WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (4/7): Contract signing segment with Sky-Belair-Ripley, Jey’s promo, Penta vs. Rey, Heyman and Rollins, War Raiders vs. New Day

Women’s Contract Signing – MISS: This angle involving the Women’s Championship is one of the worst, if not the worst written angle in the Triple H era. I can’t think of anything worse off the top of my head, but I’ll hedge a little in case I’m forgetting something. Iyo Sky does look ok in this, but major damage has been done to both Bianca Bel Air and Rhea Ripley. The fans in this opening segment were definitely turning on Bel Air, so I hope that the plan is to turn her heel. I am surprised that Ripley was still getting positive reactions, because she has looked the worst in this angle. She has been a whinny crying baby, as far removed from the badass that she is that she possibly could be. They both were bad here. Adam Pearce was bad too. He had no actual reason for making the triple threat match. The show got off to a. bad start based largely on the terrible story that led into it which unfortunately continues.

Valkryia vs. Bayley – HIT: This was a good Intercontinental Championship. While I still feel that Lyra Valkyria has something missing from a presentation / charisma standpoint, she is very good in the ring and her talent was on display in this Title defense against Bayley. Bayley is also very talented, so it isn’t surprising that they worked well together to put on a good match. They are presumably going to win the gauntlet on Smackdown to go on to face Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriquez at WrestleMania. But, the bit at the end with Bayley getting upset, before giving Valkyria her props makes me wonder. They’ll probably still win, but lose at WM leading to a heel turn for Bayley. The announcers certainly talked about her recent losing streak.

LWO vs. American Made – HIT: This was a good six man tag match to continue the feud between American Made, along with newcomer El Grande Americano, and the LWO. We haven’t seen a lot of Joaquin Wilde & Cruz Del Toro in the ring lately, so it was fun to see them showing off their high flying skills. I always enjoy watching the Creeds wrestle. The Americano character is fun, and I liked his new loaded mask gimmick. His match against Rey Mysterio at WM should be very good.

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Jey Uso – HIT: Main Event Jey Uso put the Main Event back in his name with this Main Event level promo. He has been struggling with confidence. His brother Jimmy tried to inject that confidence into him last week by taking on Gunther, but that backfired. Or did it? Watching what happened to Jimmy has pushed Jey to find his confidence and a killer instinct that wasn’t there before. This performance was great. I loved the way he shushed the crowd who were trying to do the Yeet bit with him. He put an end to that to signal that this was a serious moment for him. This wasn’t the fun loving, yeeting Jey Uso. The way he built this promo and got louder as it went worked so well. For his part, Gunther also played his role well as he was confident and dismissive at first, but started to show more and more concern on his face as Jey’s confidence and intensity grew. This was exactly what was needed for this feud. My only concern is that they still have one Raw to go before WM. What do they do to follow up?

War Raiders vs. New Day – MISS: The wrestling action in this match before the lame disqualification was good as to be expected with these two teams. But, the DQ ending lands the match in the miss column. I assume that we will get a rematch at WM which I can’t say I’m too excited about. I should feel that these two teams and the Tag Team Championship itself deserve to be on the WM card, but I don’t, as none of them have been that heavily featured in the last few months. WWE has had plenty of time since the Royal Rumble to make the Titles feel important, but they haven’t. I’m sure the rematch will be good. But, why not have that match for the first time at WM? Did we need this match with a lame non-finish first? It took away from the WM match. The violence after the match worked well, but it could have happened without the match to add some needed heat to the feud. This is probably another side effect of the ridiculously late date for WM 41 as they had too many weeks to fill which caused unnecessary moments like this.

Penta vs. Mysterio – HIT: This was a good match between Penta and Dominik Mysterio. Of all the multi-person matches at WM, this one makes the most sense. While I prefer singles matches, particularly for the Titles, at the biggest show of the year, this one works. Having both Mysterio and Finn Balor in the Intercontinental Title match makes sense with their growing tension in the Judgment Day. It doesn’t feel forced like with what WWE did with the women that I talked about above. Neither does Penta’s involvement, as he had been recruited by Dom to possibly join Judgment Day and he had been feuding with Bron Breakker over the IC Title. This match fit in well with those stories with Carlito, Breakker and Balor getting involved afterwards.

Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins – HIT: Raw ended strongly with this encounter between Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins. Heyman was just talking about being torn between his Tribal Chief and his best friend in the world when Rollins interrupted. Rollins was very good. He isn’t always great not he mic. He can be too cartoonish, but he delivered well here. He made very good points, trying to convince Heyman that neither Roman Reigns nor CM Punk actually care about him. Heyman sold the jabs well, and even agreed at times. It looked like some of what Rollins was saying was getting through to him. This was a good use of history in a promo. The physicality with Rollins threatening Heyman who was saved by Punk worked very well. It lead to Rollins getting the better of Punk. He once again threatened to stomp on Heyman’s head, but he stopped himself and told Heyman that he owes him an apology. I still feel that Punk should have won the Elimination Chamber to face Cody Rhodes leaving Reigns vs. Rollins as a singles grudge match. But once that decision was made, WWE has made the most of it with a strong story and good performances from everyone involved. I feel like some stakes should be added to the match though to truly justify it being the WM main event.

(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)