Monday Night Raw Review - May 1, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Seth "Freakin" Rollins Confronted Paul Heyman

I was fine with Heyman making an appearance because it will likely be his last on the show for a while with all of The Bloodline ending up on SmackDown in the WWE Draft, not to mention he was able to hype up the six-man tag team match at Backlash. I enjoyed his exchange with Rollins, who alluded to Heyman being responsible for why he never got a rematch with Roman Reigns. This left me wanting to see Rollins vs. Reigns, and although we're not going to get it due the two ending up on separates shows, Rollins vs. Solo Sikoa was a nice consolation prize.

Damage CTRL (Bayley and Dakota Kai) def. WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez (Non-Title)

It's interesting that Bayley and Kai are setting their sights on the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship with IYO SKY currently involved in the Raw Women's Championship picture. Their win here should set them up for a title shot soon, but I'm still hoping a Damage CTRL split is on the horizon (despite all three getting drafted to SmackDown). This was a good match with the heels cheating to protect the babyfaces in defeat.

Ricochet and Braun Strowman def. Alpha Academy

Maxxine Dupri accompanied Alpha Academy to the ring, so hopefully her angle with Otis isn't over yet because it's been a guilty pleasure of mine in recent months. This match had no storyline significance, but it was a well-wrestled, quality contest. I thought this was done because these teams wouldn't be on the same show coming out of the Draft, but both were drafted to Raw, so it was actually just filler.

Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar Brawled

Lesnar interrupted the Round 3 draft picks and didn't say much before Rhodes interrupted him. This was a pretty simple segment and honestly a little disappointing considering it was their final interaction before Backlash. I understand wanting to keep them from getting too physical before the match, but I would've liked to hear more from Lesnar because we have yet to get much of an explanation from him regarding his actions on the post-WrestleMania Raw.

Matt Riddle def. Jimmy Uso

The latest development in the Bloodline storyline is that Riddle, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens are all on the same page heading into Backlash whereas there are serious cracks within The Bloodline. I'm very curious to see what the fallout will be from The Usos failing to regain the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship and if they'll suffer any consequences from Reigns. This wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but that six-man tag team match should be fire.

Shinsuke Nakamura Attacked The Miz on Miz TV​

I've been a Miz fan for my entire wrestling fandom (15 years), and I can honestly say I have never found him less interesting than I do right now. The last six months of his career have been absolute garbage, and I'm stunned the "tiny balls" nonsense is still going. It's not funny and never has been. Worse yet, he's dragging other people down in whatever segments he's a part of. Here, it was Nakamura. This sucked and was a hardly a strong Raw debut for Nakamura. Here's hoping this wasn't meant to kick off a feud between them.

Omos def. Anthony Alanis

I genuinely forgot Omos was facing Rollins at Backlash until the commentators made mention of it here. Rollins didn't bring it up in the opening segment and Omos was nowhere to be seen during Rollins vs. Sikoa in the main event. Again, I beg the question: What the hell is the point of having them face each other at the event? This was a short short to put over Omos' dominance, and that's about it. On a side note, Alanis may be a familiar face to anyone who has watched AEW Dark over the years. He's made appearances for WWE as an enhancement talent in the past as well.

The Judgment Day (Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio and SmackDown Women's Champion Rhea Ripley) def. LWO (Rey Mysterio, Santos Escobar and Zelina Vega)

LWO have lost almost every single match they've had in the last month. They've been over with the audience, but they are perhaps the biggest losers in WWE right now from a win-loss standpoint. They'll need to rebound eventually, but it was logical for Priest to go over again seeing as how he's the one with the Backlash match against Bad Bunny. This was an entertaining outing from these groups, but it's been done a lot lately and this was a fitting finale now that they've been separated in the Draft.

Seth "Freakin" Rollins def. Solo Sikoa by Disqualification

Sikoa may have to take Jey Uso's "Main Event" nickname because the guy keeps headlining Raw and SmackDown with top talent. He's awesome, but the interference and disqualification finishes with The Bloodline recently have gotten really old, including in this instance. It was a solid match otherwise, though. It was obvious WWE ran out of time because the brawl with The Bloodline and the babyfaces ensued immediately and it wasn't long before the show went off the air.

Overall Show

Much like Friday's SmackDown, this was all about Night 2 of the Draft. There were more picks that made sense, though some still left me scratching my head. My full thoughts will be available in a separate post on the site sometime this week. The rest of Raw was a very weak go-home show for Backlash. The pay-per-view has potential on paper, but this episode did nothing to make more excited than I was already. A lot of stuff seemed to exist to kill time in between each round and it largely made for a boring show.

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