Sami Zayn Starts the Show, AJ Styles VS Dominik Mysterio
Monday Night Raw kicked off this week with a recap package showcasing the history between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn before Sami Zayn made his return to Raw to cut a promo about how him and Kevin are basically tied together! Sami also said that he wants to end all of this at the Elimination Chamber in Toronto, but Adam Pearce came out to say that that’s not going to happen. However, Zayn refused to take no for an answer which is when Pearce agreed to give him a match with KO at Elimination Chamber, but it will be Unsanctioned! This is all very weird to me, I don’t understand what this means for WrestleMania, I was kind of just expecting a segment in Toronto, not an actual match!
Grade: C+
Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio were talking about Finn Balor in The Judgment Day Clubhouse before Finn made it clear that by the end of the night, there’s going to be three Judgment Day members heading to the Elimination Chamber! This then led into the first match of the night as AJ Styles made his Raw in-ring return against “Dirty” Dom! I thought this was a good start to the show, AJ was on it here, he looked really good, and the action was smooth throughout! Dominik Mysterio also did well here whilst Carlito deserves a shoutout because he was pretty funny at ringside! Towards the end of the match, Dominik tried and failed to connect with a Frog Splash before a brilliant counter from AJ led to The Phenomenal One dropping Mysterio with the Styles Clash to get the win! After the match, Bron Breakker arrived, but AJ moved out of the way meaning Bron wrecked Dom with a Spear before Styles sent Breakker to the outside!
Grade: B-
Women’s Intercontinental Championship Number 1 Contender’s Match: Dakota Kai VS Ivy Nile, Gunther Promo, Penta VS Pete Dunne
After some fighting words backstage, Dakota Kai and Ivy Nile clashed in a match to determine the Number 1 Contender for Lyra Valkyria’s Women’s Intercontinental Championship! This was a decent match, I thought it flowed well, there weren’t really any mistakes, and yeah, it was a solid TV match. It also got a decent amount of time which is nice to see, and I rate both women so I enjoyed the matchup too. However, I was very surprised by the result as a GTK managed to earn Dakota Kai the win, and I was shocked by this as it felt like we’ve been building to Ivy challenging Lyra. However, Valkyria-Kai 2 should be good fun!
Grade: C+
The camera then cut to the crowd as Gunther was there to mock Jey Uso whilst also trying to get an understanding for why he likes it up there so much! Gunther came to the conclusion that Jey is just like the fans, simpletons, and he took shots at them all before he got down to ringside and asked Pat McAfee whether he thought Jey had a chance of beating him at WrestleMania or not. Unsurprisingly, Pat said that he does think that Uso can beat Gunther which is when The Ring General looked like he was going to beat McAfee up, only for Jey Uso to arrive and start a brawl with the World Heavyweight Champion! Just reading this, and it’s fair to say that this was a fine segment, like it was pretty simple, and ended the same way most weeks do. However, I had so much fun with this, I thought Gunther was brilliant here, and I genuinely laughed multiple times!
Grade: B+
Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez told Cathy Kelley that they weren’t the ones who attacked Jade Cargill (what a surprise) before Penta was ready to go one-on-one with Pete Dunne! This was a solid match, I don’t have much to note, Pete Dunne worked on the hand of Penta for a while, and Ludwig Kaiser also made his presence at ringside too. However, LK didn’t really help either guy and ultimately, Dunne got distracted by Kaiser to the point where Penta was able to get the win with the Penta Driver! After the match, Penta left both men laying, and yeah, that was it!
Grade: C+
Roxanne Perez VS Raquel Rodriguez: Women’s World Championship Number 1 Contender’s Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match, The New Day Speak
Jey Uso told Cathy Kelley that he is sick of being overlooked and underappreciated before we got a video package highlighting Roxanne Perez! The War Raiders then had a video promo of their own where they talked about American Made’s toughness before Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez clashed for the right to earn the last spot in the Women’s World Championship Number 1 Contender’s Elimination Chamber! I liked the action here, Raquel controlled most of it because of the clear size advantage, but Roxanne is smart and talented enough to get her moves in too. However, I didn’t like the ending as Bianca Belair and Naomi arrived and just attacked Liv Morgan because they believe that she attacked Jade Cargill (which obviously didn’t happen), and this distracted Raquel, opening the door for Perez to hit Pop Rox to get the win! I don’t get why this needed to happen, like Roxanne could’ve just won clean because it’s not like Raquel’s been booked well for ages!
Grade: C+
Seth “Freakin” Rollins cut a promo talking about his path to WrestleMania before Karrion Kross said that whilst he finds Seth and Kevin Owens to be unsavable, he doesn’t believe that’s the case when it comes to Sami Zayn! We then got a cool video promo for Iyo Sky who talked about her long history with Rhea Ripley before The New Day were in the ring to talk about their attack on Rey Mysterio last week. Kofi Kingston brought up a great point about how he should be the locker room leader based on Championship accolades, and Xavier Woods said they were doing Rey a favour! This is when the rest of The LWO came out to say some things before they attacked The New Day in a 3-on-2 situation! I keep saying this, The LWO are not good guys!
Grade: C+
Finn Balor VS Seth “Freakin” Rollins: Undisputed WWE Championship Number 1 Contender’s Elimination Chamber Qualifying Match
After Bianca Belair and Naomi said they had more revenge planned for Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, it was Main Event time as Finn Balor took on Seth “Freakin” Rollins for the opportunity to enter the Undisputed WWE Championship Number 1 Contender’s Elimination Chamber! These are two incredible Professional Wrestlers, they are both so good at what they do, but something just wasn’t clicking for the most part here. The crowd seemed a little flat too, and I can only assume that’s because of the fact that we’ve seen this match plenty of times before! We also got a stupid moment with the referee which didn’t help things either, but at least the ending was good as after a few near-falls, Seth Rollins was able to nail Finn Balor with the Stomp to get the win!
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