WWE Monday Night Raw Review – 6.22.26

We’re back overseas again which means it’s a Monday afternoon (or even morning in some cases) Raw for those of us in North America. We also have Night of Champions coming up this Saturday and the matches for it are mostly already set, so I’m not sure there will be that much excitement. Let’s find out together!

The last week in WWE: Raw / NXT / Evolve / Main Event / SmackDown / Lucha Libre AAA

Then, Now, Forever, Together.

Arrivals! Jey and Jimmy Uso! Iyo Sky! Brie Bella and Paige! The Street Profits!

Oba Femi is the first out tonight to talk and they bring back the cool effect of having his silhouette over the fans. Lots of chanting and grunting from the crowd as always. Oba tells us that destiny has always been good to him and has brought him this far. He says she (destiny) is still on his side and will take him to new heights on Saturday as he becomes the new King of the Ring. Then he has the opportunity to challenge a challenger of his choosing. The fans boo over the idea of him going after the WWE Champion and cheer for World Heavyweight Champion.

Main Event Jey Uso interrupts, strutting through the crowd as they yeet with him. Oba tells the fans they are not running it back, Jey runs it back anyway and we do another round of yeeting. Oba just stares at the fans. Jey: “You must’ve forgot Oba, I’m Him.” Jey says he is used to being counted out like they did when he won the Rumble, the World Heavyweight Championship, and when they saw him shaking arenas. They’re even counting him out now. He’s going to silence the haters and win the crown before going to SummerSlam to dethrone Cody Rhodes. Oba responds. “When you shoot, don’t miss because if you do, I will destroy you. If you don’t, I will still destroy you because at the end of the day you are not the family member that I’m really worried about so why don’t you take your stupid bullets and give them to your cousin courtesy of the ruler Oba Femi.” A good promo for both.

Corey Graves and Michael Cole greet us from ringside and give us a look back at Eric Andre getting whooped last week.

Raw General Manager Adam Pearce is on the phone and is interrupted by L.A. Knight. Knight wonders if the Bloodline has compromising photos of Pearce. Jimmy Uso walks up and tells Knight that he’s the only one that had his back until Knight smacked him with a chair. Pearce sets us up a match tonight.

WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship: WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Brie Bella and Paige vs Bayley and Lyra Valkyria

A good response for Paige. Alicia Taylor is on the microphone tonight. Lyra and Bayley had a fun match on Main Event against NXT stars Kali Armstrong and Layla Diggs on Main Event last week. Jackie Redmond chats with the challengers in the back. Lyra says this is going to be the one and they need this. Bayley says they have trust and friendship. Cole tells us that Paige’s family is in the crowd tonight.

Lyra attacks as the bell rings and tags in Bayley, who works over Paige as the fans sing about Bayley being their girl. Brie tags in with a Codebreaker and can only get a two count off of it. Bayley gets the Bayley-to-Belly but Paige grabs her partner, pulling her out before Lyra attacks on the outside and we take a commercial break.

Back from it, Brie is trying to get a tag but just can’t do it. Brie dropkicks Bayley and both women get the hot tags, Paige suplexing Lyra and then Bayley before a nice fisherman’s suplex on each woman. Paige sets up the Paige Turner but Lyra turns it into a Nightwing, Brie stopping the pinfall. Lyra boots Brie to the outside and then trades rollups with Paige. Paige grabs Lyra for Rampage and gets herself a quick three count. The champs retain.

Paige pins Lyra, Paige & Bella retain the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles. Shorter than I expected. Paige looked good here. I haven’t been totally sold on her return (which is largely on the usual bad booking of the Women’s Tag Titles) but she shined here.

Bayley helps Lyra up and tells her they’re the best and they’ll get it in the future. Lyra attacks and stomps down Bayley, snapping and slapping her. The Bird Lady has had enough. They’ve drastically needed a change and hopefully this will help out.

Backstage, Jackie catches up with Lyra who does not want to talk.

Chad Gable is out next for some words in the arena. Gable is trying to get the fans to clap with his new crappy Def Rebel theme. It is kind of working, to his credit. He’s been making amends and would like to invite a few more out. Alpha Academy (Otis, Akira Tozawa and Maxxine Dupri) come out to respond or at least listen. Gable tells Maxxine she did something even he didn’t do, winning a singles championship. He says the way he treated her was pathetic. He tells Tozawa he tried to hold him back and that too was pathetic. Then there’s big Otis. He says Otis is the most loyal friend any human being could have and Chad’s voice breaks up as he says that he misses their friendship. Gable tells him that he threw it all away and they don’t owe him a thing but he owes them all an apology.

He offers a hand and big Otis thinks about it but goes for the shake, Maxxine stepping between them. She tells him that she can see clearly now and everything about Chad is a lie. She doesn’t want to give him another chance. “Do you not remember when you made me get on my knees and beg you not to hurt Tozawa?” She says this has always been about Chad and when she achieved HIS dream, she realized they didn’t need him then and don’t need him now. She shoves the mic into his chest and leaves. Tozawa follows, Otis takes a little longer, looks back and follows. You know what? This was really good. Gable is showing EMOTION and it was a strong promo for Maxxine.

Dragon Lee is walking and comes across WWE Hall of Famer & AAA General Manager Rey Mysterio. He tells Lee to teach Ethan Page some respect for lucha libre. WWE Intercontinental Champion Penta appears and echoes the thought.

Dragon Lee vs Ethan Page

Lee has settled into the firm position of being the little buddy that looks good in the ring and leads to his bigger buddies like Penta and AJ Styles avenging him. Lee starts out hot with a rana and a dive onto Page on the outside. In ring, Page hits the basics to take Lee down with a clothesline and a boot in the corner. Lee offers up a few kicks and fists and a corner kick to Ethan’s chest. He nails Ethan with a corner dropkick that can only get him a two count because we haven’t had an ad break in this match yet. Page grabs Lee’s mask to turn it sideways, blinding him and kicking him out of the ring to send us to that commercial.

We return to Ethan working over Lee as the fans sing for him. Lee knocks Page down and hits a big stomp in the corner but it can only get him a two count. Lee ranas Page right into the announce desk and flies into and over him, about taking the barricade down with him. Lee removes his elbow pad and smashes an elbow into Page, again only getting a two. Page nails him with a low blow and the Ego Plex to get the pin.

Ethan Page pins Dragon Lee. This was fine. I had a hard time getting invested in it, but I think that’s because I can feel it is just the usual Dragon stop in a story.

WWE Unreal will premiere on July 21 with the goodbye of Cena, the return of a superstar, and much more.

Jackie is with The Vision (Austin Theory, Logan Paul and Bron Breakker). Theory says Seth Rollins will be handled on Saturday by Bron and they’re going to beat the Street Profits tonight. Logan says his arm is healing faster than any human that has ever healed and Bron tells them it is time for business.

Here’s a vignette on WWE Women’s Intercontinental Champion Sol Ruca, who tells us she is a thrill seeker and loves challenging herself.

Celebrities! They love Raw! Zuffa boxers Lee Cutler and Alex MacMillan are here. Derek Chisora is here. UFC welterweight Michael Paige is here. And hey, that’s Jason Statham! I know him! Celebrities, they love the thrills of Monday Night Raw!

Jackie is mid-ring and introduces us to Queen of the Ring finalist Iyo Sky. Iyo says she is extremely grateful to be in the tournament and she can’t wait to face Liv Morgan for the crown. Trouble, trouble, that’s her – WWE Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan interrupts with a mic of her own. “Cute little Iyo. You must have forgotten who you’re dealing with because I am THE Liv Morgan.” She tells us she is so much better than Iyo because she is the face of the division and is only missing her crown. When she defeats Iyo, she’ll make history and get to embarrass Iyo’s best friend Rhea Ripley at SummerSlam. Please, I need another nine months of Iyo and Rhea not interacting. Iyo questions if the crown will fit on Liv’s big head and starts yelling at Liv in Japanese. Liv cheap shots her and Iyo springboards into her with a dropkick, pointing at her head as Liv scurries off.

Jimmy is getting ready backstage and joined by Main Event Jey and then Jacob Fatu. Jey is wondering why Jacob was at SmackDown talking to Solo. Fatu says that Solo got the message and now they wait.

You can get your name on the canvas at Saturday Night’s Main Event for the low, low price of $299.99.

Danhausen is in his laboratory when he’s joined by Dirty Dominik Mystterio and JD McDonagh. Danhausen shows them what he bought with their money, which is a novelty bird for his desk and a box he calls his experiment. They threaten to take it if he doesn’t give him their money back. Instead, he gives JD a curse and JD immediately electrocutes himself on the experiment.

It didn’t make it to the broadcast (in the U.S. at least), but Danhausen also talked to the crowd and started his campaign for Prime Minister. You know what, why not.

L.A. Knight vs Big Jim Uso

Despite these two being entangled with each other forever, they haven’t had a televised singles match since SmackDown in November 2023 (they’ve had a string of matches at house shows including street fights and cage matches since). These two battle out to the announce table where Knight rams Jimmy’s head into it about ten times. Knight runs into a boot inside and Jimmy hits the Whisper to the Wind for a two count as Cole and Graves are focusing in on telling us the backstory of these two. Jimmy boots Knight back to the arena floor and send us to another glorious ad break where we learn about DoorDash, NASCAR on TNT and Just For Men.

We return to Knight suplexing Knight onto the hardest part of the ring and getting a two count. Knight hits a flash DDT and both men are down. Knight dodges a splash and powerslams Jimmy before dropping the elbow for a near fall. Uso goes up for a splash, Knight knocks him down as we hear the fans reacting to something happening. That something is Solo Sikoa walking up to the barricade, hitting Jimmy with a Samoan Spike and running off. Knight runs with it, landing the BFT on Jimmy for the pin.

L.A. Knight pins Jimmy Uso. Not going to lie, I was bored with the match. The Solo wrinkle is interesting but the match itself was every Knight vs Usos match we’ve seen.

Jackie is busy tonight, now backstage with the Street Profits (Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins). Dawkins says they’re ready and Ford tells her they’re showing the world that the Vision is impaired. The Vision has been impaired for a year now but it still won’t go away. They want the smoke.

The Great American Bash is Sunday night on The CW. Niz, our ace NXT reviewer, will have a review on it.

Jackie’s back! Now she’s looking for Bayley and finds her in the medical room. Bayley has nothing to say about tonight’s events.

Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez are talking in the Judgment Day clubhouse. They both wish they would have something to celebrate as JD stumbles in, shaking their hands and introducing himself. Liv storms in and Raquel yells at her, telling her how they’re all upset. Liv promises Raquel she’s the next Intercontinental Title.

Earlier today, Corey Graves sat down with Seth Rollins. No new ground is broken here.

Gable and Pearce are chatting when Dom, Liv and JD walk up. Dom wonders where his apology is as Gable is apologizing to other luchadors. Gable says Dom should beat the apology out of him, Dom offers up JD instead. Pearce is fine with JD, showing clear signs of medical trauma from electrocution, being booked into a match. Horrible management. Becky Lynch is right.

Next week, Raw is in Atlantic City with a special start time of 6 p.m. ET as they are taping SmackDown after the show. I will probably have the review up shortly after it airs.

WWE World Tag Team Championship: WWE World Tag Team Champions The Vision (Bron Breakker and Austin Theory with Logan Paul) vs Street Profits (Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins)

After an opening back-and-forth segment, we return to Ford trying to get out of a double team. It doesn’t work because we need an extended Vision heat segment. Dawkins finally gets the tag and nails the Silencer on Theory. He lifts Theory up and Ford tags in, hitting a top rope Blockbuster. Logan breaks the pin and the referee catches it, telling Logan he is out of here. The fans sing about Logan being fired as he leaves and Ford tags Dawkins again, lifting Theory up for the same move again. This time Breakker knocks Ford down and they double team Dawkins. Bron drives Dawkins into the announce table with a flying clothesline and we take a final ad break.

Back from it, we’re back to the Vision beating down Dawkins. This lasts a while before Bron and Dawkins take each other down with dual clotheslines. Both men tag their partners and Ford flies in with an elbow. Ford flips into Theory with a kick and a nice suplex before flipping right onto him for a two count. Bron tags in and suplexes Ford. Bron measures and catches Ford with a big slam, tagging Theory in as they hit a Steiner bulldog from the top rope. Dawkins breaks the pin and Bron tosses the steel stairs into the ring as his back is sliced open again. Bron’s good about getting sliced open. Ford pushes Bron into the ring post as Logan sneaks back in with the brass knucks until…

Say his name and he appears. Joe Hendry appears and chases Logan off. Theory sees the knucks that were left behind and the music of Seth Rollins hits for the distraction. Bron stands in the aisle ready to attack, Rollins jumps the rail, grabs the knucks and nails Theory before Bron tries to catch up to Bron. Dawkins nails Theory with the Anointment, Ford nails the frog splash and for the fourth time, the Profits are champions of a tag team division.

Montez Ford pins Austin Theory, the Profits defeat the Vision to become the new WWE World Tag Team Champions. Again, I wasn’t that into this one. The last segment was good but a good bit of the match was just Vision heat segments. Again. We knew Rollins would appear. Bron’s a dummy (again) because he fell for the obvious trap. Hendry was a good surprise. All that said, I’m interested to see if the Profits can make something out of a dead tag team division.

Just an okay show tonight. There was big stuff like Lyra’s turn and the Profits win, but as expected a lot of it was running in place to get us to Night of Champions. I am ready to get past Saudi and hopefully start an interesting build to SummerSlam.