SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
A.J. Styles – C.M. Punk – HIT: Raw got off to a good start with A.J. Styles talking about his match against Gunther at the Royal Rumble where is career will be on the line. He underscored that he will retire this year, but he wants to go out later on his own terms after getting a chance to face some of his favorite opponents one more time and get another run as the World Champion. He was interrupted by C.M. Punk. Their back-and-forth was strong leading to them agreeing to having a World Heavyweight Title match in the main event. This was a great way to set up a very strong main event. But, there’s no way you could possibly think that match would have a clean ending.
Vaquer/Sky/Ripley vs. Judgment Day – HIT: This was a fun six-woman tag match, the first match for Stephanie Vaquer since her leg injury. She looked good, so it was nice to know that her injury wasn’t serious as she didn’t miss much time. There were some very good wrestlers in this match and some decent ones too. They all worked hard and put on a good match. This helped to build to what we would find out later will be a street fight next week between Vaquer and Raquel Rodriquez for the World Title.
Gunther Interview – HIT: After a long stretch of Raw which was just okay (nothing stood out as a Hit nor a Miss) including the Vision segment, Austin Theory vs. Rey Mysterio, and the Natalya/Nattie vignette, we finally got to another good moment with Michael Cole’s sit-down interview with Gunther. Gunther was great in talking about why he insisted on Styles putting his career on the line in their Rumble match. He wants all the moments. He got to ruin Goldberg’s and John Cena’s final wrestling moments. And now he wants to ruin Styles’s retirement by stealing the moment for himself.
ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…
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Fatal Four-Way Tag Match – MISS: Recently, we’ve seen similar multi-team matches with the other rules, where each team has a wrestler in the match at all times. Why did they have the stupid rules here, with only two wrestlers in the match who can tag out to any other wrestler? I hate those rules. They are lame. I also have an issue with wrestlers getting into a no. 1 contender match without earning it. Wrestlers should feel like they are deserving of potentially getting a title shot when they are in these matches. None of these teams had won matches lately. Neither Akira Tozawa & Otis nor The Creeds have had matches in months. Los Americanos keep losing singles matches. The New Day haven’t been on much nor won much at all since losing the tag titles themselves. This match pointed to how weak the tag division on Raw is. And it was totally predicable that Otis & Tozawa would win since they are the only team among these four who have had any type of story lately or interaction with The Usos. The wrestling action in this match was totally inconsequential to all of the problems with it.
C.M. Punk vs. A.J. Styles – MISS: I have to give this match a Miss given the fact that after investing 17 minutes into a World Championship main event, the fans were given a non-finish with Finn Balor’s interference. Of course, the wrestling action between Styles and Punk was Hit-worthy. But, I was just waiting for the shenanigans which I knew was coming. So, I couldn’t enjoy the match. I have a feeling that the live fans in Toronto felt the same way, as they were pretty tepid in their responses to the match. It wasn’t a terrible reaction, but it was pretty mid given the stars involved and the quality of the match. This might have set up Styles vs. Balor for Smackdown which would make sense given this condensed “retirement tour” that Styles seems to be getting in the final week of his career if it is indeed going to end on Saturday.
(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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