Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Cody Rhodes and CM Punk, Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn, War Raiders vs. Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh for the World Tag Titles

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

WWE Raw Hits

WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and CM Punk: An outstanding segment. Cody took a Helluva Kick from Sami Zayn and then played the role of weary champion. Punk did an excellent job of setting the table before telling Cody that he intends to stab him in the front by winning the Royal Rumble and challenging him for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania. Is this the actual plan for the WrestleMania main event? If so, will it be dubbed the Tony Khan Bowl? Was it a red herring? I have no idea and I love it. We’re days away from the Royal Rumble and there are still several realistic candidates to win the men’s match. This is so much more fun than all those years when the Rumble winner felt obvious.

Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn: It’s going to be a big deal when Zayn finally beats McIntyre for the first time, but they wisely didn’t pull the trigger here. The post match angle with Zayn accidentally taking out Cody Rhodes with a Helluva Kick just a week after making the same mistake with Seth Rollins was compelling. McIntyre also had a good segment with Paul Heyman.

Seth Rollins, Gunther, and Logan Paul: It was interesting that the live crowd seemed a little flat when Rollins spoke about his Royal Rumble aspirations. It came off like the live crowd didn’t see him as a threat to win. The segment got better once Gunther and eventually Logan Paul arrived. Although I could see these three having a Triple Threat match at some point, I hope that’s not the World Heavyweight Championship match for WrestleMania. That said, the company set the table for Gunther vs. Paul during the Raw on Netflix party at WWE Headquarters late last year, so never say never.

WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Bianca Belair and Naomi vs. Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez in a non-title match: A solid non-title win for Morgan and Rodriguez thanks to a Dominik Mysterio distraction. I’m more than ready for Belair to get back to being a singles wrestler, so hopefully she and Naomi and/or Jade Cargill will have a falling out during the women’s Royal Rumble match.

Rey Mysterio vs. Xavier Woods: The gag with Xavier’s family showing up in “New Day Sucks” t-shirts was silly, yet also entertaining. Rey has a couple of wins over the New Day duo in singles matches. While it’s fine that Kingston and Woods are taking singles losses, they should be positioned as one of the top tag teams on the brand to take full advantage of the heat they are generating.

Overall show: An excellent go-home for the Royal Rumble. It’s hard to see the Smackdown version topping this effort, but I’d love to be wrong.

WWE Raw Misses

War Raiders vs. Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh for the World Tag Titles: Good work from both teams and this rates as a Hit from a match quality standpoint. The obvious problem with the match was the way McDonagh’s injury was handled after he smacked his head on top of the broadcast table. Yes, I’m sure he wanted to continue to the match and I respect the toughness he showed by doing so, but the company has an obligation to save the wrestlers from themselves. When Michael Cole made a very rare call for help due to a potential injury, that’s an obvious time to take action. Maybe McDonagh got lucky. Perhaps his head struck the plastic piece on top of the broadcast table and the spot looked and sounded more damaging than it actually was. Even if that is the case, he looked woozy when he stood up and that’s when someone should have stepped in and removed him from the match. At the very least, I hope this incident leads to some internal discussion about the way it was handled. Most importantly, here’s wishing McDonagh the best in his recovery from the broken ribs and punctured lung that he suffered during this match.