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Jey Uso – Gunther – HIT: The Raw after the Rumble started off the only way it could have which is with the men’s Royal Rumble winner Jey Uso addressing the fans. Uso certainly got a huge reaction from them. I know his win was polarizing, but I liked it for a number of reasons. It was not predictable. He is in a storyline with Gunther. They have the Elimination Chamber to find a challenger for Cody Rhodes’ WWE Championship (I’m predicting CM Punk). They have strong potential non-Title matches for some of their other top potential challengers with Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins and John Cena vs. Logan Paul (Cena eliminated Paul from the Rumble, and Paul will likely eliminate Cena from the EC). They are clearly going with Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn. So, I can’t think of a better babyface to challenge Gunther than Uso.
I was happy to see him getting this big reaction. He was clearly legitimately emotional over the reaction and the entire situation. He was better in this genuine moment than he often is on the mic. Gunther was great in his dismissive attitude when he interrupted. I know the big question for a lot of fans is why they had Jey lose to Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event if he was going to challenge him at WM? It is a fair criticism of this decision. But, a redemption story can work and they played into that perfectly well here. My only complaint is that the RR winner going to each show to address that champion is tired. This is a clear case where Jey should have just challenged Gunther instead of going through the motions of going to Smackdown to potentially challenge Rhodes instead.
Penta vs. Kaiser – HIT: WWE continues to do a nice job of building up Penta since his Raw debut a few weeks ago. He had a very strong showing in the RR, and they were smart to point out that he lasted the longest of any man in the Rumble. He continues to have good matches, this time against Ludwig Kaiser. After the match, they also started to tell a story with the way that Pete Dunne came out, presumably to confront Penta, only to have a sore loser Kaiser attack Penta from behind instead. We’ll see where they go with these three.
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
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Charlotte – MISS: If Charlotte Flair was planning on being a heel, good. She should always be a heel. She is much better in that role than as a babyface. Also, her return videos had more of a heel vibe to them. But, her presentation in the Rumble made it feel like they were going for a babyface presentation. She was clearly about to give a face promo about her long road to return after being seriously injured over a year ago. She didn’t do a great job of dealing with the boos. Perhaps she was going to start out with a seemingly babyface attitude only to swerve everyone and be a heel in the end before Rhea Ripley came out. I hope that’s the case. If they go full heel with her, then I can re-asses this segment. But, I’m not convinced.
Mysterio & Lee vs. New Day – HIT: I like the New Day’s new music. It makes perfect sense to change it with their new persona. It was good to see Dragon Lee back. I had questioned why they weren’t using him lately, but I didn’t realize he had taken paternity leave, so congrats to him. These are four very talented workers, so it isn’t surprising that they would have a good match. The ending with Logan Paul getting involved worked. I don’t usually endorse these types of match endings, but this was the way that New Day should be winning, and it helps to sell next week’s EC qualifying match between Paul and Rey Mysterio.
Sky vs. Morgan – MISS: This Miss is for the crappy finish to this match, instead of the in ring work from Iyo Sky and Liv Morgan which was Hit-worthy. The referee looked like an idiot here. If Raquel Rodriguez is allowed to get up on the ring apron and interfere in the match multiple times without repercussions, it makes the ref look totally ineffectual. He saw her get on the apron each time. After the first, give a warning. After the second, eject her. He disqualified Sky when Morgan attacked Ripley and Ripley defended herself. It was a cheap finish. They are starting a program between Ripley and Sky which could lead to a very good match. But even if Flair challenges Tiffany Stratton, they have the EC to name Ripley’s challenger. So, do we get Sky vs. Ripley at the EC PLE? Or do they do one of those horribly stupid and lazy Last Chance matches for all the losers and Sky gets into the EC that way?
Rollins – HIT: Does Seth Rollins get virtual reality on those sunglasses he was wearing? Clearly, WWE is heading towards Reigns vs. Rollins at WM. The only question remaining is whether it ends up as a triple threat with Punk also (please no). Even if Punk won’t be in their match at WM, it is smart to continue the feud and hatred between Punk and Rollins. I hope the plan is to save that match for some time after WM. Rollins did a good job here of acknowledging that he wasn’t going to be super popular with the fans for some of the things he was going to say. His words about Uso, Punk and Reigns all made sense given his character and storylines. His pep talk to Sami Zayn ahead of his EC qualifier against Punk worked well too. Rollins will face Finn Balor in his own qualifier in a few weeks which he will presumably win. But, he won’t win inside the chamber.
Punk vs. Zayn – HIT: The main event was a very good EC qualifier between Punk and Zayn. Punk was the obvious winner, but the predictability of the outcome didn’t hurt the match at all. We haven’t seen that many Punk matches, especially on Raw since his return given his injury and status as more of a special attraction type wrestler. It was good to see him here having just a very good one-on-one match. It wasn’t the Rumble. It wasn’t War Games. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a good wrestling match against a very talented opponent. I did not expect to see KO so soon after his hellish ladder match against Rhodes at the PLE. It was a bit unbelievable, but he was selling the effects of that match despite arriving to attack Zayn. And it added to the surprise nature of the attack. Zayn now needs to be out of action for a while to sell the package pile driver, similar to Randy Orton (who might come back to face Owens at EC?).
Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Raw Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow him on BlueSky @jonmezzera.bsky.social
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