WWE Friday Night SmackDown Review: 24/04
- Linus O'Howell
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
Jacob Fatu Starts the Show, Giulia VS Tiffany Stratton: Women’s United States Championship
After a long WrestleMania 42 recap package, the first Friday Night SmackDown of the “new season” kicked off with Jacob Fatu signalling his intent towards Roman Reigns and the World Heavyweight Championship! Jacob has been told his entire life that he’s not ready, or that he’s not good enough, but it’s up to Roman to step into the ring and prove himself right! This brought out The Usos to cut a rather “Heelish” promo, calling the fans “fools” as they didn’t like the idea of Jacob joining The Bloodline! Jey Uso then made it clear that it’s already too late, that Fatu needs to prepare for war, before Solo Sikoa arrived to try and also get into Fatu’s head, telling The Samoan Werewolf that he can help him defeat Roman Reigns! Jacob Fatu had clearly had enough of hearing all of this nonsense, so he wiped out Tama Tonga with a Superkick before getting a match with Solo in tonight’s Main Event! The crowd reacted really well to Jacob here!
Grade: B-
With a bit of dissension clearly growing between manager and client, Giulia put her Women’s United States Championship on the line against Tiffany Stratton in the opening match of the night! I definitely feel like this was a better match than their first encounter, but even still, it just feels like Tiffany and Giulia have no chemistry together! It’s weird because both women are incredibly talented, but I personally haven’t been impressed with anything these two have done together! As expected, Giulia and Kiana James accidentally came together at one point, potentially setting up something for the future, whilst Stratton took advantage and nailed The Beautiful Madness with a Prettiest Moonsault Ever to get the win, meaning Tiffy Time is now the new Women’s United States Champion! WWE’s booking of Giulia has been absolutely atrocious!
Grade: C-
Paige Returns to SmackDown, Cody Rhodes Promo, Damian Priest and R-Truth VS MFT: WWE Tag Team Championships
After Danhausen decided that it was okay to break into The Miz’s House and hang out in his pool, Tiffany Stratton’s small Championship celebration was quickly cut off by the arrival of Brie Bella and Paige! Brie Bella and Paige talked about how great it is for them to be the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions, with Paige reminding the world that SmackDown is indeed “My House”! This brought out Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair, who aren’t happy about what went down at WrestleMania, with them looking to quickly write the wrongs from last Saturday! This led to a Tag Team match, but it wasn’t for the Titles, making everything that Alexa and Charlotte just said meaningless! Speaking of meaningless, the action in this match meant absolutely nothing as it was always just going to lead up to someone else attacking them to cause a DQ! However, to my pleasant surprise, it wasn’t The Irresistible Forces who attacked Paige; it was Jacy Jayne! And, more importantly, the entirety of Fatal Influence, with Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid also arriving to beat up the legends! Yes; I’m very excited about this!
Grade: C+ (All because of Fatal Influence)
After another really effective video for Royce Keys, Cody Rhodes came down to the ring to address his WrestleMania 42 victory over Randy Orton! Yes, Cody is beat up, yes Cody is hurting, but at the end of the day, he’s still the Undisputed WWE Champion! Rhodes then went on about how he wore all-gold to send a message to Sami Zayn, whilst The American Nightmare also sent quite the message to TKO about sending people to interfere with his WrestleMania feuds! Cody then ended his segment by saying that anyone from Raw, SmackDown, or NXT who wants to step up to him knows where to find him, although it’s a lot easier to find him than to beat him! This was a pretty decent promo from Cody Rhodes; I appreciate that he mentioned NXT!
Grade: B-
After some words of passion from Solo Sikoa, MFT challenged R-Truth and Damian Priest for the WWE Tag Team Championships! Whilst some parts of SmackDown were much better this week than what we’ve seen throughout 2026, this was one of those matches that has me questioning what on earth WWE is doing with it’s Tag Team Division! Like, R-Truth is only here because he’s doing John Cena moves, whilst the MFTs are part of The Bloodline! And yet, FRAXIOM are nowhere to be seen, Angel and Berto aren’t doing anything, whilst the Motor City Machine Guns got released on the day of this show; all teams that are a lot more talented than the ones we’re talking about right now! Anyway, as expected, Truth and Priest scored another successful Title retention with the “Rise Up”, and I just can’t enjoy any of this!
Grade: C-
Trick Williams’ Championship Celebration, Danhausen VS The Miz, Rhea Ripley Gets Interrupted
Part 2 between The Miz and Danhausen saw Danhausen steal both a Slammy Award and Miz’s daughters’ bike, with Maryse getting chocolate thrown all over her! These segments were very well produced! Speaking of well-produced, Trick Williams was out next to celebrate becoming the brand-new United States Champion! Trick was once again accompanied by both Lil Yachty and The Gingerbread Man, with Yachty confirming that he’s here to stay! We then got a great celebration shot where Williams celebrated with his Title as pyro went off, money was flying in the air, and The Gingerbread Man was dancing! Unfortunately, the segment wouldn’t end on quite the same note, with Gingie attacking Trick Williams and Lil Yachty from behind, only to reveal himself as Sami Zayn! I’m honestly a little bit sad about this; I wanted The Gingerbread Man as part of Trick’s faction!
Grade: B
Royce Keys wanted to talk about how he’s only just getting started after winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal last week, but he wasn’t exactly able to finish off his thoughts as Solo Sikoa once again tried to win him over! Danhausen was then back driving the Hausen Mobile as he was set to go one-on-one with The Miz! As expected, this was more of a comedy segment than an actual match, with The Miz getting in a ton of offence before Danhausen cursed both him and Kit Wilson! Just like last time, this resulted in pyrotechnics going off, with DH stealing the win with a roll-up before he managed to escape (after a long chase)! This is all so silly, and that’s fantastic!
Grade: B-
After we found out that Blake Monroe is coming soon (my prediction was clearly wrong), Rhea Ripley came out for her own Championship celebration, albeit her style is a lot more casual in comparison to Trick Williams! Rhea put over Jade Cargill as a strong competitor before saying that she’s more than ready to meet her first challenger! However, Ripley may not have been expecting the arrival of Fatal Influence, and more notably, the crowd reaction! This Texas crowd absolutely ripped Jacy Jayne, Fallon Henley, and Lainey Reid apart to the point where it felt like we were watching prime Dominik Mysterio! Literally, the “heat” from the crowd was insane, but fair play to Jacy Jayne as she handled all of this like a seasoned pro! In fact, I’m even more impressed with Lainey Reid as she wasn’t in NXT for very long, especially in comparison to her stablemates (who were in NXT forever), and yet she didn’t slip up once despite the hostile environment! Eventually, Nick Aldis came out to book a singles match between Rhea and Jacy, and I can’t lie, I wish it had been for the WWE Women’s Championship! Like, if you thought Jacy Jayne dethroning Stephanie Vaquer for the NXT Women’s Championship was something, I can tell you that this would’ve topped it! Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but at least it made a bit more sense as to why Fatal Influence attacked Ripley during the match to cause the DQ! A Rolling Encore later ensured that Fatal Influence would mark their SmackDown debuts in some style; bravo, this was mega effective!
Grade: B
Jacob Fatu VS Solo Sikoa
After Charlotte Flair got tetchy with Rhea Ripley, and Ricky Saints was revealed as yet another NXT call-up, it was Main Event time on this week’s edition of Friday Night SmackDown as Jacob Fatu and Solo Sikoa renewed an old rivalry! Before this match began, Jacob told The Usos that he didn’t want or need their help, something they sort of listened to by only watching on from the ramp! This allowed multiple interference spots from MFT, although they didn’t exactly do much to help the inevitable outcome! Ultimately, Jacob scored the win with a Mighty Moonsault, only to get jumped by the rest of the MFTs! However, Fatu didn’t care about any of this, destroying all of them, including putting Tonga Loa through a table, to send quite the statement to both The Usos and Roman Reigns! Reigns-Fatu is delivering so far, and this was easily the best SmackDown in quite some time!
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