By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
WWE Raw Hits
CM Punk vs. Jey Uso vs. LA Knight vs. Penta vs. Bron Breakker in a gauntlet match for a World Heavyweight Championship match at SummerSlam: A strong main event that made Breakker look like a badass by beating three other wrestlers before finally losing to Punk over 41 minutes into the match. The big negative was the latest example of the creative forces going overboard with blatant outside interference. Did Jey really need to be protected by having Bronson Reed interfere? Even if the creative forces feel that the answer is yes, they didn’t need to have Reed blatantly interfere right in front of the referee. There’s no good reason for there being no disqualifications in a gauntlet match aside from allowing this type of weak booking, but I digress. I enjoyed the match in spite of this, and Punk winning sets up a World Heavyweight Championship match that is strong enough to headline either night of WrestleMania, though I assume that John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes will close night two. Finally, the return of Roman Reigns came off great. The fans popped huge for it, and I like that there continues to be friction between him and Punk. Are they setting up Reigns and Jey vs. Breakker and Reed for SummerSlam now that Seth Rollins is sidelined?
Lyra Valkyria vs. Bayley in a best-of-three falls match for a shot at the Women’s Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam: What a difference there was between the crowd reaction for this match compared to their previous match two weeks earlier. The fans sat on their hands two weeks ago, and no one could blame them because both babyfaces came off angry and unlikable during the build to that match. Clearly, the strong showing they had with Becky Lynch at Evolution won people over. I wish all pro wrestling companies would stop doing the absurd early pinfalls during best-of-three falls matches. We watched the same wrestlers fight to a double pin in ten minutes two weeks earlier, yet the first pin in this match conveniently took place 85 seconds in. Putting that aside, this was a strong and suspenseful match that felt like it could have gone either way. What’s next for Bayley after taking another loss?
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez vs. “The Kabuki Warriors” Asuka and Kairi Sane in a non-title match: A soft Hit for a mildly surprising win for Rodriguez and Perez. With SummerSlam right around the corner, I thought they might take the formula approach by having Asuka and Sane win the non-title match to earn a title shot at the premium live event. Rather, the creative team avoided the predictable approach by giving the champions a non-title win.
WWE Raw Misses
Nikki Bella vs. Chelsea Green: A minor Miss, yet not a bad outing for Nikki when you consider that it was her first singles match since 2018. It will be interesting to see if Stephanie Vaquer saving Nikki from a post-match attack by Green, Piper Niven, and Alba Fyre leads to something at SummerSlam.
Three Hits and one Miss – in other words, only four segments worth talking about. This is why I don’t watch WWE TV.
Those 3 hit matches were over an hour of air time, including 41 minutes for the gauntlet match.
There was also a good opening segment setting up the women’s triple threat for Summer Slam and the running issue with Dom during the night that was really entertaining.
3 hits for only that show is egregious. It’s easily the most positive voting on the site for a Raw episode in ages. Currently 67 of 76 votes are A or B, with 43 of them being A.
It’s the site’s growing anti-WWE bias at its worst in claiming only 3 things were hits last night.
LMAO.. YOUR sorry pathetic a$$ is talking about being “biased” towards a company?
BTW, the reports here and people here post 90% positive comments about WWE. Believe it or not, just because a few don’t like something doesn’t mean they are “biased”…which you know more tan anyone does. Get off Hunters D.
You’re dismissed now.
Are you off your meds? Your act is so old that you actually have to reach to complain because I only gave four hits/misses to a four-match show with three hits and one minor miss? If it makes you feel better, the Roman return is also a Hit, but I just tied it in with the main event because it was pretty straight forward and I didn’t have much to say about it. Hey, was I biased against WWE yesterday when I gave six hits and one minor miss to the Evolution show? In fact, I think I gave the All In Texas show the same number of misses as NXT GAB, Evolution, and Raw combined or close to it. Thanks for the laugh.
No hit for Becky coming out dressed like Hogan?
Could Brie be joining her sister and Stephanie in a tag match against Chelsea and gang.
No idea, but I mentioned the possibility in my Raw audio review last night.
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