[5.0] "While the U.S Title match was significantly very good for a WWE TV match, the rest of the show was really poor. This road to Wrestlemania has been one of the worst for the time that I have been watching and it's due to very poor booking decisions and a lack of intriguing storylines. This show continued that as Orton's heel turn is landing flat as the crowd won't stop adoring him, The women's tag titles seem to have no plan for Mania, Cargill and Ripley are absolutely forcing a feud, and the Men's Tag Titles see a useless change of hands."

[5.0] "A decent show with a good US title match and a solid opener. The other matches were lacking something but weren't disastrous. Outside of the matches, Orton took up a lot of screen time (Two entrances? ! ) for little of interest, given the predictable end of the show. Roll's presence left me indifferent, to say the least, and McIntyre's bothered me because of his close relationship with McMahon. Furthermore, the ending of the match involving the women's tag team titles seemed mediocre to me. I preferred the Wyatts' intervention in the same vein. Finally, the most interesting segment was probably the alliance formed around Jade Cargill, though it wasn't groundbreaking. Match quality: 3/5. Angles and off-match segments: 0.75/3. Bonus/penalty: McIntyre's presence -0.25. Total: 5.25/10. Watched on Netflix (FR)."

[4.0] "Not a good show, too long quite boring only two good matches with one being extra short, and the overall booking is bad. No one wants to boo Randy Orton in 2026. No one cares about this lantern bs. Sami Zayn continues to be the the biggest goof on planet earth. Both the men and women's tag team divisions have the worst teams fighting for the gold.."

[8.0] "Only thing holding this back from being a really elite Smackdown was the down right dreadful women's tag match. Nia just had zero interest in being there, and Brie is still very rusty. Just a real mess. Everything else was fantastic though! Cool to see the tag division get some shine and Aleister still looks cool as all hell."

[8.0] "Honestly I pretty much enjoyed this show. Drew & Jacob brawling like Peter Griffin and the chicken was fun to watch, maybe this actually would warrant a HIAC match now, or at least a stipulation of some sorts. Damian & R-Truth winning the tag titles isn't a bad decision, I feel like it got the titles away from the ongoing Wyatts vs MFT feud, which we ALL know would (sadly) last for another month. Fraxiom vs MCMG was good, although I am intrested to see where they'll go with this storyline with Candice. Randy's first promo was great, got straight to the point, very justifyable heel turn as well. Aleister vs Sami was there so it could build to a potential Sami vs Trick match at Mania, we'll see how that goes. Bit of an improvement on the Jade/Rhea segment but nothing remarkable at all, interesting faction choice at the end of it as well, I mean it kind of makes sense, if you can't beat them then join them, but this might just be PFC 2.0. Unsurprisingly we got another absolute banger in the hands of Ilja Dragunov and Carmelo Hayes, man these two can work, wrestling soulmates basically, hopefully they have a spot at mania. Kit Wilson & Jelly Roll's segment was pretty fun to watch, Jelly Roll can certainly cut a promo and he definitely cares about this business, intrigued to see how he will do on a tv match next week. The women's tag title mess was everything I expected out of it. Randy's second segment was done very well too, seems like the killer instinct is here to stay. Overall, good show with some good builds to Mania."

[6.0] "Well, we've been seeing some terrible SmackDown shows, and this one felt like a small oasis, but it's not that great. The same old stuff is still there, like the pointless tag team championships. The main event should never have been The Bellas and Nia and Lash. As involved as Jacob Fatu and Drew are, the stain they've put on the Scotsman still lingers. Randy, in Cody's absence, put on a good show tonight, but I'm not convinced he's "fighting with his voice." He shouldn't doubt his own actions; I do care who he's talking to on the phone (I have my theories). The Jelly Roll and Kit Wilson segment is a joke, and I just hope Randy beats his friend up next week. Aleister and Sami only showed up to sign up. I liked the Fraxiom and MCMG match; they did their best in eight minutes, and in my opinion, they're the two best tag teams the company has right now, but they're stuck in creative limbo. Carmelo and Ilja also delivered a fantastic, physical match, full of near falls, and we should enjoy watching them while they're still together. They deserve a spot at WrestleMania. I think these two matches have saved the show from irrelevance and pessimism."

"Halfway decent SmackDown, but not a worthy one to be on the road to WrestleMania. They need to turn up the heat if they want to generate hype for WM42. With really no clear direction for any superstar besides the main title holders, we are less than a month away with no other stories being told. McIntyre and Fatu brawling throughout the whole show felt very forced to me and only served as filler for in between matches and segments. Orton quoting his own theme song had me cringing uncontrollably. Though I do love seeing an evil Randy, I don't think it's having the effect they wanted since we're all still cheering for him. What do you do when the crowd turns heel too? One of many things they need to figure out before the greatest show of them all next month. Carmelo and Ilja did put on a banger, though. The Aleister and Sami story is interesting enough if they're building towards a heel turn for Zayn. He's been in need of a new thing for years, the happy-go-lucky underdog has been so played. MFTs and the Wyatt Sicks are BORING and they need to move on already from this feud. Also glad they gave the jobbers a match against each other with Motor City Machine Guns and Fraxiom but it wasn't great. And what a lame main event with Nia Lash and the Bellas. Hopefully they start to do better leading up to Mania."

[8.0] "That was a decent episode, where almost every moment have a sence. We opened this show with a fight between McIntyre and Fatu and their falling also closed this episode. Almost every match was on a fine level, or even better and only one of them not developed a storyline, but that was the best match from this night. We also have a very fun segment between Kit Wilson and Jelly Roll. Randy Orton on this show was a major character and his promo was good, but the other things show us that he can be similar to his 2009. Overall, I liked this show so much and thing that SmackDown going in a right way."

[7.0] "Smackdown seems to be getting back on track after 2 very shaky weeks. This wasn't perfect by any means. The women's segment with Rhea and Jade, and the women's tag title match were both the low points of the show, which shows that there's a clear issue with the women on the show. I thought everything else did it's job. A ton of stories got progressed and some good matches too."

[6.0] "The saving grace of this episode was Drew McIntyre & Jacob Fatu brawling like manics around the arena, Fraxiom taking on Motor City Machine Guns, Randy Orton becoming a menace throughout the night, Jelly Roll and Kit Wilson actually had an entertaining segment, and Carmelo Hayes and Ilja Dragunov having another wonderful match between each other. But man, we saw some duds in the Main Event where Nia Jax just showed she couldn't care less about making Charlotte Flair's strikes look effective. Damian Priest & R-Truth win the WWE Tag Team Titles after becoming a team two weeks ago. I have no words, but there were positives from this show, and it was somewhat enjoyable to watch."

[4.0] "Such a boring and miserable show to sit through. Its hard to watch this, and I mean it. WWE has suddenly become unwatchable, and this is supposed to be the road to WrestleMania? Wow. The only good thing about this show was Randy Orton's double duty and the "rap battle" between Jelly Roll & Kit. That's unbelievable. I still don't understand whether Orton is a heel or a face with him being the most over man alive right now. Well I guess you can't make people hate a guy like Randy anyway."

[6.0] "Up and down show. Good moment giving R-Truth & Priest the title but honestly Wyatts vs MFTs is pretty stale. Danhausen had some fun segments on this show. MCMG getting help from LaRae was an interesting twist. Glad they aren't rushing the Flair & Bliss breakup. B-Fab & Michin's heel turn made no sense to me. Honestly thought the MFTs segment after between Tonga and Sikoa. Black vs Zayn was a decent angle and match. Dragunov vs Hayes was fantastic. Found the Jelly Roll Kit Wilson segment both stupid but enjoyable. Main event was horrible. Randy isn't going to get booed through the feud with Cody."

"What a wildly inconsistent show. You had some good stuff on it and a legitimately great match...you also had an absolutely horrific main event and two other crap matches, one of which massively underdelivered (Black/Sami) as well as MCMG vs Fraxiom being a huge letdown as they got given virtually no time, both teams are being wasted so badly. Please get Jelly Roll off my TV. Still no Royce Keys. Copying Jade's Baddies angle from AEW feels weird, not like it ever worked superbly there and just screams creative bankruptcy if you're just doing exactly what another company did with her. Weird show and overall I disliked more than I liked."

[5.0] "This show had a couple of good matches on it, but it was pretty toothless considering how long it was. Randy's promos don't really make sense to me. Is he a heel or what? Why would he hit matt cardona then apologize to him then beat him up again? People aren't booing him. As much as I don't like jelly roll, he is working well as a character on this show. As is danhausen. Fatu and Drew fighting the whole episode through was prett funny as well. Jade and Rhea's segment worked better than in previous weeks. Maybe this show wasn't so bad. I dunno, these three hour smackdowns seem like they are full of a lot of filler and ads. Carmelo v Ilya is definitely worth watching; see if you can get it without commercial breaks."

[4.0] "The show begins, and already MacIntyre has dragged Fatu out of his car and is beating him up. The brawl continues in the arena and ends in a draw. Priest & Truth win a title that has been clearly losing significance for months, while the Bellas, much to the chagrin of Charlotte and Bliss, cheekily worm their way into the title picture. There are certainly talented teams in WWE, but they're simply portrayed too blandly in terms of character development. The four performers in the second match have talent, but nothing to say. Randy Orton isn't actually evil, he's just listening to the voices in his head. I get slight Damien Demento vibes from this. Ripley and Cargill engage in a rather toothless verbal duel. Hayes and Dragunov once again prove themselves worthy of bigger roles. Meanwhile, Kit Wilson seems just insignificant enough to give Jelly Roll his next moment of glory in the wrestling business. But what's the point? It certainly isn't classy. And the show's final match certainly isn't either. It's more proof of why I haven't missed the Bellas at all. And while McIntyre and Fatu are still brawling their way through the periphery, Orton makes his way to the ring once again. In the absence of Cody Rhodes, Matt Cardona is today's whipping boy, so Randy can drive his message home. Voices and stuff, you know? The show features one good match, but also plenty of trash or trivial junk."

[6.0] "This episode was solid, but hard carried by the Randy segments and the US title match. The Fraxiom/MCMG match was good but needed more time. Outside of that, nothing to write home about, but far from the lowest this show has been at lately, but that was not a great women's tag match which probably should've swapped spots with the US title match."

[9.0] "Really enjoyed this episode from top to bottom. Melo vs Ilja was an absolute banger, as it always is between those two, all the other matches were at least good and there were multiple highly entertaining segments, along with strong storyline progression that's shaping up the Mania card nicely. Kit Wilson's poetry diss on Jelly Roll was fantastic, it's so great to see how over he is right now. That plus the Danhausen segments are a good sign WWE's getting more comfortable with comedy again, as they've maybe taken themselves a bit too seriously at times over the past few years. R-Truth and Priest (The Punishing Truth? ) are really growing on me as a team and Priest's reaction to winning was priceless. No Giulia match again this week but the match with Tiffany is set for next week - people are worried she'll lose and be off the Mania card but I highly doubt that match ends with a clear winner, and if it does it won't be clean. Looks like this match will make Mania in some form, possibly with Chelsea and maybe even Kiana too. Excellent stuff this week in my opinion."

"4/10 It's honestly excruciating watching Raw and Smackdown right now honestly. This is WrestleMania season but it feels so blah. At its core this is still a wrestling show but all the top storylines are anything but. Not a single one has me excited for Vegas"

[6.0] "This was one of the better Smackdowns in Months, but still some of these booking decisions are fkn terrible. The night kicks off with Drew and Fatu brawling backstage, Drew then comes to ring and cuts the same promo he did last week, but Fatu comes back and they fight again. It's an effective segment, as they fight all night around the building to the final scene of the show where they climb upm some scaffolding and both fall off. I think at Wrestlemania the Cell makes the most sense here, Drew and Cody (the OG plan) was supposed to be Hell in a Cell, I think this feud has enough heat to be inside the cell, plus it'll add to what seems like a weak mania card. We then get a tag title match that I'm very conflicted about. I do like Truth and Priest as a tag team, but winning the tag titles in your THIRD MATCH, is wild. Especially when you have Fraxiom and MCMG on your roster. Instead of trying to build one of the best tag teams in the world up, we're left watching two wrestlers who aren't a tag team win the titles. But hey, at least they're off the GOD AWFUL MFTS. We then get a match worth watching with Fraxiom vs MCMG, the fact that these guys only went for 8 MINUTES, ON A THREE HOUR SHOW IS RIDICULOUS. Lerae costs Fraxiom the wins, wish these guys went 15 minutes. We then get a pretty good Orton promo, telling the crowd he wants his legacy to be a bout championship gold and now he's listening to the voices. Black vs Zayn I didn't like so much, I guess Black gets the win, capitalizing on his opponents mistake, and playing Karrion Kross' character, but Trick Williams should be doing way more. I don't care to see Sami vs Trick at Mania, if anything I don't want to see Sami at all until he finally turns heel. Cargill Ripley was a lot better than expected, finally some decent promo work (mostly from Rhea) and some story work. Jade works better when she's in a faction/tag team and this was the right call to Michin and B-Fab with Jade. I mean it makes zero fkn sense, considering they've been feuding for months, but I guess they're going with, if you can't beat em join em? Idk and idc this was better than what we've gotten over the past few weeks so I'll take it. We then get MOTN, and arguably WWE MOTY, Dragunov vs Carmelo was awesome, I just wish it went a couple minutes longer on this THREE HOUR SHOW, and resulted in a Dragunov heel turn, setting up their Mania match, but I guess we're going to do another 3-4 predictable TRASH open challenges because WWE's too lazy to write compelling storytelling for the mid-card. We then get a very good backstage promo with Jelly Roll and Randy, still don't understand how Jelly Roll is arguably the best on the mic, out of the actual wrestlers. Danhausen also had several segments backstage, Johnny Gargano should leave WWE, and Danhausen has very good chemistry with Miz. THE BELLA TWINS SHOULD NOT BE IN WWE, GET EM OUT! TRASH. And I don't know why Randy is coming out to cut a second promo just to bury Matt Cardona, when this could've all been done in one segment. It's like WWE was stuck, and had no idea how to fill the last 10 minutes, here's an idea, allocate it to the WRESTLING! Melo Ilja alone and a few promo segments make this a passable Smackdown, 5.5/10."

[6.0] "Opening sequence good. Most of the matches good. Main event abysmal. Closing segment a bit over done but they had to do something. This was a good show."

[7.0] "The opening and the especially the main event matches drag down what was otherwise a great episode. The running through line of this night of Randy's turmoil and Jacob/Drew's brawling was the highlight, along with another banger between Melo/Dragunov. The other midcard matches also ranged from good-great and I also enjoyed the other segments like Michin/B-Fab aligning with Jade and especially the Wilson/Jellyroll poetry slam"

[6.0] "SD is struggling to recapture the momentum it had at the start of the year. It was better than last week's show, though. The opening segment was good, with a good brawl between Drew and Fatu. WepaTruth/MFT was very average. It was slow, extremely basic and full of interruptions. The outcome doesn't help matters; giving the titles to Priest and Truth shows once again that the tag-team division is going through a rough patch. MCMG/Fraxiom felt more like a title match. The wrestling was very decent, with a fast pace and some good tag-team combinations. The finish is a bit odd; we're not sure where things are heading with MCMG and Lerae. Orton's opening promo was decent. It's fair enough to say he wants to be remembered as a 15-time champion rather than for the autographs he signs for children. His reasoning makes sense, even though he didn't really need to justify himself, because last week's segment had already explained why. The Black/Zayn match could have been better, but the storytelling was cool. Williams doing everything he can to piss off Sami was good. Black, for his part, delivered some good moments. The finish is very good, with Zayn falling into Trick's trap by hitting him, which costs him the match. It's great to give Black this win; give him some good opportunities. The Rhea/Jade promo is rubbish once again. There's so much nonsense, like Cargill saying she doesn't care about her title, or that it wasn't wrestling that made her famous - it was she who made wrestling important. On top of that, we've got Cargill using Punk's catchphrase and Rhea using Becky's catchphrase. B-Fab and Michin siding with Jade makes NO SENSE given the previous events. Melo/Ilja is the match of the night. The match was epic with excellent in-ring action. It was intense, fast-paced and beautiful. Give Melo some proper storylines. The Kit/Roll segment: VIRAL MOMENT. This segment was depressingly rubbish. You can see that Kit is good on the mic, but his mic skills aren't suited to what he's doing. The only good thing is the elbow drop of Kit. The ME is bad, even very bad. Why did we get this match? It was poor; the in-ring action was slow and messy. The finish didn't help matters. Orton returns to the ring to say he apologises to Cardona, only to end up doing exactly the same thing he did to Cody. This segment is good because Orton is very good at acting. We have this Orton who is completely lost psychologically, and it works."

[8.0] "Chaotic WWE is the best WWE. Love the Jacob-Drew feud and what they're doing with Randy. Carmelo Hayes vs Ilja was phenomenal and I hope the finish leads to a Mania rematch. It's one of the best things WWE has going right now."

[6.0] "Opening segment with Drew McIntyre and Jacob Fatu brawling was interesting to see, Jelly Roll/Kit Wilson segment was entertaining to be honest, Randy Orton gave a classic heel promo. Damian Priest & R-Truth vs JC Mateo & Tama Tonga: A solid match with Priest and Truth showing tag team chemistry this soon and winning the tag titles was an interesting decision, Wyatt Sicks getting involved to fend off the rest of MFT at ringside continues their story [**1/2]. Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin vs Axiom & Nathan Frazer: A fine little match that these two teams are capable of having a longer match, Candice LaRae getting involved at the end was intriguing [**1/2]. Aleister Black vs Sami Zayn: A solid match between these two, Zayn did distracted by Trick Williams on commentary which ultimately cost him the match [**1/2]. Carmelo Hayes vs Ilja Dragunov: These two know how to put on a good match and this was no exception, it was close either way until Hayes got the win to retain his title [****]. Lash Legend & Nia Jax vs Brie Bella & Nikki Bella: It was going okay until Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss got involved to cause the no contest, Bella Twins looked decent considering they had not teamed together in 8 years [**1/2]"

[5.0] "For me, this show was saved by Ilja and Carmelo having a great match. Every other match on the show ranged from fine to very bad. I'm not feeling the Jade segment and how it doesnt make sense for Mia and BFab suddenly turn. Orton had some spots but the final segment was a bit goofy. And finally I can't believe how much time on this show was dedicated to Jelly Roll on multiple segments..."

[8.0] "Finally, a weekly show that prioritizes wrestling. I liked most of the matches; the only bad decision was the tag team championship title change."