WWE Monday Night Raw Review: 22/06

Linus O'Howell
5 days ago
6 min read

Oba Femi Starts the Show, Brie Bella and Paige VS Bayley and Lyra Valkyria: WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships

This week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, live from London, England, kicked off with Oba Femi hyping himself up ahead of the King of the Ring Final! Oba said that once he wins this Saturday, he’ll have a decision as to which Championship to go for, whether that be Cody Rhodes’ Undisputed WWE Championship, or Roman Reigns’ World Heavyweight Championship! This brought out Jey Uso to remind Oba that he’s still in the tournament, and that everyone who has always underestimated him has been proven wrong! Jey then sent a “warning shot” to Femi, but The Ruler didn’t seem to care, telling Jey that “you’re not the family member I’m worried about”! That’s a killer line! Ultimately, whilst I hope Oba Femi wins at Night of Champions, it will probably be Jey!

Grade: B-

After a fed-up Adam Pearce booked a match between LA Knight and Jimmy Uso, the first match of the night saw Paige return to the UK as she and Brie Bella put their WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships on the line against Bayley and Lyra Valkyria! Before the match began, Bayley and Lyra cut a backstage promo where they explained why all their failings have been leading to this moment, to win Tag Team Gold in London! They also called this match “all or nothing”, which proved to be quite telling! Unfortunately, this match wasn’t produced well at all, with probably over half of the match taking place in a commercial break (for those who weren’t watching the show live)! As a result, the ending of this match felt very anticlimactic, with Paige just dropping Valkyria with a RamPaige to get the W! After the match was over, we finally got a bit of character development from Lyra Valkyria, as the former NXT Women’s Champion turned Heel on Bayley, destroying her former friend! The positive of this is Lyra’s best asset is her in-ring work, so having her play a bad guy should work better! The negative is we’ll probably lose her song, but most importantly, “Bayra” have been the best part of a pretty poor WWE Women’s Tag Team Division, so now I have even less excitement towards it!

Grade: C

Chad Gable Offers an Apology, Dragon Lee VS Ethan Page

The next segment saw Chad Gable receive a welcome reaction from the WWE Universe in London, as the former leader of Alpha Academy had some apologies to make towards his former pupils! Chad gave a sincere apology to both Maxxine Dupri and Akira Tozawa, whilst he then told Otis that he misses him! Gable then offered a hand, and whilst Otis clearly wanted to take it, Maxxine wouldn’t let him as she went on a scathing rant about how they’ve never needed Master Gable! This was a really well-done segment for multiple reasons! Firstly, Otis and Tozawa are such likeable characters that they always keep you engaged, whilst Chad Gable’s acting was absolutely fantastic! On top of all of this, I thought this was potentially Maxxine Dupri’s best promo to date, and you could certainly tell by the way that she was speaking that Dupri has bought into whatever Austin Theory’s been telling her!

Grade: B+

After both Rey Mysterio and Penta wished him luck, Dragon Lee headed down to the ring to go one-on-one with “All Ego” Ethan Page! Both of these guys are top quality in between the squared circle, with this proving to be a pretty entertaining bout! I think the difference in style between the two competitors also really helped, with Ethan being very “no-nonsense” in comparison to Dragon’s insane high-flying manoeuvres! The one dive that Lee did over the announce table in particular was ridiculous, whilst Page would eventually deliver a clever low blow, leading to an EGO-Plex to score the 3 count! Interestingly, Rusev was nowhere to be found!

Grade: B

Liv Morgan and Iyo Sky Come Face-to-Face, Jimmy Uso VS LA Knight

The Vision aren’t worried in the slightest about losing their World Tag Team Championships to The Street Profits, whilst Sol Ruca explained that she’s a thrill-seeker! Jackie Redmond then attempted to interview Iyo Sky, with The Genius of the Sky explaining why she’s going to become Queen this Saturday! However, Liv Morgan would then quickly interrupt, laughing this off as the reigning Women’s World Champion said that once she beats Iyo in Saudi Arabia, she’s going to go on and dethrone Sky’s best friend Rhea Ripley for the WWE Women’s Championship! Iyo then took a couple of verbal shots at Liv, leading to Morgan landing the first punch, before Sky eventually stood tall with her trademark dropkick! I think Liv VS Iyo should be pretty good at Summerslam, let alone this weekend!

Grade: C+

The Usos weren’t particularly happy with Jacob Fatu continuously going to SmackDown to talk to Solo Sikoa, but as Fatu has said in the past, those are the orders of The Tribal Chief! Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh were then in Danhausen’s lair, aiming to take back the 100 grand that was stolen from them the previous week, only for Danhausen to reveal that he’s already spent it all on his new equipment! JD then got electrocuted for trying to steal said equipment, with Jimmy Uso then in the ring as he was set to face LA Knight! You could tell throughout this match that Jimmy Uso doesn’t really want to fight LA Knight, with Jimmy being the only member of The Bloodline that actually understands LA’s frustrations! Unfortunately for Uso, Knight doesn’t care, as The Megastar’s aiming to wipe out the family tree completely! As Knight would’ve expected, Solo Sikoa appeared at ringside, but rather interestingly, he decided to floor Jimmy Uso with a Samoan Spike, leading to a reluctant and confused Knight hitting the BFT for the 1.2.3! I thought Solo was brilliant in this, as was LA Knight!

Grade: B-

The Street Profits are very confident in regards to finally winning Tag Team gold again, whilst certain members of The Judgment Day are clearly starting to get a little bit annoyed with Liv Morgan’s positivity given that the rest of the group is struggling so much! When Liv brought up ideas for everyone except Roxanne Perez, Morgan quickly deflected from The Prodigy’s question, stating that they need to take JD McDonagh to medical (after the rest of The JD had already said this minutes ago)! Seth “Freakin” Rollins then told Corey Graves in a sit-down interview that he’s one win over Bron Breakker away from finally moving past The Vision, with Seth’s sights still firmly set on recapturing the World Heavyweight Championship! Chad Gable was then talking to Adam Pearce about a potential Intercontinental Championship opportunity in the future, an idea that Dominik Mysterio wasn’t impressed with at all! I love that Dominik wanted an apology from Chad as he is The King of the Luchadores!

World Tag Team Championships: The Vision VS The Street Profits

And in the Main Event of this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw, The Street Profits looked to become 5-time Tag Team Champions when they challenged The Vision for the World Tag Team Titles! I love that Logan Paul is still hanging around despite his injury; he’s such a good on-screen presence, and I thought that this was a pretty fun Main Event! Austin Theory and Bron Breakker work well together, whilst Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins have proven themselves to be a quality duo time and time again! Despite being chucked out earlier in the contest, Logan Paul re-appeared at ringside, looking to hand Theory some brass knuckles! Unfortunately for Mr. Paul, this is when Joe Hendry made his return to WWE TV, chasing Logan off to the delight of the UK audience! Then, when Theory looked to grab the brass knuckles, Seth “Freakin” Rollins’ music hit, with The Visionary nailing Austin right in the face with said knuckles! Bron Breakker then made his priorities clear, chasing after Rollins instead of trying to keep hold of Tag Team Gold, a move that opened the door for The Profits to nail Austin Theory with their finishing manoeuvre to score the win! It would’ve been interesting to have seen whether The Street Profits would’ve won this match had Logan Paul still been competing, but I actually feel like WWE executed this as well as they could!