Monday Night Raw Review - September 19, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

United States Champion Bobby Lashley def. Seth "Freakin" Rollins

I was surprised to see WWE give this away as the opener seeing as how it was the biggest bout promoted for the show ahead of time, and that sort of stuff is crucial with football season being back. That said, I'm not complaining because this was the great match you'd expect from these two (that Curb Stomp spot early on was awesome and innovative). Matt Riddle causing a distraction from ringside protected Rollins in defeat and furthered that feud.

Raw Women's Champion Bianca Belair, Asuka and Alexa Bliss Crashed Damage CTRL's Celebration

Damage CTRL receiving such a tame reaction when they entered was shocking considering Bayley is a San Jose native, but they were loud when she mentioned she was from there during her promo. I thought all the pomp and circumstance for their celebration made the tag titles feel slightly more important and the babyfaces interrupting was logical. Bliss did a majority of the talking to set up her match with Bayley for later in the night, so this served its purpose.

Kevin Owens def. Austin Theory

This was a rematch from two weeks ago, and although I wasn't super pumped about it when it was originally teased, their verbal exchange last week sold me on it. Simply put, they have fantastic chemistry together. This was another very entertaining encounter with both men having strong showings. I'm torn on the distraction finish from Johnny Gargano because it made sense and Theory shouldn't be losing clean, but I don't want Triple H to get too comfortable with doing distraction finishes constantly.

The Brawling Brutes (Butch and Ridge Holland) def. The Street Profits

I realize Brawling Brutes are the number one contenders to the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship and will get their title shot against The Usos on Friday's SmackDown, but they're SmackDown Superstars and should be relegated to SmackDown until they win the titles. Then again, the Brand Split practically means nothing at this point, so I shouldn't bother complaining. This was fun and I was glad Street Profits were made to look competitive before eating defeat.

The Judgment Day (Finn Balor and Damian Priest) def. Rey Mysterio and Matt Riddle

It was hard to care about anything Judgment Day talked about during their pre-match promo because their rivalry with The Mysterios ran its course a while ago, but I will applaud them for getting as much heat from the crowd that they did. The subsequent tag match was solid and you could see Rollins attacking Riddle at ringside coming from a mile away. Judgement Day beat Mysterio again, but how much does it mean if they can never win whenever it matters most? On the bright side, I'm really looking forward to the Fight Pit match between Riddle and Rollins at Extreme Rules.

Dexter Lumis Crashed Miz TV with The Miz and Tommaso Ciampa

Personally, this story with Miz and Lumis has been one of my favorite things in all of WWE right now. I don't blame you if you don't feel the same, but this sort of stuff is right up my alley. I was curious to see how this segment would play out, but it didn't last long before Lumis emerged from the underneath the ring and attempted to pull Miz down with him. It was simple and brief. Surely this is leading to Miz and Maryse vs. Lumis and Indi Hartwell in a mixed tag team match, right?

Bayley def. Alexa Bliss

The story of this match was whether Bliss could return to her roots to win this match. Obviously, she didn't because she lost, but it was refreshing to see her get some spotlight this week and I hope all this talk about her being at her best as a heel leads to her going heel in the near future. The crowd wasn't too into this for the first half, but they picked up the pace in the second half and it was a nice main event. Bayley winning and Damage CTRL laying waste to the babyfaces afterward effectively put heat on the heels.

Overall Show

Raw is far from a consistently thrilling show most weeks (the three-hour format doesn't help), but it's certainly been more bearable and entertaining on the whole since Triple H took control of Creative. This was a well-structured show with an above-average opener and some other quality stuff (including storyline advancement) sprinkled throughout the episode. Raw has done an excellent job lately of holding my attention and delivering engaging content.

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