CM Punk Starts the Show, The Judgment Day VS DIY: Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships
After a recap of what went down at the Royal Rumble, Monday Night Raw kicked off with CM Punk coming out to the crowd to confirm that he tore his right tricep in Saturday’s Main Event. This means that Punk will unfortunately miss WrestleMania 40, but he knows that this is just a bump in the road and plenty of people have it a lot tougher than him. This brought out Drew McIntyre who said he prayed something like this would happen to Punk before he tried to attack The Best in the World. Whilst Punk initially thought him off, McIntyre was able to stomp on the injured arm of CM Punk before Sami Zayn ran down to make the save. For whatever reason, there seems to be some sort of an injury crisis in WWE right now. For Punk to miss WrestleMania is a massive shame, but I thought he did a really good job in this segment, as did Drew McIntyre.
Grade: B
After The Judgment Day and DIY both had their own backstage promos, the first match of the night saw The Judgment Day put their Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championships on the line against DIY. This was a pretty fun match that benefited from the first hour of Raw being commercial-free. Finn Balor, Damian Priest, Tommaso Ciampa, and Johnny Gargano are all superb in-ring workers and some of the near-falls in this contest were genuinely really good. However, in the end, Priest was able to drop Johnny Wrestling on the announce table before Senor Money in the Bank delivered a Razor’s Edge to Ciampa before Balor hit the Coup de Grace to get the win and continue The Judgment Day’s dominance. After the match, Damian Priest brought out R-Truth to tell him how much he likes him, but this was all just a ruse to allow Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh to drop Truth before they also beat The Miz who failed at an attempted save.
Grade: B
Chelsea Green and Piper Niven VS Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark, Seth “Freakin” Rollins Interrupts Cody Rhodes, Bronson Reed VS Jey Uso
We then went straight into another Tag Team match as Chelsea Green and Piper Niven took on the team of Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark. Unfortunately, this wasn’t great as it only went a couple of minutes and it just felt like the two teams weren’t on the same page. In the end, after Shayna Baszler pulled Piper Niven to the outside, Zoey Stark dropped Chelsea Green with the Z360 to pick up the pretty easy and premature victory.
Grade: C
Cody Rhodes was then introduced by Samantha Irvin as the 2024 Men’s Royal Rumble Winner had some things to address. Cody talked about how thankful he is for all the crowd support he receives before he was about to make things official by confirming that he will face Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at WrestleMania. However, before Rhodes could confirm this, Seth “Freakin” Rollins’ music hit in a pretty cool and surprising moment. Seth told Cody to challenge him at WrestleMania before he questioned what type of man and Champion he wanted to be. Rollins also had a killer line when he said “Do you want the Hollywood Title, or the Dusty Rhodes Title?” This all stunned Cody so much that The American Nightmare said he’d think about it. This was absolutely superb, Rollins-Rhodes is a legitimate way WWE could go for the Main Event of WrestleMania given CM Punk is now out injured. Also, I loved the fact that Seth’s promo was basically about how much he despises Roman Reigns! Whilst Rollins-Rhodes 4 probably won’t happen at WrestleMania, this was really cool nonetheless.
Grade: A-
Kofi Kingston cut a promo about how he’s going to defeat Gunther before it was time for Bronson Reed to go one-on-one with “Main Event” Jey Uso. This was a pretty decent contest that the crowd were invested in which makes sense given Jey Uso is pretty over. I also personally think Bronson Reed is really cool so this contest worked for me, and in the end, a Spear followed by an Uso Splash was enough for Jey to get the victory.
Grade: C+
Intercontinental Championship: Gunther VS Kofi Kingston, The Kabuki Warriors VS Tegan Nox and Natalya, Bayley Promo
Andrade officially signed with Monday Night Raw to the annoyance of Nick Aldis before Andrade told Aldis to send his best wishes to Zelina Vega from him. Aldis and Adam Pearce were then about to talk about Elimination Chamber before the SmackDown General Manager received a call from none other than Bron Breakker! Gunther then wished Kofi Kingston good luck and Becky Lynch said she’s going to keep on fighting before it was time for Gunther to put his Intercontinental Championship on the line against Kofi Kingston. Gunther dominated this match for the most part whilst Kofi was only able to hit some of his big moves towards the end of the contest. Rather annoyingly, we cut to two advert breaks during this match and they both occurred when The Ring General had Kingston locked in the Boston Crab. Anyway, Gunther was eventually able to pick up the rather predictable victory with a Powerbomb before Imperium’s Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci beat up The New Day afterwards.
Grade: C+
Sami Zayn told Jackie Redmond that he’s sick of Drew McIntyre making excuses before it was time for The Kabuki Warriors to take on the team of Tegan Nox and Natalya with the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships not on the line. In my opinion, this was a bit of a mess. I don’t know why, but it just felt like everything was off. In the end, The Kabuki Warriors got the win after Kairi Sane hit the assisted InSane Elbow and it certainly looks like Nox and Natalya aren’t going to be a team for to much longer.
Grade: C-
After Katana Chance and Kayden Carter confirmed that they will be facing The Kabuki Warriors in a rematch for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships next week, Bayley arrived to talk about her Royal Rumble victory. The Role Model talked herself and the rest of Damage CTRL up before Rhea Ripley came out to warn Bayley not to challenge her for the Women’s World Championship. However, Rhea was then attacked from behind by Nia Jax who went on to destroy Ripley and scare the life out of this year’s Women’s Royal Rumble Winner. Bayley then ended the segment by saying that she will make her decision on Friday (regarding who she faces at WrestleMania).
Grade: C+
Drew McIntyre VS Sami Zayn
And in the Main Event, Drew McIntyre took on Sami Zayn in a rematch from a few months ago. I like both of these guys, they’re very good, but I was concerned about this match mainly because this feels like the WrestleMania feud. For me, their Mania match isn’t going to feel as good/important if they keep facing each other on Monday Nights. Anyway, after an inadvertent low blow from McIntyre, The Scottish Psychopath dropped Zayn with a Claymore to get the victory and stand tall as the show went off the air.
I know it was probably all a clever ruse but I have to say a big massive NO! to the idea of Cody v Seth at Wrestlemania. It has to be Cody v Roman and let’s start the build now it will be massive. Let’s not mess around WWE