Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Thoughts on the brand’s final push for WarGames, Little John Cena, and Penta’s match being stopped due to injury

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

WWE Raw Hits

Gunther vs. Carmelo Hayes in a The Last Time Is Now tournament quarterfinal match: The best match of the night. Hayes followed up his surprising count-out win over Bronson Reed in the first round with a strong performance against Gunther in the quarterfinals. Hayes had a couple of convincing near falls that the fans bought into. He clearly gained something in defeat, and the important thing now is how the company will follow up on his two strong showings in the tournament. Meanwhile, Gunther continues to feel like the strong favorite to win the tournament to become John Cena’s final opponent.

Logan Paul and Drew McIntyre vs. Jimmy Uso and Jey Uso in a WarGames advantage match: The distraction finish was nothing special, but the heels getting the WarGames advantage is always a positive regardless of how predictable it may seem. The post-match brawl was a standard way to set up the WarGames match. It’s cool that Brock Lesnar has shown that he’s not afraid to laugh at himself. First, he found great humor in his pants ripping and revealing his blue underwear on Smackdown, and now he couldn’t hide his smile after he slipped and fell during his entrance. On a side note, the conclusion of the opening segment was compelling, with Roman Reigns telling Cody Rhodes and CM Punk that it was up to them to figure out who he was referring to when he said that one of their title belts would look better draped over his shoulder.

Women’s WarGames segment: Becky Lynch carried this with her fun mic work. The men took center stage on this show, but perhaps the women’s match will be featured prominently on Smackdown, as show includes their WarGames advantage match.

Dominik Mysterio and Little John Cena: While this segment won’t be for everyone. I was happy to see Syko from the Micro Wrestling Federation appear on Raw. The MWF was showcased on the Big Little Brawlers reality show, and Syko and his then-girlfriend, Pinky Shortcake, were featured prominently. The MWF seems to fly under the radar of most wrestling fans even though the promotion may run more shows than any promotion in the United States. They have multiple crews because it’s not uncommon for them to run two shows on the same night in separate cities. I enjoyed Big Little Brawlers when it aired on Discovery last year. You can find watch it now on HBO Max, Discovery Go, and other platforms.

Rey Mysterio vs. JD McDonagh: A soft Hit for a solid television match. It felt like this match was mostly about getting these guys on television at a time when they don’t have a lot happening from a creative standpoint.

Penta vs. Solo Sikoa in a The Last Time Is Now tournament quarterfinal match: This is not a Hit or a Miss because the match was stopped due to Penta’s shoulder injury. It looked like Penta wanted to continue, but it was a wise move to call off the match rather than risk him doing further damage. For that matter, it also sent the right message to the locker room that their health is more important than gutting through a match.

WWE Raw Misses

World Tag Team Title match announcement: It should mean something when a duo as decorated as New Day gets a shot at the tag team titles. In this case, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods have won a whopping one match as a team since they lost the tag team titles in June, so they had to have Adam Pearce say that the champions requested the match. The focus wasn’t on new champions AJ Styles and Dragon Lee facing their biggest challenge yet. Rather, this was just a bad comedy skit that included Grayson Waller putting a wig on Pearce. While it’s good that the title match was advertised a week out, the way it was presented makes it difficult to believe that it will serve as an effective hook for viewers.

(Jason Powell, founder and editor of ProWrestling.net, has covered pro wrestling full-time dating back to 1997. He hosts a weekly podcast, Pro Wrestling Boom, and also appears regularly on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Reach him via email at dotnetjason@gmail.com and on social media via @prowrestlingnet.bsky.social or x.com/prowrestlingnet. For his full bio and information on this website, click here.)