WWE Monday Night Raw Review: 21/04
- Linus O'Howell
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
John Cena Starts the Show, Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria VS Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez: WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships
This year’s Raw after WrestleMania kicked off with John Cena as the record-breaking, history-making, 17-time World Champion came out to a very mixed reaction! John said the crowd sucked, he called them idiots, he said that they act like they should be forgiven for now cheering him after booing him on Friday, and that he continues to be proven right as the crowd is now starting to boo Cody Rhodes, the same guy everyone loved 12 months ago! Cena then followed this up by saying that he only has 27 dates left on his Retirement Tour, and that he will be the last real “WWE Champion”! Before the segment could end though, Randy Orton showed up and dropped Cena with an RKO to send a message to the Undisputed WWE Champion! Once again, John Cena was very good here!
Grade: B
It was then time for the first match of the night as Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez looked to recapture the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships from Becky Lynch and Lyra Valkyria straight away! I’d say this was a better match than their one at WrestleMania, it flowed a bit better, it felt a little bit more important than their clash on Sunday, and I certainly enjoyed it more. I will say that the Women’s Intercontinental Champion coming out to her partner’s music was a bit annoying, but I think that was all part of the story. See, after Raquel dealt with Becky, Liv dropped Lyra with an ObLIVion to get the win meaning Morgan and Rodriguez are once again Women’s Tag Team Champions, and this angered Becky Lynch to the point where she turned Heel on Valkyria, dropping the Women’s IC Champ with multiple Manhandle Slam’s! I’d much rather see Becky as a Heel than a Babyface, so I’m happy with this change.
Grade: C+
The New Day Get Interrupted, Iyo Sky Gets Interrupted, Jey Uso Promo
After a recap package of the Main Event of WrestleMania Saturday, The New Day were out next as Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods looked to revel in becoming the brand-new World Tag Team Champions! Kofi and Xavier were so happy with themselves, once again proving that they’re the Greatest Tag Team of All Time, and no one can touch them! This brought out the Alpha Academy as Maxxine Dupri rightly pointed out that the last time these two teams faced, Otis and Akira Tozawa won in less than 60 seconds! This angered The New Day who agreed to a Tag Team Title match, but this never end up happening as Rusev made his long-awaited return to WWE to destroy Otis and Tozawa! Rusev being back is pretty cool, he got a great pop when his name appeared on the titantron, and it looks like the Accolade is back too!
Grade: B-
Finn Balor congratulated Dominik Mysterio in The Judgment Day Clubhouse before Iyo Sky came out to a big ovation! Iyo talked about how much her win at WrestleMania meant to her, that she truly is the best now, and I would tend to agree with her. However, another woman who could lay claim to that statement is Stephanie Vaquer as the NXT Women’s Champion interrupted to pay her respect to the Women’s World Champion! Both women agreed that they want to fight the best which is why we then got ourselves an impromptu matchup, and damn it was good! Iyo and Stephanie are definitely two of the best female wrestlers in the world, they are great every time they step inside the squared circle, and they showed that here with some great action! Whilst this match didn’t end with a proper finish, this is one of those rare occasions where that is actually okay because neither woman should be losing right now. Roxanne Perez was the person who attacked Iyo Sky to cause the Disqualification, but interestingly, Giulia also showed up and beat down Sky and Vaquer, leading to Rhea Ripley running down to make the save! There was definitely some talent on show here!
Grade: B
After a fantastic video package highlighting the journey of “Main Event” Jey Uso, the brand-new World Heavyweight Champion made his way down to the ring to YEET with the crowd in Las Vegas, Nevada! You could tell how happy (but also emotional) Jey Uso was, his win at WrestleMania truly meant a lot to him, and the crowd were fully on his side. Jey said he will honour the World Heavyweight Championship by showing up for work every single week (which is a little ironic) before Sami Zayn came out to congratulate his brother! Sami said it was tough for him to not compete at this year’s WrestleMania, but that he couldn’t not be there to tell Uso how proud he is of him! Uso and Zayn then did some Yeeting together before Jimmy Uso also arrived (to a much quieter reaction) to end the segment with all three Usos celebrating together. Whilst there wasn’t much to this segment in terms of building a story, it was nice to see, I was glad that Sami Zayn came out for Jey!
Grade: B-
Gunther Attacks Pat McAfee, Dominik Mysterio VS Penta: Intercontinental Championship
Logan Paul said he could do anything he likes in a post-WrestleMania promo before AJ Styles said he just needed to take the loss on the chin. Karrion Kross wasn’t a fan of this attitude at all before we came back from an ad break to see Gunther getting angry at the commentary team. Gunther pulled Michael Cole’s headset off before he pushed Pat McAfee, and amazingly, Gunther then went to lock in a sleeper hold on Michael Cole! Now, Pat saved Cole here, but this just led McAfee to getting absolutely destroyed as The Ring General locked in a sleeper hold for at least a minute! This was a superb segment, it made Pat McAfee look like the best Babyface, but it also made Gunther look like the biggest Heel. Also, (nearly) all the guys from The Pat McAfee Show where there too, and their emotion added to this in a big way! After this, Adam Pearce told Michael Cole to take the rest of the night off, but Cole refused to before he told Pearce that if commentators can’t have an opinion without being attacked, they simply can’t do their jobs! This was a home run segment all-round; I was very impressed!
Grade: A-
From out of nowhere, Joe Tessitore was on commentary for the next match as Dominik Mysterio put his Intercontinental Championship on the line against Penta! Once again, the crowd was fully behind Dominik, like it’s absolutely amazing, and I’m really intrigued to see if this continues going forward, or it’s just a Las Vegas thing! Either way, it’s been a lot of fun, and this match was decent, even though I was actually more focused on Michael Cole and Joe Tessitore’s selling of the previous segment. When it looked like Penta had a shot at winning, JD McDonagh made his return from injury to help “Dirty” Dom retain his IC Title, and then we had the whole of The Judgment Day celebrating together on the ramp whilst Finn Balor seemed a little bit shocked by JD’s arrival!
Grade: C+
Seth “Freakin” Rollins Ends the Show
The final segment of the Raw after WrestleMania 41 saw Seth “Freakin” Rollins come out to potentially explain his actions. However, Seth barely got any words in before CM Punk interrupted, and this led to a brawl between the two of them before Punk put his hands on Paul Heyman! This opened the door for Seth Rollins to attack from behind and deliver a Stomp as Heyman declared Rollins as the new, Undisputed, Number 1 in the industry (I like it)! This is when Roman Reigns’ music hit as The Tribal Chief took out Rollins with a Spear and Paul with a Superman punch, only for Bron Breakker to come from absolutely nowhere to nail Reigns with a Spear of his own! Breakker then delivered a Super Spear to Roman through the barricade before Seth delivered another Stomp to CM Punk to end the segment standing tall with his new crew! The stuff between Seth “Freakin” Rollins and Paul Heyman was already enough of a reason for everyone to be hooked, but the fact that Bron Breakker is now involved, well that only made all of this 10x better!
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