I’m normally not one to go down this road but I gotta say it: Smackdown stinks. There is very little that happens to implores you to make sure you catch it unless one of your personal favorites is wrestling on the show that night, and it’s been that way for a while now. If you think I’m wrong, look at it this way: since Summerslam there have been two main roster PLEs with a third on the way in Crown Jewel. And of the 15 matches that have taken place or been announced for these shows, 9 exclusively feature(d) people who were on the RAW roster while 3 included people who were exclusively assigned to Smackdown. Since WrestleMania 41 the ratio has been 22 for RAW, 11 for Smackdown, and 10 pulling from both shows. So Smackdown’s PLE representation has been half of RAW’s since WrestleMania 41, whereas the ratio was a much more even 23 Smackdown vs 18 RAW between WrestleMania 40 and 41. HHH is prone to saying that the best stories are what make it to the PLEs, so by his own logic Smackdown just isn’t as good RAW. And while I tend to agree with him, there is a guy who is responsible for that you know…
The last two weeks have really hammered home all of the issues that this show has right now. No in-show feud show for Universal Champion Cody Rhodes. A never ending, one note, suspense free feud over the women’s title between Tiffany Stratton and Nia Jax. No credible challengers on the show to speak of for either the Women’s US Champion Giulia or the Women’s Tag Team Champions Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss. A men’s tag team division that was vibrant earlier in the year but has now cooled off considerably. And a single midcard feud between Damien Priest and Alaister Black that has managed to stop, start, and drag on all at the same time! The lone bright spot has been Sami Zayn’s weekly US title open challenges.
It really feels as if they had no plans after WrestleMania for much of anything and are just winging it every week with no long term direction. The biggest moment of the year post-Mania to happen on the show was AJ Lee’s return, and that immediately shifted back to RAW where the players all reside. To get a little more specific, let’s look at it piece by piece.
The Top Line: What’s the Story?
The main event scene in 2024 was very well defined after WrestleMania 40: Cody was the Universal Champion and top babyface on the show and was honorably defending his title while also dealing with the remnants of Roman’s Bloodline Gang, until Roman came back to deal with them himself. Then from there we had a nice two pronged approach where Roman and the OG Bloodline (Jimmy and Jey Uso and Sami Zayn) were dealing with the New Bloodline of Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu and friends while Cody continued on defending the title. That all went to pot in the new year. Cody’s focus became the returning John Cena who had now turned heel. That started well but then they blew some of Cena’s limited appearances on RAW instead of Smackdown both before and after WrestleMania, leaving Smackdown without a rudder many weeks. At the same time Roman began to appear more on RAW as well. It worked fine through Mania but then after that Cody was gone for a month and Roman for three months. Cena went over to Smackdown primarily but wasn’t there every week himself, leaving the show virtually rudderless many weeks.
Even with Cody holding the title again things haven’t gotten any better. He was gone for several weeks after regaining the title at Summerslam to film Street Fighter, and since returning he ran through a microwave program with Drew McIntyre that turned what could have been a nice fall feud into a listless one off match at WrestlePalooza, and is now going through another microwave feud that should be a longer term story with Seth Rollins to set up a virtually meaningless champion vs champion match at Crown Jewel. This has a been shame; Cody is at a point where holding the belt just for the sake of it isn’t very compelling and a nice September to January reign from Drew would have been a nice change of pace but instead we get this very uninspired run from a guy who was just champ for a full year. Speaking of which…..
The Women’s Title Scene
Tiffany Stratton has held the title since January 3, and has been feuding with Nia Jax ever since. Yes, you read that right, the same two women have been feuding over the title for nine months and there hasn’t been a single title change along the way. They’ve had four televised matches since January 3 and Stratton has won all four. Now in between she’s defended against Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania, Trish Stratus at Evolution and Jade Cargill at Summerslam but none of those have been anything more than just fine. The latter two had heatless builds then ended up being the shortest matches on their respective cards, ushered in and out so quickly as if WWE wanted us to forget they happened. None of it has been egregiously bad in the ring but unless Tiffany is a personal favorite of yours then I dare say none of it has been replay worthy. And it begs the question: why are we still doing this?
It’s not just that she’s mainly faced the same two opponents (Cargill since August and Jax since January) over and over, it’s the promo segments that feel like a complete waste of time – shorter and shorter as the year has gone on and lacking anything to make them stick – and the complete lack of any storytelling as to how Jax managed to hang around as her challenger for nine months through multiple losses while other opponents got one shot and had to move on. It’s not even bad so much as it’s forgettable, but nine plus months of mostly forgettable television is bad television. It feels like they had no real plans after WrestleMania than to just have her win matches to show she was on the same level as a performer as Rhea Ripley, Iyo Sky, Bianca Belair, Naomi, the Horsewomen, Alexa Bliss and Asuka, but she isn’t so you get what we’ve gotten from her while all of those women have outdone her this year in one area or another when they’ve gotten the chance. Wake me when it’s finally over. I’ve seen people suggest that maybe the plan was for Bianca to come back and dethrone her, and that her injury derailed that, but you gotta play the hand you’re dealt and this one hasn’t been played very well at all. But to be fair it’s not just this.
The women’s division as a whole
Where do I start? The women’s US title has been a treated like a contractual obligation since Chelsea Green lost it to Zelina Vega this Spring. Vega was in near witness protection for several weeks and then Giulia has been locked into working with opponents who are known for losing all the time. There’s virtually no midcard – outside of Jax and Cargill every woman is either a belt holder or booked like a jobber, which can make for some very uninteresting matches most weeks. RAW on the other hand has several women who can be plugged in every week to put on good matches and who can win or lose as is needed while remaining credible. This is especially glaring in the tag division as Charlotte and Alexa have virtually no challengers on Smackdown that are credible threats to their reign and have been left with little to do other than backstage segments for a month now.
Naomi was the engine of the division this year, doing the best character and promo work on the whole show and of her career, and once she moved over to RAW she took most of the juice with her. Once she moved over Jade no longer had any story or adversary to define her, and Tiffany was minus any new potential antagonists that could do the same for her. The results have been bland promo segments that do nothing to sell the matches that they’ve had or even themselves as wrestlers. Belair’s injury and post WrestleMania absence has hurt but unless they were gonna have her win the title and/or feud with Naomi then things weren’t going to be that much better even with her as neither Jade nor Tiffany has proven to be particularly compelling on the mic to work against.
But the biggest problem is still creative. Vega seems to have been given that brief US title reign as a thank you or just so she could have a turn with a belt. Charlotte and Alexa are in the tag team division, and by the looks of things it doesn’t appear as if there was any plan there outside of giving them something to do that didn’t involve the Women’s Title. Jax and Stratton feuding for nine months without a single twist or turn is a choice that wasn’t needed. A three way title feud between Stratton, Jax and Jade where they traded the title around would have at least given the audience something to stay on their toes about. And grabbing even one or two women from RAW to play in the midcard or go after the tag team belts would have made that better as well. Chelsea Green’s character work, as great as it’s been, is at the risk of being undermined by taking all of the losses as she’s the only interesting woman not holding a belt on the show and thus gets thrust into the credible opponent of the week role all the time.
The rest of the men
It’s not just the women who seem stuck in an endless loop on Smackdown. Damien Priest seems to have been stuck in this feud with Alaister Black forever (even though it’s only been a couple of months), and has generally been in limbo since WrestleMania. The same can be said for McIntyre and Jacob Fatu, both of whom had momentum coming out of Mania and are now about to face each other. While that should be good it would be much better if either the US or Universal Title was involved.
Jacob getting his first crack at a top title would have made for an interesting Fall program but instead of that the choice was made to just keep the belt on Cody to do this meaningless match for what I call the Burger King Belt at Crown Jewel. Priest and Black are set for a last man standing match the night before Crown Jewel but it would have been nice to see their feud escalate on a PLE somewhere. And on the tag team side the decision to go for a feel good win for the Wyatt Sicks has led to another sit on the belts title reign where nothing seems to be going on save the TLC match at Summerslam.
Smackdown has become very skippable for me because of it. Right now I check in to see if my favorite wrestlers on the show are going to be doing anything, and if not then I channel surf or turn on the Playstation. I’ve said a million times that you should not struggle watch anything and I am currently backing up that pledge.
How do you fix it?
There’s no magic bullet here, to be honest, but I have some ideas. One, as soon as Bianca is ready to go get that belt on her and let her feud with Jax and Cargill for a while. Stratton can move over to feud with Giulia over the US title and give that some more oomph. And then get a tag team, any tag team, over the Smackdown to challenge Charlotte and Alexa. Get the Universal belt off of Cody, give it to Drew for a few months, and let some people (Jacob, Randy Orton) chase him until it’s time for Cody to win it back. And then get the tag belts off the Wyatts and trade them over to RAW to juice up that tag division. That’s enough to get through the rest of the year, I think. But in 2026 some major changes need to happen. The women need some midcarders and another tag team, maybe two once Charlotte and Alexa inevitably split. The women’s title needs to be passed around more and the US title needs to be on somebody more interesting.
We’ll see what happens. It’s not hopeless but for now RAW and NXT are the places to be and I recommend you join me there.
Stroke of Genius 