WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (7/6): Gunther attacks Cody, Sami vs. Punk, Seth and LA Knight, The Vision regains tag titles from Profits, Ethan and Rusev pairing

Hot Opening – HIT: Raw got off to a hot start with Gunther’s surprise attack on Cody Rhodes which led to the theme for the show, which was Cody’s health and the status of the announced WWE Championship main event. Everyone played their parts well. This would seem to set up a match between Cody and Gunther, but of course, the Nick Aldis match against Gunther is very likely happening soon, and presumably Cody will challenge CM Punk for the WWE Title at SummerSlam. So, it will be interesting to see how everything plays out including Sami Zayn’s role going forward.

Rollins – Knight – MISS: WWE is far too babyface-heavy at the top of the men’s roster with presumably two face vs. face matches at SummerSlam for the two top men’s Titles with Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns for sure, and as I said above, presumably Punk vs. Rhodes. You also have LA Knight hanging around, the rest of the Bloodline which I think is supposed to be a babyface faction, and Oba Femi.

There are only two full time top heels in Gunther and Sami, and Gunther is feuding with a non-wrestler. So you get situations like this where Rollins is getting booed for not being Reigns or Punk, even though he was cheered otherwise. His promo was far too meta with the talk about Reigns being the chosen one. It didn’t really land with the fans in attendance, which is why LA Knight’s interruption when he made fun of Rollins for being boring hit so well.

Knight was great and very entertaining, but it came at the expense of another top babyface who is facing the top star in the company at the second biggest PLE of the year for the World Title. Knight has been very good lately, but he’s constantly being positioned against other babyfaces. They need some top heels.

The Street Profits vs. The Vision – MISS: This rematch with Bron Breakker & Austin Theory regaining their WWE Tag Team Championship against The Street Profits was okay, but I was not happy to see The Vision team getting the titles back. The faction isn’t interesting at all anymore. Adding a newly turned heel Maxxine Dupri to the group doesn’t help.

The Profits have so much talent and could lead a revitalized tag division on Raw, but they lost again so soon after winning the titles. It was very disappointing. Breakker could be a top heel to fill some of that big hole I talked about before, but he’s stuck in this go nowhere team with perpetual mid-carder Theory getting berated by Paul Heyman for being losers.

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Ruca vs. Rodriguez – HIT: After nearly an hour with only one 9 minute match, it was nice to finally see another match with Sol Ruca successfully defending her Intercontinental Championship against Raquel Rodriguez. There were some sloppy spots early in this match, which tends to be common for Ruca. Thankfully, she got it together and had a better performance as the match proceeded. She and Rodriquez worked well together. Iyo Sky got some revenge on Liv Morgan & The Judgment Day when she prevented them from interfering on Rodriguez’s behalf which helped Ruca get the win. I suspect we’ll get some type of tag match next week.

Ethan & Rusev – HIT: I continue to enjoy the pairing of Ethan Page and Rusev. I got a kick out of the way they interacted with some of the babyfaces in the IC Title picture early in the show as part of the set up for the no. 1 contenders gauntlet next week. They had a good match against Dragon Lee & Chad Gable. The heels needed the win here, so it was good to see them get it.

This helped to reestablish the Accolade as a legit submission finisher. The fact that they were able to stand tall after beating up both faces and Joe Hendry after he tried to make the save was a good way to give them momentum. But like the top of the card, the mid-card is too face heavy with four of the seven gauntlet wrestlers faces, trying to get a title match against another face in Penta. While I am a fan of Ethan Page, and like what they’ve done recently with Rusev and him together, I don’t really see either of them plugging into the main event void any time soon.

Punk vs. Sami – HIT: The announcers must have been the only two people watching Raw who didn’t know that CM Punk would be the surprise opponent for Sami Zayn in the main event in Chicago. They said that Punk was the last person Sami would have expected, which is so stupid considering everyone was chanting his name all night long. I am not too sure about the outcome.

I was intrigued by a Sami Zayn WWE Title reign. I didn’t expect it to be long, but I thought it would last a little longer. If the goal was to have Punk vs. Cody at Summerslam, then why not keep the title on Cody and have Punk challenge? I am taking a wait and see mindset to see what happens with everyone going forward for the next month before the PLE. But, this Hit is for the excellent match between Punk and Sami. It isn’t surprising that they would have such a good match against each other. The crowd was undeniably hot for this match and the title change which helped even if I have some reservations over the booking.

(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.)