WWE had one more stop to make before making it to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for WrestleMania 41 and that was this week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown just down the road at the T-Mobile Arena.

The big one is just days away, and I’m talking about Cody Rhodes defending the WWE championship against John Cena, who promised to win the title and ruin wrestling by retiring with it. They met for another segment just two nights before actually getting in the ring to settle up.

They needed something big to send us off with. What would they put together? After all, the last time they were in a ring together, Rhodes put Cena down and left him there.

Before the champ could speak, Cena cut him off with his entrance and then quite literally told him to shut his mouth. This will be WrestleMania number 20 for him, and his last one. No one has ever had the courage to end their career the way he is doing so now, and there is nothing Rhodes could possibly do to prepare to face a man who “knows he’s going to die.”

Okay.

He claimed the fans aren’t buying it, that wrestling retirements are never real and he’ll have another match after this tour. That’s because, he says, other wrestlers are insecure losers who need the validation from the fans. When they leave, they’re left alone with their pathetic lives, so they come crawling back as a shell of themselves.

He doesn’t need any of these people, though. He has love and joy in his life.

This was pretty great.

He’s only here to take the title away from Rhodes, and all the fans who made his life harder all these years. The belt will finally become too heavy to hold come Sunday and Cody’s care for the fans will be his downfall.

History is written by the winners, folks. He’s about to write it soon.

Cena then claimed he knew it would be impossible to beat Rhodes after he won at Elimination Chamber but then Cody changed it all with what he said to The Rock. It was then that he understood not only can he win, Rhodes doesn’t stand a chance and he can knock off two birds with one stone by also proving the fans don’t matter.

“To become a winner, you have to sever ties with all the losers in your life.”

He continued to call Rhodes a kid in a man’s world, told him he doesn’t have the balls of the “last real champion.” Finally, it was Cody’s turn to speak and, to my great surprise, they booed the hell out of him. Cena immediately called attention to it, making it story — “this is who you fight for. This?”

The champ powered through it to say Cena is overrated, his face is melting wax, his legs are gone, and he’s more pale than Sting at Starrcade in 1997. Then he called attention to Cena getting naked for awards shows and the people he runs errands for now before finishing him off with the ultimate kill shot.

“It’s 2025 and you still can’t wrestle.”

This was a thorough takedown, one that completely flipped the crowd and led to each of them singing Cody’s name when they were booing him just moments prior. It was truly something to behold.

Cena called them idiots who don’t know what they want before saying he doesn’t have to wrestle to beat Rhodes on Sunday. Eye poke! The follow up Attitude Adjustment was countered into a Cross Rhodes and that was once again how they sent us off.

I think I enjoyed this more than any other segment they had, if only because it looked like it could get rough for Rhodes but he powered through and even turned the tide. They didn’t shy away from mentioning The Rock but still haven’t done enough to explain the connection between The Final Boss and Cena.

Either way, they did a great job here because I’m as excited for the match as I could possibly be.

This being the go home episode of SmackDown in the same city as the big event, and everyone in town anyway, it was reasonable to expect appearances from all the big names. Sure enough, Seth Rollins made his way out at the top of the show to take a seat in the ring with his legs crossed, like CM Punk has done so many times before him, to say a few words.

He claimed Punk didn’t come back because the fans were chanting his name. No, he came back for a different company because someone wrote him a “big, fat check.” And then he burned that bridge too, only then electing to come back to WWE. Even then, it was for a big, fat check.

“Tell me when I’m telling lies.”

As for Roman Reigns, he doesn’t even pretend to care about the fans, or the company, “and you can believe that.” He only cares about himself. The fans responded to this by breaking out in song for him.

The gist of his promo — he has done nothing but sacrifice everything he has to do what is right for this company and its fans. Despite this, Reigns and Punk have been given all the shine.

For their part, the fans sang his song and seemed to appreciate him.

He called back to 12 years ago, when Paul Heyman brought Reigns and Rollins into WWE and Punk’s tie in to that. It all ends at WrestleMania and once again he will sacrifice everything to make sure this industry moves forward in the right direction.

“That’s not a prediction — that’s a spoiler,” he said with a shit eating grin. It sure felt like there was a lot more to that than he even said, and he wasn’t trying to hide that fact one bit. It was a fairly basic promo but one that did everything it needed to in setting up the triple threat.

Rhea Ripley got her time on the blue brand to cut a promo of her own, saying this is her sixth WrestleMania coming up and, for her, it’s the most important. She could complain about what’s been happening to her lately but instead she’s going to focus up and leave the big show as a three time women’s world champion.

Short and sweet.

The segment, of course, couldn’t end there. The current champion, Iyo Sky, made her way out while Wade Barrett spoke openly about how overlooked and disrespected she’s been. That applies to in story and out, in this case.

Hilariously enough, before Sky could even speak, Bianca Belair’s music hit and Barrett hammered home the aforementioned disrespect. That is indeed the story, and they weren’t being shy about outright saying it.

Belair made some promises before a surprise — Naomi made her way out complaining that Bianca hasn’t been responding to her messages and has been avoiding her. Jade Cargill’s name came up, and she, too, joined the party. Belair got in between them, however, and that led to an argument where Jade seemed to turn on Belair for turning against her.

Or she was starting to, when Ripley got in the way and told her this isn’t about her. Naomi attacked from behind and a huge brawl broke out. It sure looks like they’re going back to the Jade-Belair story after WrestleMania.

I wonder what that means for the women’s world title match…

All the rest

• The Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was back again this year, with no clear favorite to win it. Rey Fenix and Shinsuke Nakamura got TV entrances but the rest simply filled the ring and got to business. There were some fun spots, like Chad Gable getting surrounded by luchadors and ultimately taking him out. Fenix was responsible for quite a few eliminations. The final four: Fenix, Nakamura, Andrade, Carmelo Hayes. Andrade got Nakamura out before a big spot where El Grande Americano showed up to eliminate Fenix while he was walking the top rope. That son of a son of a! What could his motivation have been?!? The remaining two did what they did in their best-of-7 once before, putting together a really fun back-and-forth before Hayes tossed him out and got himself what should be a signature win. Time for a real push? We shall see.
• The Motor City Machine Guns got their crack at the WWE tag team titles held by The Street Profits on this show. The match was ultimately a disappointment because DIY showed up late and caused a no contest when they attacked both teams, grabbing the belts and running away with them. It was a perfectly serviceable match before the finish, and because I’m not into DIY, this wasn’t very satisfying for yours truly. A later segment showed Nick Aldis getting the titles back and booking a TLC match for next week’s show. If there’s good to come of this, that would be it, I suppose.
• Randy Orton showed up good and pissed off, unhappy about not having a WrestleMania match. But he came up with a solution — an open challenge on Sunday and anyone in Las Vegas who can answer should and they will be met with the three most dangerous letters in sports entertainment. This was a hugely entertaining promo for the couple of minutes he was cutting it, and may have done more to make me excited for a match on the card than nearly any other bout that actually has two announced participants. What a pro.
• Chelsea Green complained to Nick Aldis and found herself in another match against Zelina Vega, a repeat from the apparently botched finish last week. This time around, they had basically the same match only this time Vega managed to score a pinfall victory and set herself up a future shot at the United States championship. It was fine.
• This show kicked off with LA Knight attacking Tama Tonga and Solo Sikoa as they were making their way into the arena, leading to the former being taken out for evaluation. It also set up a singles match for later. Knight got some promo time before said match, where he put over Jacob Fatu as a future champion, just not yet. Of course Fatu would interfere in the match, leading to Braun Strowman making the odds even and a tag match on the spot. Said match was actually a fun showcase, one that saw Knight go over with the BFT on Sikoa while Fatu was incapacitated on the outside.
• The only build they gave to the women’s championship match on this show was a sneak peek of a pair of interviews Wade Barrett did with Charlotte Flair and Tiffany Stratton that will air on the Countdown show come Sunday afternoon. To be fair, they were good teasers addressing the shoot style nature of the promos leading up to this match but everything before this was much more interesting. Having said that, I’m still super excited for the match.
• American Made and the LWO had a six-man tag team match that was immediately forgotten when Rey Mysterio appeared to go down with an injury and had to be helped to the back, per reports from the building. That would be truly horrific timing, considering his booking at WrestleMania.

This was a pretty damn good go home episode of TV. Much better than Raw this week as far as building to important matches.

Grade: A-

Your turn.