The last time truly is now. This weekend, John Cena will call it a career at Saturday Night’s Main Event when tasked with former World Heavyweight Champion Gunther. “WWE Raw” stopped through Kansas City to set the stage for the big match, as well as progress the mystery of The Vision’s Survivor Series mystery man.
(Never) Give up
“WWE Raw” opened with a John Cena vignette, highlighting the tournament that decided his final career match against Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event this weekend. The whole aspect of this tournament was honestly made funnier by this. Cena’s words rang loud, with him saying he always wanted the same final opponent: Whoever seized the opportunity as he did against Kurt Angle to start his career.
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Well, news flash, WWE. Gunther is nowhere near a similar position to the debuting Cena at that time, 20-plus years ago.
That one specific line just makes the decision to go with Gunther over someone like Carmelo Hayes feel all the more wrong. With all of that said, the singular promo that Gunther cut to open the show rapidly built a super easy, quick narrative to run with for their match: He promises to make the man who never gives up give up.
Hey, that’s about all this needs to be compelling. Have Gunther insist on forcing a Cena tap as the only way he wants to win, and voila, we could see a magical match. Cena has only tapped out three times in his career, with the first and last coming against Angle — the last of which was in 2004.
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What’s The Vision again?
A lot is going on with The Vision right now, and it’s almost too much to keep up with.
For starters, Logan Paul is still upset about his interaction with Rey Mysterio last week. So much so that he went to his Vision buddies in the locker room and demanded they fix his Mysterio “problem.” I mean, Paul initiated their exchange, and all Mysterio did was slap him, so that was funny to describe as if it were some big, ongoing issue. At the same time, it does make sense for a character like Paul to be salty about.
Matters got scrambled after that, though. Mysterio was supposed to have a match against Finn Balor before Paul attacked him mid-entrance. He had the upper hand and looked for the brass-knuckle punch until Mysterio countered for a 619 — but the mystery man from Survivor Series made the save again.
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There was no reveal. Just another super kick and stomp, allowing Paul to finally land the punch, with the Brons nowhere to be seen, despite saying they would take care of it.
Balor also never showed up, which seemed weird. Instead, a pissed LA Knight ran Paul off after his Gunther epic on “SmackDown.” He called out Paul for his alliance with The Vision, setting up their match later in the night.
Can you guess how it ended?
Yep, that’s right. An interference from the Brons — and the mystery man.
It was a fine match, but it completely killed any of the momentum Knight accrued off the heels of his excellent match with Gunther. It’s as if that never happened. There’s no reason Knight needed to be in this position, but presumably, he’s now been written off TV because I don’t know what other purposes the continued beating served.
Breakker cut another very strong promo in the ring on CM Punk. He begged for the old world champion Punk from the early 2010s, then, backstage video oddly flashed back to Knight getting carried around. “The Megastar” insisted he was fine, which prompted Bronson Reed and Logan Paul to go back and Tsunami him on top of a car.
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This whole scene had very old-school WWE vibes, but felt wildly random given the separation between the feud among all these dudes.
👍 MONDAY NIGHT MONEY 👍
1. Iyo Sky defeated Kairi Sane clean with the Over the Moonsault. There were your expected Asuka shenanigans outside the ring, which were ultimately negated by Rhea Ripley in Sky’s corner. Any time you mix and match any of these four, it’s going to be a very solid match, and this was no exception — though, the interference elements are still annoying.
2. Jey Uso and any character or story arcs he teased in the recent months were fully thrown out the window on “WWE Raw.” That’s annoying and not so good, but what is good is that he and Jimmy Uso are officially back to focusing on the tag team division, which is needed. They’ve spent enough time apart that even old rivalries — like with New Day — feel fresh again. It’s about time.
3. Maxxine Dupri was once again booked to look like an absolute monster in another incredible Hart Dungeon vignette with “Low-Key Legend” Nattie Neidhart. Simply put, these are cinema, and better lead to a serious Dupri run because she is being built up magnificently.
🤷♂️ IT HAPPENED 🤷♂️
Roxanne Perez defeated Lyra Valkyria with Pop-Rox after a Liv Morgan interference was missed by the referee. The match was great, and a rematch of their recent match. The shenanigans were, again, tired. But worst of all, Valkyria has completely fallen into booking irrelevancy since she lost the Intercontinental title. WWE clearly doesn’t know what to do with her and Bayley, which is an incredible shame considering how talented they are. Just forget this whole thing has happened, and work Valkyria and Bayley into separate world title pictures. Each could use them both right now.
👎 RAW DEAL 👎
1. AJ Styles and Dragon Lee successfully defended the World Tag Team titles against the War Raiders when Styles hit the Phenomenal Forearm on Ivar. This was very sloppy and pointless. A lot of WWE booking has been turning into: “Well, the champion wanted it.” I don’t know when the last time the War Raiders were on TV and won, so there was no reason to care, and they were never going to win. Lee also botched a couple of times badly.
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👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑
“WWE Raw” may have delivered the most unintentionally hilarious swerve of all time. Triple H, if you read this, well done. Because you got me good with that one.
Stephanie Vaquer’s promos are always interesting because of the dual-language element she utilizes with her English and Spanish. But they’re always uniquely effective, and her confidence translates perfectly through her presentation. It’s to the point where she almost feels like a heel at her core, but the world just loves her, so she technically isn’t. All in all, it works, as she put over the roster.
Then Nikki Bella came out to demand a rematch, and I was about to break my monitors from the lunacy.
Raquel Rodriguez followed it by becoming my spirit animal, and lawn darting Bella into the ring post, where she just went completely unconscious. It was stunning in the best way possible. Pure comedy of the highest order, and a rightful transition to someone as good as Rodriguez going after the big gold belt.
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Rodriguez rules, so I’m here for this program no matter how long it lasts, and the Judgment Day dynamic with Liv Morgan’s return makes this all the more compelling. They had a slight butting of heads backstage afterward, with Morgan questioning why it happened. Seeds are being planted, folks.
👑 I give this show a Crown score of: 5.5/10. 👑
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