Monday Night Raw Review - July 3, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar Brawled; The Judgment Day Confronted World Heavyweight Champion Seth "Freakin" Rollins

Rhodes originally confronted Rollins, but Lesnar showed up before they could exchange words. There's your setup for their SummerSlam match. Rollins' subsequent face-off with Judgment Day (sans Finn Balor) was entertaining with Dominik Mysterio getting massive heat as always. Damian Priest teased the possibility of cashing in on Rollins eventually and they made Rollins vs. Mysterio official for the main event. I could have done without this whole segment lasting almost a half hour, though.

Damian Priest def. Shinsuke Nakamura

Priest was doing a lot of losing prior to Money in the Bank, so it's important he go on a winning streak from here on out if the idea is to build him up into a main event player. Nakamura is over with the audience, so beating him still means something. They had a quality contest to boot. Hopefully Priest can be booked differently than most Money in the Bank winners and not be reduced to a stepping stone ahead of his eventual cash-in.

Shayna Baszler Attacked Ronda Rousey

Forget the betrayal at Money in the Bank. Baszler turned babyface when she said that she'd spare everyone from hearing Rousey attempt to talk. I mean, she has to be the babyface in this feud, right? She had the crowd behind her here more than any other time in her main roster run and she cut her strongest promo since her NXT days. Props to Rousey for wanting to elevate Baszler if she is indeed on her way out. My only nitpick of the segment was that Baszler's logic for turning on Rousey didn't check out. Why would she wait until they were tag team champions to pull the trigger, and why midway through the match?

Chelsea Green & Sonya Deville def. Katana Chance & Kayden Carter, Tegan Nox & Dana Brooke, Emma & Nikki Cross, and Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell in a WWE Women's Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender's Tag Team Turmoil Match

I appreciate the attempt to get as many women onto the show as possible, but this was not the way to do it. Two of these "teams" were not actual teams, LeRae and Hartwell were thrown in there randomly, and viewers have had no reason to take Green and Deville seriously. All of the eliminations were rushed and the crowd sat on their hands. This is not how you get people invested in the women's tag team division. Plus, didn't we already see Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez vs. Deville and Green for the belts a few months ago?

Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus Exchanged Words

It only made sense for Lynch and Stratus to resume their rivalry heading into SummerSlam, but this was a pretty lousy way of furthering their feud. Lynch's promo was fine, but Stratus' material was abysmal. I like her pairing with Zoey Stark, but her heel run on the whole has left a lot to be desired. On the bright side, Lynch will face Stark next week on Raw and that should be a good match. Hopefully Stark can come away with the win.

Cody Rhodes Addressed Brock Lesnar

I liked how this promo from Rhodes took place on the ramp a lot like a few weeks ago. It was short, sweet and straight to the point with Rhodes addressing Lesnar. Their SummerSlam match wasn't confirmed, but we're clearly headed in that direction, most likely with a stipulation of some sort. On a side note, for those unaware, Jackie Redmond (who conducted the interview with Rhodes), has replaced Cathy Kelley as a Raw interviewer with Kelley replacing Megan Morant on SmackDown.

Alpha Academy and Maxxine Dupri def. The Viking Raiders and Valhalla

Alpha Academy vs. Viking Raiders has been a decent tag team feud the past few weeks, but WWE was wise to realize that Dupri has basically been the focal point and to highlight her here. She got physical and clearly learned from Chad Gable because she was able to hit a few moves on Valhalla and win for her team. The rest of the match was standard stuff, but the crowd was into everything involving Dupri.

Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley def. Natalya

This feud has been absolute bore and Natalya hasn't felt like a threat to the title in the slightest, but to their credit, this was a very well-wrestled match that the crowd came alive for by the end. Natalya is beyond stale as a character, but her skills in these big matches can't be discredited. Kudos to Morgan and Rodriguez for being upstanding babyfaces by saving Natalya afterward, but are they really going to feud with Ripley instead of putting their full attention into making the tag titles matter?

Matt Riddle def. Giovanni Vinci

Vinci was out for revenge after Riddle "injured" him about a month ago. As you'd expect, he did not get it. Also as expected, they had a fun sprint in the minimal amount of time they were allotted. Imperium predicably attacked Riddle afterward and Drew McIntyre made the save. Riddle and McIntyre will take on Imperium next week. This was all very quick, but it served its purpose. I wish we got to hear from McIntyre and hear him talk about his absence.

World Heavyweight Champion Seth "Freakin" Rollins def. Dominik Mysterio by Disqualification (Non-Title)

Going into Money in the Bank, I thought this would be the SummerSlam, but that was under the assumption Mysterio was beating Rhodes with Lesnar's help. That didn't happen, so it was logical to do this as a Raw main event instead. They had a solid match, but it obviously existed for the post-match angle to happen, which saw Priest tease cashing in Money in the Bank before Balor "accidentally" thwarted him. Priest breaking away from the group is still coming, but it looks like we're going to get another round of Rollins vs. Balor in the meantime and I'm not sure that's necessary.

Overall Show

WWE continues to run into the issue of producing hot pay-per-views but failing to follow up accordingly. Several storylines were progressed, but what was eventful about this episode aside from Lesnar making a quick cameo? There was some enjoyable in-ring action and several matches were announced for next Monday, but there was nothing must-see about the three hours. It was a middle-of-the-road show that should have been better.

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