Summary
- CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre set for Strap Match at Bash In Berlin PLE, a rare WWE stipulation makes for a heated showdown.
- Uncle Howdy to debut in-ring against Chad Gable, promising a monumental crossroads match for both men.
- Tournament for Intercontinental Championship contender begins, promising a stacked competition with high stakes.
Monday Night Raw in Ft Lauderdale, FL took WWE one step closer to the upcoming Bash In Berlin PLE on August 31st, as CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre in a Strap Match was confirmed for the event in a menacing confrontation between the two men. Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn retained their Women’s Tag Team Championships in a triple threat against the warring Damage CTRL and Pure Fusion Collective, Sami Zayn missed the show through needing to collect his thoughts, as confirmed by Main Event Jey Uso who also became the first competitor announced for a tournament starting next week to find the next contender for Bron Breakker’s Intercontinental Championship.
Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest suffered their first humbling at the hands of The Judgment Day, Bronson Reed continued his reign of terror with another win over The Miz, and American Made were again ambushed by The Wyatt Sicks. Winners & Losers recaps the night’s action with facts, context, and opinions about the current state of WWE, during one of the hottest eras in the company’s history. This week’s Raw episode occurred at the Amerant Bank Arena in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre II
Confirmation that their SummerSlam rematch will go down in Berlin
In the latest twist to a rivalry that has already crossed international borders, CM Punk will take on Drew McIntyre in a Strap Match at Bash In Berlin. Tied to one another to ensure both men are constantly in close contact, this violent display only ends when one man drags his opponent around the ring, touching all four corners without being stopped. To put it into perspective, this stipulation is so rare in the WWE that this is only the 5th Strap Match this century.
Debate continues to rage about Punk and Drew’s SummerSlam encounter, and in particular, whether or not Seth Rollins was an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction at Cleveland Browns Stadium. This time around it will just be Punk, Drew, and an unforgiving leather strap. A groundswell of reports that a Hell In A Cell encounter might happen between the two at Bad Blood in October. That is assuming that both men make it out of Berlin in one piece.
Both men have had one Strap Match in WWE. CM Punk defeated Umaga at Extreme Rules in 2009, while Drew McIntyre lost to Karrion Kross at the same event in 2022.
Uncle Howdy and The Wyatt Sicks
An in-ring debut finally beckons for Uncle Howdy
Interrupting Ivy Nile’s first match as a member of American Made faction against Alpha Academy’s Maxine Dupri, The Wyatt Sicks yet again got the better of Chad Gable’s newly formed stable. Delivering a sickening Sister Abigail to the Olympian, it was revealed that Uncle Howdy will make his in-ring debut next week in a singles match against Chad Gable. It feels like a crossroads match for both men.
Chad Gable has had one of the best years of his career in terms of exposure and fan popularity but has only one win on Raw since May 20th. For Uncle Howdy and the man under the mask formerly known as Bo Dallas, this is the world’s first look at what can be expected of the in-ring style of the leader of The Wyatt Sicks. Dallas was one of NXT’s most galling heel champions but it didn’t happen for him the first time around. The set-up for his in-ring return has been slow and deliberate and Uncle Howdy is all the better for it. The two’s match feels enormous and that’s to everyone involved’s credit.
Bo Dallas’s last match in singles competition on Monday Night Raw came on August 20th, 2018 in a defeat to The Revival’s Scott Dawson.
WWE’s Intercontinental Championship Scene
A tournament to determine a new Intercontinental Championship contender begins next week
As announced in his seemingly weekly electric backstage promo, Bron Breakker was told that the new number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship will be found in a tournament starting on next week’s episode of Monday Night Raw. It’s a great time for so many men on the red half of the WWE roster and, with the ascendancy of the Intercontinental title over the past eighteen months, it promises to be a stacked competition. People may gripe that this is another tournament that comes relatively soon after the King Of The Ring brackets. This should not matter because audiences are staring down the barrel of a month of killer matches with every one of them having genuine stakes.
Who are the front-runners for this tournament? Main Event Jey Uso declared himself in the competition, while also confirming that Sami Zayn was absent from this week’s show because he needed time to collect his thoughts. Big Bronson Reed’s win over The Miz means it’s the Australian’s third win in a row as he is arguably currently Raw’s hottest superstar. It remains Sheamus’s last remaining Championship in his quest to become a WWE Grand Slam Champion and an obsession of Chad Gable’s. Will Finn Balor or Dominik Mysterio enter themselves into the proceedings? These are all superb prospective opponents for Bron Breakker in the future.
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Alba Fyre, Isla Dawn, and the Women’s Tag Team Division
The best performance of their championship reign to date
Since winning the Women’s Tag Team Championship from Bianca Belair and Jade Carghill at Clash At The Castle, the team of Alba Fyre and Isla Dawn have been given plenty of TV time to infect their purposefully smug and grating personas on audiences with varying results. This thrilling triple threat match between Iyo Sky and Kairi Sane of Damage CTRL, Zoe Stark and Shayna Bayzler of Pure Fusion Collective and the champs themselves was the most that the titles have mattered in that time.
Getting the pinfall via a very cool finish following Kairi Sane’s Insane Elbow on Shayna Bayzler, the duo have retained the titles to reach sixty six days as champions, following last year’s eighty three day run as NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions. Much of the attention has been on the burgeoning powers of Sonya Deville’s crew and what feels like the start of a full face turn from Damage CTRL. That the Scottish duo have not only managed to retain their titles is a clear indication that WWE see them with more potential than being mere placeholders. This is their most impressive title defense to date. What comes next will go a long way to defining their reign and the view of their future potential.
WWE’s production values continue to help talent
Maybe it’s the cool lighting and high-end production, maybe it’s the delivery and content from all involved, but the production values on a bunch of promos on this episode of Raw were outstanding. The look and feel of The Terror Twins and Dominik Mysterio, Liv Morgan, and The Judgment Day all did a superb job of further building their tag-team match at Bash In Berlin. The scratchy filter used over The Judgment Day’s final promo of the evening added a scrappy character to their darkness. The low-hanging light bulbs that flanked Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest heightened the tension and intensity of their words. The lighting used in the segment with Liv and Dom had the WWE Women’s Champion looking and feeling like the Evil Queen that she is.
For Bron Breakker, the sports-based presentation and bravado on his video package made him look like a billion dollars. Any Given Sunday’s Willie Beeman would blush at some of the self-aggrandizing the Intercontinental Champion was airing for the world, but it’s yet another example of WWE flexing its creative muscles and finding new weapons within its arsenal to get stars over. In addition to the production glow-ups, the WWE’s montage game was on outstanding form, as Pat McAfee’s announcement that he’ll be off of Raw for the rest of the year was greeted with a video package good enough to make a statue cry.
Sheamus and Pete Dunne
England and Ireland face off on Raw
A much-needed win came for Sheamus in a short yet spectacular match with Pete Dunne. Formerly teammates as part of The Brawling Brutes, the heat from the Englishman in both the build-up and the match itself served as a reminder that Pete Dunne still has a place as part of WWE’s bright new future.
If Bronson Reed is being made to look like the monster of the year and Ludwig Kaiser has earned enough trust to Main Event a Monday Night Raw at the height of summer, The Bruiserweight has justified reason for hope. Victory may have gone to the Celtic Warrior (who looks set to continue his ongoing feud with the aforementioned Kaiser in the coming weeks), but Pete Dunne’s uninhibited and vicious display felt like the talk of the town at the match’s climax.
The Terror Twins
Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest catch a beating from The Judgment Day
It was a bad night at the office for Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest as they were picked apart by The Judgement Day. Dirty Dominik Mysterio requested a match with Priest, insisting that all members of The Judgment Day would be banned from ringside. As correctly predicted ahead of schedule, Damien Priest thwarted the attack of Finn Balor, Carlito, and JD McDonagh as he approached the ring for their match. With seemingly nowhere to run, Mysterio seemed destined to be put through the announcer’s table by Ripley before Liv Morgan and a steel chair intervened.
Priest was then swarmed by The Judgment Day as the pair were decimated for the first time. Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio evading the clutches of Ripley and Priest only adds fuel to their upcoming red-hot meeting at Bash In Berlin. It’s difficult to predict an outcome or make a strong case for who needs the win more, but the satisfaction of The Terror Twins finally getting their hands on WWE’s most loathsome couple will be worth the price of admission alone.
Randy Orton vs Gunther
The first slow week in their build-up to Berlin
In a feud that’s been solid overall and with an upcoming match that’s certain to be of the highest standard, this is the first week in which it feels as though Gunther and Randy Orton’s rivalry stagnated a little. Opening the show, Orton and Gunther did little to further on the points made in previous weeks. The segment instead served as little more than bringing everyone up to speed with their grudges up to this point.
It is fair to suggest that there’s only so much that can be done to build for a match that will surely end in Gunther winning in front of his European brethren at Bash In Berlin. Orton was as impressive as ever and Ludwig Kaiser continues to make an impression as a single’s competitor, both in this Main Event of Raw and in his mic work when goading Sheamus earlier in the evening. Raw going off the air with Gunther and Orton brawling in the middle of the ring was a cool visual, but next week should be about planting any seed of doubt possible in the mind of the audience that Orton isn’t a lamb to the slaughter in Germany.
The New Day and Odyssey Jones vs Karrion Kross and The Authors Of Pain
The rivalry that never ends keeps rumbling on
A tough watch again on this week’s episode of Raw, the cracks beginning to appear in The New Day is the only compelling component to this ongoing feud. After Karrion Kross targeted Xavier Woods for weeks on end, trying to poison his mind with thoughts that he’s too good for The New Day and that Kofi doesn’t care about him, this week saw Xavier address the issue of Odyssey Jones being brought into their fold by Kofi, without prior consultation. That involved Woods directly saying that Kofi was trying to replace Big E with Jones, causing an audible gasp from tonight’s fairly non-responsive audience.
As Kofi crawled to his corner to make the hot tag, it was Jones who Kofi would tag into the match to come to his aid, and not his long-standing New Day tag-team partner. Woods’ disapproval and discomfort were clear for all to see. This may just be growing pains on the road to Jones’ place in the group being cemented, but this is unquestionably the most fractured and disjointed The New Day have appeared in some time.
THE FINAL WORD
- CM Punk says he’s Taylor Swift for men. The Tortured Punkers Department has a nice ring to it.
- Bronson Reed vs Braun Strowman on next week’s Raw. Jey Uso says Yeet. This match says Meat.
- Both Ivy Nile and Maxxine Dupri’s most recent victory on Raw came while tagging together in a win over Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell on 25th April, 2024.
- The Shield are gonna sue American Made over that fist bump.
- “Look at how dumb you look, Michael Cole”. We will miss you, Pat McAfee. See you on Netflix.
- Rhea Ripley representing Floridian death metal legends Death on her tee while in the Sunshine State.
- RIP Afa Anoa’i.
- “Dom Glues On His Mustache” sign.
- Week 2 and Pure Fusion Collective doesn’t get any easier on the tongue.