WWE SmackDown 6/6/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE SmackDown," in this case the actual, for-real, honest-to-God go-home show for Money in the Bank 2025. And just as everyone predicted like a year ago, the episode ended with WWE Champion John Cena directly addressing belligerent chants from fans angry that WWE unjustly fired R-Truth. That's a thing that happened, we live in this world.

Anyway, the WINC staff definitely had some opinions about Cena, and we definitely had some opinions about Seth Rollins, who seemed to appear before, during, or after any segment that was about men. We'll also address both the episode's women's matches and the ongoing story of Solo Sikoa, though it came at the expense of the tag division — despite a match that saw AAA Mega Champion El Hijo Del Vikingo interfere and the return of Bo Dallas vignettes, we didn't have a ton of feelings about those segments this week, and this column is strictly about our feelings. You want objectivity? Check out our "SmackDown" results page; it probably has lots of words about LA Knight vs. Aleister Black. Here, we deal only in the passions, because these are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/6/25 episode of "WWE SmackDown." 

An enjoyable aspect of Solo Sikoa's journey throughout this year has been the gradual acceptance that he doesn't necessarily fit the role of believable monster, with the failed usurper to Tribal Chiefdom now running The Bloodline post-RICO and settling into an arguably far more entertaining Tribal Chief that never was. Part of the reason Sikoa missed the boat on being the monster that was promised – aside from the copious pinfall losses – was the introduction of Jacob Fatu, with the "Samoan Werewolf" coming in and decimating his way to the United States Championship.

Outside of kayfabe, Fatu is simply more believable in the role, carrying the strength you expect of his frame with the deceptive undercurrent of pace and agility. Within the lore, he has been presented as the enforcer who went and did everything his overlord had promised to do, yet is still expected to follow orders and walk to Sikoa's beat. And while Fatu has grown larger in character and far more independent, Sikoa has continued to lean into a sense of delusion and complacent comfort, throwing around insults to everyone including Fatu, Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed simply because he feels he can. This week's "SmackDown" dialed that up entirely, providing both the funnies and the storyline beats in one go as The Bloodline emerged to confront The Vision at the start of the show.

Sikoa said Rollins had got himself a Bloodline, likening Breakker to the "Right Hand Man" Jey Uso, Reed to the "Honorary Uce" Sami Zayn, calling back to Breakker's history with Uso as well as Reed's WarGames alliance with The Bloodline. When push came to shove and the fighting looked to start, Sikoa once again had the chance to hide behind Fatu and JC Mateo, ultimately emboldening him to continue running his mouth throughout the night. As he would do during the subsequent match between Mateo and Jimmy Uso, giving his brother a hilariously hard time on the apron – while simultaneously offering him a place beside him – until Mateo and Fatu eventually came to blows to hand "Big Jim" the win. That loss, and the growing dissent between Fatu and Sikoa, saw a later chat about the former between the latter and Mateo. And it might have been the more significant of Sikoa's increasingly brazen jibes, dismissing the idea that Fatu could be looking to go solo because he loves him and is "all gas and no brains." All while being in earshot of Fatu, who for his part didn't appear too happy to hear it.

Not only has it made for great viewing to see Sikoa's character morph into this very talkative, delusional, egomaniac, almost playing into the "Temu Tribal Chief" critiques with his mannerisms. But the stage has been set for Fatu to decide where his place is, and with Sikoa likely to find himself up a ladder and inches away from a championship contract this weekend, there is a strong chance that the decision could come sooner rather than later.

Written by Max Everett

It's always nice to see the secondary titles in the women's division be given proper storylines. That being said, choosing the right place and time to kick off said storylines is crucial in allowing fans to give their full attention to the talent that are being featured in them rather than having them involved in multiple storylines at the same time.

Given how prevalent the Men's and Women's Money In The Bank Ladder matches were throughout the duration of this episode of "SmackDown", it felt like such an odd choice to choose to have one of the competitors in the Women's Money In The Bank Ladder Match (Giulia) already be set up as the next challenger for Zelina Vega's Women's United States Championship. There would've been no harm done if WWE had waited just one week to have Giulia help Vega defeat Niven in a variation of a Street Fight only to immediately betray her after the match and make it clear that she wanted a shot at her Women's United States Championship. Moreover, it would've felt like a much bigger deal if they had waited just one more week to do all of this and given Giulia's character further motivation by either putting Vega on high alert if she had won the briefcase or a person for her to take her anger out in Vega over losing the briefcase depending on the outcome of the Money In The Bank Ladder Match. It all felt like an afterthought above anything else, and just didn't have the impact that it should've especially given that Giulia is a fairly new competitor to "SmackDown" still making a name for herself on the brand.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I'm not a huge fan of promo parades, especially like the ones like this one that kicked off a previously announced six-woman tag. I also generally don't love putting everyone in an upcoming multi-person match in a tag contest right beforehand, just because it feels like a lazy way of showcasing talent. But hey, talent still got showcased, right? In an era that has seen women's wrestling become, for many, the biggest in-ring draw for the major American promotions, it's pretty rad that Rhea Ripley and Stephanie Vaquer can just show up on "SmackDown" sometimes and wreck shop. I even liked the finish, which was pretty boilerplate "Can they co-exist? No!" stuff, but shockingly that actually works sometimes when the people failing to co-exist are heels, so it's supposed to be fun to watch them implode (and even more so when the person who walks out on their partners is Naomi, a choice that just thrums with thematic resonance).

The Money in the Bank go-home show was filled with various storyline advancements heading into the PLE, from Seth Rollins' power plays to John Cena's final appearance in Bakersfield, but sometimes the best way to hype up a match with six bad-ass women is to simply have the six bad-ass women all fight each other. That's pretty sick.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Shades of old Survivor Series brand war came through as "WWE Raw's" Seth Rollins, Paul Heyman, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed opened up Friday's episode of "WWE SmackDown" with a promise to reign terror on the blue brand. Shades of AEW's Death Riders and similar "savior" groups appeared in Rollins as he touted himself as the WWE's final redeeming grace: a stalwart protector of "true" wrestling in an era of part-timers such as Roman Reigns and ungrateful buzz names like CM Punk. Their first segment was clear in its malice: they were here to dominate, here to write the "SmackDown" locker room anew. They made good on their promise with an attack on LA Knight during his match against Aleister Black, and continued to plague the blue brand's locker room as they struck again, this time in the aftermath of Andrade and Penta's match against American Made. Their second segment was clear in its malice: they were here to —

Wait, their second segment?

Sure, this might be a hyper-specific thing to nitpick on, but if you're making me wonder if I have deja vu within the same three-hour show, you have me messed up. For what its worth, Rollins' new "salvation" stable has been interesting. It has allowed for Breakker and Reed to have a revived sense of purpose, and it is really fun to see how Heyman can both uplift and drive alongside a veritable mouthpiece like Rollins. However, they are only as good as their innovation. This stable, as an experimental push with new faces and combinations of company figureheads, is only as good as the new things they bring to the table. Generally speaking, if their antics do not challenge or elevate the time-old practices of professional wrestling, they risk falling completely flat — especially in wrestling's fast-paced, ever-evolving industry.

So, when they decided to both open and near-cap the show with the same in-ring segment, I was confused and irritated. They couldn't have thought of any other segment to fill the time? Maybe have Rollins waltz in on commentary, or have Breakker and Reed jump someone in the back. Have Heyman plant seeds of distrust going into Money in the Bank. Have them do literally anything than have *another* in-ring segment, where nothing has changed except for Rollins' jacket. Like, I don't know why they're going to waste this stable's time if they are just going to have them do the same thing.

Can't think of a new way for Rollins' stable to get involved in "SmackDown?" Sorry, then give that segment to someone else. The women's Money in the Banks participants hardly got any coverage — you could have easily made a new segment out of them. I get that WWE wants that tense Rollins/Cody Rhodes face-off, but considering the amount of exchange between them (nothing), they could have easily done that in a ramp or backstage segment. 

No need to have Heyman yap away to fill in a time or word count. That's my job.

Written by Angeline Phu

It was a given that both fields of Money in the Bank competitors were going to be on "WWE SmackDown" this week, but the man who stood out the most, perhaps unsurprisingly, was Seth "Freakin'" Rollins, flanked of course by Paul Heyman, Bron Breakker, and Bronson Reed. While I didn't care for the repeated promo segments of Rollins' and Heymans' this week, I really did love the fact he took over the blue brand to lay out his competitors before the ladder match tomorrow. The "WWE Raw" star kicked off the show to establish dominance, and things only escalated from there.

I liked that WWE didn't just throw all six men into a babyfaces versus heels tag team match like they did the women (though I also really enjoyed the women's match), because these segments spread out throughout the night after matches and other segments were a lot more effective if there was already going to be one MITB-based multi-person match. Rollins didn't brawl with Solo Sikoa at the beginning, thanks to Jacob Fatu and JC Mateo, but he got his point across. His interaction with Aleister Black, with whom he has history, after attempting to take out LA Knight following their match was also really good, and it was interesting Black attempted to step in front of Rollins to save Knight after he cut a promo about how much he disliked Knight. 

Rollins, Heyman, Breakker, and Reed walking down the ramp menacingly after Andrade and Penta defeated American Made looked really cool and Rollins' squad beat those two MITB competitors so badly that I'm unsure of what will happen to them tomorrow. That's when Cody Rhodes came out, followed by World Heavyweight Champion Jey Uso, and I assume they ran off Rollins' group during the commercial break that I didn't get to see thanks to what service I watch on.

It's also extremely possible that Rollins' dominance of "SmackDown" was entirely a red herring for tomorrow's match. Rollins doesn't need the briefcase, as he's such an established star, that putting Money in the Bank on him seems like a waste. I'm hoping these antics were to distract us from the fact that Rollins isn't going to win tomorrow. I'm not necessarily willing to bet on that, as Rollins is still actually my pick to win, but I'm hoping that everything he did was a distraction for something else.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It's not like WWE to address releases when they happen or the fact they're not renewing a star's contract. That's been up to the talent themselves over the last few years, since the pandemic, really, and WWE stopped doing press releases online and on their social media, so John Cena addressing the crowd's chants for R-Truth was pretty jarring, especially during his rant about Money in the Bank and his hyping up of Logan Paul with the World Heavyweight Championship.

After Cena dropped Rhodes with a second Attitude Adjustment, he angrily told the crowd they "couldn't handle the truth" and went on to use the word "truth" a number of other different ways. I don't think that's something Cena, who is such a company guy, would have ad-libbed, no matter how much he actually really liked Truth, so I'm assuming that WWE knew the chants would be coming and directed at Cena, who was R-Truth's final match at "Saturday Night's Main Event." I don't love that WWE chose to address Truth's forced departure through Cena, especially ahead of the premium live event where he has other things going on.

Truth being gone is really sad and disappointing, but I guess I'm just so used to WWE just brushing things like that off and not addressing them, that I would prefer them not to, especially in different storylines. It can't even be argued that it was subtle with the way Cena enunciated "OUR truth." Cena also could have leaned full heel into it if WWE was going to address it at all and say something like, "he ruined wrestling and he took out one of your favorites and they're never coming back" and so on and so forth. Whatever this was just felt really strange and didn't fit in to what Cena was doing. If WWE was going to do it, they could have done it in a much more effective way.

Written by Daisy Ruth