Review: WWE Raw (6-9-2025)

• Live from Phoenix! The one in Arizona.

• Wonderful to have Bad News Barrett instead of Pat McAfee, who was perhaps too busy crying about anyone having ever criticized him and his career as a professional ass-kisser.

Matches

• AJ Styles vs Chad Gable: We get Gable doing his flunky-insulting promo work pre-match. This is good stuff though they don’t get the time to make it something more than that, nor do they go so hard with the time they do have, because no, it’s not necessary to get 20 minutes to have a great match or anything. Styles has clearly lost two steps from his prime but like Danielson or other proper greats he makes up for what he’s lost physically with a tremendous understanding of what he’s doing, and when you give him an opponent like Gable, he’s still gonna deliver. Dig the flash finish and liked the match. ***½

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• Rhea Ripley vs Kairi Sane vs Roxanne Perez vs Liv Morgan: First round for Queen of the Ring. They do two commercial breaks during the entrances. Sane getting basically no reaction, people have learned she just does not matter and ain’t gonna. Good four-way here, the women’s MITB match this year felt way too rehearsed and plotted, and while this has the same sort of vibe, the execution is just better, perhaps simply because it’s two less people and there aren’t a bunch of ladders and shit to also involve. Perez is such a goddamn in-ring stud, at worst she will be a women’s division Chad Gable for many years, but I do think she’ll do better, they already showed major confidence in her in NXT and have put her in a promising slot on Raw. Ripley and Morgan with strong outings, Kairi picks her spots, best use of her these days. Thought this was pretty damn great, all in all. Goober ass Raquel Rodriguez costing Ripley the win, allowing Roxanne — not Liv — to steal it. Yeah, Roxanne’s getting the chance. ****

• Bron Breakker vs Sami Zayn vs Dominik Mysterio vs Penta: King of the Ring first round match. Really like Michael Cole’s attempt to spin being King of the Ring as some great achievement. It’s, like, 50/50. “10 Hall of Famers have won it!” This sounds impressive until you remember how easy it is to get into the WWE Hall of Fame, relatively speaking. Good but I liked the women’s four-way a little better. Penta in an interesting spot right now where he had the hot start and now he’s kind of cooling down, or being cooled down, as they clearly have no immediate intention to do a whole lot more with him than they have already, but they’re also making sure he stays pretty strong, which gives them the option to quickly change their mind at any time, which I guess is really what WWE booking is all about in general. Keeping the option open to give someone a sudden, hard push. LA Knight runs in and takes Breakker out with the BFT, paying him back for last week’s Smackdown. Zayn pins Mysterio to win, and maybe should win the whole thing. ***¾

  • A bit later, Karrion Kross talks to Zayn backstage again. It’s the same deal as usual. Honestly, I guess it’s Kross’ best WWE work to date.

• Jey Uso vs Gunther: Alright, gonna break this down into a couple sections, because I have a habit of arguing with myself and various trains of thought are hitting me.

  • The Jey Uso: Underdog World Champion run rather unceremoniously ends, in some respects, at all of 51 days. I thought he was actually a pretty interesting champ as a vulnerable babyface on a career hot streak, and I think it says a lot — and quite negatively — about what a lame ass “storyteller” Paul Creative really is, that he just dumped out on a big time fan favorite to set up a fucking Goldberg title match in Saudi Arabia. Like, if you want to say WWE is the premier organization due to its “storytelling,” I get it, they present that as an in-house idea aggressively and in a manner that requires fourth grade level thinking, but the fact is that a lot of HHH’s storytelling is lazy, repetitive, and driven purely by absurd “business” notions, which I don’t think even really add up to much. Now being fair to Paul — which is nice of me because I think he kinda sucks shit in pretty much every way — he also doesn’t exactly have true “chief” control of goddamn anything. He has several masters he must answer to, and if someone “““important””” wanted a Goldberg title match in Saudi, then yeah, you do Gunther and not Jey Uso. Will Jey Uso ever make it back to the top? I don’t know. He could, but the next time(s) will never be as special as this one, because they really captured something to get him here.

  • I can also see a fine argument that Gunther just beating him works well enough, and in a different sense, yeah, I think it does. Gunther is a true top guy, Uso is on a crazy run, and crazy runs end. For instance, I’m an Indiana Pacers fan, but I fear they may have blown the NBA Finals in the fourth quarter of game four against OKC. Indiana’s had an insane run to get where they are, but OKC, even with flaws, are a 68-win team and deserved to be the clear favorite. Gunther’s the Thunder, Jey’s the Pacers, and fundamentally speaking, basic facts and stuff, OKC and Gunther should always be favored to win heads-up.

  • As for the match, I thought it was terrific. Jey has grown so much as a singles wrestler, because this entire singles run of his started off really so-so, and even going back to the Roman feud some years ago, I never really thought he had it outside of tags. But he’s become a true big match performer as a solo operator, and this is another instance of that — up there with the best singles matches of his career, and he’s become a key player in the legacy story of Gunther, and vice versa. Gunther has brought the very best out of Jey, and I think Jey has shown us just how deep Gunther’s skill set is, in a way that you don’t get out of someone like Ilja Dragunov, who has a great and obvious natural chemistry with Gunther. Gunther and Jey don’t have that sort of thing, but they’ve worked together to create a tremendous chemistry that leans away from pure action and into high-level, WWE-style drama. ****

Other Stuff

• John Cena kicks off the show itself, and it’s 9:29 into airtime before a wrestler says anything live on air. Outstanding stuff. Same old tired “you people” shit as it’s been during this entire, nothing heel run. Hate to say it¹, but this has creatively been a total waste of time. This whole “he’s earned the right to go out however he wants” thing is nonsense. Anyway, we get CM Punk in a Ramones sweatshirt. Now, I’ve never been a John Cena guy at all, but I do think Cena vs Punk is one of the great rivalries ever, the culture war stuff they created was incredible and oddly subtle, at least for wrestling. And sadly I do not care about this in 2025 because I’ve never cared less about Punk and Cena is simply boring the hell out of me.

  • “The iconoclast, the outcast, the red-headed stepchild, the punk rock kid from Chicago, seemingly defending the establishment” — yeah, CM, seemingly. Oh, he says that’s not what he’s doing.

  • You know what this is? It’s nostalgia circuit stuff. This is Tito Santana vs Greg Valentine in the AWF in ‘95. “You’re not special, you’re a replaceable part just like me!” Not sure this is the way I’d go.

  • Wrestling fans are great. “You sold out” chants when there’s no all-important Story connection with him and Dwayne since the turn itself. Nothing.

  • Punk’s reasoning that he didn’t want to hold the big belt when he came back to WWE because he doesn’t like the man he becomes with it on his shoulder is, you know, OK. It’s a little thin, but sure.

  • Cena challenging Punk to change his supposed morals and face him in Saudi Arabia or nowhere is kinda funny.

  • Hey, it’s Seth Rollins and gang. Seth is just here to show everyone his briefcase and do his little laugh while the entire crowd sing’s the top heel’s theme song. We’re so cooked as a group in terms of there ever being a legitimate “heel” again. But that’s just the changing of the era, and it’s been that way for years. Saddens me, still.

• Roxanne Perez still needs to speak up a bit more. Put some oomph in her voice. She sounds so quiet and monotone and dopey with Liv Morgan.

• Nikki Bella is here and reuniting with fellow grandma Natalya, while Maxxine Dupri is also here. Nikki meets Iyo Sky, too. Nikki’s promo work is so stiff and the hat looks so dated now. “Thank you, Nikki, you paved the way for us.” That’s right, Iyo, who would you have ever been without Nikki Bella’s influence on This Industry?

• Becky Lynch with an in-ring promo. Think this is some of her better work recently, she’s calmed down a bit but still has — as I think Roxanne’s missing — that volume and “oomph” in how she speaks. Really funny to watch her be such an actual useful heel this time around, and also while John Cena’s heel work is just absolute garbage. John will never get a second try at it, though. Becky calls Lyra Valkyria in, and Valkyria stalks down the aisle, but Bayley jumps Lynch in the ring! Bayley is back and I will hold my thoughts otherwise. Lynch escapes the Rose Plant and Valkyria seems happy enough to help Bayley but also confused by Bayley.

• Ron “R-Truth” Killings arrives right after Lynch powders out and the other ladies hit the bricks. CM Punk has already done a good job coopting Truth’s whole deal, which I mean with a little chuckle and also knowing that, almost certainly, Truth whole-heartedly approves of anyone else getting something out of this little miracle run he’s having in 2025. This is good promo work, like, I thought he did good work with his promo for the Cena match a few weeks back, too, but it’s hard to buy that from “R-Truth,” and he does the hard work of trying to separate Ron Killings from “R-Truth.” There’s a convincing fire in his eyes that he hasn’t had in a long, long time, and the people really buy it when he cuts the braids off (although that “holy shit” chant sure ends abruptly). Barrett and Cole are good in the close background, too. Yeah, this rocked.

• The same Judgment Day backstage promo we’ve seen for a couple months now. The Liv/Roxanne issue has taken center stage while Dominik has been cooled off — just as you’d want for his first real title reign — and the Irish are just spinning wheels in the tag division.

• The Mr. Iguana thing is fascinating. On paper I just don’t see it quite working out, it has a Sabu/WCW sort of feel, but I’m all for the attempt because it’s so unexpected.

• After AJ Styles talks to Cathy Kelley, she wanders over to talk to lame ass New Day, who were chatting with Grayson Waller, but he leaves. Kofi and Xavier trying hard here, to be fair to them, to be heel champs that are elevating a division. And usually the idea being there is enough for WWE fans.

• HEY! Asuka is back next week!

• Nikki Bella gets a full in-ring promo and still sounds like she isn’t very, actually enthusiastic to be here. Now I can’t tell if she just needed/wanted a check so here she is, or if she’s just rusty with a liv mic. The hat looks so Old Woman, though. And these bedazzled trousers. She is 2015 traveled 10 years into the future. Liv Morgan comes down for a confrontation and to set up a match between them at Evolution 2, which is really a great vote of confidence for Liv, and one she has earned. A couple of real old school catty slams before Nikki lazily walks into Oblivion, which is actually quite funny how easy that was for Liv.

1. No, I don’t.