Monday Night Raw Review - August 12, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Women's World Champion Liv Morgan and "Dirty" Dominik Mysterio Interrupted Rhea Ripley; Damian Priest def. Carlito

To be fair, Ripley isn't really a babyface from a character standpoint and didn't do anything to actually turn other than being embraced by the audience, but she cut a good promo here addressing everything that's happened since SummerSlam. That chaos that ensured was well done and seamlessly transitioned into Priest vs. Carlito. They had a rather basic bout, but Priest going over decisively was the right call. Priest and Ripley vs. Mysterio and Morgan was later made official for Bash in Berlin.

Odyssey Jones def. Vincent Whiney

Vincent Whiney?! Apparently he's an NXT developmental talent, but I can't imagine that's actually the name he uses. What a terrible name. At any rate, this was a straightforward squash for Jones as it should have been. He got the crowd behind him with his charisma and dominant offense. Post-match, Kofi Kingston challenged The Final Testament to a six-man tag team match next week, which Xavier Woods clearly wasn't happy with. I don't think they actually go forward with a New Day split, but Jones being added to the mix is an intriguing development.

The Creed Brothers def. Alpha Academy (Akira Tozawa and Otis) in a Texas Tornado Tag Team Match

Oba Femi, who was shown sitting in the crowd front row, faced off with Otis beforehand, so we now know who will challenging Femi for the NXT North American Championship on Tuesday's NXT. The match itself was enjoyable. Alpha Academy are beloved, so it was smart for the Creeds to beat them to gain some much-needed heat. I liked that Ivy Nile finally betrayed Maxxine Dupri to officially join American Made.

Damage CTRL (IYO SKY and Kairi Sane) vs. Pure Fusion Collective (Zoey Stark and Shayna Baszler) in a WWE Women's Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender's Match Ended in a No Contest

Yes, Pure Fusion Collective is indeed the new name for Sonya Deville's faction with Stark and Baszler. What the hell does that even mean? Similar to Ripley, Damage CTRL didn't have a definitive face turn, either, but at least the crowd rallied behind them here. It was a well-wrestled match with a lame finish. Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn getting involved ensured they'll have to defend against both teams next week in a Triple Threat. It's a stupid heel move that's been done to death.

Randy Orton Attacked World Heavyweight Champion Gunther; CM Punk Attacked Drew McIntyre

Gunther and Orton had an even stronger segment together than they did last week. Gunther talked about Orton was a screw-up, so between this and his feud with Priest, it looks like his new tactic is to get into his opponent's head by trash-talking them and their background. Orton retaliated with an RKO "out of nowhere" when Gunther was distracted, and the brief McIntyre and Punk of the segment set up what will like be a Strap match between them at the pay-per-view.

Bronson Reed def. The Miz

It was imperative that they properly followed up on Reed's awesome attack on Seth Rollins from last week and I thought that this was a success in that respect. Reed didn't completely squash Miz, but I understand why he didn't since Miz is obviously more than an enhancement talent. That said, Reed destroying him and R-Truth with his Tsunami finisher afterward was excellently executed. Hopefully Rollins is off the show for a little while to sell the beatdown and Reed continues building momentum in the meantime.

Intercontinental Champion Bron Breakker def. Sami Zayn in a 2-Out-of-3 Falls Match

These two are shortchanged for time at SummerSlam, but I'm glad they were given an ample amount of time here in the main event. They could've gone even longer (and I wish they did because the commercial breaks slightly hurt the flow), but what we got was great. Breakker and Zayn just have such terrific chemistry with each other. Breakker retaining was never in doubt, but this was a blast of a match.

Overall Show

Raw had one of its best episodes of the entire year last week, and while it was going to be almost impossible for this show to top that one, it was still an above-average episode with plenty of stuff going on. It started and ended on a high note and most of what we got in the middle was entertaining. The women's tag team scene is formulaic at best, but everything else has my interest right now and that makes the three hours so much easier to endure.

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