Monday Night Raw Review - September 11, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Judgment Day (Finn Balor and Damian Priest) def. Kevin Owens and Jey Uso (Non-Title)

Owens confronted Jey to start the show, and although he said he didn't trust him because of their history from when Jey was in The Bloodline, Owens agreed to team with him, anyway. That was a bit too quick, and now they're back to not being on the same page due to Jey accidentally kicking Owns toward the end. Meanwhile, Balor and Priest haven't teased any tension since prior to Payback. The match itself was pretty good.

The Miz def. Akira Tozawa

Miz will be facing LA Knight in a rematch from Payback coming up on Friday's SmackDown, so it made sense to give him a momentum-boosting win before then, especially since he's won only one television match all year. It also made sense because Tozawa beat him in fluky fashion a few weeks ago (thanks to Knight) and Miz was able to avenge that loss here. The match was what it needed to be as it was wisely kpt short and sweet.

Tommaso Ciampa Saved Alpha Academy From Imperium

This started out as a celebration of Gunther breaking the all-time record for longest reign as Intercontinental Champion before Chad Gable came out. Last week felt like the end of their feud, so I'm glad Gable's chase for the championship isn't over just yet. Ciampa making the save for him makes me think that he'll be getting the next shot and Gable's rematch will be saved for down the road. Either way, this was a solid segment to set up the six-man tag team match for later in the night.

Drew McIntyre def. Xavier Woods

Matt Riddle was off the show because of the TSA incident he was involved in over the weekend. Honestly, it's possible we've seen the last of him in WWE based on all the trouble he seems to have gotten himself into since joining the company. At any rate, this was great stuff. Woods saying that McIntyre is jealous of Kofi Kingston because he won the WWE Championship in front of fans and McIntyre didn't was a bit of a stretch, but I appreciate the attempt to establish an issue between the two. I also appreciated Woods being made to look credible in defeat.

Cody Rhodes Attacked NXT North American Champion "Dirty" Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh

It really feels like Rhodes is spinning his wheels right now. Maybe that's by design because he's headed to SmackDown soon in exchange for Jey? His promo didn't serve much of a purpose other than to bring out Mysterio and McDonagh. Rhodes laying out both guys on his own made them look weak and I'm not sure why he'd need backup going forward. I don't care to see Rhodes and Mysterio rekindling their rivalry, but a WarGames match pitting Judgment Day against Rhodes, Jey, Owens and Sami Zayn continues to look likely.

Shayna Baszler def. WWE Women's Tag Team Champion Chelsea Green

I'm all for Baszler continuing to rack up victories, but despite her winning streak since SummerSlam, she still feels cold as ice. Part of the problem is that she's been facing mostly heels and thus the crowd has no incentive to cheer for her. This was an average outing, but it was hardly surprising that the crowd didn't care. Piper Niven was back this week, so thankfully she wasn't too sick, but it appears we're getting Baszler and Zoey Stark vs. Green and Niven. Again, I have no idea why anyone would be invested in that feud because none of the characters are currently likable.

Shinsuke Nakamura Attacked World Heavyweight Champion Seth "Freakin" Rollins

Rollins acted like he badly wanted a rematch with Nakamura last week after Nakamura laid him out when Payback went off the air, yet he made his entrance as if it was business as usual. I don't get it. That's why it's hard to care about this rivalry resuming because it doesn't feel necessary, even though Nakamura is playing his heel role remarkably well. He told Rollins that they'll have their rematch on his terms as he attacked Ricochet in the back, setting up their rematch for next week. WWE are obviously killing time with Rollins and Nakamura until Fastlane.

Alpha Academy and Tommaso Ciampa def. Imperium (Intercontinental Champion Gunther, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci)

It took some time for the crowd to get into the action, but they eventually came alive down the stretch and it turned into a fun sprint from all six stars. I would've saved this for next week to stretch things out a bit, but maybe they intend to announce the Intercontinental Championship match for Fastlane on that show instead. I know Gable picked up the win for his team, but I'm actually hoping we get Gunther vs. Ciampa next while Gable works his way back up the ladder.

Women's World Champion Rhea Ripley def. Raquel Rodriguez

Their last match at Payback underwhelmed and this unfortunately wasn't much better. It wasn't poorly wrestled or anything, but it lacked heat because the crowd didn't buy into Rodriguez as a genuine threat to the title. It seems these two had stronger chemistry in NXT, and maybe it's because the roles were reversed at that point. Regardless of the reason, while I'm glad they got this spot, this was a fairly flat main event. Worse yet, we got the return of Nia Jax, who cost Rodriguez the title and laid out Ripley afterward. Jax was always abysmal, but maybe she can help get Rodriguez over. I'd much rather see other women featured on television over Jax, though.

Overall Show

Jax returning was quite the fitting conclusion to the McMahon era of WWE before the UFC/TKO merger goes into effect this week. What a lousy way to end the night, and it wasn't that strong of a show to begin with. This was actually one of the weakest editions of Raw in recent memory and the timing was terrible because tonight also marked the return of Monday Night Football. It's almost as if they gave up this week and didn't bother to put forth much of an effort. Plus, no incentive was given to tune in next week other than the announcement of McIntyre vs. Jey. Raw's going to be in deep trouble this fall if things don't improve.

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