By and large these days, WWE Raw has been a mostly skippable product, disposable programming that might be decent at times but ultimately doesn’t mean much to the company’s overall direction or presentation. It’s content for the sake of content, filling time on the show and immediately memory-holed as soon as the episode ends.
There are exceptions to this assessment: Chad Gable and Dragon Lee have been on a bit of a roll in the ring in recent months, and the 946/Bloodline feud has become the kind of trainwreck at which fans can’t stop gawking.
But Raw these days has been inessential television, a parade of C+ matches, horrendous dialogue, uninspired storylines, and a lack of compelling drama.
Monday’s episode provided glimpses of goodness, but it also offered questionable decisions, bog-standard wrestling, and logic-bending segments that left you wondering if anyone is actually paying attention as they put these shows together.
The best part of Raw came from a wrestler who doesn’t even go here, with Sami Zayn making an appearance and doing the heavy lifting of promoting a significant match between he and Roman Reigns, who wasn’t present this week (though he managed to show up on the program and create a paradox).
Otherwise, you could dial in for a couple of matches and read/watch a recap to save yourself a good 90 minutes.
Let’s get to it…
DOWNS…
5. Just An Average Gable Match
Chad Gable has been on something of a run as Intercontinental Champion in the ring. He’s had some dazzling matches this fall against the likes of Dragon Lee, Rey Mysterio, and Rey Fenix.
Surely when he teamed with Dragon to face Big Cass and Ethan Page Monday night, it would be another success, right?
Unfortunately, Gable and Lee are victims of their own successes, as Monday’s tag match – when compared to their recent contests – was just an average bout. Maybe it was the placement of the commercial break or how things were sequenced, but this didn’t do it for this writer.
Page picked up the win after dropping Gable with an Ego Plex on the floor (which basically killed him dead for the rest of the match), then finished Dragon off with another Ego Plex in the ring after Cass ended Lee’s comeback with a boot.
The match existed to set All Ego up as the next Intercontinental Championship challenger, but this story becomes somewhat moot when you consider how Je’Von Evans “earned” a WWE Championship match in the opening segment. Cass being relegated to playing second banana to Page in a tag match also isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring, though it’s better than jobbing him out again.
Honestly, maybe expectations were a bit too high here. Maybe it was the placement before the main event. But this could have been bigger and better.
4. Title Shots Grow On Trees
What’s the point of booking number one contender’s matches and having top stars engage in heated rivalries because they want an opportunity at a world title, when all someone needs to do is interrupt a world champion, antagonize them, and then wait for a GM to intervene?
Sami Zayn showed up on Raw presumably to promote Crown Jewel since Roman Reigns couldn’t be bothered, and in the process, he berated Raw GM Adam Pearce. His lengthy rant name-dropped Je’Von Evans, who apparently was hanging out in gorilla, because his music hit about three seconds after his name was mentioned.
Evans appealed to the youth in attendance with his “67” jersey and use of “yuurrt” only a couple of years after it peaked in popularity, then he sparred unconvincingly with Sami before the Undisputed WWE Champion told him to check back in five-to-eight years.
Pearce, however, quickly made an impromptu world title match between Zayn (who isn’t a Raw superstar) and Je’Von, who has spent the past month being a human crash test dummy. To be clear, Raw does have a world champion, but he only shows up a few times a year, rarely defends the title, and has logged just one free television match in the past 20 months.
The lack of internal logic is mind-numbing: Penta had to win a tournament to get a title match against Roman, while LA Knight harangued Reigns for months before attacking him to get a shot at the World Heavyweight Championship. Meanwhile, Bron Breakker’s personal piñata “earned” a world title match just by verbally sparring with Zayn for a few minutes.
3. Why Is Raquel A Champion?
Raquel Rodriguez deserves immense credit for changing her in-ring style to match her stature, becoming a serious threat and elevating her performance and presence as a character.
When she won the Women’s Intercontinental Championship this summer, it felt like earned recognition for this accomplishment. However, since winning the title three months ago, she has defended it once, and now she’s dropped two straight matches to Iyo Sky.
Iyo defeated Raquel cleanly in a non-title match Monday after pinning her in a tag match last week, just to make it clear that she’s in line for the Women’s IC title. Monday’s match seemed a bit superfluous, seeing how WWE tends to book its title matches off pinning a champ in a tag match, pinning a stablemate, or just calling them out and it suits the whims of the GM.
Beating Rodriguez cleanly twice doesn’t exactly help sell her as a mountain for Iyo to climb. Rather, it raises questions of why she’s even a champ, and then you realize she hasn’t defended her title since late August when Sol Ruca lost her title rematch. She’s not exactly setting the world on fire, which is a shame considering that she could be a pretty good monster mid-card champ.
The match itself Monday was fine, but it felt a bit paint-by-numbers between two wrestlers who know each other pretty well. We’ve seen nearly every sequence between them before, maybe just in a slightly different order. Throw in a Roxanne Perez attack and two-on-one beatdown immediately afterward to “get Raquel’s heat back,” and you’ve got pretty inessential, skippable content here.
2. Who Looks Good Here?
Other than Bron Breakker, who came away from the opening match looking strong?
Sami Zayn and Je’Von Evans had their impromptu Undisputed WWE Championship match after the show-opening promo, with Evans hanging around for a while until Penta made his appearance, Money in the Bank briefcase in tow. This distracted Zayn and almost led to his downfall, but Breakker wiped Penta out, which in turn took Evans’ focus off his world title match.
Zayn capitalized and defeated Je’Von, needing the assist to topple the near-mummified Evans. Sami then left Bron to beat up Evans some more, until Penta recovered to attempt the save. Bronson Reed then attacked, which led to both babyfaces being laid out by The Vision.
For Penta and Je’Von, this diversionary feud with Reed and Breakker will continue, which is actually fine. But Penta looked like a dope coming out mid-match to cash in while his mate was involved in a world title match (not exactly a great babyface trait), and then immediately got trucked by Bron.
Evans’ first world title match came in an impromptu contest that no one believed would have a clean finish, and it came at a time when he’s just been getting pummeled on a weekly basis.
And then there’s Sami, the world champion whose title is being used as a plot device to advance a mid-card feud, which doesn’t at all make him look secondary compared to the other world champion who doesn’t show up on his own brand.
But Breakker’s spears looked solid, so there’s that.
1. Bloodline Does The Time Warp
Solo Sikoa has ACCEPTED the challenge from Royce Keys! ? pic.twitter.com/1O5WNi4jzq
— WWE (@WWE) October 27, 2026
The Bloodline bent time and space Monday night when Solo Sikoa accepted Royce Keys’ challenge from two segments earlier for a match on Raw next week – via a backstage segment that clearly was taped last week.
During 946’s black-and-white vignette Monday night, Royce Keys told Solo to meet him in Brooklyn next week because (deep breath) ain’t nobody safe.
Sikoa responded a short time later via a pre-taped promo with the Usos and Roman Reigns standing behind him against their SUV, accepting the challenge. Simple, right? Wrong.
We already established in the opening segment that Roman was not at Raw in Fresno. Solo was clearly wearing the same clothes he donned during the main event brawl last week too, meaning it was recorded seven days prior.
That sort of continuity mistake should never have happened. There had to be at least a dozen people involved in scripting, filming, editing, and airing this promo, and not a single person stopped and pointed out that this wouldn’t make sense in continuity?
Another point worth making here: Solo declared that “the Bloodline runs this place… when we say it, we mean it.” Does this mean that Sikoa, who has insisted repeatedly that he’s not part of the family stable, just strolled right back into the group via a backstage promo? This was supposedly an alliance of convenience rather than a family reunion, and now it looks like Solo is back in the fold.
Just dumb, weird, and lazy all around.
UPS…
3. Use ALL Of The Plunder
The rivalry between Bayley and Lyra Valkyria has been immensely disappointing, with the Role Model playing that annoying, smarmy babyface character that only WWE thinks is virtuous.
Still, these are two extremely talented wrestlers, so getting them in the ring at least provides a fighting chance of something good happening.
Monday night, Bayley and Valkyria had a no-disqualification match where they simply trotted out every weapon possible for a cliché WWE television plunder match: chairs, kendo sticks, tables, and a broom. The only thing they probably missed was a fire extinguisher.
Despite falling back on the tropey weapons and moving from one plunder spot to another, this match actually built somewhat nicely, starting with some light spots involving a chair, to Bayley diving through the ropes to drive Lyra through a table.
From that point, they continued to increase the WWE-sanctioned violence: Bayley hit a sunset flip into a corner-wedged chair; Lyra blocked an elbow drop with a chair; Valkyria missed a moonsault and crashed though a chair; Bayley countered a Peripeteia off the apron with a powerbomb onto a trash can; and then Bayley hit an elbow drop through a table on the floor.
Bayley finally ended the match with a kendo stick-assisted crossface, getting the tap-out.
Yes, a lot of this was extremely contrived, and the lack of blood and the limitations of a WWE plunder brawl meant the violence was fairly muted, but the match still worked within those confines. Throw this on AEW Dynamite and it gets a shrug, but it functioned well in its role on Raw.
2. A Women’s Title Match Deserving Of The Main Event
Let’s face facts here: Liv Morgan has not exactly been in top form in the ring in 2026. Becky Lynch hasn’t exactly had a great run in recent times either.
There was some unfortunate recent history working against the Raw main event Monday night. Perhaps those elements helped lower expectations, which enabled both women to turn in a solid replacement match for the originally booked number one contender’s match between Lynch and Stephanie Vaquer.
Morgan and Lynch used some shortcuts to get the fans to react – Liv hooking a half-crab in the turnbuckle, a Manhandle Slam on the announce desk, and a shock Oblivion for a two-count – but the fact it worked is a testament to both women keeping the fans’ attention. The match itself went off the rails after Becky drilled Liv with a third Manhandle Slam, only for the Judgment Day to storm the ring for the disqualification.
That was a disappointing finish, but things quickly descended into chaos, with Chelsea Green and then Iyo Sky running down to save Becky from a three-on-one beatdown. Green got a modicum of revenge on Morgan with an Unpretty-Her, but the ring quickly cleared, leaving it open for Tiffany Stratton to run down with the Money in the Bank briefcase.
But before Stratton could cash in on a prone Morgan, Dominik Mysterio ran down and pulled Liv out of the ring, carrying her off. That’s the second time this has happened to Tiffy, which is only going to increase her frustration and potentially put her in a situation where cashing in on the SmackDown women’s champ is going to look more viable, which will throw her friendship with Chelsea into the mix.
Not bad stuff overall, mixing the Crown Jewel Championship match, MITB, Women’s Intercontinental Championship, and Women’s World Championship all into one melee.
1. Where’s The Lie?
Sami Zayn might be booked as a delusional heel, but that doesn’t mean he can’t drop some truth bombs, as he did Monday night while solo-promoting his upcoming Crown Jewel Championship match against Roman Reigns.
The Undisputed WWE Champion relentlessly threw shade at Roman, exposing the Tribal Chief (and the fans who mindlessly chanted “OTC!” while he made salient points). Zayn noted that Reigns’ part-time schedule did not include a stop in Fresno – which drew the “OTC” chants – and then wished he could have avoided the city as well.
Sami spoke about being the most underrated wrestler in the world, then lashed out at the fans for needing to be spoonfed everything and repeatedly told that wrestlers were great to acknowledge them. Trick Williams, CM Punk, and Roman all are shameless self-promoters, and fans lap it up rather than evaluating a wrestler on their own.
The fans were almost too predictable and Pavlovian here, throwing up their ones when Zayn mentioned how Reigns demands they acknowledge him, and he called it out: “Look at you.”
But then Sami said something that is arguably the most truthful “dirty little secret” in recent WWE history: the Bloodline was never as good as it was until he joined the group, sending it to unprecedented heights and helping the company rake in millions of dollars.
That’s something many critics have maintained for quite some time: it wasn’t Roman’s five-minute entrances and preening, it was the drama, comedy, and heart that Sami brought to the stable that really pushed the Bloodline to its greatest success.
All told, this was a fiery promo from Zayn about not getting the respect he deserves, and how he’s taken for granted despite being such a versatile wrestler. He lashed out at Reigns as the absent champion who isn’t taking this Crown Jewel Championship match seriously.
And really, nearly everything he said was either true or a completely plausible position. The fans exposed themselves as sheep following Roman, and Sami – despite being booed as the heel – spoke truth to power.
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