WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (8/24): Oba Femi and Bron Breakker contract signing, Royce Keys & OTM’s main event run in, Rey Femix vs. Dragon Lee, why did Breakker and Oba have a contract signing anyway

Opening Segment – HIT

Raw got off to a good start with LA Knight, Solo Sikoa and The Usos. The Usos were definitely acting like heels. Sikoa is continuing to find his babyface voice and show off his comedic timing. The way he mocks his brothers with his reactions to their warning shots has been fun to watch the last few weeks. Pew Pew. This continued to build towards an eventual LA Knight vs. Roman Reigns match while also setting up the main event tag match for this week’s show.

Vaquer vs. Perez – HIT

This is a marginal Hit for a match that should have been much better than it was. If the first half match quality had continued after the commercial break, it would have been a Miss. Stephanie Vaquer might have had some ring rust, but Roxanne Perez doesn’t have an excuse for being so off early on. They had timing issues. They had flow issues. They didn’t work well together at all.

When Vaquer was supposed to get shoved off the top rope after distraction from Judgment Day, Perez sort of pulled her down, before weakly shoving her off. However, the match got better and better as it proceeded. The second half was easily Hit worthy. With the strong ending and a good appearance from Becky Lynch to help Vaquer overcome Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, I will give it a Hit.

Fenix vs. Lee – HIT

This was easily the best match of the night, and one of the best matches on Raw in a long time. I enjoyed this tournament semi-final match between Rey Fenix and Dragon Lee from start to finish. Fenix’s occasional AAA Cruiserweight Title defenses on Smackdown have been a highlight of that show since he won the title. Here he got to showcase his skills with another great luchador.

The cannonball to Fenix on the announce table might be the move of the year in WWE so far. I hope WWE can find a way to have this match benefit both of these wrestlers who deserve to be featured more prominently. My only issue with the match is that it should have been the second of the two semi-finals. It was much better than Penta vs. La Parka (which was solid, but not that good).

While both had predictable outcomes, at least there was a slight chance of Lee getting the upset as opposed to La Parka who had less-than-zero percent chance to win, if that’s possible. These matches set up the predictable (but who cares?) Lucha Bros. matchup for the finals next week which should be outstanding. I know most are predicting Penta to win as he is a bigger star than his brother, but a strong case can be made for Fenix to win to help get him closer to his brother’s level.

Contract Signing – MISS

I’m not a fan of contract signings, but at least they are usually for a championship match. Why does a match like Bron Breakker vs. Oba Femi need a contract? Are we supposed to believe that at some point in the back, LA Knight, Solo Sikoa, and the Usos signed a contract for their match? What about all the impromptu matches that happen which clearly don’t have contracts?

Moving past that, I hope that Breakker was supposed to come off like a hypocrite in the way he talked to Femi about being the future of WWE. He basically said that it is a meaningless statement. This entire feud is based on Breakker being jealous of Brock Lesnar calling Femi the future, and being insecure about Paul Heyman possibly agreeing. But here he was dismissing the idea as being important at all. If being called the future doesn’t matter, then why is he so upset?

If this is indeed supposed to make him look like a hypocrite, then maybe it would be okay, but I don’t think that’s what WWE was going for. I didn’t buy into Femi basically saying that in other eras, Breakker would have been the top star in the company, even over Roman Reigns and John Cena. I wasn’t buying whatever Femi was selling. The physicality at the end was okay, but Breakker needs to look stronger going up against Femi. Instead, he got easily handled even with the help of Austin Theory.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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Big Cass vs. Je’Von Evans – HIT

I wish Je’von Evans was getting more victories, but I understand why they needed to give Big Cass a win in his first match back. I was never a fan of Cass in his first run, nor in his time as Big Bill in AEW. I don’t want to see him getting a big push, but I can accept it. He performed well enough here, but Evans carried the match with both his usual high-energy, high-flying offense, as well as the intensity he brought to the match. He was trying to get revenge for what Cass had done to him the last few weeks.

This was a very good version of his character presentation. I thought for sure that Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh would cost Evans the match, so I was happy with the clean win for Cass (I’d rather see a wrester I don’t like getting a clean win despite my personal misgiving about that). Now they can move Cass on to something else while Evans can feud with Judgment Day.

Usos vs. Knight & Sikoa – HIT

The tag match main event which was set up in the opening segment delivered pretty well. The wrestling action was good. But, the real main event so to speak, was the return of Royce Keys along with NXT tag team OTM making their main roster debut. This trio destroyed both The Usos and LA Knight & Solo Sikoa.

The fans definitely reacted to them as if they were heels, but I’m not sure what we were supposed to think. They beat up the babyface team and the heel team, although The Usos are still popular. It was a high impact debut for this new faction and should generate buzz going forward to see where WWE is going with them. I’m at least intrigued.

(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.)