The 2025 WWE King and Queen of the Ring tournaments are nearly over as tonight's episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown featured half of the semifinals rounds to see who would advance to the grand finale, set to go down at WWE Night of Champions on Saturday, June 28th at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
First up on the show was the women's match for Queen of the Ring, between Alexa Bliss and Asuka.
Given how both veterans have used mind games in their contests before, trying that against each other here led to some interesting moments, such as The Empress of Tomorrow playing possum and Bliss opting not to jump off the top rope, just to get caught in an arm bar.
Bliss naturally was not without bringing her Five Feet of Fury, though, taking the fight to Asuka and nearly winning the match at several moments, only to fall victim to an Empress Impact (her new finisher) after putting her knees up to block an attempt at a Twisted Bliss splash.
Asuka will face the winner of Monday Night Raw's other semifinals match between Roxanne Perez and Jade Cargill.
As far as the men's division is concerned, there was a promo segment in the ring between all four semifinalists in Cody Rhodes, Jey Uso, Sami Zayn, and Randy Orton. They all spoke about how much respect and love and admiration they have for one another, but the message was loud and clear from each Superstar: I'll go through you if I have to in order to get a shot at the world title.
This is exactly what happened when Orton and Zayn had their semifinals match, which was an even and fair contest between them, as two babyfaces should naturally have.
Ultimately, after several attempts at an RKO that Zayn was ready for, all it took was getting momentarily caught off guard and The Viper hitting one of his trademark cutters to get the win.
Rhodes and Uso will battle it out on Monday Night Raw in their semifinals match to determine who fights Orton at Night of Champions, who seeks to not make losing in the finals of that tournament in Saudi Arabia happen twice in a row, as that's what happened to him last year against "The Ring General" Gunther.
For the full results of the June 20, 2025 edition of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, click here.