[8.0] "Quite a good Smackdown actually. Really liked the opening match and the main event was a really great TV match. WWE title feud was quite good in this time. The only real drag was Cena/Kenzo."

[8.0] "These Smackdown episodes leading up to the Royal Rumble has been a big improvement for me. The wrestling is pretty good, the main event feud is great and there's some nice backstage segments building up for the Royal Rumble match itself. The 6-man opener was fine, but there was a pretty obvious gulf in talent between the two teams. It does a good job with episode storyline where JBL and Angle's alliance falls apart. This leasds to an excellent Last Man Standing match in the main event where they both beat the crap out of each other. It's very rare to see a match of that type focus on really good wrestling as well as going to a decent pace because of the faster counting by the referee and those things was very refreshing. The swerve from the Big Show where he uses the two egos against each other was very smart. Cena's win over Suzuki was a straight up one sided squash and he was being built very strongly as one of the favourites for the Royal Rumble match. The four way cruiserweight match had some really good action for the short length it had and I'm still wishing we could see a longer match in that division. The only stupid thing in the episode for me was that comical Heidenreich promo."

[8.0] "Overall from top to bottom I felt this was a great go home show for smack down leading up to the 2005 royal rumble Ppv very well done."

[7.0] "A decent episode of Smackdown before the Royal Rumble. The first three matches on the card are all great wrestling action, John Cena vs. Kenzo Suzuki being the weakest of the three. The main event was a very entertaining brawl between two of the three participants in the title match at the Rumble. This is the culmination of JBL and Angle's efforts to take Big Show out of the triple threat match."