Monday Night Raw Review - April 25, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Raw Tag Team Champion Randy Orton's 20-Year Celebration Descended Into Chaos

The video package celebrating Orton's incredibly successful career was exceptionally done. WWE always knocks it out of the park with that sort of stuff. The rest of the segment was enjoyable and I'm sure Orton was speaking to the heart while addressing the audience. The setup for the night's eight-man tag team match was fairly formulaic, but it served its purpose. It was also cool seeing Orton and Cody Rhodes formally reunite for the first time in almost a decade.

Raw Women's Champion Bianca Belair def. Sonya Deville in a No Count-Out, No Disqualification Match

I was looking forward to this match coming into this show because they were in Belair's hometown of Knoxville, but almost everything about this made no sense. They did the dumb trope where the authority figure intentionally gets themselves counted out, adds a No Count-Out stipulation, then gets intentionally disqualified, and then adds a No Disqualification stipulation. Why not have her announce those stipulations ahead of time to stack in her favor? Why was she allowed to add those stipulations when she was in hot water with management last week? Didn't Carmella and Queen Zelina break up three weeks ago? The match itself was decent but too short to be what it could have been. They should have just saved it for WrestleMania Backlash.

Veer Mahaan def. Sam Smothers

It was weird seeing Veer all smiles at ringside during the opening segment before going back to being a destroyer for this match. We haven't seen Rey Mysterio since the Raw after WrestleMania 38, so hopefully they're intentionally keeping him off the show to sell a storyline injury and not because he's actually hurt. This was a total squash as it should have been. I appreciate the effort to get Veer over as a dominant heel, but they'll likely have to switch things up eventually to avoid fans getting bored of him.

Bobby Lashley def. Omos in an Arm Wrestling Contest

We see arm wrestling contests on Raw from time to time and they're all usually the same thing. In fact, the last one we got may have been with Braun Strowman and Lashley three years ago when they were feuding that summer. This was along those same lines, but the heel almost always attacks the babyface before they lose, but that didn't happen here. Instead, Lashley won the arm wrestling contest before being attacked by Omos. It was a fine angle designed to further their feud heading into the pay-per-view.

Tamina and Akira Tozawa def. 24/7 Champion Dana Brooke and Reggie (R-Truth Served as Special Guest Referee)

Last week's double commitment ceremony was bad enough. Did we really need to see the storyline continue beyond that? The same five people were back in the ring this week for yet another intergender tag team match, this time with Truth serving as the special guest referee. The crowd couldn't have cared less and neither could I. This was abysmal. Less of the 24/7 Championship crap, the better.

Asuka Confronted Becky Lynch

It was reported over the weekend that Asuka could be on her way back to TV for a feud with Lynch after almost nine months ago and it turned out to be true. That would explain why Lynch's return was advertised in advance. Lynch is looking like an absolute star, by the way. More than usual. Anyway, this was a solid segment used to rekindle their rivalry and keep Lynch busy outside of the Raw Women's Championship picture for now. It's something we've seen before, but they work well together, so I'm fine with it. All I ask is that Asuka go back to being the badass Empress of Tomorrow she was in NXT and in her early days on the main roster as opposed to whatever the hell she's doing now (and yes, there's a distinct difference, especially with how goofy she acts).

Damian Priest def. Finn Balor

These two are obviously no strangers to each other in the ring, but WWE has completely devalued whatever worth this match has by already doing it two or three times before WrestleMania, so that's a shame. This was more about Priest than it was about Balor, though what we got was well wrestled. Sadly, Balor has never meant less. Meanwhile, the presentation for Judgement Day (which is apparently the stable name Edge and Priest will be using going forward) is awesome, but it could still use some tweaking.

Mustafa Ali Crashed Miz TV​ with The Miz and United States Champion Theory; Ali def. Miz

Similar to Asuka, Ali's return to Raw was surprisingly reported over the weekend. For those unaware, he requested his release from Twitter at the beginning of the year, went public with it, and didn't have it granted. He's been sitting on the sidelines ever since and apparently his contract doesn't expire for another few years. WWE has done so many "budget cuts" since 2020 that you'd think they wouldn't hesitate to grant his request, but if they're actually going to use him for now, then it makes more sense to keep him around. I assume it'll be a Luke Harper situation where they bring him back for a bit before ultimately releasing him later this year. This was a good return for him as he made it clear he wants a shot a the United States Championship and beat Miz one-on-one. He was also attacked by Tommaso Ciampa afterward. I'm all for Ciampa turning heel, but I'm curious who goes over there.

Cody Rhodes, Ezekiel and Raw Tag Team Champions RK-Bro def. Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and SmackDown Tag Team Champions The Usos

We don't get star-studded multi-man tag team match main events like this often on Raw these days and I thought this was the perfect show for it given the focus on Orton. The action was entertaining, it ate up television time, and multiple storylines were progressed. On top of it all, Orton dished out several RKOs at the end, all of which the crowd ate up. This was the feel-good ending to the episode I was hoping for.

Overall Show

Between the celebration of Orton's career and the two surprise returns (along with Lynch's comeback), this was a thumbs-up show. I was underwhelmed by Belair vs. Deville and am now not sure where they go with the Raw Women's Championship, but the rest of this show held my interest and was enjoyable on the whole. I know hating on Raw is the cool thing to do nowadays (and it's definitely been justified in the past), but to give credit where it's due, it's been a much better program in recent months and especially since WrestleMania and the build to Backlash has been well done on Monday nights so far.

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