Raw kicked off with a confrontation between Stephanie McMahon and Becky Lynch regarding Becky’s ongoing knee issues. Stephanie said that until Becky is cleared by a doctor, she will be unable to compete, throwing her WrestleMania showdown with Ronda Rousey in to doubt. After being threatened with suspension, The Man attacked McMahon before being pulled off. As Becky made her way out of the arena, she was confronted by Ronda Rousey who said, “Beating up Stephanie did nothing for our match”, before adding “to put Ice on that feel bitch”. In the night’s first match Rousey took on Liv Morgan. In around a minute, Ronda locked in the armbar to make Morgan tap out. Immediately after the match, Rousey challenged Sarah Logan to a match and quickly despatched her in the same fashion. After this match was done, there was a brief confrontation between “The Baddest Woman on the Planet” and Ruby Riott before Riott made her way backstage with her companions. Backstage we see a short segment between The Boss & Hug Connection and Nikki Cross & Alicia Fox ahead of their Women’s Tag Title Qualifier.
Back to the ring and we saw a #1 Contender’s Match for the Raw Tag Team Championships between Heavy Machinery, The Revival, The B-Team and Lucha House Party. Heavy Machinery showed off their power and LHP showed their high flying ability but ultimately the finish saw The Revival earning another Tag Title opportunity by hitting the Shatter Machine on former champion Bo Dallas.
Curt Hawkins and Zak Ryder are backstage, when Curt asks why Zak wants to team up with him. His response, “I’m a loser too.”
Kurt Angle came to the ring and started to deliver what sounded a lot like a retirement speech before he was interrupted by Baron Corbin and Drew McIntyre. Braun Strowman came to support Angle and a tag match was set for the main event.
In the Women’s Tag Title Qualifying match, Fox and Cross had the upper hand from the start after attacking Banks and Bayley before the match. This left Bayley to fight most of the match alone and was dominated throughout. Sasha eventually recovered to make the save and Fox got caught with a rollup for the pin. The Boss and Hug Connection are on their way to the Elimination Chamber match.
Next up was a nice bit of nostalgia for older fans, as Jeff Jarrett (accompanied by The Road Dogg) took on Elias. Before the match the audience were treated to a live rendition of “With My Baby Tonight”. Elias dominated the match but Jarrett did show some nice moves at points. The finish came with Elias hitting The Driftaway for the pin. However, Jarrett got some revenge after the match as Double J smashed Elias’ own guitar over his back!
Backstage Dana Brooke is apologising to Natlaya, who completely ignored her. Not taking kindly to this, Dana challenged Nattie to a match next week. Apollo Crews was also interviewed on his thoughts surrounding Kurt Angle’s future in the ring. This led to an argument between Drake Maverick (flagged by Rezar of AOP) and Apollo.
Finn Balor was scheduled for an Intercontinental Title match, but that wasn’t what we got here. Instead, Lio Rush was the man to face Balor, claiming he wasn’t worthy of facing Lashley. In a lively, fast paced encounter we saw some good spots from both men before Balor got the win with the Coup de Grace.
Paige came out to the ring to deliver a short but emotional promo for her new film, Fighting With My Family.
Following this, we saw the return of a Moment of Bliss. EC3 was featured from the start being asked which brand he will sign for before the segment was interrupted by Nia Jax and Tamina. Nia claimed nobody cared about EC3 and she should replace Becky Lynch to face Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania. This brought out Dean Ambrose who claimed Nia couldn’t deal with his “raw sexual magnetism”, before turning to EC3 and asking “what happened to EC1 and EC2?” This lead to an immediate match between the two. In a short match, EC3 picked up the win with a rollup to shock the former Grand Slam Champion.
Backstage Kurt Angle was asked if he still has it in him. Angle said he does, and Braun added “It’s true, it’s damn true”. We then saw more of Mojo Rawley’s recent skits with him screaming in a mirror claiming “not to be a team player anymore”.
In the night’s main event, McIntrye and Corbin controlled the match for long periods before short bursts from Angle first, and then Strowman. In one of the oddest finishes in recent memory, Strowman was disqualified for coming in to the ring as the illegal man and striking Corbin, the legal man of the other team. This is something that happens in virtually every tag match and never leads to a DQ and is made all the more confusing by the fact that McIntyre had only moments earlier broken up a pin by Angle, while being the illegal man. After the match, Strowman hit Drew and Baron with Chokeslams before leaving the ring with Angle.
Overall Opinion: When you’re trying to build heat on the Road to WrestleMania, this is not the way to do it. After a great opening segment, courtesy once again of Becky Lynch, the show gradually died a horrible, painful death leading to one of the most bemusing endings to Raw for a long time. Balor v Rush was a bright spot and I hope this leads to an IC title run for Finn and I’m glad to see The Revival back in the Raw Tag Title picture, but the match to get them there was far from a classic. The show was definitely hurt by not having Seth Rollins appear at all, even for a promo to sell his injuries. Perhaps one of the more interesting potential outcomes from the show was the Nia Jax v Dean Ambrose confrontation. With rumours circulating the WWE are considering inter-gender matches, these two could well be the guinea pigs used for the experiment.
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