Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that, every so often, allows the biggest stars in the company to explain why they hate each other face to face. That's what we got with Roman Reigns and CM Punk this week, and the Wrestling Inc. crew has thoughts about it. Also on our radar: the Philadelphia street fight for the Women's World Championship, Oba Femi's sort-of "Raw" debut, the Bella Twins chasing the women's tag titles, and much more!
As always, there are things we're not going to cover because they simply did not move us to cover them, and as always, you can read all about those things on our "Raw" results page. This column is strictly for the matches and segments that provoked sentiment within the hearts of the WINC staff. So join us as we give you three things we hated and three things we loved about the 2/2/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"
Bron Breakker's feud with "Raw" General Manager Adam Pearce has been one of the best things going on the red brand right now, and this week, Breakker had a justified crash-out and that feud only got more heated. Breakker was furious about the masked, black hoodie-wearing attacker that took him out before he could even get going in the Royal Rumble over the weekend, and he blamed Pearce for everything.
He was out there decimating the commentary desk and getting in the faces of Corey Graves and Michael Cole, and while Paul Heyman did end up getting on the microphone in the middle of the ring during it all, it was certainly a lot more exciting than a Vision promo to open the show with all the members of the stable standing in a line, waiting for their turn on the mic.
Breakker blamed Pearce for what happened to him and he continued to rage, with Heyman, Logan Paul, Bronson Reed, and Austin Theory attempting to calm him. Pearce came out and basically told Breakker he was lucky to have a job following his trash Rumble performance and he needed to remember that Theory was the last person in a mask, which sent Breakker out of the ring, on the attack.
Reed and Breakker leaving the ring then brought out LA Knight, and it was a great spot for him to return to "Raw," following his actual return in the Rumble match. He was taken out two months ago at the hands of The Vision, he slotted back in perfectly here, and the pop from the crowd was insane.
The segment, and The Vision overall, didn't overtake the entire episode, for once, which was really nice. After the opening of the show, Heyman went backstage to attempt to get a match for Breakker against Knight, but was told Knight was gone and Breakker should be too, because he caused a massive disruption to Pearce's show. Reed had a match later in the night with Penta, but that only furthered the story with Knight, who came out to attack, rather than Breakker getting involved with anything.
While Breakker's storyline coming out of the Rumble was a major one, despite him truly looking like garbage, it didn't take up too much of the show or dominate it, but it still felt important and like everything was addressed, as much as it could be, for the night. We knew we weren't getting a masked man reveal on "Raw," so starting out the show with a bang instead of a stereotypical Vision promo was good enough for me.
Written by DaisyRuth
Despite Pearce's aforementioned anger towards Breakker and Knight causing chaos by disrupting his show, he seemed to be just fine with Oba Femi doing whatever he wanted, and it was a little continuity issue that, for whatever reason (since I absolutely love Femi) stood out to me tonight. Maybe because Pearce is constantly freaking out and proclaiming he needs a drink whenever something goes awry on "Raw," but a free agent just strolling out to lay waste to a tag team waiting on a match was just fine with him, apparently.
When Femi strolled out to the ring, I figured he was just set for a match, likely a squash, against Erik or Ivar of the War Raiders. However, Michael Cole and Corey Graves on commentary were both confused, as the team was apparently awaiting a match of their own. Instead of booking it out of the ring, they stuck around, and ate a big chokeslam and Fall From Grace powerbomb for their troubles. Femi hit his cool power pose with the excellent lighting behind him, and that was that for the segment.
Instead of thinking about how Pearce would react to Femi interrupting the show, as the bell never rang and it certainly wasn't an official match, Cole just said that Pearce should have Femi's contract ready for him when he got backstage. While, again, I love Femi, and I don't disagree with that, it all really went against Pearce's character. Maybe he was still too busy dealing with the fallout from Breakker's crash-out, or he was arguing with Heyman backstage, or whatever, but this felt a bit weird when Femi could have just been placed in a match to make him look strong one where he'd get an official main roster victory under his belt to start stacking wins.
Written by DaisyRuth
GUNTHER is now 3-for-3 in retiring legends after putting AJ Styles to sleep in his final WWE match at the "Royal Rumble" PLE. He even had the energy to enter the Rumble match and made it to the final two when Roman Reigns eliminated him to win.
On "Raw," GUNTHER swerved the audience by coming out to "The Phenomenal One's" music and even did a little dance before it switched to his own. The screen had the moniker "Career Killer" and GUNTHER laughed making his way to the ring, much like he did in his first appearance after retiring John Cena. Out of nowhere, Dragon Lee blindsided "The Ring General." While Lee got in a few licks, GUNTHER clocked him in the face with the ring bell before locking him in a sleeper hold. After being separated by security, GUNTHER grabbed Lee by the back of his mask and put him in a sleeper over the top rope.
I love Lee coming to avenge the career of his former tag team partner. Styles meant so much to him that he would willingly pick a fight with GUNTHER. GUNTHER is ruthless and had no issues harming the beloved Lee. It was quite the visual to see someone of GUNTHER's stature holding Lee's body over the side of rope while he kicked wildly and eventually went limp and was dropped with a thud to the floor. GUNTHER likely won't be retiring anyone else anytime soon (fingers crossed he has another one in him at SummerSlam in Minnesota), so feuding with someone close to a retiree makes sense. It also gives Dragon Lee a high profile feud on the "road to Wrestlemania."
Written bySamantha Schipman
Like many other fans, I think it's awesome to see The Bella Twins reunited in WWE for the first time in years. It's an exciting moment for those who have waited years to see it happen, and is bound to bring even more eyes to WWE's women's division and their product as a whole. With that said, I still couldn't help but feel quite let down and disappointed with their segment on this edition of "Raw".
First off, Nikki Bella was very recently a heel up until this point. It makes sense to turn her babyface in order for her and Brie Bella to be on the same page as a tag team, but it also felt like it was a very abrupt shift that maybe needed a couple more weeks of storytelling put into it with Brie talking Nikki into teaming up with her and bringing her back over to the good side. Nikki's character change felt more jarring to see than anything else, and left me wondering why she was all of the sudden a good guy after spending the last few weeks as a bad guy chasing after Stephanie Vaquer's Women's World Championship.
Second, the promo itself was very short and felt like it ended rather abruptly after The Bella Twins announced their intentions to go after Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY's Women's Tag Team Championship. Considering that this was Brie's first speaking segment in a very long time and her re-introduction to fans both new and old, it felt like it should've been a little longer than it was and had a little more substance to it outside of declaring they wanted a shot at the Women's Tag Team Championship. There was a lot of potential as to where this segment could've gone and more that it could've accomplished, but we were instead given something that felt like it was an afterthought above anything else.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
It pains me to throw a hate on this, because I actually liked pretty much all of it. Obviously Dominik Mysterio being back is a good thing. I liked Liv Morgan's response to Raquel Rodriguez when she asked why Morgan eliminated her from the RoyalRumble, especially the part where Morgan pointed out that Rodriguez already had a title shot lined up, so now they both have one. And I really liked the Philadelphia Street Fight between Rodriguez and Stephanie Vaquer, which I found to be a very good plunder match with some fabulous selling from Vaquer that made Rodriguez look like an absolute monster. Even with Morgan and Roxanne Perez interfering, it was a really fun match that was given all the time it needed to shine.
Here's what I didn't like, and I can't believe I'm saying this: Rodriguez should have won. And the fact that she didn't win makes me kinda wonder what we're even doing here.
Don't get me wrong, I like Vaquer a lot. She's a much better wrestler than Rodriguez. But it just felt like Rodriguez should have won here so that we could ultimately build to the story of an inter-faction match between Rodriguez and Morgan at WrestleMania (you could even throw Perez in there if you wanted to for an inter-faction triple threat). That just felt like the place we were going the moment Morgan eliminated Rodriguez, and the fact that we're apparently not going there is weird to me. What's the point of the dissension in the ranks if that's not the match being built? Morgan vs. Vaquer might technically be a better wrestling match, but Morgan vs.Rodriguez has a much better storyline. As much as I enjoy Morgan and loved seeing her win the Rumble, I'm not really moved by either of her potential WrestleMania matches at this point, and I would have been if Rodriguez had won. The match was good, the promo segment before the match was good, but the two didn't gel together, and I was ultimately left cold by the whole thing.
Written by Miles Schneiderman
Roman Reigns won the Royal Rumble in Riyadh, presenting him a WrestleMania choice between two men he shared the WarGames cage with in November: WWE Champion Drew McIntyre or WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk. Of course, Reigns and Punk had been reluctant allies in WarGames 2024 and 2025 while also fighting one another as well as Seth Rollins in the main event of WrestleMania 41 Night 1.
Reigns also spent the better half of three years beating McIntyre at every chance he could, arguably setting the wheels in motion for the "Scottish Psychopath" heel that has since reclaimed golden belt Reigns brought into existence. Reigns simply asked the Philadelphia crowd who they would prefer him to face, and given this was a Monday and the scene had pretty much been set for it the crowd made it clear they wanted Punk. Thus, Punk emerged and the verbal joust got under way.
Punk started off by walking straight past the "Tribal Chief" and addressing Finn Balor into the camera, visibly affronting Reigns who asked why Punk would interrupt him to go at Balor which, good question. That then prompted Punk to say that this was his show, not "SmackDown" where Reigns hasn't resided in well over a year. Punk said he would understand if Reigns wanted to take the easy way out, to which Reigns hilariously pointed out that McIntyre is quite a little bit larger than Punk and had him in his feelings over a plastic bracelet. Punk then rightly pointed out that that may be the case, but he was the one who emerged victorious from their bloody feud, and then got into the very abundant parallels between Reigns' Heyman-hood and Punk's.
That riled Reigns up, who proceeded to dip into the pit of resentment and shoot on Punk, saying there wouldn't be a show for him to come back to without him and his family, he only ever learnt what not to do from Punk, and referencing Punk's post-WWE podcast recording with Colt Cabana. Ultimately, Reigns chose Punk as his opponent at WrestleMania. Not because he thought he was the bigger star. Not because he thought he was the better match. But because he hates him, and he always has hated him. And it's that very real, grounded emotion that sells that fight.
Reigns and Punk have been featured on many a respective heat feature because of their well-documented issues going back to the foundation of the Shield. It sure has been a long time coming, but at last they will settle that issue on the "Grandest Stage of Them All," and this was a great promo to get that ball rolling.
Written byMax Everett
