Jey Uso Starts the Show, The Awesome Truth VS DIY: World Tag Team Championships
After Michael Cole and Pat McAfee set the scene for tonight’s Monday Night Raw, Raw properly kicked off with “Main Event” Jey Uso making his way down to the ring. Jey didn’t get to say much though as Damian Priest interrupted before Priest talked about a moment from behind the scenes last year. Damian then made it clear that he was next, whilst Jey’s just there to take the L at Backlash. Uso then laughed this off before JD McDonagh arrived, ultimately resulting in Jey dropping the World Heavyweight Champion with a Superkick. I thought this was decent stuff from everyone involved, and you could tell that Priest was furious with McDonagh.
Grade: C+
We then went into the first match of the night as The Awesome Truth put their World Tag Team Championships on the line against their buddies, DIY! This was a decent opening match, all four of these guys have been doing good stuff recently, and my only problem with this was the fact it feels like it should’ve been saved for a PLE. At one point, DIY came close to winning with Meet in the Middle, only for The Miz to break it up, before The Awesome Truth hit the “Truth Crushing Finale” onto Johnny Gargano to score the win. After the match, Johnny shook hands and hugged Miz and R-Truth, but the same could not be said about Tommaso Ciampa who just walked off. Good, because that’s what Ciampa should be doing!
Grade: C+
Gunther Returns, Imperium VS The New Day, Drew McIntyre Promo, Sheamus VS Shinsuke Nakamura
Damian Priest was not happy with JD McDonagh backstage and things got worse for the World Heavyweight Champion as Dominik Mysterio walked in wearing a sling alongside Santos Escobar, who Dom had drafted in as his replacement for tonight’s Tag Team match. Gunther’s music then hit as The Ring General after his superb match with Sami Zayn at WrestleMania. Gunther showed respect towards Sami Zayn before he said he’s setting his sights on something new, The King of the Ring Tournament! This brought out The New Day who laughed this off before we headed straight into a match between The New Day and Imperium. This was a decent match, but it was hurt a little bit by the fact that we’ve seen it so many times now (something Xavier Woods even alluded to). In the end, it was The New Day who scored the win, but the more important thing came afterwards. Gunther, who watched from ringside, was absolutely disgusted by what he’d seen and he made that very clear to Ludwig Kaiser. Kaiser followed this up by turning on Giovanni Vinci before LK delivered a dropkick to Vinci on the stairs to the delight of The Ring General. I don’t know what this means for Vinci, but I’m not complaining. However, once again WWE referees and officials looked/were absolutely useless!
Grade: B- (Promo, Match, and Post-Match Angle Combined)
Andrade made it clear that he doesn’t follow anyone in another coolly shot video before Drew McIntyre made his way down to the ring. Drew talked about CM Punk for a bit before Sheamus came out to question what’s going on with his friend at the moment. Sheamus also rightly pointed out the fact that McIntyre screwed himself at WrestleMania before The Scottish Psychopath fired shots at The Celtic Warrior. Shinsuke Nakamura then arrived as Shinsuke had a one-on-one match with Sheamus next! This was a good match I thought, probably the best of the night! That’s not really a surprising thing though, as Sheamus is great at what he does whilst Nakamura has always been special. The interesting thing to note is Drew McIntyre, who stayed at ringside for the duration of this match, sort of distracted Shinsuke whilst The King of Strong Style was looking for the Kinshasa, and this ultimately led to Sheamus hitting the Brogue to get the win. I thought all of this was really good overall, Drew and Sheamus work so well together, and the match was good fun!
Grade: B (Promo and Match Combined)
Chad Gable Explains His Actions, Andrade and Ricochet VS JD McDonagh and Santos Escobar
Sami Zayn was talking to Cathy Kelley backstage before he got absolutely destroyed by Bronson Reed. Bronson going after Sami makes all the sense in the world so I’m really looking forward to their match down the line! This then went nicely into Chad Gable cutting a promo to explain his actions last week. Chad talked about how Sami kept rubbing his win in last week, especially when he hugged his wife last week and gave her the Championship at WrestleMania, despite knowing that that’s exactly what he wanted to do with his daughter. Master Gable then called the rest of his Alpha Academy partners “losers” before he went off on Akira Tozawa, Maxxine Dupri, and especially Otis. Gable then demanded that the Academy agree to help him win the Intercontinental Championship no matter what, and Otis reluctantly agreed. This was really, really good from Chad Gable. What Chad was saying was totally wrong, but also totally right! I’m a big fan of this Gable Heel run already, and it’s only been a week!
Grade: B
Ricochet and Dominik Mysterio shared a few words backstage before Liv Morgan came face-to-face with “Dirty” Dom. Nia Jax then cut a promo as to why she’s going to become the brand-new Women’s World Champion before Andrade and Ricochet teamed up to take on the duo of JD McDonagh and Santos Escobar. Firstly, all four of these guys are great Professional Wrestlers so they were able to put on a fun little match! Secondly, the crowd does seem to like Andrade which is great to see! Santos also continues his run of being one of the most underrated Heels in the company, and in the end, after Andrade picked up the win by dropping McDonagh with the Message, Damian Priest arrived and dropped the two Babyfaces before he made it clear to Mysterio and McDonagh that they need him, not the other way round! I very much agree Mr. Priest!
Grade: B-
Women’s World Championship Battle Royal
And in the Main Event, after a Zoey Stark video package and a brawl between Liv Morgan and Nia Jax, Becky Lynch headed to the ring as it was time for a Battle Royal to crown the new Women’s World Champion. There were lots of teams in this match, and it started off with Maxxine Dupri eliminating both Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell before Nia Jax dumped out Katana Chance and Kayden Carter. Elsewhere, the likes of Maxxine and Ivy Nile were eliminated before Becky Lynch dumped out Piper Niven. This resulted in Piper wrecking Becky on the outside before Nia Jax dropped Niven onto Lynch on the announce table twice before The Irresistible Force sent The Man crashing down a third time as the table finally decided to break! Also, whilst this was going on, Chelsea Green was eliminated without the referees seeing, but she was eventually dumped out by Zoey Stark which was a bit of a shame. Nia was then back as she eliminated both Stark and Shayna Baszler before Becky got back into the ring meaning we were down to 3! Liv, Becky, and Nia were realistically the only people in with a shout of winning this anyway, and Lynch eliminated Jax, Becky and Liv fought hard on the ring apron before Lynch finally eliminated Morgan to win the Women’s World Championship! This was a good match I thought, it was good fun, but Becky winning feels very disappointing I can’t lie! It might work, but on this show, it felt like a mistake!
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