WWE Monday Night Raw Review: 06/07

Seth Rollins Starts the Show, The Street Profits VS The Vision: World Tag Team Championships

Sami Zayn showed up to the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois, as he was set to defend his Undisputed WWE Championship against Cody Rhodes in tonight’s Main Event! Cody then shared some words with Sami before Rhodes was viciously attacked by Gunther! Thank you, Gunther! Seth “Freakin” Rollins was then in the ring to properly kickoff this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, with The Visionary explaining that he often struggled with the fact that Roman Reigns was “The Chosen One” of The Shield, despite the fact that Rollins works far harder than Reigns ever did! In fact, a statement that Roman made a few years ago changed things for Seth, with Rollins needing to beat Reigns at Summerslam to prove that his own self-belief was warranted! This is when LA Knight made a surprise interruption to make it clear that he’s had enough of both Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, with The Megastar feeling like they’re the two best guys when it comes to holding new stars down! Seth ended this segment by telling LA that whilst he respects him, he can’t worry about him right now, although he does believe that Knight’s time will come! Jimmy Uso then arrived to leave LA Knight laying with a Superkick, and whilst this was a rather unexpected segment, I thought it was done well!

Grade: B-

Credit: WWE

Adam Pearce kicked Gunther out of the building, whilst Nick Aldis made it clear to Pearce that he wasn’t impressed with his handling of SmackDown affairs! It was then time for the opening match of the night as The Vision looked to recapture the World Tag Team Championships from The Street Profits! Before the match, Paul Heyman made it clear to Austin Theory that he’d better come back with Tag Team Gold as otherwise, he doesn’t want him to come back at all! That created even more stakes for this match, a contest that I thought was pretty decent! I loved Logan Paul’s inclusion in all of this, with him purposely getting the referee to see him hand brass knuckles to Theory so he could hand another pair to Bron Breakker! However, Montez Ford would take care of Breakker, opening the door for Angelo Dawkins to equip himself with the knuckles, only for Maxxine Dupri to arrive and nail Dawkins with a low-blow in a shocking turn of events! This allowed Theory to pin Dawkins, meaning The Vision are now 2-time World Tag Team Champions! Oh, and on top of this, Maxxine and Theory kissed after the match, so this was all insane!

Credit: WWE

Grade: B-

Women’s Intercontinental Championship: Sol Ruca VS Raquel Rodriguez, Oba Femi Interrupts Paul Heyman, Chad Gable and Dragon Lee VS Rusev and Ethan Page

Credit: WWE

Cody Rhodes was officially medically ruled out for tonight’s Undisputed WWE Championship Main Event, whilst Paul Heyman was delighted by Maxxine Dupri’s initiative! Otis and Akira Tozawa then looked pretty sad, before Ethan Page and Rusev confronted Penta over the Intercontinental Championship! Both Dragon Lee and Chad Gable then piped in, with Page challenging them to a Tag Team match! The Women’s Intercontinental Championship was the next Title to be on the line as Sol Ruca looked for a successful defence when she went one-on-one with Raquel Rodriguez! It’s honestly disappointing that Raquel has transitioned back into the midcard scene; she genuinely could’ve beaten Stephanie Vaquer at the start of this year, and now she’s just backup to Liv Morgan again! I thought this was a decent match, with Sol playing the underdog role quite well! Rodriguez was easily the more powerful of the two, but despite that, she still needed help from both Liv and Roxanne Perez! However, Iyo Sky then showed up to wipe out Morgan and Perez, distracting Raquel as Ruca delivered a Sol Snatcher to retain her Women’s IC Title! Where is Becky Lynch?!

Grade: C+

When we came back from the break, Paul Heyman was in the ring as he wanted to hype up his client, Brock Lesnar! Paul seemed very keen on making it clear that Hell in a Cell is a big deal, with Oba Femi’s interruption leading to Heyman talking about how both men have proven that they’re in fact beatable! Heyman then continued to babble on before Oba said that he was going to beat Brock up in front of his friends, his family, his wife, and most importantly, his children! Once again, Oba Femi is fantastic on the mic!

Grade: B

After Sami Zayn was told that he’d still have to defend his Undisputed WWE Championship in the Main Event (against a mystery opponent), Chad Gable and Dragon Lee teamed up to take on Rusev and Ethan Page! At this point, I’m going to have to add Rusev and Ethan Page to the Tag Team section of my Wins-and-Losses chart, as they keep teaming together! In fairness, whilst they’re a very odd pair, they do work quite well together, with the crowd not being the biggest fans of either Rusev or Ethan! The crowd do like Chad Gable, however, whilst Dragon Lee is so good in the ring! However, it didn’t work out well for Lee here, with Rusev forcing him to tap in the Accolade! Chad would then also get trapped in the Accolade, with Joe Hendry running down to make the save! However, Hendry failed miserably! It was announced earlier in the night that they’ll be a 7-Man Intercontinental Championship Number 1 Contender’s Gauntlet Match next week; that should be great!

Credit: WWE

Grade: B-

LA Knight wanted to confront Jimmy Uso in the parking lot, but he just got wiped out by Jacob Fatu, before Bayley cut a promo explaining just how much Lyra Valkyria has hurt her! Bayley offered to give Lyra one more chance by meeting her in the ring next week! Adam Pearce was still failing when it came to finding an opponent for Sami Zayn, so Nick Aldis beat him to it with a phone call of his own! This makes no sense! The Judgment Day also threatened to make Danhausen’s life a living hell if he fails to give them their money back, but honestly, why don’t Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh just sell Danhausen’s custom Knicks jersey? That would sell for a lot!

Undisputed WWE Championship: Sami Zayn VS ?

And in the Main Event of this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, Sami Zayn was forced to put his Undisputed WWE Championship on the line against a mystery opponent! That mystery opponent was none other than Chicago’s own, CM Punk! As soon as I saw this, I knew exactly what was going to happen! Yes, the match itself was good; the action flowed well, and there were some decent near-falls! However, there was only ever going to be one winner here, with CM Punk eventually scoring the win with a couple of GTS’! I cannot believe that WWE has done this again; they had the potential for something special with Sami Zayn as World Champion, and yet they’ve already gone away from it just 9 days later! On top of that, whilst not Cody Rhodes, CM Punk isn’t much better given what he’s said in the past! I think this is a terrible decision; it genuinely angered me, and I can’t even imagine what Sami fans must be thinking!

Credit: WWE

Grade: F