WWE Monday Night Raw Review: 10/08

Solo Sikoa Starts the Show, Laredo Kid VS Penta: World Heavyweight Championship Number 1 Contender’s Tournament (Round 1)

This week’s edition of Monday Night Raw kicked off with Solo Sikoa chatting to the WWE Universe about how much he dislikes The Bloodline! An annoyed Jey Uso would then interrupt his younger brother, with Solo laughing at Jey’s stance that he’s free given the fact that he went from being a World Champion to someone’s backup! A lot of the talking in this segment was honestly nonsense, but what was established was a Main Event for tonight’s show, with stakes too! If Jey wins, Solo comes back to The Bloodline, whilst a win for Sikoa would mean that his family would leave him alone for good! Solo should win!

Grade: C

Credit: WWE

After Jacob Fatu made it clear to Jey Uso that he’d better get the job done against Solo Sikoa after deciding to run the play by himself, AAA star Laredo Kid took on Penta in the opening match of the night! Laredo Kid is 1/2 of the current AAA Mixed Tag Team Champions, as well as a former AAA Cruiserweight Champion, so he has a good amount of ability! Some people may also know him from his Kickoff Show match with Trick Williams back at Saturday Night’s Main Event, but all in all, this was a pretty competitive match! I personally would quite like to see a AAA star compete for the World Heavyweight Championship against Roman Reigns; that would feel very different, but let’s be honest with ourselves: Penta is winning this tournament! A Mexican Destroyer would ensure Penta’s passage to the next round, where he will face one of either Psycho Clown or La Parka!

Grade: C+

Austin Theory VS Akira Tozawa, Becky Lynch Interrupts Stephanie Vaquer

Maxxine Dupri absolutely adores Austin Theory, whilst Bron Breakker only seems to be interested in other people’s opinions of Oba Femi! The Vision would then make their way down to the ring as Austin Theory took on Akira Tozawa! This match didn’t last very long, with Austin dominating Akira before he won quickly with a strong right hand! There really isn’t much for me to talk about with this match; Theory plays the Heel role well, but it’s not like Tozawa ever stood a chance! After the match was over, Bron Breakker looked to take his rage out on Tozawa, only for Oba Femi’s music to hit as The Ruler headed down to the ring to come face-to-face with his latest rival! Unfortunately for the fans in attendance, a potential brawl was completely stopped by referees and officials! Bron VS Oba is big-time!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C

Dragon Lee was very grateful to Rey Mysterio for allowing him to be in the Number 1 Contender’s Tournament, whilst Dominik Mysterio was rightly feeling aggrieved over his omission! Dragon said he’s shut “Dirty” Dom up tonight, before Stephanie Vaquer headed down to the ring to cut her first promo since before WrestleMania! Stephanie said that whilst she’s missed being in front of the WWE Universe, the thing she missed the most was beating up Liv Morgan! Vaquer would then go on to put the entire Judgement Day on notice, before Becky Lynch interrupted La Primera as she claimed that she’s the one who deserves to be the next Women’s World Champion! Liv Morgan would then arrive to jump Becky from behind, with Morgan eventually evading Vaquer’s wrath! Honestly, I don’t see either Becky or Stephanie beating Liv, but a Heel Lynch VS Babyface Vaquer storyline could definitely work!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C+

Dominik Mysterio VS Dragon Lee, The Judgment Day VS Sol Ruca and ?

LA Knight felt that it was very convenient that Roman Reigns had agreed to fight a luchador in his next World Heavyweight Championship defence, whilst Solo Sikoa told LA that they need to keep having each other’s backs against The Bloodline, even if Knight made it clear that SummerSlam was a one-time thing! It was then time for some more luchador action as Dragon Lee went one-on-one with Dominik Mysterio! These two have a ton of history together, including their feud over the NXT North American Championship in 2023, which meant that chemistry wasn’t going to be an issue! This was a good match, with Dragon Lee once again showing out as one of the most underrated wrestlers in the entire company, whilst Dominik still gets good reactions from the WWE Universe! However, there has been a problem recently when it comes to Mysterio’s booking; he’s the reigning AAA Mega Campeon, and yet he loses all the time! Amazingly, that actually continued here, with Lee hitting Operation Dragon to pin “Dirty” Dom, a decision that absolutely blows my mind! After the match was over, Big Cass attacked Dragon Lee, with Je'Von Evans then failing in his attempt to make the save!

Grade: C- (just because of the result)

Danhausen offered to be Sol Ruca’s mystery partner, only for Sol to tell him that that spot had already been filled, before Jacob Fatu got extremely fired up in the face of LA Knight! Iyo Sky would then arrive as Sol Ruca’s mystery Tag Team partner to face off against The Judgment Day! All four women in this match are pretty talented, especially Iyo Sky and Roxanne Perez, so this was actually a pretty engaging match! At least to me, anyway, as the crowd in attendance seemed to get bored pretty quickly! Anyway, despite Iyo and Raquel Rodriguez both being taken out of the equation, Perez wasn’t able to take advantage, with Ruca landing a Sol Snatcher on The Prodigy to score the W! Remember when Roxy had one of the greatest NXT Women’s Championship reigns ever?!

Grade: B-

Bron Breakker is obsessed with asking Paul Heyman what he thinks of Oba Femi, to the point where Heyman told Breakker to do something about it (in regards to Paul’s respect for The Ruler)! Chad Gable was then happy to offer Rey Mysterio a shot at his Intercontinental Championship, whilst Sol Ruca and Iyo Sky’s conversation got interrupted by a wild Lyra Valkyria! This Lyra character is so good, but the fact that we haven’t seen her properly since her win over Bayley is terrible booking!

Jey Uso VS Solo Sikoa

And in the Main Event of this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, Jey Uso and Solo Sikoa faced off in a match that had high stakes! Like we said earlier, a win for Jey would see Solo be “hand delivered” to Roman Reigns next week, whilst a win for Sikoa would result in The Bloodline having to leave him alone for good! This felt like the perfect way to keep Solo separate from the rest of The Bloodline; his Babyface run is working wonders right now, and I don’t think anybody wants to see him back with Reigns and The Usos! So, WWE decided to completely ignore all of that, giving Jey Uso the win after interference from Jimmy! What are we doing here?! WWE can be amazing, but some of their recent booking decisions (minus SummerSlam) have been horrendous!

Grade: C-