Monday Night Raw Review - July 8, 2019

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Universal Champion Seth Rollins and Raw Women's Champion Becky Lynch def. Andrade and Zelina Vega in a Mixed Tag Team Elimination Match

This was a match I was really looking forward to coming into this show but ended up getting watered down by the dumb stipulation. How do eliminations even work in a mixed tag team matchup when the men can only fight the men and the women can only fight the women? Once Vega was taken out, Lynch was still standing on the apron for some strange reason, despite not factoring into the finish at all. Rollins and Andrade had quality chemistry, but the focus was mainly on Rollins and Lynch attempting to coexist and whether them breaking up is imminent. What a stupid storyline if you ask me. Despite the post-match attack from Baron Corbin and Lacey Evans, I doubt many people truly believe they will win at Extreme Rules.

Paul Heyman Teased Brock Lesnar May Appear at Extreme Rules

Similar to last week, the crowd loved Heyman when he made his entrance, probably because they're hopeful he can improve the product as the new Executive Director of Raw. That said, I'm not sure he had much to do with this show creatively based off how lifeless almost everything was. If he did, God help us all. As for his promo, he did what he always does in teasing a Money in the Bank cash-in from Lesnar at Extreme Rules without actually flat-out saying it. He said his "spoilers" have yet to be wrong, but I maintain my belief that he won't be at the event in any capacity.

The Miz and The Usos def. Elias and Raw Tag Team Champions The Revival in a 2-out-of-3 Falls Match

Sadly, the 2-out-of-3 Falls matches live on and will continue to live on until Vince McMahon gets it through his thick skull that this edict regarding no wrestling during commercial breaks is ridiculous, especially since it waters down matches such as this one. Revival and The Usos going at it was entertaining as always and Miz played his role well (finally winning for a change), but I have no clue why Elias walked out halfway through. That didn't seem to serve much of a purpose.

Bobby Lashley def. Rey Mysterio

Leave it to WWE to ruin a hot return for a super popular babyface such as Mysterio. First and foremost, they shouldn't have even announced Mysterio was returning to Raw ahead of time. It would have been better left as a surprise. In fact, Lashley should have been the one issuing an open challenge with Mysterio returning to answer it. Did that make too much sense for them to do? Lashley winning so easily helped him a bit, but this almost felt like a burial of Mysterio. He's been gone for six weeks and he's already been reduced to midcard fodder his first night back. I would have been content with virtually anyone else being in Mysterio's role, though.

Cesaro def. No Way Jose

These two were originally scheduled to go one-on-one last week, but if you can recall, the match never got started due to the silliness with the 24/7 Championship (Cesaro laid him out at ringside instead). This was exactly what it needed to be with Cesaro in complete control throughout and putting Jose away with a minute. Cesaro is rumored to be Aleister Black's mystery opponent for Extreme Rules, and although that'd be an outstanding match if given an ample amount of time, I can't help but feel it's beyond random.

The Viking Raiders def. Colin Justin and Devin Justin

Vikings Raiders have been booked to look very dominant on the main roster over the last three months and their athleticism is impressive, but they're still coming out to silence. Is it the fact that they're heels (unlike in NXT) or is it that their gimmick sucks? Either way, they're simply not clicking with the masses yet. On the bright side, this was another destructive performance from the former NXT Tag Team Champions. Plus, I actually recognized one of the Justins as he's a regular in Northeast Wrestling. It's interesting to note that he's a tag team guy from what I've seen, but his tag team partner here was not his normal partner from N.E.W.

United States Champion Ricochet def. Luke Gallows (Non-Title); Ricochet def. Karl Anderson (Non-Title)

Ricochet overcoming one of AJ Styles' lackeys made sense ahead of their rubber match for United States Championship at Extreme Rules, but Ricochet vs. Gallows was way too short to mean anything. I was not a fan of Ricochet then immediately defeating Anderson, because that could have been saved for a future episode. That, too, was incredibly brief. Thankfully, The Club's post-match attack on Styles was strong and put heat on the newly-turned Styles. I just wish Gallows and Anderson would win more often.

SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley def. Sarah Logan in a Beat the Clock Challenge Match (Non-Title); Nikki Cross def. Dana BRooke in a Beat the Clock Challenge Match

We heard from Bayley and Cross earlier in the evening during one of those side-by-side interviews on the Titantron, but they merely hyped up the Beat the Clock Challenge and nothing else of any real importance, so I decided not to devote an entire paragraph to it. I fear we'll be seeing more Beat the Clock Challenges on Raw and SmackDown Live in the future now that WWE realized that's another way of working around having wrestling during the commercial breaks. Neither match was memorable in the slightest and were simply means to an end with Cross beating Brooke faster than Bayley beat Logan. As a result, Cross chose a Handicap match stipulation for Sunday's SmackDown Women's Championship matchup. I've been digging the story with Cross and Alexa Bliss, but that isn't intriguing whatsoever.

Shane McMahon and Drew MCIntyre def. Roman Reigns and "Gary 'The GOAT' Garbutt"

I feel bad for anyone who was actually hoping that Reigns' partner would be a big surprise of some sort. I guess it was pleasantly surprising to see Cedric Alexander technically compete in the main event, but after he his brief flurry of offense, he was quickly beaten and pinned by Shane. It'd be cool if they actually followed up on this and featured him more prominently on Raw starting next week, but I'm not holding my breath. This was a really flat four-minute main event for Raw with no appearance from The Undertaker, which had to have been a bummer for the live crowd.

Overall Show

There was plenty of optimism coming out of last week's Raw and rightfully so. It wasn't the greatest edition of Raw I had ever seen, but it was a vast improvement of what we've been getting for the last year. I thought it was a nice step in the right direction, but within one week, they're already back to their old ways. There wasn't anything redeeming about this episode in my opinion, and worse yet, the build for Extreme Rules (while existent) was unsuccessful in getting me excited in any way for the event. Fingers crossed it delivers a lot like Stomping Grounds did because this was a disappointing go-home show.