Undisputed WWE Champion John Cena couldn’t be bothered by an appearance in Louisville, Kentucky, after his successful defense against Randy Orton at WWE Backlash 2025. Instead, fans were treated to the World Heavyweight Champion Jey Uso continually getting his hands into multiple storylines.
As of right now, Uso and company have the advantage over the “Sethriders.”
Numbers game.
OK, OK. Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker and Paul Heyman do not refer to themselves as the “Sethriders,” but shout out to Sean Ross Sapp’s excellent comparison between the trio and AEW’s Deathriders.
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One of the oldest stories in wrestling faction warfare is the numbers game eventually catching up to the bad guys. For Rollins and Breakker, the Paul Heyman-aided duo quickly found themselves outnumbered on the last “WWE Raw,” and it continued on this show after CM Punk kicked the night off.
After Jey Uso vs. Logan Paul was made official for the next Saturday Night’s Main Event, it felt even clearer that the latter would join Rollins and Breakker to combat Uso, Punk and Sami Zayn. Whether that was a one-off was hard to predict, but I like the idea of Paul fully joining the group, especially if WWE wants to add all the heat imaginable and make them super heels. Paul would also balance things out as the prospect with Rollins, the experienced leader, and Breakker as the muscle.
Instead, WWE up and added the tag team match of Zayn and Punk vs. Rollins and Breakker to Saturday Night’s Main Event, making this all feel like timing mismanagement. After all, all of these names missed WWE Backlash.
Before we got to the expected collision on “WWE Raw,” Punk expressed his anger with callbacks to the past between him and Heyman. The line about being most upset with himself really boosted the moment because he was right. Heyman had betrayed Punk before, so wanting his help and trusting him this time was always a weirder element to the Rollins and Roman Reigns story. (Other than playing mental warfare with Reigns, and getting the main event slot.)
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Despite my mentions of the heat Paul would add to Rollins and Breakker, they’re starting not to need it, with the fans finally delivering heavy boos on Rollins mid-promo. If you needed any more reason to believe these two are locked into a forever feud, then look no further than Punk promising Rollins will never be a champion with him around.
Honestly, the swerve potential for Zayn to turn on Punk and Uso is still there if Paul doesn’t join Rollins and Breakker at some point, but the timing would be off. Regardless, having Rollins and Breakker come out on the bottom of this story would be a major miss.
🥱Laziness of the Night.
Gunther rightfully (and thankfully) took out Pat McAfee at WWE Backlash this past Saturday — and that has apparently earned him a shot back at the World Heavyweight Championship. During his segment alongside Uso, Gunther revealed he’ll take on the winner of Uso vs. Paul.
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Huh?
This is some lazy and confusing booking, man. In terms of value and screentime, Gunther has legitimately done as close to nothing as possible since he lost at WrestleMania 41. Obviously, he belongs in the title picture, but to rehash the Uso rivalry this quickly is insane because there’s no way he wins. Nothing feels different aside from Uso displaying more confidence and holding the title.
Moving Gunther to “WWE SmackDown” was right there with a built-in excuse of him being a reckless loose cannon for attacking commentators. Instead, WWE gave us a match with him and one of the commentators. It’s bad.
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Well, unless Paul wins, like I kind of hope he does. Give me the chaos, folks. May this be a PSA for all wrestlers: Attack and beat a commentator, and you’ll get a world title shot.
Main event madness.
It is so wonderful to see how over the Women’s World Champion Iyo Sky is. The reaction to her mid-match taunt never gets old, and it was excellent to see her tag team match with Rhea Ripley against Roxanne Perez and Giulia close the show.
This was just good, clean, wholesome graps — proving that Triple H can get this thing right on weekly TV.
There was a very fun suicide dive spot from Sky after Ripley got double-teamed, which led to drop kicks outside the ring. Everyone was flying all over the place. These four kept reminding the world how damn good they all are, and putting them all in action at once guaranteed to be good. To get the win, Ripley forced a clever little spot that saw Perez accidentally overshoot a cross body to her teammate, allowing the Riptide for the pin.
I’d absolutely love to see more between all four of these wrestlers, or at least more inclusions from Perez and Giulia, but WWE is clearly heading back toward Ripley vs. Sky as teased after the match. Their previous matches were phenomenal, so it could be worse, but it will be time to move on after a nice, big blow-off trilogy title match on a PLE, or let’s say, Saturday Night’s Main Event.
👍MONDAY NIGHT MONEY👍
1. Penta defeated Chad Gable in an unsurprisingly fun match. It felt like filler, but it was a good time, as Penta won with a top-rope Mexican Destroyer. The more Destroyers that pick up pins, the happier camper I am. Gable also got a good pop out of me for shouting at the crowd, “Lucha Libre sucks!”
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I’ve been saying it, but we’re fully at the point where something proper needs to unfold for Penta and Rey Fenix because they feel very directionless. And that’s despite Penta getting involved with The Judgment Day later in the night.
2. WWE shared a nice little tribute video and message from commentary mid-show for the late Sabu. R.I.P.
3. AJ Styles defeated Finn Balor after some failed shenanigans, as usual, from The Judgment Day. The match was a bit slower than what we’ve been used to from pairing these two, but their chemistry is still great. It was a match that happened, and Styles winning is good because Balor always loses, anyway. It is what it is. Styles and Penta will take on JD McDonagh and Finn Balor next week.
👎RAW DEAL👎
1. The character change of Breakker isn’t working for me and needs an explanation. He went from a lone-wolf “badass,” as he was literally nicknamed, to a ravenous brain-dead pawn. Again, the combination is cool, but make it make sense, please. Thanks to his attack on Uso, Breakker will get a non-title match against the World Heavyweight Champion next week.
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Ludwig Kaiser getting cut off also deserves a double down on this one.
2. WWE bragged about the social numbers on the clip of Paul punching Uso after “WWE Raw” went off air last week. Therefore, exposing that the company blatantly left the moment off the Netflix program purely for social media views. Incredible.
3. American Made beat The War Raiders in a forgettable brief tag team match thanks to help from The New Day ringside. There’s just nothing interesting whatsoever going on in the “WWE Raw” division, and it doesn’t help looking at how incredible things are over on “WWE SmackDown.”
4. Less Rusev vignettes, more Rusev matches and in-arena appearances. This is Miro in WWE.
👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑
Listen, guys. No matter how you feel about her in 2025, Becky Lynch is excellent, and on this “WWE Raw,” she out-John Cena’d John Cena.
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What do I mean by that? Well, WWE has essentially made Lynch a female heel Cena, a character that works better for her than the Undisputed WWE champ. “The Man” came out to claim Lyra Valkyria didn’t beat her before spitting facts about Valkyria’s elevated status. Then she blamed “all you people,” like any heel ever, buying into the negative internet wrestling community thoughts about her.
Considering how Lynch vs. Valkyria ended, it can’t be the end of their feud, while Bayley’s re-insertion into the Lynch mix feels guaranteed. Either way, the storyline is heading in a nice direction and doing its job.
👑The brilliant main event carries a lot of this show’s weight. Without it, we’d be in rough territory. I give this “WWE Raw” a Crown score of: 6.5/10.👑