WWE SmackDown Results: Winners, Live Grades and Highlights Before Royal Rumble 2025 – Bleacher Report
Welcome to Bleacher Report’s live coverage of WWE SmackDown on January 31.This is the final show before tomorrow’s Royal Rumble, so it was WWE’s last chance to make any final changes and hype the show.Here is a look at what WWE advertised for Friday’s episode:Let’s take a look at everything that happened on this week’s SmackDown.SmackDown opened with Michael Cole welcoming Pat McAfee to a podium near the stage. It looks like WWE may be splitting host and commentary duties into two separate things.Joe Tessitore was in the ring and welcomed Kevin Owens to speak about his upcoming match against Cody Rhodes. He said he wanted to give KO a chance to speak his mind in the spirit of fairness.Owens expressed some anger before taking the winged eagle belt off the hanger and saying he would get the other one on Saturday. This brought out CM Punk to a big pop.Punk didn’t come out to pick a fight but did say he would win the Rumble and come for whoever wins between KO and Rhodes.The Prize Fighter ended up saying several insulting things to the Straight-Edge Superstar, so Punk started firing back. He even brought up KO losing to Logan Paul to get under his skin.The segment ended with no violence, but the direction is clear. KO and Punk did a great job setting up their eventual feud without laying a finger on each other. This wasn’t groundbreaking, but it did what it set out to do in an entertaining way.Grade: BNotable Moments and ObservationsAfter attacking Jimmy last week during his entrance, Hayes found himself in a match with him on Friday’s show. Both men gave quick promos before the fight got started.Melo came out of the gate hot and took Uso down right away. He stayed on him and didn’t give him any time to recover, but he made the mistake of trying to headbutt a Samoan and paid the price.Hayes regained control and began taunting the crowd and his opponent. He even stole the Usos’ running hip attack to add insult to injury.While this was a solid match with a lot of good individual moments, there was something off about the pacing. Both of these guys can work quicker than they did here, so it felt like they were going slow at times when they should have been picking back up.The waiting between sequences allowed for big moves to be sold, but it cut down on how exciting this contest should have been, especially considering who was involved.Jimmy ended up winning with a counter and a handful of tights instead of his finisher, so we will almost certainly see these two in the ring again.Result: Uso defeated HayesGrade: B-Notable Moments and ObservationsAfter pinning Green last week in a six-woman tag match, Michin got another shot at the U.S. title on this week’s show. B-Fab and Piper Niven were in their respective ally’s corner.The champion found herself having to kick out of two pins in a row before the match had been going for 30 seconds, so she took a breather to regroup.These two have had a few encounters, so they have had enough time to build up some chemistry. That is why it was surprising to see them have a handful of moments that looked awkward or mistimed.Niven saved Green by pulling her out of the ring after she took Eat Defeat from Michin, and then Green got herself disqualified by using a kendo stick.Result: Michin won by DQGrade: CNotable Moments and ObservationsDamian Priest came out and gave a promo about being on SmackDown, but he was eventually interrupted by Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu. Surprisingly, Fatu showed Priest some respect before telling him to lay down or get taken down.The Archer of Infamy was not intimidated in the slightest. He knocked down Tonga with one punch before he and Fatu started trading shots. The numbers game caught up to him as he was cornered and beaten down, but LA Knight ran down to make the save.Next up was the eight-man tag match with Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa, Kit Wilson and Elton Prince taking on Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Angel and Berto. MCMG told Los Garzas they would have their back in the match, but Los Garzas did not seem interested in their help.Ciampa tagged out to Prince so he wouldn’t have to face Shelley, so Shelley brought in Berto. While this match had great action, it was completely hampered by WWE airing a special ad for a movie, and then going to a regular commercial about a minute after that.Even with picture-in-picture, the presentation was impacted. However, the eight men in this match did a tremendous job of making it easy to keep your eyes on that smaller screen.Wilson and Prince were the two biggest competitors, so they ended up doing a lot of the catching when the high-flyers started going on a roll.Angel and Berto ended up leaving Sabin and Shelley to fend for themselves, but MCMG pulled out the upset and won in the end.Result: Motor City Machine Guns and Los Garzas defeated Pretty Deadly and DIYGrade: B+Notable Moments and ObservationsHaliburton was brought out for a special interview with Cole and McAfee before Naomi took on Morgan in a singles match.Bianca Belair and Raquel Rodriguez were both at ringside, so it felt like it was just a matter of time before one of them got involved.Naomi had the power advantage, so she was quick to take control and kept it for the first several minutes. It took a distraction from Raquel to allow Morgan to trip Naomi on the middle rope.This match had a good amount of time and allowed them to work at different paces when it made sense to change it up. They sold big moves but also had some quick sequences of back-and-forth offense.Belair attacked Rodriguez when she tried to get involved again, and her intervention allowed Naomi to counter a pin and score the victory. The celebration was short-lived due to Raquel and Liv attacking Naomi and Bianca after the match.They left the women’s tag champs down and out to end the segment. Even with the 50-50 booking at the end, this was all pretty entertaining. The right person won, but the loser also looked like a threat. Morgan and Rodriguez chasing the tag titles would make perfect sense.Result: Naomi defeated MorganGrade: BNotable Moments and ObservationsThe Miz thought his move to SmackDown would get him away from The Wyatt Sicks, but all it has done is bring him grief since the first day. This week, he ended up in a match with Andrade that he unintentionally inspired.The Miz scored the first takedown, but El Idolo gained the upper hand almost immediately after he got back to his feet.This bout lasted through a break and into the next segment, but the pace didn’t really pick up until the end. Andrade scored a predictable victory, but it was a little surprising that the Wyatts didn’t have some kind of presence. We know they are on SmackDown but WWE has yet to use them on the blue brand.Result: Andrade defeated The MizGrade: BNotable Moments and ObservationsTiffany Stratton gave an interview with Cole and McAfee that was interrupted by Candice LeRae and Nia Jax. The new champ was taken out by the woman she beat for the belt while LeRae suffered an unintentional corner splash from Jax in the process.Knight and Priest rushed into the ring during their entrance to get the fight going immediately. They sent Fatu out of the ring with a double running boot to the face.The Archer of Infamy beat up on Tonga for a little while before Knight tagged in and found himself quickly being double-teamed with stomps in the corner.The match went back and forth with all four men having segments on offense and defense at different times. They followed a predictable pattern but did it in an entertaining way.Priest and Fatu were the stars of this bout and will likely end up in a singles match soon, but on this occasion, it was Priest and Knight who won when The Archer of Infamy hit South of Heaven on Tonga for the pin. Fatu ended the show by attacking Priest and hitting a moonsault.Result: Priest and Knight defeated Tonga and FatuGrade: BNotable Moments and ObservationsThe final SmackDown before the 2025 Royal Rumble definitely featured a lot of hype for the PLE, but the show also had some slight presentation changes that may become the norm.Having Cole and McAfee operating as a separate unit from Barrett and Tessitore on commentary gave the show a slightly different feel, but whether that is good or not is up to you.Most of the matches we saw ranged from good to above average, but the show had a couple of low points that were mostly a result of booking, not the performances.The eight-man tag match was the highlight of the show even if it did suffer from WWE’s new trend of doing a movie trailer embedded in the show in addition to the standard commercial break.SmackDown being three hours gives management a lot of wiggle room, but there are definitely better ways some of the time could be used.Grade: B
