Some midweek reading for you guys because as it turns out writing recaps for a 3 hour show is much more time consuming than a 2 hour show! Anyways today we are talking about the June 24th edition of Monday Night RAW.
We start the show with Drew McIntyre coming out just a week after he supposedly quit from this exact same show. What a man of his word he is! He once again is talking about how much he hates CM Punk, but this time he’s spiced it up a bit with the first High of the night: he took the bracelet that had Punk’s wife and dogs name on it off of Punk last Friday. He also got great heel heat by dissing Punk’s dog, leading to a “Larry” chant from the crowd. Hot start! Then we get into the promo package about the Wyatt Sicks that we saw last Friday on Smackdown and man it’s so good. It also clearly shows that the Wyatts will be coming after Chad Gable as they placed extra emphasis on him being shot in the head (he survived though). Speaking of which, we then see Gable arriving to the ring sporting just a bandaid. Insane that such a vicious blow can’t kill someone. What is this Star Wars?!
First match of the night is Bron Breakker vs Ludwig “James Bond villain” Kaiser. I’m really loving the slow burn singles push Kaiser is getting as he’s damn good at his job. They put on a good match but ultimately the big fella himself Sheamus came out of nowhere to knew the head off of Kaiser leading to a DQ. Then Bron destroys Sheamus and confronts GM Adam Pearce and challenges Sami Zayn for the IC title at money in the bank. Sami stupidly accepted this challenge. We hardly knew ye, Sami!
Next is another high which is the Dom/Liv story. We go to the judgement day locker room where Dom and Carlito are annihilating a big ass plate of chicken nuggets sent by Liv Morgan, then Dom shows off what we can only assume are some naughty pics from Liv to Dom. Carlito’s face when he sees Dom’s phone is the high of this segment.
Then we get more MITB qualifier matches as we get a triple threat between Shayna Baszler, Kairi Sane, and Lyra Valkyra. Valkyra slowly but surely is getting more and more over with the “caw” from the crowds during her theme. There might be something there with her and the booking of this match agrees with me as Valkyra wins and heads to the MITB.
We then go back to WWE’s own Hawk Tua girl Liv Morgan and we get my perma-high of the one shot entrance! Liv is then interrupted by Zelina Vega who claims that Liv is more obsessed with “Rhea’s sloppy seconds” than the title itself. Damn good line there can’t lie. Zelina can talk, we need to see more of that. However I do have a low and that is everytime Liv Morgan talks I hear Meg from family guy. Dom then comes out, and is serenaded by “sloppy seconds” chants. Dom is so damn good at egging the boos on by stopping to let the crowd get louder and louder. Amazing crowd control. Then his deadbeat dad gets involved and we set up a match between the two for next weeks raw. Then we see Liv talk backstage to R Truth where she masterfully manipulates truth to agreeing to a tag team title match for the main event of this show against Finn Balor and JD “Funko Pop” McDonagh.
Next is more MITB triple threats as we get Braun Stroman vs Big Bronson Reed, and Chad “Murder is nothing to me” Gable. A low was Braun stroman messing up running the ropes. Come on dude. Gable steals the W but is immediately interrupted by the Wyatt Sicks. We see Nicki Cross come out and scare the hell out of Gable, then gets out of the ring, picks up a package, and hands it to Michael Cole. Cole opens it and it turns out to be a VHS tape. Any kids reading this ask your parents what that is. Following this we see the Creed Brothers offer their help to Gable. Team Angle 2.0 here we come baby! Huge high!
The final hour begins with Fyre and Dawn vs Carter and Chance and this was absolutely one of the matches of all time. Moving on! Back to the judgement day locker room as we see Liv walking out the locker room, encountered by Priest, then Priest walks in and sees only Finn Balor in the locker room! Oh behave!!
The next segment gives me two lows: Damien Priest’s aura and Seth Rollins’ character. HHH has tried so long to make Priest happen but I just struggle buying him as the biggest threat on Monday nights. Just isn’t there for me. Same with Rollins’ character. I get that it’s great for crowd engagement but what even is this character anymore? I wish he switched things up when he came back as he’s incredibly versatile. Just feel that this “joker” Rollins has ran its course. Gunther then comes out and basically tells them that no matter who wins at MITB, they will lose to Gunther at summerslam which…. Which is exactly what is about to happen.
Then Michael Cole reveals what was in the VHS and I highly encourage all to watch this online. It starts with Uncle Howdy asking a man “how he feels about the loss” we then see that man is Bo Dallas, Bray Wyatt’s real life brother. Howdy then asks how he felt when his brother died and man I have to commend Bo for being willing to go down this path as it is pretty shocking to see WWE so willing to go into that real life unfortunate passing. Howdy asks Bo if he’s just trying to rip off bray’s legacy and again damn! What a question! Bo tells us though that his mission is to essentially finish what the fiend started and man this will be some good stuff.
We then get Karrion Kross vs Kofi Kingston in a fun little side story of Kross trying to get Xavier Woods to break out from the New Day. Kross would win after Kingston gets distracted by AOP jumping Woods in the back. If this gets us more Xavier Woods I’m all the more for it!
The main event is for the tag team championships as Finn and JD take on Awesome Truth. Solid tag match that ends with Liv coming out to help Finn and JD capture tag team gold and we have a title change on free tv! That’s always a high! This also does a great job of progressing the judgement day story as methinks when mani returns, things are about to blow up. Really solid RAW all together.
HIGHEST HIGH: Wyatt Sicks video package
LOWEST LOW: The Aura of Damien Priest
