-Liv Morgan had an enormous task this week to put strong context behind her kiss with Dominik Mysterio last week as Raw went off the air. She needed a home run promo to open this week’s show and she got one. Morgan was excellent. Her character resonates better as a heel and the way she was able to tease Dom with facial expressions very much made the entire interaction believable. The best part about Morgan’s work was that it was calculated. This wasn’t an unhinged, lovestruck, crazy woman storyline like we’ve seen in WWE over the years. This was a heel working hard to get under the skin of her babyface opponent. More than that, it was Morgan on her revenge tour and attempting to take everything away from Rhea Ripley.
-Morgan was great, but honorable mention goes to Dominik. That guy knows how to play his role out there and his reactions to Morgan really helped fan the flames of intrigue. Is he interested in Morgan? Yes. That’s clear, but he plays it in a way that has plausible deniability.
Ripley vs. Dominik
-WWE has something with this. Ripley coming back and obliterating Dom before taking the WWE Women’s World Championship from Liv Morgan is going to be a moment. Plus, you can drop Ripley vs. Dominik on house shows around the country and I think people would show up in droves to see it.
-The Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser match was the exact match I wanted to see out of those two guys. The beat each other to a pulp and both focused on injuring body parts of the other. The pre-match attack by Kaiser gave him a leg up, which led to the win. Kaiser beating Sheamus is a big deal and in this match you got to see the high ceiling that he has. Commentary needed to be more specific in grading Kaiser’s win because it was enhanced by the early attack.
-I’m over Braun Strowman terrorizing The Judgment Day. Strowman is such a one note performer that nothing he does has much of an impact because it rarely pays off with a good match in the ring. Sure, it was nice to see Judgement Day put Strowman down by the end of the show, but where does this go aside from Strowman getting retribution in a couple of weeks. Judgement Day is filled with nuance, acting, narrative, and intrigue right now? Why bog it down with Strowman?
Otis the tease
-Good to see babyface Sami Zayn openly recognize what has happened with Chad Gable and grant him a title shot. I like when babyfaces act on what the audience has seen and Zayn did that definitively here. The segment got interesting when Alpha Academy came out. We got a tease on what a turn by Otis might look like and it looked great. The crowd popped big for Otis kind of standing up to Gable only for them to be let down due to Gable tactics. WWE is taking the audience on a roller coaster with this and so far, it’s worked very well. As I’ve said before, I don’t think this leads to a higher ceiling for anyone involved, but it’s a good mid-card storyline week to week on Raw and that is important.
-Another good week for Bron Breakker and a strong win over Ricochet to go along with it. Man, the no-handed Frankensteiner off the top rope was impressive and so was the overall Breakker presentation minus entrance music. How long can the guy stay a heel? You heard the chirps of a positive reaction in the crowd for the second straight week.
-Breakker’s god awful entrance music gets it’s own entry in this week’s column. Music is such a big part of WWE’s presentation and Breakker isn’t some middle of the road potential jobber. This is a candidate to be a tip top guy in the company. He needs music that says so. Right now, it’s generic, not catchy, and doesn’t articulate the Breakker character whatsoever.
Crickets
-Ok, yeah, WWE has some work to do with Kiana James. You could hear a pin drop during her entrance. So much so, that I felt bad for her. James has some talent in the ring and a gimmick that is hit or miss. Regardless, WWE has abandoned her since she joined the roster in the 2024 WWE Draft. Her gimmick needs time to marinate with the audience and it hasn’t gotten any yet. This was the result of that mismanagement.
-Look, the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships will forever be cursed to mean nothing if they keep getting treated the way that they are. This week, big stars in Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill show up with the championships and they end up getting an impromptu title match that doesn’t have a finish because a random group that hasn’t wrestled on television in months interferes. It’s a bad look for the titles, but also a bad look for Cargill and Belair. Stars of their caliber associating with nonsense like this will hurt them in the long run. What gives? Give this division some time and at worst it helps fill up the hours of content WWE is responsible for each week.
-I really liked what WWE did with Jey Uso this week. The audience reaction is Jey’s biggest weapon at this point and WWE leaned into that by having him cut his promo in the middle of the crowd. They emphasized a strength and as a promoter, that’s exactly what you want to do. Jey on a quest to win Money in the Bank should draw for WWE. Thumbs up.
-Nothing against The New Day, but it was nice to see them get crushed by AOP in just a few minutes. The New Day is in desperate need of a fresh storyline and they have one here with Karrion Kross. This furthered that story, which is more important than a good match or a New Day win.
Umm …. awkward?
-A fine main event between Damian Priest and Rey Mysterio. One that went exactly as you thought it would with Priest getting the win thanks to Judgement Day interference. What didn’t track was Drew McIntyre running down to the ring and clearing it of Judgement Day members before attacking Priest. This was cheered by the crowd and Drew looked like a star babyface in doing it. Is that what WWE is going for? Drew is a heel and a strong one at that. Presenting him the way that they did at the end of the show muddies up the waters on how the audience may feel about him and Priest going into their big showdown title match at Clash at the Castle.
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