WrestleMania 38 was a lot of fun (check out the Night 1 Review and Night 2 Review), but now it’s over and there’s a lot of fallout to wade through. WWE generally like this RAW to be a bit mysterious, so there’s not much preview to speak of. New Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns will be on the show. Cody Rhodes will be talking about his WrestleMania homecoming. And, after more Coming Soon vignettes than anyone in the history of vignettes (I’m going with it until someone does the numbers) Veer Mahaan arrives on RAW.

I’m Amanda and this is the RAW review.

Match Results

Sasha Banks & Naomi def. Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan

The Miz def. Dominik Mysterio

Bron Breakker def. Dolph Ziggler

The Usos & Austin Theory def. RK-Bro & Finn Balor

Street Profits def. Alpha Academy

The Show

♦ It’s bizarre to hear “Wrestling has more than one royal family” start Monday Night RAW, but we live in bizarre times. Considering the entire song is about him getting his freedom from WWE, you’ve got to imagine he won’t keep it for long, but who knows anything these days.

The experience seemed pretty surreal to him as well and he had a chuckle at his pyro before he stopped to greet fans, took a deep breath, and got back into a RAW ring for the first time in six years.

The crowd gave him a “Welcome Back” chant and a “Cody” chant. Between that and the WrestleMania recap, we were almost 15 minutes into the show by the time he asked, “So what do you guys want to talk about?” and smirked.

He talked about the rumours over the 47 days since he abruptly became a free agent, most of them rubbish, that he hasn’t commented on. The decision to return to WWE was a simple one. He was “The star that left them in the dust” and now he’s signed a multi-year deal with WWE. That earned a “You deserve it” chant. If he’d had any doubts, they were eradicated the moment he appeared at WrestleMania.

He talked about the quote, “A man often finds his destiny on the path he takes to avoid it,” and put a picture of his father. He talked about everything Dusty Rhodes was and choked when he said he was his hero. In the picture, Dusty was holding a title belt that would be held by so many greats and it was displayed on the mantle in his parents’ bedroom until his dad’s last day.

But Dusty never held that belt. He won the match by count-out so he didn’t get it. Cody promised himself he’d win that belt for his dad, but he never did. He can’t physically hand it to his dad if he wins it now. He can’t put it in the hands of The American Dream, but he can put it in the hands of The American Nightmare.

He laughed at the crowd’s “You can do it” chant and said he’s made his intentions clear. He’s finally ready. He’s going to get the distinction his family has long since been denied and he’s going to do it for the WWE Universe, for himself, for his family, and for The American Dream Dusty Rhodes.

Seth Rollins arrived at that point. When he got to the ring, Cody threw away the mic and offered him a handshake. Rollins accepted, laughing, and said “Welcome home,” and then just left.

♦ New WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Sasha Banks & Naomi aren’t wasting any time trying to restore some credibility to the titles. Sasha Banks & Naomi vs Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan was a Championship Contender’s Match. Ripley had Naomi in an incredible delayed vertical suplex, to demonstrate her strength early on. In return, she got a display of Banks and Naomi’s teamwork which required Liv Morgan’s interference to prevent an early end.

Naomi could potentially have taken a count-out victory after laying Ripley out with a ringside crossbody, but she elected to roll Ripley back into the ring, and lost control of the match during the break.

Morgan and Banks could have some great matches, but Banks was very much in control during their stint. She almost pinned Morgan from a Meteora, but Morgan came back with a couple of attempts of her own then tagged in Ripley. Their double team only got them two. Naomi threw Ripley out of the ring, and before she could come back, Banks and Naomi had pinned Morgan with the same move they won the titles with.

Ripley shrugged away from Morgan after the match and left alone. Morgan trailed after her looking upset, as Kevin Owens made his way to the ring.

♦ Kevin Owens admitted that challenging Stone Cold Steve Austin to a match might have been an error of judgement. Austin is still great and he knows that because he beat one of the greatest of all time, him. He shouldn’t have been competing because he had a back injury and it should be stricken from the record.

Music played and Ezekiel came out, to commentary speculating on who he was. Turns out, it was Elias but clean shaving with slightly shorter hair and no guitar. He said he’s Elias’ younger brother, but Owens wasn’t buying it and said he hated liars.

Ezekiel said that means Owens must hate himself because on Saturday he lied to Stone Cold and he got stunned. Owens said he doesn’t like him and gave him ten seconds to leave the ring. He didn’t, so Owens left.

♦ Bad Bunny won Best Musica Urbana Album at the Grammys.

♦ Dominik Mysterio, with Rey Mysterio, vs The Miz lasted less than a minute and ended in a Skull Crushing Finale. The WrestleMania match package was longer.

Veer Mahaan arrived after the match and marched down to the ring. Miz got the hell out of there but The Mysterios stayed. Veer kicked Dominik in the face, then destroyed Rey with a clothesline and a slam. Back to Dominik, Veer jumped on his spine, then put him in a submission. Dominik tapped and tapped, but it wasn’t a match. It still took a ref to make him let go though.

Rough night for Dominik Mysterio.

♦ Not only has Bianca Belair won titles at back-to-back WrestleManias but she’s also done it in damned good matches. She thanked everyone who didn’t give up on her and showed off the shiner Becky Lynch gave her as a souvenir. It’s a bad one, but she thanks Becky for it and for everything all the way back to SummerSlam, because without it she would never have discovered how much better she could be.

She’ll never take where she is for granted because she’s learned how quickly it can be taken away and that hurts. She didn’t cheat or injure her opponents as she worked her way back to the top after SummerSlam. Becky Lynch said she tried to take everything from her, but it was Lynch trying to take everything from her. But even with one eye she battled to the end and is standing her champion tonight.

The WWE Universe deserved better than Becky Lynch as champion, so she became better. She’s going to be the best champion she can be because she knows how hard it is to stay at the top and how easy it is to have it snatched away. Now she’s got it, she’s keeping it, and no one is prepared to do what it takes to take it away from her because after this weekend she’s better.

She suggested Becky Lynch take some time to find out who she is without the title and declared herself, “The strongEST, the fastEST, the roughEST, the toughEST, the quickEST, the greatEST, the bEST. The EST of WWE and our new RAW Women’s Champion.

♦ Dolph Ziggler (C), with Robert Roode, vs Bron Breakker – NXT Championship Match – was decent. Bron Breakker has such a bright shiny future. He’ll be main eventing WrestleMania in no time. Ziggler is the definition of a veteran. Trouble is, Breakker is improving so rapidly, that might not be as big an advantage as it could be. He’s learning with every match and it shows. He had Ziggler scouted several times, and managed to use his strength advantage.

That didn’t help him when Ziggler crotched him on the top turnbuckle and dropkicked him to the floor, but he had the ads to recover and they were back in the ring when we got back.

A Robert Roode distraction and a handful of tights almost got Breakker pinned. He kicked out and took Roode out with a dive over the top rope, but almost got pinned again on his return to the ring. As he continued to kick out of near fall after near fall, Ziggler got frustrated. Breakker speared him when Ziggler was lining up for a superkick and slammed him into the mat for the win.

Bron Breakker is taking the title back to NXT 2.0 as the two-time champion. That’s nuts considering how new he is, but it’s hard to argue with.

♦ MVP introduced The All Mighty Bobby Lashley, after bigging up his win over Omos at WrestleMania, of course. Lashley talked up Omos’ power and size, calling him the strongest man he’s ever been in the ring with. He said he questioned whether he wanted to do it, but he knew if Omos made a mistake he beat him. And that’s what happened.

Omos appeared then and Lashley didn’t look like he fancied another fight, but he would if he had to. Omos demanded a rematch. MVP attacked Lashley from behind and started pounding on him shouting “You don’t need me, right,” then orchestrated Omos’ destruction of Lashley, adding another kick in the face himself.

Omos is under new management and Lashley needs new backup.

♦ Backstage, Liv Morgan caught up with Rhea Ripley backstage. She’d been looking for her and she was worried. Ripley had been with Adam Pearce, convincing him to give them a tag title match next week… despite having lost their contenders’ match. They were all hugs and smiles and a promise to win the gold, so the storm has passed for now.

♦ Vega told off Carmella instead of having Queen Zelina & Carmella vs Shayna Baszler & Natalya as scheduled. She said their WrestleMania loss was Carmella’s fault for being overly preoccupied with herself, her wedding, and a man who is a fool for marrying her. She said Corey Graves was very handsome though. Carmella grabbed the mic and said Vega wasn’t going to be one of her bridesmaids but could be her flower girl if she wanted to come to her wedding. Vega punched her. Carmella escaped to her fiancé’s lap, and Vega pulled her to the floor by her hair.

We didn’t need to see Graves taking her mind off it.

♦ The Usos antagonised their temporary tag team partner, Austin Theory, by mocking his WrestleMania loss to Pat McAfee. They seemed pleased with how fired up he got as a result.

RK-Bro & Finn Balor vs The Usos & Austin Theory made zero sense, but it’s the RAW after WrestleMania so it doesn’t have to. Just go with it.  It was a really fun and unsurprisingly excellent match. You’ve got two of the top teams in WWE…  sorry, THE top two teams in WWE, with Finn Balor. It’s going to be great. Add in Austin Theory, and the teams are even as well. I jest, kind of. Theory is fine, good even, but I find him quite bland and there’s a childlikeness to his character I find somehow disturbing. You can’t like everyone.

The crowd got everything they wanted from the match, which appeared to mostly be Randy Orton. Theory denied them an RKO finish but had to be rescued by a Uso. Everyone got a finisher in on someone, but it was Theory’s finisher, on Finn Balor that counted for the win.

Theory got a consensual selfie with The Usos as well as his victory one with Balor.

♦ Damian Priest helped Edge out at WrestleMania and they appeared to form an alliance. Edge came out to tell us about it. He told us he’s an honest man because he said AJ Styles would face his judgement day at WrestleMania. He wasn’t expecting Damian Priest, but it made perfect sense. Like him, Priest has been fighting his true self and tried to be a fine upstanding role model for us sheep, just like him.

He demanded everyone get to their feet for Priest’s arrival and asked Priest how he inspired him to take his career back at WrestleMania.

Priest said it goes without saying how much Edge has meant to him for a very long time. In the weeks leading to WrestleMania, he was lost. He’s tried to please everyone except himself, but then he heard Edge’s message in his promos and it felt like he was speaking directly to him. That’s why it was easy to pledge his loyalty to him.

So, they’re a unit now and that’s quite a formidable team. Edge knows Styles is still coming, but he urged him to walk away. Instead, Styles walked to the ring, dispatched Priest on the way there, and laid into Edge. Styles was doing the beating, but he took too long setting Edge up for a Con-Chair-To and Priest came back. Once Priest had taken a piece for himself, they double-teamed him with Edge delivering a spear as Priest took out Styles’ legs.

The ring filled with officials, before Styles could be subjected to a Con-Chair-To.

♦ Street Profits vs Alpha Academy started before the bell. Adam Pearce came out and said that if all four of them wanted to fight each other, all they had to do was ask. He made it a Texas Tornado Match. All four men in the ring, no count-outs, no disqualifications. Anything goes.

Montez Ford celebrated by taking everyone out with a leap over the corner within a minute of the match start. There was a table in play after an ad break. Otis was going to put Angelo Dawkins through it. Dawkins put Otis into the steps instead. Chad Gable moved the table to the centre of the ring to get it out of his way, but Dawkins put him on it and a Montez Ford frog splash put him through it.

I love Street Profits as a team, but Montez Ford has to have single’s gold in his future as well. He’s too good not to.

♦ The new Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, accompanied by The Usos and Paul Heyman, got the closing segment, which I guess you can’t really argue with. Reigns still looked to be in pain as he raised the titles above his head, but yesterday he couldn’t raise his left arm over his head by the end of the match. He had Paul Heyman explain The Bloodline’s success because why have WWE’s greatest ever storyteller if you’re not going to use him as such. I’m not adding another two hundred words to this review to list the many accolades Heyman spilt about Reigns and The Usos. There are a ton of them.

Reigns said Heyman has a saying, “What’s good for Roman Reigns is good for WWE” and with him at the head of the table, the billion-dollar deals are coming. That’s because he’s the last needle mover, which is because he’s operating at God Level. But he’s more than that. He’s a man of his word. He called his shot, said he was going to smash Brock Lesnar, and he delivered.

But he’s a progressive tribal chief and he’s always moving forward. They’ll let everyone know what the next step is on SmackDown, but until then, he gave the crowd the opportunity to acknowledge him.

Next week we have Damian Priest vs AJ Styles, Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan’s unearned title shot, and Veer Mahaan vs Rey Mysterio. We should see the first steps towards the next set of Premium Live Event matches as well, so join us then.