Monday Night Raw Review - March 25, 2024

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Rock Confronted Cody Rhodes

Rhodes' promo was nothing of note as he was basically having fun with the Chicago crowd until Rock showed up. And it was an unannounced appearance, so the place came unglued. What a reaction. I love how he milked it for as long as possible before leaving without saying anything into the mic. He did mutter something to Rhodes (which would lead to what we got at the end of the show). This was perfectly executed.

Ricochet def. JD McDonagh

This wasn't a match I'd ordinarily care about because McDonagh almost always loses and Ricochet's booking has been subpar for some time, but they received plenty of time and went all out. The crowd was into the action and really behind Ricochet. Just let the guy do his thing and watch him shine. The renewed push for Ricochet has been refreshing, but I am left wondering where it's going since he currently isn't a part of the WrestleMania card.

CM Punk, Drew McIntyre and World Heavyweight Champion Seth "Freakin" Rollins Engaged in a Heated Exchange

As entertaining as the overall WWE product has been lately, Punk's presence has definitely been missed. He got the hero's welcome you'd expect from a Chicago crowd and he seemed genuinely happy to be back. He and McIntyre had an excellent exchange and did a fantastic job of planting the seeds for their eventual showdown. Rollins also played his role role, but amazingly, Punk vs. McIntyre feels like the bigger attraction at this point compared to Rollins vs. McIntyre or even Rollins vs. Punk. Punk will be a blast as the special guest commentator, but everyone was obviously hoping he'd be the special guest referee instead. Nonetheless, this was a super strong segment.

Candice LeRae def. Ivy Nile

Neither woman received a televised entrance, presumably because the previous segment ran a little long, and that may have been because why the match was so short as well. Honestly, it made sense too keep it short and sweet because it was more of an angle, anyway. LeRae feigned an injury before cheating to pick up the victory. Indi Hartwell refused to attack Nile at ringside, so she clearly isn't on board with LeRae's heel antics yet. I'm glad LeRae and Hartwell are finally involved in something interesting after spinning their wheels for so long.

#DIY vs. The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) Ended in a No Contest

These are two babyface teams and therefore it felt like the crowd didn't have an incentive to cheer for one team over the other as a result (not to mention there was nothing at stake). What we got was solid, but it was cut short by The Judgment Day before it could reach the next level. It was necessary to put heat on Judgment Day since they're likely losing the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at WrestleMania. The crowd was especially hot for R-Truth before he too was laid out.

Andrade def. Giovanni Vinci

Andrade was originally scheduled to face Ivar on this show, but apparently Ivar wasn't cleared to compete, so he was replaced by Vinci. These two could have a banger with more time, but this was intended to be another showcase for Andrade and it succeeded in that respect (in addition to being well wrestled). I still expect it'll be Andrade and Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio and Santos Escobar at WrestleMania, but there was no indication of that here.

Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch Brawled

We've pretty much heard it all from these two in the past few months, but although there isn't much new ground to cover at this point, I thought they had another enjoyable exchange and built up their WrestleMania match extremely well. They capped it off nicely with the brawl and Lynch's punch to Dominik looked great. Too bad WWE rarely does intergender matches because that actually made me want to see Lynch vs. Dominik.

Bronson Reed def. Sami Zayn

It's criminal that we don't see more of Reed on Raw and that more isn't being done with him creatively. I assumed he would just be the setup guy for Zayn here, so I was pleasantly surprised when he won. Does that all but confirm that Zayn is winning the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania and that Reed will be one of his first challengers coming out of the event? This was a very good match and I appreciate that Chad Gable has remained involved in the title picture via the backstage segments with Zayn.

Jey Uso def. Shinsuke Nakamura; The Rock Attacked Cody Rhodes

This was a fairly average outing, and while it didn't feel like a main event, it only existed to set up the post-match angle with Jey and Rollins fending off McIntyre, Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa and Rock beating the hell out of Rhodes outside of the arena, which was an amazing angle. When was the last time WWE actually embraced blood on one of their shows? Since they don't do it often, the visual of Rock standing over a bloody Rhodes to close the episode was outstanding. Everything about it was awesome aside from the fact that it got me excited for a singles match at 'Mania that we're not getting. Roman Reigns needs to bounce back in a big way on next week's go-home show, and Rhodes will need to score a measure of revenge as well to avoid looking like a loser. At least we now know for sure that Rock and Rhodes aren't conspiring together, that's been my main concern since this storyline started.

​Overall Show

I have to agree with the majority that this was one of the best editions of Raw in forever, and that's saying something considering the consistent quality of the show as of late. The first hour-plus breezed by, the mic work was on another level, everything served a purpose, the WrestleMania build was well done, and the sold-out Chicago crowd made for an energetic atmosphere through out the night. The wrestling took a backseat this week, but that was totally acceptable given how a lot of other stuff delivered. My only question is, how does WWE intend to top this episode for next week's go-home show?

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