Uso VS Je’Von Evans: King of the Ring Tournament (Semi-Finals):

After Jade Cargill challenged Tiffany Stratton to a United States Championship match at Night of Champions, Gunther demanded that Nick Aldis gives him another shot at the Undisputed WWE Championship in Saudi Arabia! Jacob Fatu then warned Solo Sikoa that he’s making a mistake not reuniting with The Bloodline, whilst Tama Tonga wants Solo to stay in the back as his family business is starting to affect their family business! Anyway, after Blake Monroe wrote about Giulia in her latest journal, R-Truth and Damian Priest put their WWE Tag Team Championships on the line against the MFTs! Priest and Truth’s run as Tag Team Champions just hasn’t worked for me; I don’t find them to be interesting at all, and that sort of goes for basically the entirety of the SmackDown Tag Team Division! However, in similar fashion to the first match, this did at least benefit from a storyline, as despite being told to stay in the back, Solo Sikoa showed up at ringside, a move that ultimately cost his MFTs! After the match was over, both Talla and Tama Tonga stormed off, with Sikoa looking pretty perplexed!

Grade: C+

Sami Zayn is still chatting to a “lifeless” Johnny Gargano, whilst Sami wasn’t at all pleased with the way that Nick Aldis was talking to him! Both guys had a right to be annoyed! Anyway, after Je’Von Evans called Jey Uso “Unc”, Carmelo Hayes and Ricky Saints collided once again for the right to be known as the new Number 1 Contender to the United States Championship! This series was tied at 1-1-1, so this was in theory the decider! It also had high stakes, with the winner not only getting a shot at Trick Williams’ US Title, but also a spot on the Night of Champions card! The story would suggest that we were heading to Williams VS Hayes, although I believe that Trick-Melo should be saved for a much larger stage with a much longer build! Potentially, WWE feels the same way, as after a strong back-and-forth match, Carmelo Hayes knocked himself out on the exposed turnbuckle, opening the door for Ricky Saints to steal the victory away! Congrats to Mr. Revolution!

Grade: B

After having issues all night, Cody Rhodes made Nick Aldis’ night an awful lot easier by asking for a Triple Threat match against both Gunther and Sami Zayn at Night of Champions! Charlotte Flair then cut a promo about how she needs to get back to the mountaintop, something she’d have a chance at by winning Queen of the Ring, before Danhausen was testing out new equipment on The Miz and Kit Wilson! Los Garza were then furious with Danhausen for costing them a bunch of money by not re-cursing The Knicks, leading to Matt Cardona helping him out, only to seemingly get electrocuted back into Zack Ryder! Utterly bizarre! Anyway, after Damian Priest made his feelings about Finn Balor to R-Truth crystal clear (Truth didn’t understand), Je’Von Evans looked to pull off another upset when he went one-on-one with Jey Uso in the second Semi-Final in this year’s King of the Ring Tournament! I thought this match was well-paced, with Jey dominating for the most part due to both experience and the fact that Je’Von was still hurting after the vicious Spear he took from Bron Breakker this past Monday! Evans would have his moments where he rallied back into the contest, even kicking out of a Spear at one point, but in the end, a second Spear followed by an Uso Splash was enough for “Main Event” Jey Uso to book his ticket to Saudi Arabia! Whilst it would’ve been great to have seen Evans win here, he was never going to win the whole tournament, so Jey winning kind of makes sense!

Grade: C+

Solo Sikoa sent a warning shot to Roman Reigns through Jacob Fatu before Giulia cut a promo saying she’s going to finish off her story with Kiana James once and for all next week in London! Tiffany Stratton then accepted Jade Cargill’s United States Championship challenge, only to then hurt Chelsea Green’s feelings by rejecting her offer of friendship, before Liv Morgan said she was going to prove why Charlotte Flair is now just “the past”! Brie Bella and Paige then had their own promo, which led into one for Fatal Influence too, before Jey Uso had a nice interaction with Cody Rhodes! This then transitioned perfectly into Jey having a chat with Sami Zayn, where Sami told “his brother” that he’s going to be the one defending the Undisputed WWE Championship against him at Summerslam! Personally, I actually would enjoy seeing that!

Queen of the Ring Tournament (Semi-Finals): Liv Morgan VS Charlotte Flair

And in the Main Event of this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown, Liv Morgan and Charlotte Flair fought for the right to face Iyo Sky in the Final of the 2026 Queen of the Ring Tournament! Before the match could start, however, Jade Cargill, Michin, and B-Fab attacked Charlotte in the back, meaning Flair was heavily compromised throughout this fight! Despite Nick Aldis’ repeated pleas for Charlotte not to take part in this match, the opportunity was too big for The Queen to avoid, with Flair actually putting up quite a good fight against Morgan! There’s definitely an argument to be made that the reigning Women’s World Champion should be winning a match against an injured opponent pretty quickly, but in fairness, WWE has booked Liv’s run as Champion so bad already that it doesn’t really make much of a difference! Eventually, despite kicking out of an ObLIVion, Liv Morgan would force Charlotte Flair to tap out, meaning “The Queen of Saudi Arabia” is returning to her Kingdom in just 7 days’ time!