Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," the show where oh, why even bother with the stock formula, you all know what we're here to talk about! As if it wasn't enough for John Cena's last "SmackDown" to put him in a men's US title match with Sami Zayn or for that match to be interrupted by controversial veteran Brock Lesnar this episode also saw the long-awaited return of former Divas Champion AJ Lee, who rejoinedWWE after a full decade away to back up husband CM Punk against the megalomaniacal Becky Lynch and SethRollins. In other words, if there was ever a Friday night for theWINC staff to have somefeelings, it was this one!
As is often the case with the blue brand we'll at least briefly touch on pretty much everything, but not everything gets the full opinion treatment, so if you're needing a full breakdown, check out our "SmackDown" results page. To learn what we thought of the many things that went down this week, however, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 9/5/25 episode of "WWE SmackDown!"
My absolute favorite thing on tonight's "SmackDown" was the opener with John Cena soaking up the adoration of the Chicago crowd (which was kind of funny, if you really stop and think about it) before going face-to-face with United States Champion Sami Zayn. I knew this match was going to happen tonight after seeing spoilers, but what I really loved was the way that it was set up.
Before Zayn came out, Cena talked about debuting in Chicago, when he confronted Kurt Angle in 2002 and unknowingly kicked of WWE's Ruthless Aggression era. He basically told the crowd "goodbye and thank you," to not just Chicago, but to "SmackDown" as a whole, as his remaining dates on the retirement tour are apparently on "WWE Raw" or just all premium live events, and I believe he only has about seven dates left. Zayn came out to kind of politely interrupt him. He said tonight wasn't just special because Cena debuted inChicago, he actually made his main roster debut against Cena, and the match was for the gold that Zayn now wears around his waist after being Solo Sikoa last week.
Zayn asked Cena if he could honor him by doing his own US Open Challenge. That's what I really liked about this all. It makes sense for Zayn to be a fighting champion, and Cena made the US Open Challenge a thing back in 2015 after winning it at WrestleMania 31. If there's one belt I associate more than the WWE Championship spinner belt with Cena, it's the US title, so this was really cool and well done. Cena was just kind of like, "Okay, cool, that sounds great for you, you have my blessing," and attempted to leave the ring, before Zayn challenged him to be the one to kick off the Zayn US Open Challenge.
I also really enjoyed the match, though my one complaint was that it was a bit too long with a lot of commercials that WWE had to fit in to get that last segment commercial-free. I'm really enjoying Cena's finisher-palooza where he's using the moves of those he can't face on his retirement run. Tonight, the highlights included the pop-up powerbomb, which Kevin Owens even acknowledged on X, and the Angle Slam, which was incredibly appropriate.
It was a special match and opening segments, until Brock Lesnar had to interfere and F5 them both to cause the disqualification, and I loved that Zayn got to be a small part of Cena's farewell tour, especially after he won gold and could defend it against him. While I certainly wish this could have ended in a clean victory for Zayn to help establish him as a dominant US Champion, of course Cena couldn't lose before the big Lesnar match at Wrestlepalooza. Knowing all that was likely to happen, I chose to just be happy at how nice the set-up was with Zayn honoring Cena in a really cool way on his last-ever episode of "SmackDown."
Written byDaisyRuth
For the first time since his unexpected return at SummerSlam, Brock Lesnar came to "SmackDown" to target John Cena. Cena was potentially moments away from winning the Men's U.S. Championship when Lesnar's annoying theme hit. He pulled the ref out of the ring to deliver F5s to Sami Zayn and Cena. Backstage, he found a camera to demand a match with "The Never-Seen Seventeen" by literally saying, "Hey John! See you at Wrestlepalooza, b****!" They just happened to have a graphic ready instantaneously to confirm the match is really happening.
On the one hand, the less screen time Lesnar has, the better. On the other, the audacity of Lesnar to come back to TV and demand a PLE match and get one without his opponent's response encapsulates him. Just in case you forgot, Lesnar is named in a civil lawsuit against WWE and his former boss (and biggest champion), Vince McMahon by a former employee. The things he's accused of are gross. So much so that WWE would have rather paid him to sit at home instead of putting him on TV. The lawsuit is still being litigated, so nothing has been determined one way or another. That means WWE decided the time is right for Lesnar to come back because they want him there. Cena quickly dispelled the notion that he was the one to request a match against Lesnar, no matter what Paul Levesque said.
I also hate that this match is being used solely to counter book the competition. If they really didn't care, they would've saved this match for their next biggest PLE, Survivor Series. Using Lesnar to lure fans away from potentially watching another company is not going to work for most of those fans. They are not moved by watching a winded Lesnar deliver F5's to a retiring Cena repeatedly. They've seen it. It reeks of desperation (as does bringing back AJ Lee for her first match in over a decade on the same show). Lesnar has already been advertised for next week's "SmackDown". If we're lucky, Lesnar won't be around much after Wrestlepalooza. Until then, I will hate any time Lesnar is used onscreen.
Written bySamantha Schipman
Much as it was good to see Giulia actually wrestle for once, the women's US title match was unfortunately just kinda there this week, and I found myself gravitating more toward the various backstage segments highlighting "SmackDown's" women's division. Of these, by far the most entertaining was the one involving women's tag champs Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, because of course it was. I'm sure I've written some version of this before, but it continues to be wild to me that this utterly nonsensical pairing has somehow clicked to the degree it has.
Personally, I give the credit to the performers, who are utterly unafraid of looking or sounding stupid in the name of comedy and character work. Bliss has hit this weird place where it's almost clear she knows how dumb their dynamic is, but she recognizes that it's been successful, so she's just going with it. I still don't understand why she wanted to team with Flair so badly in the first place, but she's willing to play doctor with her dolls to keep it going. Charlotte, though, is the primary reason the act has legs. She's thrown herself so earnestly into something so different from her "I'm the queen, I'm genetically bred to be champion" gimmick that it almost doesn't count as watching the same performer. Flair as a dedicated tag team wrestler who does things like fake-cry about how nothing good ever happens to her in Chicago has been a revelation, and for better or worse, her backstage segment with Bliss set the bar for the women's division on this episode at least until the end.
Written byMiles Schneiderman
It's rare that I'll say this, but I have to give WWE credit for holding a match between Damian Priest and Aleister Black on an episode of "SmackDown" that had an actual storyline and feud going into it. With that out of the way, the ending of the match was absolutely atrocious and made very little sense.
You could arguably make a case for either man to be the winner of tonight's match. Black has technically already taken a loss to Priest on August 1 but said loss came as the result of a disqualification. While I was personally expecting Priest to go over, Black picking up the win is perfectly fine. If that was going to be the case anyways though, then there was no need to have Priest send him crashing on top of the announce only for Black to subsequently use the referee to block his path so Priest couldn't have landed South of Heaven on him and he could connect with Black Mass. By default, the actions of both men should've meant that the match ended in a disqualification of some sort. It made for a confusing finish and result in an instance that didn't call for it in any way, shape, form, or fashion whatsoever as well as little clarity on whether or not this was meant to end the storyline between the two men so they could move onto something new.
Written byOlivia Quinlan
We as WWE fans apparently need a new social media hashtag to help out Carmelo Hayes because I don't think any one of us thought that using "#WeWantMelo" would pair him back up with The Miz and make him look like a total dummy. But, sadly, that's what we've been seeing and even tonight, on a super packed show with John Cena, Brock Lesnar, and the return of AJ Lee, it's what we got. We didn't even get a match out of them, but rather a very brief backstage segment that was, however, long enough to be annoying.
Right after Lesnar crashed Cena and Sami Zayn's match, "SmackDown" General Manager NickAldis was, understandably, running around backstage like a mad man. For whatever reason, that's when Hayes decided to attempt to pull him aside and ask for a match in Zayn's US Open Challenge. Which, one, that's not how open challenges work, and two, Hayes stopping Aldis right at that moment made him seem a little silly, not even opportunistic.
Making matters so much worse, Miz poked his head in and asked Aldis for not a United States Championship match for Hayes, but rather, a shot at the tag team championships for them both, which Aldis said he'd think about once everything had been sorted out backstage with Lesnar. I guess maybe a title match for "Melo Don't Miz" could be a good thing, because it could get them on the road to breaking up as a tag team. However, that also begs the question as to what happens with Hayes if they do break up as a team. It seems like a lose-lose situation overall for the former NXT Champion, who was once again forced to look stupid during a backstage segment rather than look strong in a singles match.
Written byDaisyRuth
The ally-oop was played on Monday's "WWE Raw" and the main event of "WWE SmackDown" in Chicago this week was handed the burden of applying the dunk, but instead of a satisfyingswishand the rattle of a hoop, said dunk fell in the form of a returning AJ Lee. In a rare moment of brilliance in pacing, the stage continued to be set for her to make her eventual return, kicked off with the monumental heat magnets Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins; Rollins hiding from CM Punk from up in the rafters, Lynch berating Punk when he eventually made his way out.
The energy was off the charts, and it helped to blend together a segment of very little significant words spoken. Punk dropped some names that he could call on if he wanted to deal with Lynch, simultaneously offering her a way out of the situation, only to then, like Monday, get slapped ad ouch-eam until he decided enough was enough, and rolled out of the ring.
All while this was going on, Rollins was watching and reacting, drawing attention to him and feeding into the crowd response, and that in turn fed into the way everything carried across; there was a higher sense of tension, all the way up until Punk uttered the words "AJ Lee" and her earworm of a theme tune heralded her return. The venue came unglued, and as someone who grew up throughout her initial run with the company, there was certainly a warm sense of nostalgia over her return. She looked even better than her initial run, which should at least stave concerns over her physical status after a decade away from the ring, and she was treated with the reverence she never quite got during her ill-fated run as the precursor to the women's revolution as it would come to be known.
Lynch sold the return perfectly, as someone she has legitimately never prepared for and one of the rare occasions where "The Man" has no control over the situation, as did Rollins, going from disbelief to "oh s***" in an instant. It was about as perfect a segment as you could get, and a really good way to close an admittedly fun show even if Brock Lesnar on TV raises very prudent questions of morality.
Written byMax Everett
