WWE Friday Night SmackDown comes waltzing back into our lives tonight (April 11, 2025) with a live show emanating from the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington, featuring all the latest build to the upcoming WrestleMania 41 extravaganza scheduled for later this month in Las Vegas.
Advertised for tonight: WWE Champion Cody Rhodes is back on the road to WrestleMania and his big match against John Cena.
Plus, Rey Fenix will be back in action in a singles match against Berto of Legado del Fantasma, Damian Priest will come face-to-face with Drew McIntyre now that their WrestleMania match is official, and a whole lot more!
Come right back here at 8 pm ET when the SmackDown live blog kicks off once the show starts on USA Network. It will be below this line here. (Note: Links to illegal streams are prohibited. Pics and GIFs are allowed.)
WWE SMACKDOWN RESULTS AND LIVE BLOG FOR APRIL 11
Electric fusion, no illusion, terror in the night! Screaming thunder, white face murder, we complete the fright! The earth is shaking, ground is breaking, we complete the rite! The time has come for you to run, now take off in the night while I liveblog this here pro wrestling show for you, folks.
The show opens with the usual montage of talent arriving at the arena.
A recap of Kevin Owens announcing his neck injury that will see him missing a bunch of time due to surgery and Randy Orton RKOing general manager Nick Aldis in the aftermath follows.
Nick Aldis is in the ring and on the mic.
He says last week we witnessed a number of important and memorable moments and he’s here to address one in particular. He’s been instructed to “maintain his professionalism,” and he’s a man of his word, so he’ll do that, but he’s going to take the opportunity to invite Randy Orton to join him in the ring right now.
Orton says he can tell by the look in Nick’s eyes that he took last week very, very personally. He wants Aldis to hear him out, he can’t expect him to believe that he didn’t see himself eating an RKO at some point. He paid his fine in advance again and he thinks they are even, and the reason why he really wants to speak to him is because he doesn’t have a WrestleMania match anymore, and this is a very important show for him.
It’ll be his twentieth WrestleMania and he needs Nick to do his job and find him an opponent, because he will be in Vegas, warmed up and ready to go, with his gear on, and he doesn’t care what it takes, up to and including Aldis lacing them up again. Nick talks about busting his ass for twenty years to get here, and he doesn’t need Randy’s money, he needs his respect.
Randy says he earned his respect a long time ago but if he doesn’t get a match he doesn’t know if he’s gonna be able to apologize to Mickie James for whatever he does to him after he doesn’t get a match.
Enter Solo Sikoa and Tama Tonga.
Sikoa tells Aldis to tell Randy to get out of the ring and stop embarrassing himself, because nobody wants to hear Orton cry, because it’s over for him, because he’s in the past, and next week, LA Knight is gonna end up in the same boat, because at WrestleMania, the “Samoan Werewolf” Jacob Fatu is walking out as United States Champion and Randy will be sitting at home all alone.
Orton says that’s funny he has the balls to come out here while he’s trying to be, for the first time in his career, diplomatic about his career. He rambles manic and says the voices are telling him to tell them to get in the ring so he can show Seattle how to beat two Samoan boys up.
Tama Tonga gets on one side of the ring, clobbered, uppercut for Solo on the other, going for the hanging DDT but Solo attacks him from behind and they lay him out and put boots to the Viper until LA Knight makes the save!
He gets on the mic and says he knows he and Randy haven’t gotten enough so he wants to have a tag match later tonight to satisfy the tingling in his loins. Nick Aldis makes it official!
We see Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez walking backstage and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we see the Judgment Day women seated at ringside for our next match.
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria vs. B-FAB & “Michin” Mia Yim vs. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter vs. Maxxine Dupri & Natalya vs. Pure Fusion Collective (Shayna Baszler & Zoey Stark) vs. Secret Hervice (Alba Fyre & Piper Niven) (WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship #1 Contender’s Gauntlet Match)
Bayley and Lyra start opposite Pure Fusion Collective.
Role Model legal against the Queen of Spades, arm wringer into the corner, tag to Stark, off the ropes, Bayley with a big arm drag into an armbar! Short-arm lariat to set up a tag to Baszler, stomp to the hand, Valkyria tags in, legsweep, bridging northern lights suplex but Shayna kicks out.
Off the ropes, front chancery reversed to an enzuigiri, Baszler bails but Zoey tagged in and nails her with a dropkick! Tag to Shayna, Regalplex, quick tag, diving blockbuster, Bayley breaks it up! Brawling on the floor, Lyra rolls into a pin…
Bayley and Lyra Valkyria eliminate Pure Fusion Collective by pinfall with a jackknife pin from Valkyria on Shayna Baszler.
Maxxine Dupri and Natalya are out third.
And so we go to break.
Back from commercial, Bayley blasts Natalya with a knee lift but Neidhart counters with a discus lariat and tags Dupri in for the diving crossbody… NOPE! Maxxine fired up and in control, the reverse Caterpillar on both of ‘em, cover on Bayley… STILL NO! Legs picked, step through, Sharpshooter countered…
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria eliminate Maxxine Dupri & Natalya with a small pacakge from Bayley on Dupri.
Katana Chance and Kayden Carter are out fourth.
Chance and Carter with double-teams to keep Bayley isolated but she gets knees up! Role Model with boots up in the corner, Shadows Over Hell diving elbow to Kayden, cover for two and a tag to Valkyria! Double whip, Carter with a drop toehold, facewash on Lyra, moving her into position, tag to Katana! Kickstand connects… BAYLEY BREAKS IT UP!
Kayden takes the Role Model out with a tornillo, flash pin from Katana, Lyra counters a powerbomb…
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria eliminate Katana Chance & Kayden Carter by pinfall with Nightwing from Valkyria on Katana Chance.
B-FAB and “Michin” Mia Yim are out fifth.
And so we go to break.
Back from commercial, Yim in control on Valkyria but she tags Bayley in and Michin gets lit up in the corner! Solebutt to a Pele Kick, Mia stays in the fight, tornado DDT… NOPE! B-FAB in, a little back and forth, Bayley gets her!
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria eliminate B-FAB & Mia Yim by pinfall with Roseplant from Bayley on B-FAB.
The Secret Hervice are out sixth.
Fyre bum rushes Bayley and lays her out, Niven clearing Lyra out and holding court with her, knocking the Role Model to the floor as well. Hamstring kicks from Alba, dragging Bayley over, tag to Piper, double suplex! Senton follows it up and we go to break!
Back from commercial, Niven slams a saluting Fyre into Bayley, cover for two! Alba putting boots to the Role Model, tag to Niven, Bayley suplexes the both of them and gets some breathing room! Tag to Lyra, big diving crossbody for Piper, enzuigiri for Alba, kick combo on Niven, front chancery, tornado DDT connects! Fisherman suplex reversed into a straight suplex into the corner!
Valkyria gets under Piper… POWERBOMB! Tag to Bayley, diving elbow drop… SO CLOSE! Niven puts Bayley into a Japanese stranglehold, falls back, Alba off the top with the senton atomico… VALKYRIA BREAKS IT UP! All four women in the ring as the match breaks down, brawling, referee Jason Ayers trying to restore order!
Things settling down, Roseplant on Fyre, Lyra off the top…
Bayley & Lyra Valkyria win, last eliminating the Secret Hervice by pinfall with a diving leg drop from Valkyria on Alba Fyre to become #1 contenders to the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship.
Post-match, Judgment Day come into the ring to square up with their new #1 contenders.
Damian Priest is shown walking backstage to send us to break.
Back from commercial Damian Priest makes his entrance but Drew McIntyre attacks him on the ramp and smashes his head into the LED boards on the barricade over and over until road agent Kenn Doane arrives at the head of a pack of road agents, referees, and security to break things up.
Priest can’t get his feet all the way under him and has to be helped out.
McIntyre, eyepatch and all, gets on the mic and asks if we can all see clearly yet. It’s plain as day, Drew McIntyre only tells the truth and all of his actions are justified, including dropping his stupid ass. He calls Damian a parasite who would never face him like a man until he got down to one eye.
He challenged him to a Sin City Street fight because he’s only got one eye and he accepted because that’s the kind of man Drew McIntyre is. Damian says he wants to live forever, he’s gonna make sure nobody forgets him with the beating of a lifetime at WrestleMania. He offers to let Seattle in on a little secret— Wolverine here’s got some good news.
He takes the eyepatch off and says he’s 100% cleared and that means that Priest is 100% screwed at WrestleMania!
Damian Priest comes back down over the objections of referees and security and the two of them brawl! Big lariat and a back elbow in the corner, clothesline sends Drew to the floor! Out with him, and McIntyre picks up the steel steps and smacks Priest with them! Drew considers his hand, slightly bloodied, and drags Priest atop the steps… FUTURE SHOCK DDT ON THE STEEL STEPS!
McIntyre screams agony as he sits up and stares Damian down, ripping Priest’s necklace off.
#DIY are watching footage back from last week and complaining about how they got screwed while Pretty Deadly look on. Tom and John are convinced there’s a conspiracy to keep them away from the tag titles, and PD tell them they’re out of their minds. Gargano shouts “BACK AND TO THE LEFT”, Pretty Deadly say they’ve stepped in a rabbit hole and they’re out of here.
Motor City Machine Guns replace them and say they’re focused on their tag title match next week and they say this is no conspiracy, it’s karma.
We get a Rey Fenix hype reel.
Legado Del Fantasma make their entrance to send us to break.
Back from commercial we get some hype for this year’s WWE Hall of Fame class.
Humberto Carrillo vs. Rey Fenix
Carrillo with a side headlock, schoolboy counters, crucifix pin, back on their feet and Humberto wipes him out with a lariat! Whip reversed, roll through, caught into a fireman’s carry, slip out, side Russian headbutt, a nearfall! Enzuigiri from Carrillo, roundhouse kick, putting boots to Fenix in the corner!
Choking Rey, to the floor, corkscrew tope con giro wipes Fenix out and we go to break!
Back from commercial, Fenix nails him with a headbutt, into the corner, double jump double stomp to the apron sends Carrillo to the floor! Tornillo follows, rolling thunder frog splash back to the inside, cover for two! Humberto gets him seated on the top rope, triangle lariat… SO CLOSE!
Up top, jockeying for position… REY FENIX AVALANCHE FRANKENSTEINER BUT CARRILLO ROLLS AWAY FROM THE COVER! Enzuigiri staggers Rey, sling him to the apron, he comes back in with a rebound kick, charging in, double jump, Humberto reverses to a Liger Bomb… SO CLOSE! Moonsault off the top… FENIX GETS THE BOOTS UP!
Rey runs the ropes for the Goodbye Amigos kick! Jumping rolling solebutt in the corner, Muscle Buster position…
Rey Fenix wins by pinfall with the Mexican Muscle Buster.
Post-match, Santos Escobar helps Humberto to his feet and gives him a pep talk before also helping Rey Fenix up and demanding that Carrillo shake his hand. Humberto does so in kind of a shitty way on his way out of the ring, and Santos stays behind to gladhand and sweet-talk Fenix, clearly scouting him for Legado del Fantasma.
Byron Saxton is outside of Nick Aldis’ office with Roxanne Perez for some reason.
She says since Ava Raine won’t give her an answer about Stand and Deliver, she’s here to talk about fighting for the WWE Women’s Championship since she was the Royal Rumble runner-up.
Tiffany Stratton rolls up and tells her to get her name out of her mouth and they bicker back and forth right as Nick comes out of his office and fails to get their attention. They set up a match, he says it’s been a day and he’ll think about it, but in the meantime, Tiffany needs to cool off.
And so we go to break.
Back from commercial we get a video package about the relationship between CM Punk and Paul Heyman.
Chelsea Green is banging on the trainers room door begging the Secret Hervice to be better so they can help her in her match tonight.
Zelina Vega rolls up to make fun of her for needing help and Green goes right back to begging.
Vega makes her entrance and we go to break.
Back from commercial we get another cryptic smoky vignette.
Chelsea Green vs. Zelina Vega
Green throws her entrance skirts at Vega for a hot start brawling! To the floor, fireman’s carry drops Zelina face-first across the announce desk and demands her security detail! Chelsea returns to the ring right as referee Ryan Tran counts her out…
Zelina Vega wins by countout.
Chelsea Green loses her mind.
Backstage Santos Escobar says Rey Fenix is the energy he wants and he berates Humberto Carrillo for making fun of Fenix and then failing to get the job done. Escobar tells Angel Garza to follow him so he can find and congratulate Rey wherever he is backstage.
Andrade el Idolo is backstage with Humberto saying he had a great match and he needs to remember that he’s a great wrestler too. He needs to keep his face up and be proud. Carrillo stands up and tells him to mind his own business.
We see the ring crew moving several tables covered in title belts into the ring and we go to break.
Back from commercial, Naomi (festooned in razor blades) calls Jade Cargill a snake and says if she hadn’t slammed her into a car it would have been her eventually. But it’s okay because there’s no more fake loyalty and she’s doing what’s best for her. And at WrestleMania, she strongly advises her to proceed with caution.
Jade Cargill cuts a counter promo covered in red ruffled net. She says when a star fades it steals shine from somewhere else and that’s what this is about, the glow is fading and Naomi is desperate to stay relevant.
“American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes makes his entrance and sets his WWE Undisputed Championship on a pedestal between two tables festooned with various previous versions of the WWE Championship.
On the left is the Winged Eagle, the Big Eagle, and one I don’t recognize (maybe one of Bruno Sammartino’s titles?), and on the right is the early-2000s Undisputed Championship, the spinner belt, and the version of the belt from noted racist Hulk Hogan’s first reign.
Cody talks about what the title means, about it representing that you’re the best wrestler in the world but he knows that it won’t always be him. It’s not just a match anymore, it’s about whether or not you get to keep the title at home, it’s about the next twenty champions.
He says John Cena has chosen to not make Seattle part of his retirement tour and it’d be cowardice to rebut his remarks from Monday here but he has to address one thing, the line about his tattoo making him a common fan. So what? It’s who he wants to be. He highlights the titles in turn and highlights qualities of various champions that he might want to emulate but he goes so fast I can’t keep up with most of ‘em, although he does have a line for the one I don’t recognize about selling out the most famous arena in the world over and over so that definitely IS one of Bruno’s belts.
He spins the spinner and asks if that’s someone who can carry the company on his back for ten years. John Cena sees that as bad, but he sees it as a man who’s trying to break the wheel and find himself. Cena says he doesn’t present himself authentically but here’s the thing— he’s the champion and John is not.
Cena is always preaching and maybe this is the one time he can teach Cena a lesson and it’s one he saw his old man struggle with as a career babyface and it’s very simple— the fans are allowed to love someone else. He calls himself the Captain but he’s on a roster that has everyone from CM Punk to Sami Zayn on it and they all make each other better.
Now he finds himself with an unenviable task that he has to halt history with his record-setting title reign so he can save the history of this place. He’ll tell Cena the same thing he told Brock and Roman, he does his best work in the ring backed into the corner and oh that bell is going to ring.
And when it does, and it’s over, he’ll leave John the ring to have his moment to say goodbye. It’d be clever to say his time is up and his time is now but Cena has known that for some time. And one day Cody’s own time will be up but until then, the title is his, it is timeless, it stays in his home, and it stays with them.
Byron Saxton interviews the Street Profits backstage.
Montez Ford says they like Motor City Machine Guns but they don’t have the titles and they run the division.
Melo Don’t Miz roll up and Carmelo Hayes says they’re running the division into the ground and Miz says them being champions is a joke and the titles not being on the WrestleMania card is a slap in the face to anyone who’s ever held the titles, and they’re gonna come for the titles about it.
Tiffany Stratton makes her entrance to send us to break.
Roxanne Perez vs. Tiffany Stratton
Collar and elbow, Perez gets her in the corner, Stratton shoves her down, side headlock, shot off, cartwheel over, Matrix evasion, satellite headscissors from Roxanne into a cover for two! Side headlock, shot off, big mat slam for Tiffany! Drop down, cartwheel over, huge palm strikes exchanged and then Stratton lands the mat slam!
Arm drags, front kick, snap suplex! Another snap suplex, cover for two, Perez distract referee Dan Engler for an eyepoke and then wrenches Stratton’s arm over the turnbuckle and stomping it to send us to break!
Back from commercial, Stratton with a spinning spinebuster, cover for two! Perez off the ropes, thrust spinebuster from Tiffany counters! Uppercut in the ropes, Roxanne with a snapmare, giant step, triangle moonsault… THE KNEES ARE UP! Double jump, Perez cuts her off! Side Russian legsweep off the second rope, cartwheel knee drop… NOPE!
Reversals reversed, victory roll reversed, no fall! Off the ropes, Roxanne with La Mistica into an arm-trap crossface! Stratton crawling desperate for the ropes but Perez kicks off the ropes! Tiffany uses her moment to roll through, Finlay Roll, double jump…
Tiffany Stratton wins by pinfall with the Prettiest Moonsault Ever.
Post-match, Charlotte Flair attacks Stratton and throws her into the barricade and the ringpost! Throwing Stratton over the desk, Wade Barrett gets between them and warns Charlotte off, telling her not to get herself fired. She yells at him but ultimately backs off and we go to break.
Back from commercial, we get a recap of Monday’s segment between Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins.
Commentary hypes up the WrestleMania cards, officially laying out what match is on what show for the first time this year.
Randy Orton makes his entrance to send us to break.
LA Knight & Randy Orton vs. Solo Sikoa & Tama Tonga
Tonga and Knight to start, Tama overwhelming him into the corner, quick tag to Sikoa, big lariat, LA firing back with punches for both of ‘em, crawling for the tag and he gets it! Orton with right hands to Solo, off the ropes, big lariat! Duck a lariat, snap scoop powerslams for both islanders!
Hanging DDT on Sikoa, the Viper is furious and he’s rolling! Going to that special place, Tama attacks from behind and that gives Solo an opening for a Samoan drop! Tonga dropkicks LA off the apron and we go to break!
Back from commercial, Orton down and out, Sikoa blasts Knight off the apron! Reverse chinlock applied, eventually Randy counters with a back suplex! Tag to LA, elbows aplenty, side Russian legsweep and corner kicks to Tonga! Corner knee, sidestep a charge from Solo, jumping neckbreaker!
Pop-up powerslam on Tama, People’s Elbow connects… SOLO BREAKS IT UP! Samoan Spike connects but Randy comes in with right hands to send Sikoa packing and then he hits an RKO on Tonga! Solo pulls him out of the ring, Orton throws him over the barricade and they brawl out into the crowd!
Back in the ring, LA is ready with the three-quarter facelock…
LA Knight & Randy Orton win by pinfall with the BFT from Knight on Tama Tonga.
Post-match, “Samoan Werewolf” Jacob Fatu appears in the ring and lays Knight out with a superkick and a running senton! Headbutts, Ode to Rikishi and the Werewolf is fired up! DOUBLE JUMP MOONSAULT CONNECTS! Fatu grabs the title belt and throws it down to hit another moonsault!
Jacob licks the title and stands tall.
The bug appears and Fatu gets one more moonsault in before the feed cuts!
That’s the show, folks.
