WWE Monday Night Raw Review: 07/04
- Linus O'Howell
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Adam Pearce Makes an Announcement, Lyra Valkyria VS Bayley: Women’s Intercontinental Championship
Adam Pearce came out to start this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw as he had an announcement regarding the Women’s World Championship match at WrestleMania! Pearce brought out Iyo Sky, Bianca Belair, and Rhea Ripley to confirm the match at Mania will now be a Triple Threat, and this was clearly bothering Bianca even though she said multiple times that she wanted Rhea in the match! As per usual, both Belair and Ripley disrespected Iyo so Sky took them both out with a missile dropkick, signing the contract and walking off to end the segment! There’s no way this should’ve ever been a Triple Threat, but at least the match itself should be good!
Grade: C
After Finn Balor seemed a bit annoyed at Dominik Mysterio also vying for the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania, it was time for the first match of the night as Lyra Valkyria defended her Women’s Intercontinental Championship against Bayley! This match got better as it went on, it struggled to click in the early phase, but the action towards the end of the match was very good! Lyra and Bayley were pretty evenly matched, with either woman having opportunities to win, but in the end, a clever reversal from the Rose Plant into a pinning predicament allowed Valkyria to retain over Bayley! The two then hugged after the match as they will team together on SmackDown this Friday!
Grade: B-
American Made VS The LWO, Gunther and Jey Uso Come Face-to-Face
Chad Gable wasn’t impressed by a comedian coming to see Otis instead of him before Karrion Kross once again did his best to get inside the head of AJ Styles! It was then time for some 6-Man Tag Team action as El Grande Americano teamed up with The Creed Brothers to take on The LWO! This was a fun match, I’ve praised Julius and Brutus Creed for ages because they are terrific in-ring performers, but I also have so much fun whilst watching Joaquin Wilde and Cruz Del Toro, I mean some of the dives they hit in the later part of this match was absolutely insane! Dragon Lee and El Grande Americano were also fun too, and after Ivy handed El Grande a piece of metal to put inside his mask, Americano nailed Lee with a headbutt to get the win to the delight of the Minnesota crowd!
Grade: B
The next segment was supposed to be a Face-to-Face confrontation between Gunther and Jey Uso, but it ended up turning into a segment where Jey Uso spoke for the entire thing, talking about what he had to tell his Mom about Jimmy last week and the fact that it happened because he was scared of The Ring General! However, Jey isn’t scared of Gunther anymore, and in fact, he’s more scared about what he’s going to do to win the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania! I thought this was really well done, I much prefer Jey Uso when he’s serious; he comes across so much better, and so much more believable too! I’ve personally enjoyed this Gunther-Uso feud, and I’m excited for their Mania contest!
Grade: B+
World Tag Team Championships: The War Raiders VS The New Day, Dominik Mysterio VS Penta
After Natalya seemed unsure about teaming with Maxxine Dupri in a Gauntlet Match, Rey Mysterio came into Adam Pearce’s office and demanded a WrestleMania match against El Grande Americano! Pearce agreed to the match, and I’m sorry, but in no way should that match be happening at WrestleMania! Anyway, it was then time for another Championship match as The War Raiders put their World Tag Team Championships on the line against The New Day! Tony Hinchcliffe joined commentary for this one, and he is a very big fan of The “New” New Day! The match itself was alright, both teams are good at what they do, but this felt like more of a warm-up match for their eventual bigger collision! Interestingly, the match ended in a Disqualification as Ivar used a steel chair, but this didn’t work out too well for The War Raiders as they got beaten up by Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods who came close to ending Erik’s career! We’ll see if the rematch gets onto WrestleMania or not!
Grade: C+
After a video package for Cody Rhodes, it was time for the Main Event matchup of the night as Dominik Mysterio went one-on-one with Penta! This was a decent match, Dominik looked good throughout, and Penta is clearly being pushed as a big star on Raw! Interestingly, for the second straight week, the crowd was cheering for Mysterio a little bit, which is very interesting and worth keeping an eye on. Ultimately, though, it didn’t helped Dom as he got pinned following a Penta Driver before Carlito attacked from behind, only to get wrecked by a Bron Breakker Spear! Bron then delivered another Spear, this time to both Dom and Penta before Finn Balor took him out from behind, lifting up the Intercontinental Championship as he stood tall!
Grade: C+
Seth “Freakin” Rollins Interrupts Paul Heyman
The final segment on this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw saw Paul Heyman come out to address what happened on last week’s Friday Night SmackDown! Paul said that whatever happens, he will always be loyal to both Roman Reigns and CM Punk, and that also means that he won’t be disloyal to either of them either! This brought out Seth “Freakin” Rollins who cut a brilliant promo saying that Roman Reigns doesn’t care about his Wiseman, bringing up the fact that Reigns never came to help Heyman whilst he was being treated like dirt by Solo Sikoa, and that Punk only agreed to help him at Survivor Series because he knew he could gain from it down the line! Seth also mentioned the fact that Punk wasn’t even Paul’s first choice for WarGames, in fact Seth was, and he said the only way for any of this to work out is for Heyman to be taken out of the situation! Rollins then started to put his hands on the Wiseman, resulting in CM Punk running out to make the save, however he was dropped by a Stomp before Seth Rollins pulled out at the last second from hitting another one on Paul Heyman, telling Paul that he now owes The Visionary a favour too! I thought this was superb, Paul Heyman is amazing every time he’s on screen, but I thought Seth was the standout here!
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