Women’s Wrestling Digest: Processing This Week’s Episode of WWE Raw, Featuring Lyra Valkyria, Iyo Sky, and Maxxine

Welcome to the first edition of Women’s Wrestling Digest, a bite-sized spin-off of the more encompassing Week in Women’s Wrestling. Each column will feature a look at developments in the women’s division of a given show, processing the major and minor angles that appeared.

We’ll kick things off with a look at this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, which featured one major development along with several intriguing storylines beginning to take shape.

First, Lyra Valkyria is finally a heel. We got to see shades of this during the lead up to WrestleMania and it worked so well then, that I’m really excited to see where Lyra can take it from here. It was something that’s been teased for weeks in the form of her mounting frustration with losing. When she and Bayley cut a promo prior to their match (interviewed backstage while their opponents are already in the ring; very old school SNME vibes), it was the tip off that something was afoot. Things were played really well, though, where you didn’t know who would be turning.

Bayley has flipped back and forth so often in recent years that I was hoping if they couldn’t both be heels that it would be Lyra making the turn. That fell into question once Lyra actually ate the pin. As she and Bayley remained in the ring while Brie and Paige exited, a couple thoughts raced through my mind: 1. If the camera continues following the champs until we move onto the next segment, I’ll be disgusted with the lack of payoff. They’d essentially be telling us in that moment that none of this really matters. 2. They are still in the ring. Someone is turning!

From here, I do worry a bit about Lyra’s ability to stand alone as a loathed heel. I wonder if a reunion with Becky Lynch might be in the cards – not so much as a team, but as a pair of conniving fellow countrywomen. Lyra’s heelish ways shined brightest when she was bending the rules with Bayley in a slightly mischievous way. She was best playing off of a cohort and I think such a pairing might help her get where she needs to go. In the end, she could even be the one double-crossing Becky and sending her back on the babyface path she’s destined to eventually find.

Iyo Sky was given an in-ring interview segment. You knew it would be short-lived, but it was effective in portraying her as a main event star. Her charisma is off the charts and makes the language barrier feel insignificant. In fact, I think it even serves to help from time to time. Take, for example, her “dad joke” of the crown being too small for Liv’s head. It’s a line that could’ve been delivered by 2018 Roman Reigns to a sea of groans. But when Iyo dropped it here, it was so unexpected that it popped the crowd.

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As things stand, we don’t need to overcook the storyline: Iyo beats Liv, Liv is so flustered, she attacks Iyo afterwards and we get two excellent matches, the latter at SummerSlam for the title. However, if you’re into making things more complicated than they need to be, it’s also easy to see issues between Liv and Roxanne come to a head, while the Rhiyo MegaPowers explode. I feel any match between Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky, however, deserves a more organic build with plenty of time to unfold, ideally at WrestleMania.

For months now, we’ve watched things develop between Maxxine and Austin Theory, first in tiny background doses and more recently in fleshed out backstage segments. It all came together beautifully on this episode, taking this new version of Maxxine to the next level. Now that most of us love and forgive Chad Gable (including Otis for a second there), it’s so perfect for her to take the lead as someone who isn’t buying it. It’s a role not unlike that of Sami Zayn’s where she feels she’s acting in the right and can’t understand the way everyone else is forgiving Gable. I mean, as she articulated, he did put her through some nasty stuff. Now she gets to flourish as an increasingly volatile leader who it seems will eventually feed her guys in the Alpha Academy to her new friends in the Vision, only for the heroic Gable to arrive for the save. Again, just a beautiful development of character for Maxxine.

Vignettes are an effective way to bring Sol Ruca along at this point and the one we saw last night showed us a very human side of someone known for moving in superhuman ways. It’s only too bad she wasn’t rolled out this way before winning a title. That said, I wonder how long it will take for Lyra to cash in on Sol’s offer at a title shot from a few weeks back. Its a whole new world in the women’s division on Raw.

Thanks so much for reading and, of course, for supporting women’s wrestling. Feel free to leave a comment or drop a line via email at jeffp.rush@gmail.com or on Twitter/X @nottherightjeff.