WWE Friday Night SmackDown comes waltzing back into our lives tonight (Dec. 12, 2025) with a live show emanating from the Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, featuring the final episode of TV before John Cena’s retirement edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event.
Advertised for tonight: There will be a celebration of John Cena ahead of his big night.
Elsewhere, WWE Champion Cody Rhodes is scheduled for the show, Rhea Ripley & Damian Priest team up to take on Aleister Black & Zelina, Tommaso Ciampa finally gets his United States championship match against Ilja Dragunov, Alexa Bliss takes on Lash Legend in singles action, and 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 & LIVE BLOG FOR DEC. 12
Sleepy town ain’t got the guts to budge, baby, this emptiness has already been judged. I wanna liveblog this pro wrestling show for you, folks.
The show opens with a recap of the Drew McIntyre / Cody Rhodes story from last week.
Nick Aldis cuts a promo earlier today about his efforts to reinstate Drew McIntyre and how they’ve been thwarted by Drew refusing to return contact, so he’s issuing this official invitation to discuss a way to bring him back to the roster
Backstage right now, Nick Aldis meets Cody Rhodes and shows him a legal letter from Drew McIntyre alleging an unsafe work environment and he assures Cody he’s untangling it as best he can but Drew is not being easy to work with. Rhodes crumples up the letter and storms off to make his entrance.
He gets on the mic and asks Wiles-Barre what they want to talk about and scoffs at Drew McIntyre’s claim of an unsafe work enviroment and says there’s a reason he’s not waking up at 5 am for press junkets and it’s the same reason he’s not WWE Champion, and that’s that he’s not all in (geddit?) and that’s why Cody doesn’t sweat him.
In fact, if he was McIntyre’s boss, he’d fire him, but since he isn’t, he’ll settle for whooping his ass.
He says he sees Cody all fired up and he loves the passion, but he’s afraid he’s worried about the wrong man. Drew isn’t here, but the NXT Champion is in the building tonight, and he formally introduces himself as the Ruler, the Destroyer, the Bringer of War, the mountain that he cannot climb nor conquer, and the man Cody will be facing tomorrow at Saturday Night’s Main Event.
In the spirit of Saturday Night’s Main Event, pitched as past vs. future, and people say the future is some distant thing, but he disagrees– the future is now and here and it is him. So in the spirit of hustle, loyalty, and respect, Rhodes’ time is up and his time is now. Cody says that’s a John Cena quote and he looks up to Cena as well, but he’s the man that beat John Cena for his title.
Rhodes tries to brush past but Oba grabs his arm, stops him, and raises the NXT Championship high. Cody raises the WWE Championship up and now he walks past without incident.
The usual montage of talent arriving at the arena follows.
Ilja Dragunov is walking backstage and Fraxiom roll up to offer to have his back. Ilja politely turns them down because the greatest of all time, John Cena himself, started the open challenge, so he’s gonna teach that jackass Tommaso Ciampa that if he messes with the Mad Dragon he’ll burn his fingers and pain shall entertain him.
Tommaso Ciampa makes his entrance to send us to break.
Ilja Dragunov (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa (WWE Men’s United States Championship)
Hard hitting out the gates, trading forearms and chops, huge pump kick from Dragunov! Trading chops, basement dropkick and a running knee from Ciampa, only a nearfall! Stomping away at his knee, whip reversed into the corner, rising knee from the champ, big boot in the corner and Tom falls out to the apron where Ilja blasts him to the floor with a boot!
Charging around the way, sidestepped hard into the steel steps, Ciampa suplexes him into the steel and we go to break!
Back from commercial, back and forth, rising knee gets an enzuigiri and both men end up down and out! Dragunov hammering him with chops, knee lift, rolling German suplexes, Ciampa catches a kick, they trade palm strikes… ORE GA TAUE FROM DRAGUNOV?! Tom gets the better of him in the aftermath, putting him up top, headbutts from Ilja, missile dropkick to the side of the head but Dragunov clutches his knee on impact and we go to break!
