-I like the message that WWE sends when they start Raw with Rhea Ripley. She’s a big star and carried herself as such during her show opening promo this week. That said, she doesn’t have an abundance of places to go now that she lost to Liv Morgan at Bad Blood. She’ll face Raquel Rodriguez of course, but the Liv Morgan match … again … is what looms.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
-Speaking of Liv Morgan, she’s a victim of the brand vs. brand, champion vs. champion stuff that WWE has cooked up for WWE Crown Jewel. Look, Morgan is a heel and is feuding with your top babyface in the women’s division. Morgan’s heat gets diluted when she goes up against the other heel champion, Nia Jax. Fans don’t know what to feel. That inconsistency multiplies when you add in everything else going on — Tiffany Stratton is a heel, but is fighting alongside Ripley against Morgan? It’s a mess and one that is totally created because of WWE’s need to do champion vs. champion nonsense.
-It was a good enough women’s tag team match this week between Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill and Damage CNTRL. You never got the feeling that Belair and Cargill would lose the titles, but the action was solid nonetheless. Is a rematch in the works for Crown Jewel? Looks like it, but as a triple threat with Jakara Jackson and Lash Legend in the mix too.
-Boy, Triple H just loves booking multi-team matches or tournaments to crown tag team championship number one contenders, doesn’t he? It’s like he forgot about the tag team division all together, but then remembered at the last second and only has one idea on how to feature them. Yuck. We’ll see one next week, but you can tell that the tag team division is anything but important to the current creative regime in WWE.
I’ll believe it when I see it
-American Made got a nice promo vignette this week, but the underlying issue still haunts them. On television, they come across as a comedy act. Straight up. The vignette worked hard to frame them as more than that, but until audiences actually see it on television, it’ll be hard to change the perception around them.
-What did we think of Bron Breakker’s explanation for turning on Jey Uso last week? They are grabbing at straws aren’t they? Like, the production team found one little facial expression and that’s what sent Breakker off? Not very believable and it came across as what it was, which was a retcon of the previous week due to plans obviously changing. Breakker and Jey again next week should be a very good match.
-I’m glad to see WWE give the Bronson Reed character layers, rather than just feature him in a one-note way as a monster. The sit-down segment with Adam Pearce this week did a nice job at conveying that point effectively. On the flip side, the Pearce stuff with Seth Rollins was equally as effective. It painted Rollins as a fighting championship level wrestler, while also selling how dangerous Reed is.
-The War Raiders are back … yay? What can you say about them at this point? They are a fine addition to Raw as a depth team in the tag division, but until that tag division gets true attention and focus, it won’t matter.
Trouble in the Cody-verse
-So, this week’s show was taped last week and that made reactions to everyone tempered. The pop for Cody Rhodes was quite jarring, though. Not much of a pop when they showed him getting off his bus at the start of the show and nothing normal about the reaction to him when he came out for the Gunther segment either. Nothing to worry too much about, but something to keep an eye on.
-As for the back and forth with Gunther and Cody, it gets a thumbs up from me. Cody was more fiery than usual and it helped wake the audience up. Gunther had some nice zingers on Cody, which helped with that fire. The feud doesn’t feel hot yet. They need more. They should also stop calling Cody Rhodes the undisputed world champion when THE OTHER WORLD CHAMPION IS STANDING ACROSS FROM HIM IN THE SAME RING.
-Interesting to see Dragon Lee get a hype vignette for himself? The start of a push? The guys is talented, so why not?
-Bron Breakker vs. Kofi Kingston went exactly the way you think it did. A little back and forth, but then a definitive win for Breakker. Not much to this and not much added to the Kingston story with Xavier Woods either.
Dark Miz
-I’m going to kick myself later for saying this, but I kinda want to see Miz join Karrion Kross. The Miz is such a stale character and a heel feud won’t freshen him up. Joining Kross might?
-WWE has a strong, strong story on their hands with Jimmy Uso working to get back in the good graces with Jey Uso. Both guys play off each other well when they aren’t in the ring wrestling and fans care about their relationship. The moment they get back together will be huge and we saw the start of that journey this week on Raw.
-Ehh, it was a fine main event, but showed off all the inconsistencies and issues with the Liv Morgan vs. Nia Jax at Crown Jewel. It’s all very messy and Rhea Ripley is needlessly involved with it. Everything plays smoother if Ripley just beats Morgan at Bad Blood to become champion again.
What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw? Let us know in the comments!
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