-I’m glad they used the AJ Styles retirement tribute to get Gunther a little heat this week without having to have Gunther interrupt the actual tribute itself. Coming out early did the trick and Gunther’s feud with Dragon Lee continues. Who does Gunther face at WrestleMania? It can’t be Lee, right?
Get well Bronson
-Such a bummer to see Bronson Reed go down during the opening match with a legit bicep injury. The Vision faction is snake bit. Here’s hoping Reed makes a quick and successful recovery.
-As for the match itself, it’s kinda hard to judge. Reports indicated that Reed was supposed to win the match and that makes much more sense than the eventual winner, Jey Uso. Uso is in the Elimination Chamber now, but don’t look for him to have a major impact in that match. Signs point to him doing something in the tag division at WrestleMania this year.
-Ok, so Liv Morgan finally made her choice and it’s Stephanie Vaquer vs. Morgan for the WWE Women’s World Championship at WrestleMania. This was the only call to make, but the road to get there? Yikes. What exactly did Vaquer say to Morgan to make her cry? Like, seriously? This was too cute a road to get to the match when all it needed to be was, “I pick you.” They got there, but didn’t need the nonsensical and forced twists.
From The Takedown on SI
-Shout out to Stephanie Vaquer for the way she sold the microphone shot to the face. Damn good stuff.
-Well, you can’t say the finish to Nattie vs. Maxxine Dupri didn’t make you feel something. A total work, but Dupri laying on the ground in a heap getting mashed in the back of the head got me to react in a concerned way. Not sure if it was Reed going down earlier in the night, but this spot resonated. I’ll continue to say what I’ve been saying about Maxxine Dupri. Lots of progress, but not ready to deliver what she’s going to need to in this feud.
A bucket of cold water
-What’s in the crate? Ahh who cares. Due to the comedy this week, it seems like they actively attempted to lower everyone’s expectations.
-Wow, Brock Lesnar has a pretty sweet deal. This week he literally did nothing, but certainly got a paid a pretty penny for it. The Brock Lesnar WrestleMania open challenge makes sense provided someone like Oba Femi is on the other side of it. Lesnar didn’t have a surefire opponent this year, so keeping it a surprise works and from a storyline perspective, gives time for potential challengers to get themselves together. Not a lot to this, but it’ll work just fine. Femi needs to be the guy. Positioning him opposite Lesnar tells the fanbase right away to pay good attention and treat him like a top guy. It’s rare, but when you go there, go hard with it. Femi vs. Lesnar is pushing chips in the middle on Femi.
-A nice little win for Je’Von Evans this week. Kofi Kingston took all the high-paced offense and made him look really good.
Punk, ya there?
-Did CM Punk get the memo that Elimination Chamber was this weekend? What the hell kind of promo was that? I get that it had to balance the match against Balor and the inevitable match against Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, but there are ways to tie up those loose ends without essentially ignoring the Balor match altogether. Punk didn’t do the match a good service this week. If he’s looking ahead to WrestleMania, I sympathize, but that wasn’t the task at hand.
-Huh. I would have bet good money that Iyo Sky was set to qualify for the women’s chamber match this week. Instead, it was Raquel Rodriguez. Fine. A fine move and she should be good in the match. That said, she’s not on the short list of winners at this point.
Bravo AJ
-Such a classy tribute to AJ Styles this week. Styles has had a helluva career and WWE did a nice job at capturing that throughout the night. Styles delivered one of the best retirement speeches ever. Talking about not being home and putting over his family was really touching. I hope he keeps the boots off moving forward.
What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE Raw? Let us know in the comments!
Subscribe to the Brass Ring Media Newsletter HERE.
Follow Zack Heydorn on Bluesky @zackheydorn.bsky.social.