Monday Night Raw Review - July 26, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville Announced Nikki A.S.H. vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley in a Triple Threat Match for the Raw Women's Championship at SummerSlam

Although I'm no fan of Nikki's superhero shtick, she definitely received a strong reaction when she made her entrance. Part of that is because of how WWE has booked her lately, winning most of her matches (and that's exactly what should be happening if you really want to get someone over). Obviously, Nikki is also very likable, and while this was a good promo from her on the whole, I do think she'd be better in shorter segments seeing as how she got more boos as this went on. This was a logical setup for the Raw Women's Championship Triple Threat at SummerSlam.

Damian Priest def. Sheamus in a Championship Contenders Match

This was teased a few weeks ago and I'm glad it's the direction WWE is going in with the United States Championship. For a first-time-ever encounter, this was top-notch stuff. Both guys have hard-hitting offense and the crowd was invested in the action. Priest winning was the right call to pave the way for a rematch for the title at SummerSlam, but whatever happened to number one contender's matches? Couldn't Priest have beaten Humberto Carrillo and Ricochet (who were previously in the U.S. title hunt) to earn this shot instead?

Raw Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Omos def. The Viking Raiders

I assume the only reason we got a rematch for the Raw Tag Team Championship from Money in the Bank is because Randy Orton isn't ready to return yet and WWE wanted to kill time with Styles and Omos. Hey, I'm not complaining because I liked their match at the event and this might have been even better. Viking Raiders are very talented, so it's a shame they're saddled with goofy characters. RK-Bro has to be next in line for a title opportunity and I'd have them be the ones to take the titles from Styles and Omos.

Drew McIntyre def. Veer by Disqualification

Veer has been working a few matches on Main Event recently against Jeff Hardy, so at least he's not completely green as someone like Shanky and has been in the ring a bit. This was a brief bout yet competent while it lasted and I don't think it needed to last any longer. What I don't understand is how Veer got disqualified and not McIntyre. Yes, Veer brought it into the ring and had it in his hands, but McIntyre kicked him in the face with it, so how does that work exactly? This did its job in moving along the storyline between McIntyre and Jinder Mahal.

WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Natalya and Tamina def. Eva Marie and Doudrop in a Championship Contenders Match

Championship Contenders matches are the new non-title matches, in case you couldn't tell. I thought winning a Championship Contenders would lead to the potential contender getting a title shot if they won, but then again, Shotzi and Noz have yet to receive a shot at the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship despite defeating Natalya and Tamina twice recently, so who the hell knows. The match was whatever and the stuff with Lily on the Titantron was abysmal as always. Hopefully Natalya isn't seriously hurt considering she had to be helped to the back.

NXT Champion Karrion Kross def. Keith Lee (Non-Title)

Both of these guys had awful nights last week on Raw, so this was a slight improvement. Most of us expected Kross to go after (or let's face it, completely obliterate) Jeff Hardy after losing to him in under two minutes, but Hardy reportedly testing positive for COVID-19 prevented that from happening. Instead, they put him up against Lee. Yes, they have history from NXT when Kross beat Lee in Lee's final NXT match to become NXT Champion the first time, but both of these guys need wins, so why put them up against each other? The match was solid from what we saw, but nothing spectacular. I'm happy Kross picked up his first win on Raw, but it was unfortunate that it came at the expense of Lee. It feels like Lee is being positioned lower on the card than he was before he took time off earlier this year. At a time when WWE desperately needs to make new stars, that's astounding to me.

Mansoor and Mustafa Ali def. Mace and T-Bar

This match was set up last week via a backstage segment with Deville and Pearce putting Ali and Mansoor together as tag team partners to see how they'd do. I'm pleasantly surprised WWE hasn't dropped their storyline yet and I hope it continues coming off the solid showing they had here. This was a fun showing for the two of them as they had nice chemistry and showed potential as a duo. I didn't see this as big of an upset as the commentators did because Mace and T-Bar tend to lose more often than not (it's honestly laughable), but the win was an encouraging sign for Mansoor and Ali, nonetheless.

WWE Champion Bobby Lashley def. Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin in a 2-on-1 Handicap Match

There were no tags here as Alexander and Benjamin took on Lashley at the same time. As great as it was to have all of The Hurt Business back in the same ring together, this was solely designed to put over Lashley as more of a monster. I'm all for that, but then you remember that he lost clean to Xavier Woods two weeks ago. The lack of consistency with this company is frustrating sometimes. You need to make Lashley look like as big of a threat as possible if he's defending against Goldberg at SummerSlam, which is obviously the plan even if it hasn't been made official yet.

John Morrison def. Riddle

Riddle and Morrison have always worked well together and thus I had no problem with them running it back here after their interaction in last week's six-man tag team match. This was an unsurprisingly entertaining encounter and I like how Styles and Omos cost Riddle the victory to further that feud. It gave Morrison a win and got us one step closer to Styles and Omos vs. RK-Bro at SummerSlam. This episode emanated from Orton's home state of Missouri, so it would have been the perfect place for him to return as he would have gotten a huge pop. Hopefully they're saving it for next week and he's cleared to compete because it'd be a bummer if we can't get that match at the pay-per-view.

24/7 Champion Reginald def. R-Truth

I'll never understand why the 24/7 Championship is defended in actual matches, especially when said matches involve people I couldn't care less about. Would it be possible to relegate it this crap to Main Event and keep it there? Or maybe not do it all? I get a kick out of Truth as much as anyone, but I don't need to hear him on headset when he's wrestling. There's also no denying how impressive Reginald is with what he can do, but he's been established as a joke character and putting him in matches isn't going to accomplish anything.

Charlotte Flair def. Raw Women's Champion Nikki A.S.H. in a Championship Contenders Match

This was an instance where I didn't understand why it was called a Championship Contenders match. We already know Flair is getting a title shot at SummerSlam, so it's not like she would have earned one by winning here. In fact, after Flair beat Nikki clean, Nikki cut a cringe-worthy post-match promo about "almost" winning and wanting a rematch next week, which Flair accepted. As far as I know, it won't be for the Raw Women's Championship, but it probably should be. Yes, Nikki went a while with Flair in this match, but she still looked like a loser and the timing couldn't have been worse seeing as how she just won the title a week ago. This was a well-wrestled main event, but the booking was baffling.

Overall Show

Although this edition of Raw lacked star power compared to last week's featuring John Cena and Goldberg, I actually enjoyed it more. I felt there were less mind-boggling booking decisions made, except for that ending which was just terrible. The pieces are being put in place for SummerSlam and it's shaping up to be a special show. WWE has to cool it with the Championship Contenders matches or at least explain them a bit better. We got three on this show, and although there was plenty of quality wrestling, it was never established whether a win for the challenger translates to a title shot or not.

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