WrestleMania 36 was definitely unique. If you missed any of the action, you can catch up with full reviews of Night One and Night Two. No advertised matches on the official preview, just a series of ‘what’s next for’ items. The RAW after WrestleMania is usually fun, but these are unusual times.

I’m Amanda and this is the RAW review.

Match Results

Asuka def. Liv Morgan

Street Profits def Angel Garza & Austin Theory (DQ)

Bianca Belair vs Zelina Vega – No Contest

Street Profits & Bianca Belair def. Angel Garza, Austin Theory & Zelina Vega

Aleister Black def. Apollo Crews

Cedric Alexander & Ricochet def. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch

Seth Rollins def. Denzel Dejournette

Nia Jax def. Deonna Purrazzo

Humberto Carrillo def. Brenden Vink

Drew McIntyre def. Big Show

The Show

♦ Asuka vs Liv Morgan started the show, after the obligatory WrestleMania recap package. Morgan got a win over Natalya on the night two Kickoff Show, but Asuka is a much bigger challenge. Asuka got the victory with an Asuka Lock but it was a good showing from Morgan.

♦ After a lengthy recap of Becky Lynch vs Shayna Baszler on WrestleMania Night One, we got to see Becky Lynch’s post-match interview. She mentioned that she was a day short of being champ for a year and talked about the match, giving Baszler a huge amount of credit. When Charly Caruso asked her what’s next, she basically offered Baszler a rematch.

Baszler talked about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Or, more accurately, she repeated that three times then promised Becky Lynch the agony of her defeat.

♦ I was quite sad Bianca Belair didn’t accompany Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins to the ring for Street Profits vs Angel Garza & Austin Theory, which was a WrestleMania Night Two rematch. She stepped in to lay out Zelina Vega last night, so she would have been a good insurance policy. The match was good. It was good yesterday as well. Vega was instrumental in the result, but not the way she’d have hoped. She grabbed Montez Ford by the leg and caused the disqualification. Once the match had been thrown out, Vega got Theory and Garza to hold Montez Ford still and kicked him in the face, just like last night.

Also like last night, that brought out Bianca Belair (Ford’s wife). She slammed Zelina Vega into the canvas and Ford and Dawkins cleared Garza and Theory from the ring. Belair picked up a mic and announced she ‘goes here now’, and challenged Vega to a match.

Bianca Belair vs Zelina Vega happened after a break. It’s great to see Vega wrestling for a change, and I’m thrilled that Belair has moved to RAW. The NXT push she earned never really panned out for her, so a fresh challenge will hopefully let her become the serious contender she should be. The match was great until Austin Theory tried to distract Belair, the resulting brawl with Ford got that match thrown out too. Montez Ford grabbed a mic and suggested turning it into a six-person mixed tag.

Street Profits & Bianca Belair vs Angel Garza, Austin Theory & Zelina Vega happened after the next ad break. It was also good, and this time we got a finish. Bianca Belair pinned Zelina Vega off a K.O.D after Ford and Theory had been laid out at ringside and Dawkins had chased Garza backstage. Decent debut for Belair, within the current constraints.

♦ Lana was the reason Bobby Lashley got pinned when he did at WrestleMania. In his post-match interview, Lashley said he thinks he needs a new manager, or a new wife. Lana crashed the interview and Lashley left Charly Caruso in an awkward silence with her.

♦ Aleister Black vs Apollo Crews was unexpected. Mainly because I’d completely forgotten Crews still worked for WWE. Where has he been? He was on SmackDown, he’s back on RAW now. It was good, but it was a long one. I was expecting a three-minute wonder, but there’s a lot of time to fill on these empty arena shows so it got a decent amount of time. Then it got more time. And more time. So much time, in fact, I was starting to wonder if it was an ironman match and I’d missed the announcement. It wasn’t, WWE just decided to let them go half an hour before Aleister Black landed the Black Mass for the win.

♦ Cedric Alexander & Ricochet vs Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch was also unexpected. Burch and Lorcan are a much-underappreciated team in NXT and 205 Live and they were an interesting choice for Alexander and Ricochet’s first opponents as an official team. Their styles are complete opposites. Burch and Lorcan are a punch you in the face and kick you in the head kind of tag team, rather than a fly about kind of team. It worked as a match, although it could have been given an extra five minutes. Ricochet pinned Oney Lorcan to give his team the win.

♦ After a recap of his victory over Seth Rollins at WrestleMania, Kevin Owens said that for the last five months his career was hell. All he’s wanted since November was to get Rollins alone in the ring but he got beaten down by groups so often he started to wonder if it was worth it, but when he jumped off the sign to put Rollins through the table and hit him with a stunner for the win, he got his answer. Yes, it was all worth it to have a WrestleMania moment he could be proud of. But now it’s over he has to refocus, what bigger and better things can he move on to. No matter what, he’s there to stay and this is The Kevin Owens Show.

Seth Rollins vs Denzel Dejournette happened immediately after Owens’ video message. Rollins looked furious and possibly broken as he came to the ring. He took the furious out on Dejournette for the duration of the short match and finished it with a Stomp. From the look on his face post-match, it didn’t help.

♦ Nia Jax is finally back after her double knee surgery. For her first match back, we got Nia Jax vs Deonna Purrazzo. It was a brief reintroduction. The Samoan Drop would have been enough to finish Purrazzo off, but Jax followed it with a DDT just to make sure.

♦ They showed weirdly edited highlights of the Boneyard match from WrestleMania. Weirdly edited in that watching it gave me motion sickness.

♦ Humberto Carrillo vs Brendan Vink was an opportunity for Carrillo to start getting things back on track after the messy feud with Andrade and Angel Garza. It was short and fun. Carrillo finished it with a moonsault.

♦ Charlotte Flair, in her post-match interview with Charly Caruso, said the title doesn’t make the woman the woman makes the title. She’s held a lot of titles in her career but now she’s two-time NXT Women’s Champion. Rhea Ripley was all right, but she does what every other woman in the company does. She bows down to the queen.

♦ After WrestleMania went off air, new champion Drew McIntyre had an in-ring interview. He thanked Paul Heyman, because Heyman had told Lesnar to keep giving him the F5 and he’d stop getting back up. That made McIntyre realise that he’d never stayed down. He’s always had to fight to get back up. So every F5 just made him angrier and that was what gave him enough to win the match.

The interview was interrupted by The Big Show arriving, dragging a ref with him. He congratulated McIntyre and pointed out the entire locker room now has him in his sights. Then he challenged him to a non-title match. McIntyre declined on the basis he’d just fought Brock Lesnar, and Big Show accused him of being scared. McIntyre said there was nothing he could say to convince him to fight him tonight, so Big Show slapped him and got a title match.

Drew McIntyre vs Big Show was a thing. Unsurprisingly, considering McIntyre was half an hour removed from a WrestleMania main event against Brock Lesnar, Big Show dominated almost the entire match. Also unsurprisingly, McIntyre won with a Claymore.

The RAW after WrestleMania is always full of surprises, and there were definitely a few of those, but overall I thought it was an enjoyable show. The women’s division has been especially bolstered by the night’s events. Nia Jax has returned, and Bianca Belair is an incredible addition to the division. I can’t wait to see what kind of impact she makes.