3 Things We Hated And three Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.’s weekly review of “WWE Raw,” the primary of two June 30 tapings (the opposite being Friday’s “WWE SmackDown”) that saw WWE, on the heels of Night of Champions, proceed constructing toward “Saturday Night’s Important Event,” Evolution 2, and SummerSlam, all at the identical time. What could go fallacious?

Unsurprisingly, it was an action-packed episode stuffed with match announcements like IYO SKY vs. Rhea Ripley and Seth Rollins vs. LA Knight, in addition to matches that can likely result in more match announcements like Lyra Valykria vs. Bayley. We’ll touch on all those things within the column, but interestingly, the WINC staff was particularly drawn to tag team stuff this week, from The Recent Day unexpectedly dropping the World Team Team Championship to Roxanne Perez being awarded her first most important roster gold to the chaotic most important event. In the event you’re upset because we do not cover the whole show, be at liberty to take it up with our “Raw” results page; this column is for our opinions, which implies it is time for 3 things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/30/25 episode of “WWE Raw.”

“Hate” is truthfully a robust word for what I used to be feeling at the tip of the lads’s tag title match, because what I used to be really feeling was profound confusion. I’m calling it a hate, though, because I do not like being confused while watching wrestling (though you’ll think I’d have gotten used to it by now).

I just really, truly don’t understand what I saw during this match. I’m not even saying it was a nasty match! It could have been an important match! I do not know — I just know what I believed this match was stepping into, versus what I saw within the ring. I believed this was a heel vs. heel match with almost no construct and little or no heat behind it wherein The Recent Day were destined to retain the tag titles, because they’ve principally done nothing with them so what was the whole point of their reign in the event that they lost them here? What I saw was a match wherein a Pittsburgh crowd that may later sit on their hands while Bayley and Lyra Valkyria placed on a grappling clinic went absolutely BONKERS for an inexplicably babyface Judgment Day team — particularly Finn Balor. And it wasn’t just the gang; unless something modified on the fly, the match was booked and produced as if Judgment Day were babyfaces, and Balor was made to look particularly strong, kicking out of the Midnight Hour, then kicking out of a shot from the tag belt, then getting the win. It was a WrestleMania match to blow-off a year-long feud where the conquering heroes finally claim the tag titles, only it happened on a random “Raw,” there was no feud, and the conquering heroes are dastardly heels who’re actively in technique of betraying at the least one one that trusts them. Uh … sure?

And that is not even moving into the actual booking of the title change. Again, I’m not MAD exactly, it’s just … who asked for this? What was the technique of this decision coming about? It might be very nice if “WWE Unreal” was legit (it isn’t) because I actually need to grasp how this sequence of events takes place for The Recent Day:

1. Turn heel in December in universally acclaimed angle
2. Five TV tag matches in 4 months (three TV singles), barely used
3. Win tag titles at WrestleMania in April
4. One match of any kind in two months, in some way used even less
5. Lose the tag titles on random “Raw” in June

The one conclusion to be drawn from that sequence of events — the only one — is that the people in WWE creative do not know what the f*** they’re doing. But if you happen to watched Recent Day vs. Judgment Day Monday night, you already knew that.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

We’re thirteen days from WWE Evolution 2″and the cardboard is finally beginning to fill out. Prior to “Raw,” only one match had been announced. By the tip of the show, three more had been announced.

The show opened with Rhea Ripley announcing she’d moved on from Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez. She wondered what was waiting for her on the all women’s show when IYO SKY got here to the ring. The Women’s World champion said she desires to face one of the best and Ripley is the person. Ripley wants the title back and agreed to the match before reminding SKY that whatever happens, she asked for it. These two were a part of the triple threat match at WrestleMania, which was one of the best match of the 2 nights. I’m glad to see them battle one-on-one. 

Following Finn Balor’s suggestion that Roxanne Perez replace Liv Morgan as one half of the ladies’s tag team champions, she and Raquel Rodriguez were announced for a match on Evolution 2. They might be defending their titles against a team from “Raw,” “SmackDown,” and “NXT”. While I’m glad the tag titles are being defended, this announcement should’ve been made to the ladies themselves, to not the lads of their faction.

A bit later within the show, a video aired of Adam Pearce and Nick Aldis. After putting over the ladies’s division, Pearce said they desired to honor the primary Evolution with a battle royal. It’s unclear what number of women will actually be within the match as Aldis said, “many ladies will enter at Evolution, but just one might be left standing.” The winner of the battle royal will get a match at Clash in Paris on August 31. The winner of the unique battle royal was the previous Ember Moon now often called “Without end” ROH Women’s Champion Athena.

While three matches were officially announced, a fourth one must have been. Bayley faced Lyra Valkyria for the Number One contendership for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship. Since their match resulted in a draw, a triple threat match needs to be added to Evolution 2. This show still has counterbooking vibes throughout it, but at the least we’re getting multiple title defenses. The primary show had two, together with the finale of the Mae Young Classic, featuring SKY (then often called Io Shirai). With the announcement of the battle royal, women’s wrestlers of the past will likely be involved. There may be a tag match involving the Bellas. Hopefully the show can have a pleasant balance of ladies who paved the best way, the present stars, and ladies of the longer term. 

Written by Samantha Schipman

It was pretty inevitable that Roxanne Perez was going to grow to be one half of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions alongside Raquel Rodriguez because of Liv Morgan’s super unlucky injury, but the best way it was announced tonight left a lot to be desired. “Raw” General Manager Adam Pearce and “SmackDown” General Manager Nick Aldis were each on the show tonight, because of the double taping, and were making decisions and announcements all throughout the show. Following Finn Balor and JD McDonagh’s tag team title win, nonetheless, when the brand new champions were talking to the GMs backstage, they took it upon themselves to call Perez as champion… All while Rodriguez and Perez had yet to be seen on the show. 

The GMs just type of let Balor know what was happening, and did one higher without the ladies’s champs present. Additionally they made the Evolution match where Rodriguez and Perez might be defending their gold against teams from “Raw,” “SmackDown,” and “NXT” official, without even telling them to their faces that Perez was in.

I believed perhaps each ladies had the night off because of their travel to and from Saudi Arabia over the weekend, which might have made quite a lot of sense as to why it was Balor who was clued in to every part, but they were backstage within the Judgment Day’s clubhouse where Perez was seen putting the title round her waist shortly after every part was announced. I also wasn’t an enormous fan of how Rodriguez seemed hesitant on teaming with Perez, when just last week on “Raw” she seemed super thankful that the previous NXT Women’s Champion helped her through the segment where she put Ripley through the table. She wasn’t upset when Perez interfered at Night of Champions, either, though she actually didn’t find yourself doing an excessive amount of before Ripley stuffed her in a trash can. Balor also reminded Rodriguez that she would have the ability to maintain her title now and never need to relinquish the gold since she has a partner, but that did not exactly appear to sink through to her immediately, when I suppose I just assumed it could have.

I’m sure now that that is all official and sorted out, that every part might be high-quality. It should even be pretty interesting and can make for an important story when Morgan comes back – especially since Dominik Mysterio voted “yes” on letting Perez within the Judgment Day without consulting her first. It was just the announcement tonight, with WWE not even bothering to have either woman within the shot, that just irked me. WWE has already shown us they do not exactly care concerning the Women’s Tag Team Championships, and that was only one hell of a strategy to prove it once more.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Roxanne Perez was all but formalized as Women’s Tag Team Champion during “Raw” because the Judgment Day voted on whether she should grow to be a member of the group, with Finn Balor reasoning to Raquel Rodriguez that she should let Perez proceed as her partner while Liv Morgan is out injured. It was an obvious decision from the moment Morgan was sidelined, and while nothing might be taken as a right with WWE, at the least it will probably be said that they’re making it for now. 

Sure, it could have been great to see the moment include Perez because the substitute in a match, but that point will certainly come and there is greater than just a few avenues to explore along with her stand-in title reign. One only has to have a look at the present run of Naomi to grasp the sort of launching pad that substitute champions can have. It is not like they’ll run the very same play as Naomi and Jade Cargill, seeing as Morgan was not injured as a part of a storyline, but there are little sparks of opportunity between the very overt manipulation of Balor, with JD McDonagh simply following his lead, and the pair of Rodriguez and Dominik Mysterio – currently caught between a rock and a Liv Morgan. 

Rodriguez and Mysterio are very clearly on the side of not stirring up dissent, while Balor has clearly eyed Perez up as a member of the faction for the past few weeks, and while I’m not a fan of this vein there’s also a brewing love triangle between Mysterio, Perez, and Morgan. If history has shown anything, on the very least that type of angle can yield a run with the WWE Women’s World title – albeit you’ll hope for a greater reasoning. On the very least, Perez is now the second of three top-tier women’s wrestlers to be called up and now hold a title, and it is often price celebrating an excellent graduation story.

Written by Max Everett

Monday’s show was definitely not the primary time that WWE already arrange a possible challenger that is waiting on the opposite side of a title defense for a champion through the promo segment involving World Heavyweight Champion GUNTHER and Seth Rollins. On this particular case, nonetheless, it just felt so unnecessary to do. On condition that Rollins is currently holding the Men’s Money In The Bank briefcase and may money it in at any time without notice, there was absolutely zero point in having him get right into a verbal confrontation with GUNTHER. Furthermore, Rollins’ ongoing issues with Punk had nothing to do with GUNTHER in any respect which made that portion of the segment feel nonsensical, and LA Knight’s presence was completely baffling in the entire ordeal. Rollins and Knight have only had a pair interactions at most on WWE programming over the past few weeks, so adding a match between them at Saturday Night’s Important Event felt completely random. Commentary playing it off as if Rollins and Knight had been feuding for so long as Rollins and Punk have been only made every part feel much more hokey than it already was, and just didn’t feel like the best tone.

At the tip of the day, this promo segment would’ve been rather more enjoyable if it had simply been relegated to GUNTHER sending a message to Goldberg ahead of their Saturday Night’s Important Event World Heavyweight Championship match. It also would’ve served as an efficient in increase some type of storyline between GUNTHER and Goldberg with the short period between now and July 12, in addition to Goldberg’s extremely limited schedule.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

As soon as Sami Zayn and Penta’s tag team match against The Vision’s Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed was announced within the aftermath of Night of Champions, I figured there was no way for this most important event to finish in anything apart from a disqualification. WWE loves constructing factions through disqualification or no contest finishes: you could have a member or two of a faction run a match, then the remainder of that faction rushes the ring to cause some shenanigans to be able to get the match thrown out before utter chaos ensues to shut out the show. This is not exclusive to WWE, nevertheless it’s so much more noticeable in WWE *solely* due to its overuse. Because the match continued, I figured that interference was to return sooner somewhat than later, and that it was only a matter of time before we were robbed of a satisfying match ending yet again.

One, two, three. Wait, did Bron Breakker just get a clean pin?

“WWE Raw’s” most important event resulted in utter chaos, but not in the best way it’s possible you’ll expect. There was no sudden appearance from Seth Rollins here, no Paul Heyman interference to muddy the outcomes of the match. After being tagged in by teammate Bronson Reed, Breakker stormed the ring with a spear after a series of frustrating near falls from the resilient Zayn, chugging along like a steam-powered locomotive before scoring a clean pinfall. Clean pinfalls are so hard to return by nowadays, but I’m not rejoicing solely for the sake of rarity. No, The Vision sorely needed this win, they usually needed it to be clean and decisive.

That is the way you construct up a faction — not by ostentatious or flamboyant disqualification “all chaos has broken loose” nonsense. A faction built on nothing but outside interference becomes clownish, and is didn’t be taken seriously. Do what a faction built on results becomes? They grow to be a veritable threat — *grounded* in legitimacy. It wasn’t even that this finish was any less intense than a disqualification finish is likely to be; Breakker’s spear looked absolutely devastating as he cut through air to interrupt Zayn in half. This was an important match that was made even higher by a *good* finish. By expressing restraint within the chaos, Breakker and Reed were booked to be real threats (and threats that exist outside of Rollins).

Adding Jey Uso in there was nice, especially since CM Punk was featured in an earlier segment. Uso, who’s becoming more confident in singles competition by the day, got a credibility boost through the post-match save when he laid old-fashioned steel onto each Breakker and Reed to be able to save Zayn and Penta. You’ll be able to clearly see the WarGames team lines being drawn, and while I believe November is a bit ways away, I suppose it isn’t too early to start out planning.

Sometimes I leave “Raw” feeling frustrated or confused — this was not the case. Sometimes, you simply need a little bit of control within the chaos.

Written by Angeline Phu