By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WWE Raw Hits
Jey Uso and Gunther: A simple segment with Gunther attacking Jey during his big entrance, which led to Jey choosing to challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania. Jey’s line that maybe he shouldn’t say this before he made the announcement was a nice touch in that it shows that his character isn’t fully confident yet, which he shouldn’t after losing clean to Gunther on Saturday Night’s Main Event. It was good to see them make this announcement now so that we know the Elimination Chamber entrants are fighting for a shot at Cody Rhodes’ WWE Championship. Will Charlotte Flair announce which champion she will challenge at WrestleMania before the Chamber or will they take a different approach for the women’s titles?
Logan Paul vs. Rey Mysterio in an Elimination Chamber qualifying match: An enjoyable television main event. Paul making his entrance during CM Punk’s promo left me wondering how far this new rivalry will go. Paul eliminated Punk from the Royal Rumble. Will Punk get his revenge in the Elimination Chamber? Will they end up facing off in a singles match at WrestleMania? The post match angle with New Day attacking Rey just seconds before the show concluded brought back some memories of the cliffhanger style brawls that concluded many of the UWF television shows.
Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai vs. Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez: There were some rough moments early on, but this ended up competing with the main event for best match of the night. While I felt they had too many big near fall spots for a fairly random tag team match, the crowd seemed to enjoy them. The segment with Rhea Ripley granting Sky a title shot after mistakenly costing her the Elimination Chamber qualifier was a good babyface move that sets up a strong television main event for the Chamber fallout show.
“War Raiders” Erik and Ivar vs. Julius Creed and Brutus Creed for the World Tag Team Titles: Good work from both teams. The lack of hype for this match prepared me for the cheap finish that saw Julius hit Ivar with one of the tag team title belts before the War Raiders could hit their finisher on Brutus. The finish didn’t bother me nearly as much as the Creeds getting a title shot out of the blue. The Creeds had just one prior match in 2025 and it aired on WWE Main Event. While I’m happy they didn’t take the overused approach of booking another four-way tag match to determine the No. 1 contenders, what is so difficult about building up a team the old fashioned way? Is it that hard to plan ahead long enough to have a team win several television matches so that fans start to see them as legitimate contenders and actually look forward to the title match?
WWE Raw Misses
Bayley vs. Lyra Valkyria in an Elimination Chamber qualifying match: The live crowd came off as semi-interested when the match started and seemed to lose some interest as it went on. It’s hard to blame them. This was just a cold matchup between two babyfaces. While the fans like Bayley, it’s been a while since she’s been in a hot program. Valkyria still hasn’t found her voice and therefore has yet to fully connect with the fans. Putting all of that aside, I’m not even sure why this match needed to take place. Valkyria just won a secondary title that the company is trying to get over, so why have her lose clean this early in her title reign? I’m not saying she should have beaten Bayley to advance to the Elimination Chamber, but surely they could have had someone else put over Bayley.
“Will Charlotte Flair announce which champion she will challenge at WrestleMania before the Chamber or will they take a different approach for the women’s titles?”
She will take on all three champions at once, stack them up and pin them all at once, and win all three belts. That will count as three separate world title reigns. You heard it here first.
I think you’re selling her short. She will also win the new secondary titles, all of the men’s titles, and all of the tag team titles (by herself). But not the Speed titles. Fuck those things.
The Speed title would be an apt name for her belt given the usual length of her title reigns.