HEYDORN’S RAW RECEIPT 7/4: Liv Morgan displays biggest strength with first promo as champion

This week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw has wrapped. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the madness.

-If you had questions as to whether or not Bobby Lashley was over or not, Monday Night Raw this week should have cleared that up. In the opening promo, the audience was loud for him and they doubled down on that volume later in a six-man tag. Lashley holds the WWE United States Championship, the main men’s title on Raw these days, which kind of makes him the number one guy on that show. I say kinda because the belt doesn’t exclusively signify that spot yet. The crowd reaction certainly does, though.

-Theory is great heel foil for Lashley to play off of and has helped cultivate a strong universal reaction for him. After winning MITB, Theory was more serious than ever this week, shedding almost all of the goofiness that he brought with him at the start of his main roster run.

-The Judgement Day and The Mysterios built to a couple good near falls, but everything generally felt pretty meaningless. We’re coming up on two years since Dominik debuted and we’ve yet to see signs of true progression and doesn’t appear to be on a trajectory to anything at this point. Judgement Day doing the job this week, doesn’t speak volumes for where that act is at this time.

-So, it’s The Miz vs. Logan Paul at Summerslam. Cue the fireworks. Not from a match perspective or even really an interest perspective, but because we get four straight weeks of WWE working to get Paul cheered. Boy, that’ll be fun … and likely unsuccessful. Wait! Let’s put A.J. Styles with Paul. Nobody will boo him then. Hence, the angle on this week’s show.

-Miz cut a fine little promo on Paul. Classic heel stuff, but it worked – at least for now.

-Ohhhhhhh the tried-and-true WWE 4^th of July BBQ segment. This was whatever. It served its purpose for setting up the Otis throwing up thing, but that’s about it. And yeah, that’s a real sentence.

-I wouldn’t classify Liv Morgan’s first promo as champion a masterful piece of art, but it succeeded in highlighting her biggest strength, which is her authentic connection to the crowd. That was on display Monday night.

-Seth Rollins vs. Ezekiel overdelivered, didn’t it? Wow. Those two guys put together a heck of match that ultimately served the purpose of furthering Rollins vs. Riddle, but showed additional range of the Ezekiel character too.

-Personally speaking, it felt real good watching Gunther destroy Uncle Sam. First of all, it’s just a silly angle. Second, given the recent real-life stuff happening in the country, it was typical WWE being tone deaf.

-Good main event between Asuka and Becky Lynch. Not sure what direction it will take those women at this point, but a suitable main event for a holiday show without question.

CATCH-UP: HEYDORN’S TAKE: A stark pro wrestling problem revealed itself at Forbidden Door