3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.’s weekly review of “WWE Raw,” the show that was pre-taped last week so we already knew most of the stuff that happened! Fortunately that’s not a problem for the WINC staff — spoilers can’t convey things like match quality or storylines that play out backstage or through vignettes, so there was plenty about this episode for us to have positive or negative feelings toward. And we had positive or negative feelings about almost all of it, from the return of Rhea Ripley and the Intercontinental title match to the Bo Dallas promo and Seth Rollins falling to Bronson Reed in the main event.

Advertisement

As always, there’s some stuff we don’t have the space to cover (please accept our apologies, American Made vs. LWO feud) but if you’re looking for something comprehensive, you can find that over at our “Raw” results page. If you’re looking for our opinions, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 11/18/24 episode of “WWE Raw.”

You know that saying, sometimes less is more? Well, the opener of this edition of “Raw” encapsulated that perfectly.

At its core, all that happened during was Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez, Nia Jax, Tiffany Stratton, and Candice LeRae calling out Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair to set up the Women’s WarGames match following the recent tensions between the seven women. But that’s all this particular segment needed to be, and it was a fun way to kick off the show. Not only was it refreshing to see WWE stars actually be prepared for something for once, with Cargill and Belair bringing backup in Naomi and IYO SKY, but it also perfectly set up the return of Rhea Ripley.

Advertisement

While this week’s show was pre-taped and Ripley’s return had been made known, it was still effective and felt like a big moment. All she had to do was say the word “WarGames” and everything was official without having to convolute or overbook everything. It made for an overall fun and exciting segment that wasn’t necessarily expected by fans at home, and was one of the more enjoyable ways that “Raw” has opened in recent memory.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Wrestling is a funny thing. Two months ago, when Bron Breakker lost the Intercontinental title to Jey Uso, he felt like he might be on an elevator headed straight to the top. He had a little backstage interaction with GUNTHER and everything. Then he won the title back; since then, the vibes have been night and day.

Advertisement

Before Monday’s match, he hadn’t wrestled on TV since regaining the belt a month ago. And it’s not like he’s been running around doing cool non-match stuff, either — he’s been a pretty significant victim of “Raw’s” temporary two-hour runtime, and his previous role as “guy who murders people for fun” has been pretty well taken over by Bronson Reed. He spent most of his first Intercontinental title reign feuding with Jey and Sami Zayn; now Jey and Sami Zayn are back in a main event program after rejoining the Bloodline saga, while Bron is messing around with the likes of Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser, two guys he already beat up like five months ago. In fact, the exact same thing that happened this week — a match between Breakker and Sheamus ended in disqualification after Kaiser interfered — literally already happened on the June 17 “Raw.” And while Zayn and Jey are set for their third consecutive WarGames match, Breakker doesn’t appear to be in line for match at Survivor Series; a theoretical IC title contest between Breaker, Kaiser, and Sheamus feels more like a “Raw” main event than a PLE match.

Advertisement

The result of all this is that Breakker doesn’t feel important right now, and neither does the IC Championship. I’m not calling his career over or anything — I’m sure he’ll be just fine as soon as we get past Survivor Series and get back to three-hour “Raws” on Netflix — but after the amazing summer he had, it feels weird to look back on an episode of “Raw” and realize the extent to which he feels like an afterthought.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

With “Raw” losing its extra hour, they’ve been doing an excellent job with short, less-than-a-minute video vignettes to showcase talent, and I don’t think they’ve done a better job with them than they did this week. Short videos highlighted both a recently returned Dakota Kai and Lyra Valkyria, who is still working her way up the ladder on the main roster after being drafted from “WWE NXT.” These videos aren’t just short — they’re extremely well done and to the point, and both women conveyed a lot of emotion in their monologues, making them great choices for these little spots.

Advertisement

Kai’s video vignette set her up perfectly for a babyface run, something I am absolutely here for. I really like Kai on a more human than character level, having watched her on “UpUpDownDown,” so I’m really looking forward to seeing her work as a face. I think it works more naturally for her. This video did a great job telling the story of how she was out mostly recently with a knee injury for four months, but not outright saying she’s been a bit injury-prone over the last few years when it comes to her knees. It also didn’t connect her too much with the floundering Pure Fusion Collective, it just kind of noted that’s who took her out backstage to get her off TV to heal.

I’d say Kai was a great actress here, but I’m not sure entirely how much of this was acting and how much were her actual emotions. The line, “People see you smiling and they question your drive, even though you’re just trying to keep it together because you can feel your dreams slipping through your fingers,” was powerful, and it really made me feel for her. I believe her whole heartedly when she said she’s never wanted this dream more, never loved it more, and she’s ready to show everyone she’s a champion. This made me even more invested in her, and I’m glad she’s back as a babyface.

Advertisement

Lyra’s promo in her vignette was also excellent. Thankfully, the former NXT Women’s Champion wasn’t out injured (that we know of), but hasn’t been used as much as she could be on “Raw” after her main roster call-up. Valkyria’s monologue had some great imagery, with her saying she used to compare herself to a phoenix, but she’s so much more. “I am Lyra Valkyria, I don’t burn. I rise — and I’m coming for everyone,” has me even more on her side than I was before, and I’m a big “NXT” fan, so I’m rooting for her. WWE did a great job of telling two different stories in two minutes for these women, and it was great to see tonight on a show with only one women’s match and a short women’s segment, with a little mixed tag action thrown in there to get Zelina Vega some much-needed screen time.

Written by Daisy Ruth

WWE’s tag team division currently has no shortage of competitors, and a pretty stacked list of names. Amongst them are The War Raiders’ Erik and Ivar, who have been on a rampage since their return from their respective injuries and have been having some entertaining matches with various other tag teams. While I’m sure that their match against Dominik Mysterio and Carlito this week was a launching point for them to chase Finn Balor and JD McDonagh’s World Tag Team Championship, the first steps in getting there aren’t giving me much hope for what’s to come in the storyline.

Advertisement

First of all, there was no storyline reason for The War Raiders, Dominik Mysterio, and Carlito to be facing each other in the ring. Yes, matches can sometimes be made at random in WWE, but usually there’s some sort of set-up the week prior, which was not the case here and did no favors to anyone. The in-ring action also wasn’t able to hold my interest, being a little slow and boring to watch. This was only made more ineffectual when Balor and McDonagh blindsided The War Raiders post-match in a move that has already been done one too many times before and wasn’t necessary to advance the storyline. It was overall disappointing, and a low point on a show that was otherwise pretty decent.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Advertisement

For yet another week, I have found myself completely enamored with the developing feud between Karrion Kross, The Miz, and The Final Testament against Bo Dallas and the Wyatt Sicks. There’s just something about the way it’s being presented that feels somewhat unique in an entertainment medium rife with tradition and tropes (for better and for worse) with three of WWE’s best character workers slotting into roles bespoke for them. The attack during last week’s “WWE Raw” added a much-needed humanity and fallibility to the Wyatts as they fell victim to a calculated ambush just as they felt the advantage was theirs. It veered away from what arguably let “The Fiend” down — an unsustainable presentation as an invincible monster put in a position which required him to lose — and while it could be argued that it negated some aura, I would counter that it grounded the group in a much-needed way.

Advertisement

The Wyatt Sicks is what the Wyatt Family thrived as before their patriarch was pushed as “The New Face of Fear” with all-new supernatural powers: a psychological phenomenon that can be broken down with the right mind. That’s what Kross and Miz did, as they boasted during their vignette tonight. They’ve meshed for what might have been considered an odd pairing at first, Miz bringing his best delusional narcissistic persona to the fore in contrast with Kross’ calculated and measured schemes.

Dallas followed up with his own fantastic segment, almost a spitting image of his brother with all of the mannerisms of his best promo work. There are no good guys or bad guys in this story, rather each are flawed and damaged in some way or another, a war brought on by circumstance but one that neither side is going to back down from. Dallas wanted Miz to repent for his actions, in his own – very messed up – way trying to prevent his infliction of further pain, and he feels in his mind like he tried to do it peacefully. Kross and his outfit got caught in the cross fire while playing their own games with Miz, and he is now purely acting with eye-for-an-eye in mind. The Miz is definitely a victim of abduction, torture, and trauma at the hands of Dallas and the Wyatts, but it certainly could and would be argued that no action comes without consequence. But backed by The Final Testament and riding off the high of getting one over on the Wyatts, he is emboldened in the belief he will get away with no repercussions. Episodic TV needs more than matches and in-ring promos to tell the story, and these vignettes really hooked me in for the next chapter.

Advertisement

Written by Max Everett

I’ll get this out there first: Earlier today I wrote about Seth Rollins basically being a red herring for the men’s WarGames match, with CM Punk potentially being the fifth man for the OG Bloodline team, and it was a thought that was stuck in my head throughout the entirety of “Raw.” As our resident CM Punk hater here at WINC, even I have to admit that makes a heck of a lot more sense for the WarGames storyline, especially now that we have Paul Heyman likely in the mix over on “SmackDown.” But with just three more shows (live shows, thankfully) before Survivor Series, it seems a bit less likely to me. WWE is also committing a lot of time to this story of “will Rollins or won’t he?” and that was furthered this week by Sami Zayn and the Usos asking him to join once again. Rollins refused, but he was then beaten in the main event by Bronson Reed off a Solo Sikoa distraction, so it looks more likely he’ll end up putting his differences aside with Roman Reigns to join forces with the babyfaces.

Advertisement

The long and short of this all is, it’s a bit of a lose-lose situation either way. Either Rollins is indeed a red herring for Punk, and we’ve wasted a lot of effort being invested in the storytelling the last two weeks, or he isn’t, which makes a lot less sense than Punk joining forces with the OG Bloodline. I don’t think Reigns would want Rollins anywhere near him after he helped Cody Rhodes defeat him at WrestleMania 40 for the championship he held for years, but maybe he’s so desperate he’s willing to look over that. Either way, I’m more than ready to find out who the fifth man of this team is, and I hope we don’t have to wait until the night of like we did last year. We had the Randy Orton surprise at WarGames in 2023, and even after that, we had the Punk return surprise after the copyright logo popped up, at the absolute last second. While I don’t doubt Punk would love to pull off a second year of surprises at WarGames, there are many reasons why he should appear and align himself with the babyfaces, alongside Heyman, in the coming days rather than the night of the 30th itself.

Advertisement

Honestly, this WarGames match had no business needing a fifth man on either team, so I’m pretty annoyed with it from the beginning, which could be clouding my judgment. But let’s please just get on with it.

Written by Daisy Ruth