WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (7/15): Gauntlet Mai Event, Gunther’s bragging about his win, Green vs. Nikki Bella, Bayley vs. Valkyria, Kabuki Warriors vs. Balor & McDonaugh

Opening Segment – HIT: Raw got off to a good start, with a strong video package on all the big happenings over the weekend at Saturday Night’s Main Event and Evolution. Moving to the live portion of the show, there was a good opening segment with Naomi coming out to brag about cashing in Money in the Bank to become the new World Champion. She was great. Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky interrupted to ultimately set up a triple threat title match at SummerSlam which was pretty predictable after the ending of Evolution. But, it promises to be a very good match, but it will be hard to live up to what Ripley and Sky did at the PLE.

Kabuki Warriors vs. Judgment Day – HIT: This was a pretty good match, although Michael Cole and Corey Graves seemed to disagree about whether or not it was a Tag Team Title match. I don’t think it was. Either way, it was nice to see Judgment Day getting the win. Too often, WWE has their Champions lose these non-title matches to set up future Title matches. It is good to see them breaking with tradition here. I’m a huge fan of Asuka and Kairi Sane, but it was ok for them to lose here. Having Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez actually function as a strong successful team without Liv Morgan is the smart story to tell.

Bayley vs. Valkyria – MISS: There was a lot to like about this match. The effort from Bayley and Lyra Valkyria was certainly Hit worthy. But, they’ve both lost multiple times now to Becky Lynch in their attempts to beat her to become the new Intercontinental Champion. They just lost the night before in a triple threat match. Why were they getting another chance to earn a Title shot? Are there no other women on the roster? Didn’t any others want that opportunity? I also wasn’t a fan of the 2 out of 3 falls format. That 1st fall was ridiculously short which happens frequently in this kind of match. The rest of the match was better, but I would have made it a 1 fall match and it would have been much better. A combination of the stipulation and the fact that the match shouldn’t have happened at all, makes me give the match a Miss despite the strong effort from the wrestlers themselves.

Green vs. Bella – MISS: This wasn’t a very good match. I am a big fan of Chelsea Green as a performer and a character. But, she is far from a great wrestler. She can have good matches against the right opponents, but Nikki Bella isn’t the right opponent. She was never great in the ring either, and is clearly rusty and not as good as she was when she was wrestling regularly. The match was sloppy. We will likely get a tag match at SS with the Secret Hervice against Bella & Stephanie Vaquer (3 on 2? Or do they get a partner?). Hopefully, Piper Niven, Alba Fyre and Vaquer cary the load in that match.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

Check out the latest episode of “Wrestling Night in America,” part of the PWTorch Dailycast line-up: CLICK HERE to stream (or search “pwtorch” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other iOS or Android app to subscribe free)

Gunther – HIT: Gunther was great in bragging about retiring Goldberg. I mean, he was retiring win or lose, but Gunther made it sound like he beat Goldberg into retirement. Having him ask “who’s next?” at the end of the promo was a nice touch. I also got a kick out of him just stoically sitting in his luxury box watching the main event gauntlet match to determine his challenger at SS for the World Title. The interaction he had with Paul Heyman was good too.

Gauntlet – HIT: I am not a fan of gauntlet matches. They tend to make wrestlers look bad by not being able to beat someone who has already wrestled two or three matches. The booking is often head scratching to me. In the past, WWE played with the format from gauntlet to gauntlet. Now, they seem to have one person either run the table to win from the first spot, or make it all the way to the end only to lose. That was the case here, with the backwards phycology of the heel running the gauntlet only to lose to the fresh babyface who got the luck of the draw. I also don’t understand why a gauntlet was suddenly no disqualification. I don’t remember that ever being the case. This was to allow Bronson Reed to cheat without causing Bron Breakker to get DQd. That protected Jey Uso, but they could have done something different. It brings up the question as to why Reed wasn’t just in the ring the whole time helping him if he can do anything since its no DQ. I clearly had a lot of problems with this match.

I am still giving it a marginal Hit, because it was a very fun stretch of wrestling. Breakker vs. Penta was a very good way to start things off. The LA Knight vs. Breakker section was also strong. I don’t think Knight loses much in taking the loss to Breakker in this case. He still has bragging rights about beating Seth Rollins at SNME. I assumed that Uso would beat Breakker, and they did have a nice section of wrestling, but the Reed interference was disappointing. CM Punk vs. Breakker was also fun to watch, although it didn’t make Punk look particularly strong in not being able to beat Breakker quicker. But, this stretch did cement Breakker as a badass which is important. He came out very strong here despite ultimately losing. The save from Jey Uso worked well to help Punk get the win. He made the most sense to challenge Gunther and that should be a great match. The return of Roman Reigns to fight off Reed and Breakker helping his cousin, but not so much Punk, was a fun surprise. It looks like a tag match is in the works. Assuming that Rollins’ injury is legit, I wonder what the original plan was going to be.

(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)