This Week In WWE Review (04/8/25 – 10/8/25)

Well, they did tell us that Summerslam would be eventful and it sure was. Summerslam Saturday was an average show saved by a stellar main event, CM Punk finally winning a WWE world championship for the first time in over a decade. That moment was ruined by the return of Seth Rollins who was not as injured as we were lead to believe, cashing in his Money in the Bank to win the World Heavyweight Championship and piss off CM Punk yet again.

Summerslam Sunday was a fantastic night of wrestling with 4 of the 6 matches being incredibly high quality matches. Cody Rhodes defeated John Cena, but that wasn’t the big talking point to come out of Summerslam. Brock bloody Lesnar made his shocking return to WWE, amidst the very real ongoing lawsuit between Janel Grant and Vince McMahon in which Brock Lesnar is named. I am not going to drone on about it, I advise that you do your own research on the matter because it is not just as simple as “TKO/WWE are endorsing a sexual predator” or “Brock did nothing wrong”. It is a pretty delicate, complex situation.

Full disclosure, I have had an incredibly rough week with some health issues in my family so this is going to be a lot more concise and to an extent, half-arsed. I’ll give my overall thoughts on each show, my grades for the segments, top 10 wrestlers, match of the week and the announced cards for next week.

WWE RAw – 4th August from New York City, NY

We opened Raw with a very early 2000s Triple H style of promo from Seth Rollins and Paul Heyman. A lot of talking but not a lot of substance. Paul Heyman threw digs at Roman Reigns and CM Punk, Seth Rollins threw digs at the fans and the locker room for abandoning him, before declaring that he has total control now he is world champion. The segment was elevated by the surprising appearance of LA Knight who laid out the challenge for a world title match tonight. It was a solid way to hype up the crowd and set up a star-studded main event.

Rusev and Sheamus had their third match on TV and of course it was good, but it didn’t really do anything interesting. This felt like a worse version of the previous 2 matches that they have had, with more focus on them countering each other and fighting back and forth. The match was incredibly even, both men brawled on the outside with little care for the referee count and it ended in a double count out. Afterwards, Rusev and Sheamus had an uncontrollable brawl. I thought this was a fun segment, clearly setting up a rematch with a stipulation, hopefully for Clash in Paris.

In an incredibly random match up, Penta defeated Grayson Waller. This was decent, it had some good ring work and an awesome iteration of the Mexican Destroyer. It is nice to see Penta back to winning ways, but what is the deal with him and Seth Rollins’ faction? Is he just moving on from the months of BS he had to deal with from them? I guess so.

Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss come out and continue to entertain with their lack of chemistry angle, which actually shows how much chemistry they have on-screen together. I like this pairing a lot. Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez come out to insult them and ask for a rematch and it is made official for right now! The match was a good one, not as good as their Summerslam one sure but still an entertaining tag match.

Dominik Mysterio defeated Dragon Lee in an average singles match that was simply here to build hype for the AAA Mega Championship 4-way match at TripleMania. Both of these men, plus El Grande Americano, challenge El Hijo de Vikingo. Dom did solid heel work, Dragon did solid ring work. Then we saw not one, not two but THREE El Grande Americano’s! How many are there?

Becky Lynch looks ahead after defeating Lyra Valkyria once and for all and she is confronted by rising star…Nikki Bella. Hooray. Nikki glazes her a bit before calling her a disappointment, then some personal shots are traded. Bella makes a comment about Seth Rollins, so Becky retorts about John Cena to an insanely loud pop. She might have just turned face again from that. Nikki challenges her to a first time ever 1v1, Becky cheap shots her with a punch to the face before leaving. This segment was good, amazing mic work from Becky but I cannot imagine there are many fans out there clamouring for a Lynch vs Bella match in 2025.

The show came to an end with Seth Rollins vs LA Knight for the heavyweight championship. A well wrestled main event that ended in predictable screwy fashion. Knight gets closer and closer to putting Rollins away. Rollins tries to stomp Knight on the exposed concrete, but CM Punk comes out to make the save and beat up Seth Rollins. The match ends in a DQ, Knight is pissed that his match ended in a DQ but before they can argue, Bron Breakker charges with an awesome spear. After the beat down, Seth Rollins poses with his title but out comes Roman Reigns. Reigns fights the odds but he comes up short. He suffers 3 Tsunami’s and he might be injured from that. Bronson Reed steals his shoes again which is a funny gimmick. A fun, hot ending to the show but where the hell was Jey Uso? He didn’t feel like saving his cousin from the beat down?

Overall, Raw was pretty solid but there was nothing major that happened or developed. You could probably watch next week’s Raw pretty comfortably without knowing what happened on this show.

Results & Grades

Overall, I would gave WWE Raw a C+ Grade.

WWE NXT – 5th August from Orlando, FL

NXT this week opens up with the Glamour, Blake Monroe, taking on Kelani Jordan. This was baffling. First of all, who is the heel here? I assume Blake but Jordan was being a heel last week and I thought she was a face. Who knows. Anyways, this was incredibly rushed but the action was solid. Blake is in control, but Jordynne Grace in a neck brace comes out and chases Blake out. Monroe escapes and Jordan wins by count out. I thought this was a bit lame, Kelani is over but she hasn’t been involved in anything interesting for a while, I think giving Monroe a meaningful win would mean more then she can be chased off afterwards. But no, Blake loses her second singles match in NXT.

Hank & Tank retain their NXT tag titles against Chase U’s Kale Dixon and Uriah Connors. Mercifully, this is only 3-4 minutes long because we have 4 mediocre to bad wrestlers. The work was sloppy, the selling was bad and the match structure was all over the place. Afterwards, we saw DarkState destroy them all which was actually nice to see. If DarkState are winning the gold, I hope it is a squash. We got a promo from them later on and once again exposed Cutler James as a terrible fit for this group.

Myles Borne defeats Lexis King in a solid match. Lexis King is doing great heel work and he is doing some of the best ring work of his short career so far. I just do not care about Myles Borne. I am impressed by his ability to be deaf and be a wrestler, that is an incredible feat. However, I need more to his personality other than “I am deaf and I wrestle a little like Randy Orton”. Match was fine.

Nia Jax defeats Thea Hail in a match that went longer than it needed to. The action was fine, Nia played the role of a larger bully great and Thea did a great job as the tenacious underdog. I just wish they wrapped this up quickly, make Nia look more dominant so that when she is eventually slayed by Lash Legend it feels like a bigger deal. Nia cuts a brief promo after her win, Lash Legend interrupts and doesn’t even finish her sentence before charging the ring and getting into a brawl. These 2 would brawl throughout the show which would have a bigger impact if this wasn’t a carbon copy of what Rusev and Sheamus were doing on Raw. This is not the first time we have seen NXT just repeat angles that Raw did the night before.

Oba Femi wants a new challenger and says the future doesn’t look bright since he has destroyed any challenger that he has had. Trick Williams comes out and puts himself over as the real top star in NXT, as well as TNA. Trick wants to officially represent both brands and wants a title shot. Je’Von Evans comes out and wants the NXT title. It is set up to have Trick and Je’Von face off in two weeks with a shot at the NXT title on the line. I enjoyed the interactions between these 3. Then, TNA’s Moose comes out and warns Trick that in 10 days at Emergence the TNA title is coming home. I thought Moose coming out was fine but a but unnecessary. Then, DarkState come out to attack them all but it backfires and they are all knocked out of the ring. This sets up an 8-man tag next week. I am sick of this overused trope for DarkState. What a way to ruin a solid promo segment.

Channing Lorenzo attacks Yoshiki Inamura from behind before their match. He beats him down, Yoshiki Inamura fights back. Adrianna Grace runs out and slaps Inamura for unknown reasons, other than to distract the referee so Josh Briggs can attack Inamura and help Lorenzo steal a cheap and incredibly quick win. This sucked, I hated this, but Adrianna looked fine as hell so I won’t give it an F.

NXT’s best heel Ethan Page perseveres through a hostile crowd to glaze himself as the best North American of all time. He gets confronted by Tavion Heights and sets his sights on the champion but out comes CHELSEA GREEN. She and the Secret Hervice come out and support Ethan Page. Tavion says he will find a women who is willing to get their hands on her. I thought this was great. Tavion did a solid promo and he is naturally likable. I love the pairing of Page and Green together. Chelsea looked fine as hell here too bah gawd.

In the main event, Sol Ruca retains her North American Championship against Tatum Paxley. Without a doubt the best match of the night. This were some scrappy moments but I think it added a layer to this fight. Tatum had some incredibly near falls that were pretty believable. That top rope neckbreaker looked brutal. Another appearance from Nia and Lash fighting caused a brief distraction allowing Sol to hit the Soul Snatcher to retain. Really fun match, I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending but I didn’t hate it.

This show is entirely skippable up until the last half an hour. The North American Championship stuff from both divisions were a lot of fun and worth watching. Having 6 matches on a 2 hour wrestling show is ludicrious, no wonder most of the matches were mid as hell. After a good NXT last week, we are back to the familiar mediocrity.

Results & Grades

Overall I would give WWE NXT a C Grade

WWE Smackdown – 8th August from Montreal, Quebec, Canada

We begin Smackdown with happy-go-lucky baby face John Cena. He gets a hero’s introduction and welcome to Montreal and he is still being billed as the “last real champion” which is interesting. He does a lot of crowd work before talking about being afraid of letting the fans down, being forgotten and of course Brock Lesnar. He refuses to back down from him though and he warns anyone brave enough to step to him that he is going down guns blazing. Out comes Logan Paul who pokes fun at Cena switching up and being a liar, Drew McIntyre attacks Cena from behind. Cena lays like a salmon and gets stomped on until Cody Rhodes makes the save. Cena vs Logan is booked for Clash in Paris, whilst a tag match is set up for tonight.

The heel turn retcon is going to have negative effects on Smackdown for a while and here is why. It is insulting to our intelligence. John Cena doesn’t reference the last 4-5 months of his antics at all. He is just back to being the boy scout of old. He cuts a generic, uninteresting face promo as if he is appearing for the first time this year. It is actually hard to root against Logan Paul here, because Logan is actually telling it how it is. He is calling out Cena for his lies and attitude shift, whilst he has always been authentic. How can I boo that when he is basically correct? John Cena has been a dickhead for MONTHS and all of a sudden he is a good guy again and he is not addressing it at all. Just a hard reset. Commentary are praising John Cena like nothing happened. I feel like WWE have been hit with the Men in Black neuraliser. This is insulting and if this was any other TV show, this episode would be seen as one of the worst.

On top of that, Cody Rhodes just makes the save as if he and John Cena haven’t been enemies for the majority of the year. What the fuck. Also spoiler alert, no Brock Lesnar here tonight because why wouldn’t he be. See you in Paris Brock! Awful, nonsensical, insulting, dogshit WWE segment thanks to one of the worst storylines recently in WWE being retconned, confusing the whole narrative for the foreseeable future. Well done WWE for messing up the retirement tour of one of the most important people to ever work for your company. Rant over.

Let’s try and speed run this because guess what? It is another bad Smackdown.

JC Mateo and Talla Tonga defeat Motor City Machine Guns. Sure, why not. The Guns are selling injuries from the TLC match, they get defeated in short order by the two big men of the MFTs. Talla Tonga is about as exciting to watch as the Great Khali, Mateo isn’t much better. Both men appear to be struggling to adjust to the WWE style. Boring match with the MCMGs having a few nice moments but losing yet another match. After the match, Solo Sikoa says that they will soon be the tag champions and he is the most dominant US champion ever. Nick Aldis introduces hometown hero Sami Zayn to wrestle.

Sami Zayn vs Solo Sikoa was a house show match, parading around the home town hero for the easy pop whilst the match didn’t really serve any purpose. Sami got a roll up win, making Solo look like a chump and getting a pop from the crowd. The match was fine, Zayn is a great worker and did his whole underdog shtick.

Bloody hell we actually got a recorded promo segment for the Wyatt Sicks. They cut a generic heel promo. By god. They talk about their intentions not being just to instil fear and they have more work to do on the tag teams. I get what they were trying to do, but I was hoping for more. They said a lot of words but there wasn’t much behind them, quite like a lot of Bray Wyatt promos back when WWE weren’t using him very well. Circle of violence. I like the gimmick enough that I enjoyed this, but I want more content and context than this. They cannot just drip feed us for months on end.

Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair have a championship celebration as well as a celebration for Alexa’s birthday. We continue Flair trying to be a friend but not being able to put her own ego aside, but she means well. She gets a cake with her own name on but Alexa’s name in small, as well as buying a doll called “Charlie” similar to Lilly but, well, Charlotte Flair. Bliss and Flair nearly hug, but they are interrupted by Chelsea Green who roasts them before wanting to celebrate her rather than them. Flair and Nick Aldis have one last gift for Alexa, Flair beating up Chelsea Green for her. The segment was fine, it felt a bit forced at times and it didn’t really connect with the crowd until they pulled out a doll. I still like the Flair/Bliss combo but I thought they have had better interactions than this.

Charlotte Flair defeated Chelsea Green and, yeah, this was another fine segment but it was ruined by a terrible finish. The match was a basic singles TV match. Piper Niven and Alba Fyre bring in the cake for Green to do an Unprettier onto Charlotte on. Flair counters, hits Unprettier herself and CHELSEA GREEN LANDED ON THE CAKE HAHAHAHAHHAHA. Fucking trash comedy. This is PG era WWE that I hoped to never see again. Flair makes Green tap with the figure 8. Worth mentioning here, Joe Tessitore is unusually annoying on this episode. He oversells a lot more than usual, he made the cake spot sound like it was a Norm MacDonald comedy special.

I don’t usually talk about the smaller, ungradable segments, but hearing Jade Cargill whine about Tiffany getting a foot on the rope makes her look weak. Whilst I’m here, I was a big fan of Aleister Black’s mini promo segment. I’m glad he is getting time to speak.

OH MY GOD OKAY RANT CONTINUES. We have the John Cena interaction with R-Truth. They do weird mime act for a bit before Truth says “if you’re back, I’m back.” So I guess we are also retconning the whole Ron Killings thing now too. Then, John Cena gaslights R-Truth into thinking that he was the one who changed, was mean to the fans and threatened to ruin wrestling. He is glad the normal R-Truth is back. What WWE think is a cute tongue-in-cheek little segment just adds more fuel to the fire. This seg would usually be too short to rate, but I am going to give it an F anyways because fuck this stupid company.

Main event time. A basic ass tag match. Cody Rhodes gets beaten down, John Cena gets the hot tag and runs wild, Logan Paul low blows him and gets DQ’d. The only good thing here, is that it looks like we are getting Drew McIntyre challenging for the WWE title and hopefully he will win and send Cody packing to Hollywood for a few months. A bland match that is a waste of all 4 guys, especially Cena who only has 11 dates left.

Honestly, this might actually be the worst Smackdown of the year. I hate this stupid show. If the WWE Network still existed, I would cancel it.

Results & Grades

Overall, I would give WWE Smackdown a E Grade.

Top 10 of the Week

WWE Match of the Week

Sol Ruca vs Tatum Paxley, WWE NXT

Next Week

Confirmed Clash in Paris Card

Naomi (c) vs Stephanie Vaquer, Women’s World Championship

Check out Part 2 of my Fantasy Booking of 2001-2002 WWF without the Invasion Angle!