 Gunther Addressed John CenaIt's a bummer that Cena isn't making any more televised appearances before Saturday Night's Main Event because a verbal exchange between him and Gunther would've been great. Instead, we only got to hear from Gunther, but to his credit, he cut a quality promo despite it being on the shorter side and he successfully sent the message that he intends to tap out Cena in his final match. IYO SKY def. WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Kairi SaneSKY lost to Sane a few months ago, so this gave SKY a chance to avenge that loss. Granted, Sane loses a lot (including to Alexa Bliss on last Friday's SmackDown), so this didn't mean all that much, but it was a logical outcome and the match itself was enjoyable, nonetheless. SKY and Ripley are obviously headed for a shot at the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, but I still assume it'll be a multi-team matchup when it eventually happens. LA Knight Saved Rey Mysterio from Logan PaulMysterio was scheduled to have a match with Finn Balor but was attacked by Paul while he was making his entrance. Mysterio and Paul had a tense interaction backstage last week on the show, but I'm not sure what their beef is supposed to be leading to when I thought we were getting Rey against Dominik Mysterio again soon. Knight making the save set up his main event match with Paul for later in the night. World Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Dragon Lee def. The War Raiders; The New Day and The Usos Staked Their Claim at a Title ShotWar Raiders haven't been on Raw in months, but the idea behind the bout was that Styles and Lee wanted to be fighting champs and give War Raiders the rematch they never got after they lost the belts at WrestleMania 41. War Raiders were never going to win here, especially once they announced Styles and Lee will be facing Je'Von Evans and Leon Slater at Saturday Night's Main Event (good lord!), but it was still a nice match. The post-match segment with New Day confronting the champs and The Usos' announcing their return to the tag team ranks was well done, and I think that's exactly where Jey Uso belongs for now. Nikki Bella and Raquel Rodriguez Interrupted Women's World Champion Stephanie VaquerVaquer mentioned Bella a few times while speaking in the ring with Jackie Redmond, so you had to know their rivalry wasn't over. Sure enough, Bella emerged clamoring for another opportunity, even though she lost clean at Survivor Series. Thankfully, she was disposed of by Rodriguez at ringside, so it looks like we might be headed for a Triple Threat for the title. Vaquer has already beaten them both individually, but I guess a Triple Threat could keep her busy for now despite Vaquer vs. Liv Morgan being teased last week. Roxanne Perez def. Lyra ValkyriaPerez and Valkyria have had a bunch of matches against each other dating back to last year, so this wasn't really anything new, nor was it one of their better outings. Liv Morgan's interference at the end also didn't look super smooth. On the bright side, this tied into the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship picture and established that Perez and Morgan are a cohesive unit... for now. Logan Paul def. LA Knight; Bron Breakker Addressed World Heavyweight Champion CM PunkThis wasn't quite on par with their SummerSlam encounter from last year, but it was entertaining, nonetheless. A Knight win would've been wonderful, but I wasn't naive enough to think it would realistically happen. Not only did Paul win, The Vision proceeded to destroy Knight afterward, including in the parking lot area. This absolutely came off like a burial to me, and I don't usually use that word lightly. I'm doubtful that there will be significant follow-up to make this worthwhile based on how he's been used up to this point, but hey, maybe they'll surprise me. Breakker cut another strong promo on Punk, though I preferred last week's over this one. Overall ShowI wasn't a fan of that ending as it didn't give me a whole lot of optimism for Knight going forward, but I thought the rest of the show was solid. Gunther's promo was what it needed to be to hype up his match with Cena at Saturday Night's Main Event, and other storylines were progressed throughout the night. I appreciated the abundance of focus on the women as well. This was a middle-of-the-road show.
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