Seth “Freakin” Rollins Addresses His Future, Imperium VS The New Day
After we saw both Cody Rhodes and CM Punk arrive at the arena, Monday Night Raw kicked off with the World Heavyweight Champion, Seth “Freakin” Rollins. Seth was clearly a bit emotional as he talked about the injury that he suffered in last week’s Main Event against Jinder Mahal and that surgery would see him out for 3-to-4 months. Before Rollins could say anymore, Imperium’s music hit as Gunther made his way down to the ring. Gunther seemed disappointed that Seth would be out for WrestleMania before The Visionary responded by saying he’s going to do everything he can to make it to Mania and defend his World Heavyweight Championship. The Intercontinental Champion then laughed at this and said that he’ll pick him (Seth) when he wins the Royal Rumble. I hope Seth can be back for WrestleMania and Gunther coming out was pretty cool.
Grade: B-
After The New Day attacked Imperium at the end of the opening segment, we got a match between the two teams which I have very mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it was nice to see a more fired-up New Day whilst Imperium are always great to watch. However, Giovanni Vinci was just back on tele and I feel like that should’ve been a much bigger deal than it was made to be. The match also ended in a double count-out which isn’t amazing, but it did work for this feud given both teams clearly despise one another. In the end, we got a pretty cool brawl through the crowd which ultimately ended with Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods, Ludwig Kaiser, and Giovanni Vinci all crashing through a pair of tables.
Grade: B-
Ivy Nile VS Valhalla, Nia Jax Promo, Dominik Mysterio VS The Miz
After we got a good video package hyping up the show’s Main Event between Damian Priest and Drew McIntyre, Priest went off at Rhea Ripley after the Women’s World Champion complained about Senor Money in the Bank losing focus. Rhea then went at the rest of The Judgment Day and told Finn Balor that he needs to become vicious again. We then got a match between Ivy Nile and Valhalla that the crowd really didn’t care about. It’s a shame really, but I wasn’t that surprised. The action itself was alright, I like Ivy Nile whilst I always felt (the-then) Sarah Logan was the best member of The Riott Squad. In the end, Ivy got the victory with the Pitbull (a top rope Bulldog). Also, Nikki Cross was just randomly standing in the entranceway at one point.
Grade: C
Jey Uso found The New Day backstage before Kofi Kingston announced that he’s challenging Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship on next week’s Raw. Also, in the background, Damage CTRL walked past which was quite interesting. Nia Jax was then in the ring as Nia wanted to talk about how she’s going to dominate on Saturday before she wins the Women’s Royal Rumble match. This brought out Becky Lynch who laughed this off before Bayley arrived to remind everyone that it’s her moment to win. This resulted in a 3-women brawl which ultimately ended with Jax chucking Becky over the top rope before she delivered a leg drop to The Role Model. All I took from this segment is Nia Jax certainly isn’t winning.
Grade: C
Rhea Ripley found Becky Lynch backstage and said the words “I may well have to change my WrestleMania plans” before it was time for Dominik Mysterio to go one-on-one with The Miz. This was an alright match, even though there were some scrappy moments at times. The more noteworthy parts of this match came from the outside as Finn Balor kept getting involved in an attempt to impress Rhea Ripley, and in the end, it kind of worked as it allowed “Dirty” Dom to hit his Frog Splash for the win before Balor continued to beat The Miz up afterwards. However, DIY ran down to make the save to basically no crowd reaction which sucked.
Grade: C (the crowd didn’t help)
Chad Gable VS Ivar, Cody Rhodes and CM Punk Come Face-to-Face, Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell VS Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark
R-Truth found Damian Priest in the back to give him his share of the cut before Priest told him that they could hang out later, but not right now as he has some important business to deal with. I actually have a small suspicion that this is all leading to a Damian Priest Face turn. Anyway, Bronson Reed challenged Jey Uso to a match for next week’s Raw before we got a pretty fun match between Chad Gable and Ivar. Chad Gable is a terrific professional wrestler, but I’m also glad that Ivar’s getting to show off his ability too. Some of the moves were particularly good including a couple of suplexes courtesy of Master Gable, but in the end, a distraction from Valhalla (who literally teleported in from the Bifrost) allowed Ivar to hit his awesome Doomsault for the victory. More of this please!
Grade: B
It was then time for an incredibly anticipated face-to-face segment between Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. CM Punk started by talking about his admiration for Cody Rhodes before he made it clear to Cody that he won’t hesitate to eliminate him from the Men’s Royal Rumble on Saturday. Cody also issued the same kind of feelings before Punk delivered the killer line “Ironically, I’m more of the American Dream than you”. This was actually a reference I got having learnt about the American Dream in English A.S. before Rhodes fired back and said he’s more “CM Punk than CM Punk”. Whilst that line wasn’t nearly as good, it was still smart. The segment then ended with The American Nightmare and Punk coming face-to-face and I have to say, considering I never saw CM Punk’s original run in WWE, I’ve been very impressed with his promo ability and how he gets you more invested in things you were already looking forward to. However, Punk now needs to show me that he’s as good in the ring as he is at talking because if he is, I would totally understand him winning this weekend’s Royal Rumble match.
Grade: B
We then went straight into a Tag Team match between Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell, and Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark, and unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into this one. I like everyone involved in this match, but it just felt a bit flat (which really isn’t any of their fault). In the end, Zoey Stark scored the victory for her team with the Z360 (on Candice LeRae) before The Kabuki Warriors arrived to lay out Katana Chance and Kayden Carter ahead of their WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships opportunity (on SmackDown).
Grade: C
Damian Priest VS Drew McIntyre
After Drew McIntyre cut a promo on Damian Priest and Adam Pearce spoke to both Damage CTRL and Indus Sher, it was Main Event time as Damian Priest and Drew McIntyre collided. It’s amazing to see how far these two have come and this was also a cool match because both guys are big, tough dudes! The action itself was good, which isn’t too surprising, even though the ending was a bit silly. For whatever reason, R-Truth decided to appear at ringside to hand Priest his money despite Damian’s specific instructions from earlier in the day. Truth then received a right hand from McIntyre after the former 24/7 Champion tried to get into the ring before he ultimately cost Damian Priest the victory as Senor Money in the Bank hit South of Heaven and pinned McIntyre for the 3 count, only for the referee to be distracted by that fool who was still in the ring. This angered Senor Money in the Bank as he rightly chucked R-Truth out of the ring before he turned around and got met with a Drew McIntyre Claymore as The Scottish Warrior got the victory. This match didn’t need to end like this, and the fact that McIntyre won means he won’t win the Rumble on Saturday which is a bit of a shame.
