"WWE SmackDown" desperately needs to get past the Royal Rumble.

WWE played to the San Diego crowd on Friday's show with big appearances from Rey Mysterio and Bayley, but unfortunately we saw minimal story progression and more of the same.

Really, there's only one reason to watch this week's "SmackDown." No surprise — it was the women's WWE title match.

🔥 Cookin' with butter! 🧈

I wasn't sure how I felt about using Bayley as new champion Tiffany Stratton's first title defense. It all felt so quick and random, despite the nice little pinches of backstory they interjected.

But wow, this was beyond the right call.

The match was damn near perfect.

Let's take a moment to praise Stratton as an in-ring performer. She's been great, but the championship aura is already surrounding her and magnifying her work. How the champion flies — no, glides — through the air with any aerial offense is magical. Stratton isn't as much of a high-flyer as, let's say, someone like Ricochet, but she also floats like a feather when separating herself from the earth. Her Swanton bomb to powerbomb combo was sick and should be a finishing combination. The eventual Alabama Slam to Prettiest Moonsault Ever for the clean 1-2-3 was just a pure chef's kiss.

This legit might be my favorite match of 2025 so far. It was fast, technical and hard-hitting all at once. I can't thank WWE enough for not doing what I feared, which was a blatantly obvious tease at what could've been a Roxanne Perez interference. Bayley taunted the former NXT champ outside the ring toward the end of the match, presumably setting up a future program with them. Hey, no complaints at all there.

Bayley was also great in this match, of course. But don't get it twisted — it really is Tiffy Time.

Stratton fits the championship level in every way. She's WWE's answer to AEW Women's World Champion Mariah May. They share many similarities but are different enough to stand out as the major stars they've become. It's a great time for female champions in professional wrestling.

(Now that I'm fantasy booking ideas years into the future, who wouldn't want to see a feud between those two?)

(What we don't want to see, however, is what we've already seen multiple times.)

🥱 Rinse and repeat

Rey Mysterio's opening of the show at San Diego's Pechanga Arena was a lovely ode to the legend.

We keep doing the thing, though.

Mysterio declared for the Royal Rumble, because of course he did. I'm going to say it every show that we have to talk about it, guys. I can't hate this any more than I already do. The spoiling of Royal Rumble surprises needs to end. And what do you know? This wasn't even the last spoiled surprise tonight.

Kevin Owens interrupted Mysterio right after a nod to Eddie Guerrero as the legend reminisced on winning the Rumble back in the day. Owens wanted a match out of respect, and that was nice to see from a heel character — then he lost it when Mysterio said Owens wasn't the real WWE Undisputed champ. Mysterio also compared Owens to his son, Dominick Mysterio, which was hilarious, causing Owens to freak out and attack Mysterio, leading to a decent match later in the night.

Aside from a few reminders that Mysterio is a damn anomaly for still being able to move how he does at 50, nothing stood out here. Owens won and tried to piledrive Mysterio before a Cody Rhodes save.

It's nothing new. We've seen this happen so often now that I can't count it. Besides Rhodes and Owens' forthcoming ladder match, nothing interesting is left to add to this rivalry.

If you want to know how out of ideas WWE is, they'll have a contract signing at next weekend's Saturday Night's Main Event show, with Shawn Michaels as the mediator. Right, because the old retired legend will totally be able to stop any shenanigans and hostility. It's all so random and desperate. I dare even go as far as to say Owens is turning into a cheap knockoff of Randy Orton's "legend killer" gimmick. That could admittedly work nicely, considering Owens started this turn with Orton, but the execution hasn't been good, and Owens is just an insecure, crazy person now.

Rhodes and Owens' ladder match will be excellent, I know that. But we need to move on so badly.

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

Some straw-grasping was done for tonight's gem. I hate to say that, but there's barely one worth giving. To remain as positive as possible, Jimmy Uso and Carmelo Hayes were fantastic together. They put on a hell of a match.

Until the end.

📚Overbooking of the Night

I wasn't sure who was going to win this one. Hayes felt like the obvious choice due to Uso not getting pushed to the same singles level as his brother, Jey Uso. But I should have known. The Bloodline antics are still alive and well, as Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu interfered to attack Uso, ruining a great match. Why?

This was essentially used as a lazy out so neither Uso nor Hayes got pinned while getting other stars involved. Solo Sikoa appeared for the first time since his loss to Roman Reigns on "Raw's" Netflix debut —only to say nothing and walk away. Fatu over the microphone before LA Knight came out to attack both him and Tonga. And then Braun Strowman arrived? It was just people showing up everywhere.

Knight and Tonga have a match on the next "SmackDown," and Strowman meets Fatu at Saturday Night's Main Event. The latter match will be fun, as the teases have been. But this was all just a mess at the expense of the second-best portion of this show.

🙄 Slog of the Night

But wait! There was more dragging out to be done. I won't do the same, so we'll keep it short.

Bianca Belair and Naomi beat Nia Jax and Candice LeRae. It had a strong ending, and despite her pointless appearance on this week's "Raw," Jax was the star of this match. Belair's hair gimmick has been continually overplayed, as previously mentioned in past weeks, and Jax making fun of it mid-match was hilarious.

Naomi planted some interesting seeds of dissension toward Belair, but we're still waiting for the Jade Cargill reveal.

At this point, I fully expect WWE to bring her back on a house show because we know damn well she won't be a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble.

👍 UP & UP 👍

1. The commentary team set the scene by walking backstage and into the crowd to start the show. That was pretty cool. Jon Jones even got a mention from Joe Tessitore — because we all remember that Jones beat "The Janitor" Vladimir Matyushenko in San Diego, right?

2. Chelsea Green is starting to give off first-reign AEW World Champ Chris Jericho vibes. She's now the longest-reigning Women's U.S. champion in WWE history! Congrats to Miss Green.

3. Motor City Machine Guns defeated Los Garza. MCMG is always good, and they won with a failed Pretty Deadly interference along the way. Wins on all fronts.

👎 DOWN & OUT 👎

1. On the other side of the MCMG coin, they'll face Pretty Deadly next Friday. I couldn't care less about the latter's involvement in the title scene.

2. I also couldn't care less about the Green-Michin feud continuing for no good reason.

As an extension of this, Piper Niven beat B-Fab in a short, easy distraction finish. Niven and Green beat B-Fab up afterward, forcing the Michin save. Michin lost. Move on or make her earn it.

3. Apollo Crews got attacked by Johnny Gargano backstage. He was only on the show to be made a fool of. Ouch.

4. This one was bad, guys. I mean, the art of the surprise couldn't be any more dead. WWE put up a Charlotte Flair return video tease right before Stratton vs. Bayley. I like the foreshadowing with Stratton vs. Flair, perhaps for WrestleMania. But how do you not let Flair, of all people, give us a big surprise return?

I need to take a brisk walk. Have a great weekend, friends.

👑 If it weren't for the main event, this would have been rough. I give this show a Crown score of: 5/10. 👑