Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Becky Lynch vs. Asuka in a No Holds Barred match, Liv Morgan and Bianca Belair vs. Carmella and Natalya, Theory and Alpha Academy vs. Bobby Lashley and The Street Profits, The Mysterios vs. Finn Balor and Damian Priest, Seth Rollins vs. Ezekiel

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

WWE Raw Hits

Becky Lynch vs. Asuka in a No Holds Barred match: Lynch’s character got her mojo back with a win over Asuka in what is hopefully the blowoff match of this overexposed feud. It’s a shame that injuries and the situation with Sasha Banks and Naomi forced WWE to stray from whatever they had planned, but it resulted in Lynch and Asuka being in the ring together too frequently. I am looking forward to seeing both women move on to new opponents, and I suspect we’ll be seeing Lynch challenge Bianca Belair for the Raw Women’s Championship at SummerSlam.

Bianca Belair and Liv Morgan vs. Natalya and Carmella: Morgan’s promo was a bit too much. She had the fans behind her to start, but they seemed to fade the longer she spoke. That said, putting her in a tag match with Belair was a good move that allowed the Raw Women’s Champion to give some rub to the new Smackdown Women’s Champion. None of this left me thinking that Morgan will have a long reign as champion, but I am curious to see what they do with her Ronda Rousey at SummerSlam.

Intercontinental Champion Gunther vs. R-Truth in a non-title match: I’m guessing the goal wasn’t to have me pulling for the foreign menace as he destroyed a guy dressed up as Uncle Sam on Independence Day, but that’s what happened. By the way, we know there’s still a brand split because Morgan spoke about moving to Smackdown now that she won the brand’s women’s championship, but it’s a pretty loose split at this point with wrestlers such as Gunther crossing over without explanation.

AJ Styles vs. The Miz: Styles got his pinfall win after Miz simply walked out of their match last week. The post match angle with Ciampa attacking Styles and seeming to bond with Miz seems to set them up as a tag team to face Styles and Logan Paul at SummerSlam. Fans love Styles, but it’s going to take his best work to nudge viewers into rooting for natural heel Paul.

WWE Raw Misses

Independence Day party: WWE went with some old school sports entertainment campiness for the holiday episode. It’s just not for me. Nearly every person involved in these skits came off looking like a cornball.

Bobby Lashley, Montez Ford, and Angelo Dawkins vs. Theory, Chad Gable, and Otis: The actual match was well worked and enjoyable aside from the silliness of Otis having digestive issues. The goal should have been to leave viewers thinking about the new Money in the Bank contract holder or the new U.S. Champion or even the Street Profits getting another shot at the Undisputed WWE Tag Titles. Instead, that was all pushed aside for an Otis vomit gag that plays to the audience of one.

Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio vs. Finn Balor and Damian Priest: An enjoyable match until the Eddie Guerrero tribute finish. I get a kick out of the spot when the referee merely teases disqualifying the heels for something they didn’t actually do. But I always roll my eyes when it actually triggers a disqualification because it goes against the basic rule that referees can only call what they see. It was also a bad look for Balor and Priest to be outsmarted this early in their run as Judgment Day, though I suspect they’ll get their revenge next week.

Seth Rollins vs. Ezekiel: A decent match that went on longer than it needed to. It didn’t help that the match was set up because Ezekiel accidentally squirted ketchup on Rollins’ shirt at the party. The gag about Ezekiel and his brothers was carried by Kevin Owens. It would be nice of WWE could tell a cute story and move on, but I suspect that they will still be running this same joke into the ground six months from now. The post match with Riddle hitting Rollins with an RKO out of nowhere got a big rise out of the live crowd even though it felt fairly random.