Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that opened with a modern pipe bomb promo from CM Punk and closed with a massive brawl between Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi. We have a lot to say about both those things here in the column this week, as well as Rey Mysterio being added to the Intercontinental title match, Becky Lynch and AJ Lee preparing for the other Intercontinental title match, and more!As always, there are some things that don't move the emotional needle enough for any of us to cover them with apologies to the newest WrestleMania 42 match but that's what our "Raw" results page is for, after all. That's the place to go if you just want the facts; this is the place to be if you want our opinions. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 4/6/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"
CM Punk's 2011 "pipe bomb" will forever and always be remembered as one of the best promos that has ever been cut in the history of the professional wrestling business. I think (with heavy emphasis on think) that WWE was going for something resembling that with Punk's opening promo tonight as a means of trying to add a little bit of spice to the World Heavyweight Championship match between Punk and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 42.While it was far from the worst idea that WWE has had in recent memory, this segment did very little to resemble the pipe bomb outside of Punk calling out anything and everyone from Reigns to Pat McAfee to the current price of tickets. I listened to every word Punk said during the duration of this entire thing and still could not tell you what the point of any of it was. It was so all over the place and became really hard to follow what Punk was trying to get at, especially when combined with the added subverted expectation of Seth Rollins being the person who would first be appearing on the show with WWE having advertised that on their website.Nothing about this worked for me at all, and it felt like it was nothing more than a bunch of words strung together as an attempt to feel like it was something edgy and different to WWE's standard content. I can appreciate WWE trying to switch up the Punk/Reigns formulaic storyline a little bit, but can't say that I was a fan of this segment at all.Written by Olivia Quinlan
Women's Intercontinental Champion AJ Lee and Becky Lynch may have rehashed their comments to one another on the March 23 edition of "Raw," the episode where their WrestleMania 42 match was made official, but it felt surprisingly refreshing after we didn't see either woman last week. With the way WWE has been booking the same things over and over again on this "Road to WrestleMania," like pull apart brawls, and the same promos over and over, this felt somehow different.Maybe it's because they were put face-to-face in a prerecorded backstage segment, and it was shot and edited well. And, at just under three minutes, it didn't overstay its welcome. I still really like Lynch talking all about Lee's last WrestleMania. Different from the last time she brought up one of Lee's final moments in WWE in her first run however, was Lynch talking about seeing Lee backstage at 'Mania, and how fake she thought Lee was. Lynch said that Lee quit WWE because she knew Lynch was the future, her "replacement," and she was scared. She reiterated that WrestleMania is her "home," and I just still really like hearing the juxtaposition of Lynch's 'Mania moments against Lee's.The champion said much of the same, as well, but this time, she said she was proud of Lynch, which was new. Though, of course she quickly brought it back to Lynch not being able to make history unless she shattered the glass ceilings first. And of course, she couldn't end without mentioning she was "your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestler," as well as Lynch's daughter's favorite.I think it felt different without the crowd noise and such, and it was a small, but nice, and to me at least, noticeable, change-up. WWE did well by letting this feud breathe for a week, as much as I'm sure everyone in attendance at Madison Square Garden wanted to see both women.With just one more episode of "Raw" to go between now and WrestleMania, there's no doubt that Lee and Lynch will have a pull-apart brawl next week, but we haven't seen that from them, at least, with Lynch having run away from Lee before making their WrestleMania match official. With everything feeling so very much the same at best, or completely confusing and randomly booked at worst, this WrestleMania season, these women having a consistent feud, without being too terribly repetitive, is all I can ask for at this point.Written by DaisyRuth
Rey Mysterio made a surprise return tonight. He was injured on the January 26 episode of "Raw" in a match against Austin Theory. For a while, rumors have been swirling that Mysterio was scheduled to face GUNTHER at WrestleMania 42. When GUNTHER returned last week and attacked Seth Rollins and was subsequently put in a 'Mania match, the assumption was that Mysterio hadn't been cleared. Bron Breakker is also cleared, which means they could have done GUNTHER vs. Mysterio and Rollins vs. Breakker at "The Show of Shows."Mysterio came to the ring after Penta, JeVon Evans, and Dragon Lee won a trios match. He reminded everyone that he missed last year's WrestleMania due to injury. He spoke to Adam Pearce and was added to the ladder match for the IC title. Nevermind the fact that he didn't even have to qualify (although the other participants didn't either, no matter what they try to tell you), but he's coming off an injury. When he was injured in January, he had just come back from the groin injury that caused him to miss WrestleMania 41. Why is WWE risking another injury in a ladder match of all matches? Clearly, injuries can happen in any kind of match, but a ladder match is more risky. I've been a longtime fan of Mysterio's, I just wish they had either done the match with GUNTHER or put him in a different match. Hopefully, he comes out of this match unscathed.Written bySamantha Schipman
There is a whole lot ofmeh going around in terms of WWE's WrestleMania build, whether it be the unusual insertion of Pat McAfee into a feud between Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes to "save wrestling" for lapsed fans of an era decades ago, or IShowSpeed's inclusion in a six-man tag match alongside Logan Paul and Austin Theory against the Usos and LA Knight. It's just a really dire time to be a WWE fan, which despite every reasonable moral objection and contrary to belief, this writer was and does continue to try to be. There are a whole host of exceptionally talented people working with the company, and even if one believes the company to have some very glaring issues that really need remediating, there is still an affinity with the WWE brand that the inner kid tries to maintain.That's why one has to take the good with the bad thereally, reallybad and it comes as a breath of fresh air to see something done well. Oftentimes without all the unnecessary bells and whistles that the corporate side believes will draw interest from the elusive casual viewer.Take for example this week's match and post-match segment involving Rhea Ripley, Iyo Sky, Jade Cargill, and her newly rebranded Baddies Section of B-Fab and Michin. By now it's become pretty clear that Cargill is more of a spectacle wrestler not to be over-exposed on TV in matches with no real stakes, so it was the right decision to have her new foot soldiers try to tackle the RHIYO duo.Iyo got the pin because the Baddies honestly had no business beating the former Women's Tag Team Champions at this juncture, and then the good times started to roll (for the viewer; Ripley and Sky may not agree).Cargill immediately leapt into the ring and started whaling away at Sky, with the other two neutralizing Ripley in the corner. Then a Kendo stick was introduced, and while Ripley awaited the weaponized attack on her, Cargill turned and forced her to watch as she brutalized Sky with it and delivered a Jaded. It was so simple, yet so effective.Ripley and Sky have established themselves as an iconic duo over the past year, walking the line of the best-est to something more than friends exceptionally. And it's a tried and tested trope in entertainment to add stakes to drama through the punishment of that one special person in a protagonist's life. It just worked, and I'm looking forward to Ripley's retaliation as a result.Written by Max Everett
WWE is revealing which matches will be contested on what night Tuesday morning on ESPN's "Get Up," and there's one match that has been rumored, but is still not official, and I hated that it wasn't made tonight. That's the bout pitting Asuka against IYO SKY after months of the pair feuding, and increased tensions involving Kairi Sane. WWE went as far as to air an excellent pre-recorded Asuka promo ahead of the tag match where SKY and Rhea Ripley teamed to take on Michin and B-Fab, but Asuka was nowhere to be seen during or after that match.Instead, we got yet another beat down of Ripley at the hands of her WrestleMania opponent, WWE Women's Champion Jade Cargill. This time, however, was at least a little different, as Cargill beat down SKY with a kendo stick as Ripley looked on. Even when SKY was completely down and out, Asuka didn't make an appearance. I don't see why WWE couldn't intermix those feuds even the slightest bit to get something more substantial for SKY and Asuka going. Maybe the match wouldn't be announced tonight, but if Asuka continued to lay out SKY, maybe Joe Tessitore would reveal on the show tomorrow that the match had been made official by "Raw" General Manager Adam Pearce.Now, I'm getting worried that Asuka vs. SKY won't actually be on the 'Mania card, which would be a travesty. I initially had that fear at the beginning of the night, but when the Asuka promo played, I felt a little better about where we were going. When the Kabuki Warriors didn't run out after the beatdown, however, I once again wondered if this match is actually going to happen on the "Grandest Stage of Them All."It's no secret the Ripley and Cargill build to WrestleMania has been awful, and now, it's pretty repetitive. I don't know if WWE canned the idea of SKY and Asuka at 'Mania, only for SKY to hang around ringside for Ripley's Women's Championship match to help even the odds against Michin and B-Fab. If that's the case, that sucks, even if Asuka somehow gets involved on the outside during the match to further her story with SKY. That would lead to an overbooked mess, however, which is WWE's specialty these days.Hopefully I'm worried for nothing, and this match just gets added on at the last minute, reveal show be damned. But SKY and Asuka both feel like afterthoughts right now, with SKY just being tacked on to Ripley's feud because RHIYO is so popular.Written byDaisyRuth
I am not a fan of Brock Lesnar, which is why it pains me to admit that the feud between Lesnar and Oba Femi is basically the only WrestleMania storyline that has been handled consistently well by WWE since it began. And while this week's installment felt somewhat truncated, seemingly due to "Raw's" effort to end at exactly 10:30pm EST, that consistency remained on display.Nobody wants to see Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi talk to each other. Nobody wants to see them "sign a contract" for their match at WrestleMania. Which is why the best way to handle the contract signing segment was to have them start fighting immediately and not stop until they were forced to stop. Fortunately, this is exactly what happened, with Lesnar attacking Femi right away,Femi slamming Lesnar into the ring post, and the segment instantly turning into a brawl that almost casually destroyed the table the contract was meant to be signed on. I particularly enjoyed the build-up to the segment, with commentary making a big deal of Triple H's appearance and the fact that he was there to ensure nothing got out of hand, only for things to immediately get out of hand.Again, this is not an endorsement of Lesnar, or even of WWE, both of whom deserve pretty much all the criticism they get. But you have to give them credit for this particular build, which has been basically perfect so far.Written byMiles Schneiderman
