WWE SmackDown Results: Winners, Live Grades and Highlights After Royal Rumble 2025

Doc-Chris Mueller@@BR_DoctorFeatured Columnist IVFebruary 8, 2025WWE SmackDown Results: Winners, Live Grades and Highlights After Royal Rumble 20250 of 8

SmackDown.WWE

Welcome to Bleacher Report’s live coverage of WWE SmackDown on February 7.

We are fresh off the Royal Rumble and both Jey Uso and Charlotte Flair are returning to the blue brand as the winners of their respective Rumble matches.

But before we get their title shots at WrestleMania, WWE has to get ready for the Elimination Chamber PPV.

This week featured two qualifying matches for the Chamber. Alexa Bliss took on Candice LeRae and Bianca Belair battled Piper Niven for spots inside the massive cage.

Let’s take a look at everything that happened on this week’s episode of SmackDown.

Opening Segment1 of 8

SmackDown opened with Main Event Jey Uso coming through the concourse and talking to the camera before he made his way through the crowd to the ring. He was having so much fun that he called for his music to start again so he could keep celebrating with the crowd.

Jey talked about winning the Rumble before asking Cody Rhodes to come to the ring. They embraced and Rhodes congratulated him for winning the Royal Rumble.

Uso said he could challenge Rhodes, or he could go for the world title and stand side by side with Rhodes as champions. Rhodes said he plans to walk out of ‘Mania with his title no matter what.

Jacob Fatur and Tama Tonga came out. They talked some trash before a fight broke out. Fatu beat down Rhodes until Jey nailed a superkick and Rhodes hit a Cody Cutter. They worked together to drive both men away from the ring to end the segment.

This was clearly done to set up a tag match and it went about as well as any of this type of segment does. It was a pretty basic setup and promo, but it worked. Uso is super over and Rhodes remains popular. Whether Uso picks Rhodes of not, they will likely remain on good terms.

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

It’s so cool to see how over Jey is after so many years as a tag team guy. He has worked hard and deserves this opportunity. Tonga is slowly turning into the Tasmanian Devil and it’s funny every time. Piper Niven vs. Bianca Belair2 of 8

SmackDown.WWE

Belair and Niven fought in an Elimination Chamber qualifying bout to get the official in-ring action going for the night.

The EST tried to hit a KOD immediately but was unable to get Niven off the mat. She settled for some shoulder thrusts and mounted punches in the corner. The Scottish Superstar took control for a moment but was soon driven out of the ring. She rammed Belair into the apron and hit a crossbody against the LED wall to send us to a break.

We returned to see another unsuccessful attempt at a KOD before Belair was planted with a spinning slam. A few minutes later, The EST successfully hit her finisher for the pin and the win.

These two have had several great encounters in the past, and while this was good, it fell short of their best matches by a sizeable margin. The last couple of minutes were fun, but it didn’t have as much energy throughout most of the match as expected.

Result: Belair defeated Niven

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

Uso and Rhodes vs. Fatu and Tonga was announced when we returned from a break. Niven used Belair’s braid to yank her into a clothesline. WWE is trying to use the name Bossman Slam for what is usually known as the Black Hole Slam thanks to Abyss. Belair has done the “Fail twice before hitting the finisher on the third try” setup with Niven in almost every match. Pretty Deadly vs. DIY3 of 8

DIY was out after the break to brag about beating the Motor City Machine Guns at the Rumble to retain their tag titles. Pretty Deadly came out to interrupt a moment of silence. Nick Aldis showed up and said he was going to give Pretty Deadly a non-title match against the champs to see if they could earn a title shot.

He booked it to begin immediately, which upset Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa because they were still in their street clothes.

While DIY may have had the upper hand at first, Kit Wilson and Elton Prince began to build some momentum. They were acting more like babyfaces and trying to play to the crowd between movies.

Wilson ended up stealing the win from DIY by countering a dirty pin into one of their own, so they have officially earned a shot at the belts.

Some of this match took place during a commercial break, so we only got one segment’s worth of action. Most of it looked good, but it wasn’t enough to make this anything you should go out of your way to see.

Result: Pretty Deadly defeated DIY

Grade: C

Notable Moments and Observation

Ciampa is a lot funnier than people give him credit for on the mic. If Pretty Deadly can get over as a babyface team, Yes Boy is going to be a very popular chant for the crowd. The pin at the end was a little questionable. The ref should have been able to see the shenanigans. Jimmy Uso vs. LA Knight vs. Drew McIntyre 4 of 8

SmackDown.WWE

The next match was a triple threat bout for a spot in the Elimination Chamber between Jimmy Uso, Drew McIntyre and LA Knight. The Scottish Warrior gave a quick promo before the match to say he was happy to be back on SmackDown.

Jimmy came out and traded words with McIntyre. The Megastar spoke his mind during his entrance, too. All of the talking took up an entire segment, so the match didn’t get going until after a break.

This followed the usual pattern in three-man bouts. Each combination of competitors took turns fighting one-on-one until the third man took one of them out and replaced them.

This match saw all three men get plenty of chances to shine since it lasted through two segments. They each came close to winning, but it was McIntyre who scored the win by hitting a Claymore to Knight at the same moment he hit a BFT on Jimmy.

This was a solid three-way dance with a predictable but logical outcome.

Result: McIntyre defeated Uso and Knight

Grade: B+

Notable Moments and Observations

McIntyre tried to play off the reports of him storming out of the arena at the Royal Rumble as part of his character. Knight referenced the story in a much funnier way by saying he had to get his stuff in during the match. McIntyre purposely mixing up the Usos would have been funnier a few years ago when they still had the same hairstyles and attire. It’s always fun to watch McIntyre throw full-grown men around the ring. Akira Tozawa vs. Carmelo Hayes5 of 8

Akira Tozawa and Carmelo Hayes were booked in a match after a backstage segment earlier in the show. Hayes thought this would be an easy win, but Tozawa took control almost immediately.

The match only lasted about a minute before the show went to a break. When we returned, Melo had the upper hand until Tozawa sent his head into the bottom turnbuckle with a hurricanrana.

This match had a good pace and a lot of energy, but it never felt like they found their groove completely. Most of the moves looked good, but they lacked a level of chemistry that would have made this a really fun match.

Hayes hit a flying leg drop to the back of Tozawa’s neck to score the pin and the win.

Result: Hayes defeated Tozawa

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

Kevin Owens gave a promo from his car talking about the pain he is in. He blamed Sami Zayn for all of it. Saying Tozawa looked like somebody left Rhodes in the dryer too long shouldn’t have been as funny as it was. The hurricanrana spot could have looked a lot better. Hayes almost tripped before he was supposed to hit the turnbuckle. Hayes accidentally hit the ref during a kickout and you could see him apologize immediately and ask if she was alright while still selling. Hayes’s springboard DDT looked awesome. Tozawa sold it well, too. Alexa Bliss vs. Candice LeRae 6 of 8

SmackDown.WWE

Charlotte came out to celebrate her Rumble win and called the other 29 competitors “Unserious women.” As soon as she brought up Tiffany Stratton, the WWE women’s champion arrived on the scene.

The crowd chanted for Tiffy as she congratulated her idol on winning the rumble before turning into her usual insulting self. Nia Jax and Candice LeRae showed up, and Alexa Bliss was the final woman to join the party to get her match with LeRae going.

They got started when the show returned from a break. The crowd was weirdly quiet as the match got started. Bliss almost hit Sister Abigail early, but LeRae took her down for a near-fall.

They worked through a break into the next segment and the crowd began to wake up a little as they increased the intensity of their offense.

Bliss won her first singles match in two years with Sister Abigail. This was decent at the end, but the crowd’s lack of energy really hurt the presentation on TV.

Result: Bliss defeated LeRae

Grade: C+

Notable Moments and Observations

It would have been nice if Bliss was given some mic time after two years away. Either WWE was mixing the audio differently during this match or the crowd was incredibly uninterested in it at first. Both of these women are usually outsized by their opponents, so it was fun to see them get to work with someone of equal size. Jey Uso and Cody Rhodes vs. Jacob Fatu and Tama Tonga7 of 8

The main event for this week’s show was the tag match booked in the opening segment with Rhodes and Jey taking on Fatu and Tonga.

Rhodes and Tonga started for their teams with a simple lockup, but Fatu quickly tagged himself in so he could face the champ.

They fought through the picture-in-picture segment, but Jey got the hot tag when we returned.

The match played out in predictable fashion with Rhodes and Jey winning, but Solo Sikoa made his return and attacked Rhodes to end the show.

Result: Rhodes and Uso defeated Fatu and Tonga

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

At some point, we need to get a segment with Jey and Roman Reigns talking about the Rumble. Rhodes had his arm taped up and talked about being injured earlier in the show, so he was selling more than usual in this bout. WWE has a bad habit of starting a match and then going to a break about a minute later. The Final Word8 of 8

This week’s SmackDown made sure to address the events of the Royal Rumble and included a few Elimination Chamber, qualifying matches, so it progressed several storylines and pushes.

However, the in-ring action left a little to be desired. Most of the matches were decent, but not a single bout stood out as must-see television. If you missed this week’s show, the WWE youtube recap posted the following should give you all of the information you need.

McIntyre, Knight and Big Jim had the best bell-to-bell performance of the night, so if you only want to watch one thing from the show, make it that.

Sadly, news of several releases such as Sonya Deville, The Authors of Pain, Cedric Alexander and Blair Davenport were reported by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, so anyone paying attention to social media during the show was probably feeling a little let down.

Grade: C+