Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the second show in a row where a European crowd has gotten to boo John Cena! Yes, the world's most unlikely ultimate villain was back again this week, this time to explain how the 2005 spinning WWE Championship belt was a complicated PSYOP. Yes, really; we'll get into all that here, along with all the latest from the Women's World Championship scene and the men's Intercontinental Championship scene (the women's Intercontinental Championship scene, not so much we can't cover everything, and there's only so much we can feel that involves The Judgment Day).
For a comprehensive and objective look at the show that reallydoes cover everything, check out our "Raw" results page. If you're interested in the WINC staff's thoughts and opinions, from the reunification of The Usos to the debut of ElGrande Americano, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 3/24/25 episode of "WWE Raw."
When John Cena turned heel, I think a lot of us were pretty sure he was telling a story about age and mortality an ex-champion's desperation to reclaim his former glory one last time despite the fact that he's no longer the youngest or the best in the field, and the lengths such a man might go to in pursuit of that glory. That's the story WWE seemed to be setting up at the time.
Then came the first Heel Cena promo, which centered the conflict around Cena's relationship with the fans an odd choice for the aforementioned "a lot of us," since hating the fans is a slightly different motive than the pursuit of former glory. This week, Cena took the next logical step down that path and made it clear his heel character is not doing this because he's getting old and he's desperate for one last run. That motive would have itself explained why Cena wants the title; now we know he wants the title so he can take it away from the WWE fans he hates so much. And in fact, the WWE fans he's always hated Cena went so far this week as to reframe his entire career as essentially a social experiment that saw him manipulate the fans one way and then another, attempting to figure out what they care about most so he could take his revenge on them. Apparently, his introduction of the spinner belt in April 2005, to widespread negativity, was the piece of data that told him WWE fans cared most about the legacy of the world title, which is why he's going to win it at WrestleMania, retire with it, and take it away.
...
I don't know if people are properly appreciating how insane this is. WWE isn't just saying "John Cena is a heel," they're saying "John Cena has always been a heel." Cena came out and said in his promo that he can explain any moment of his career through the lens of this heel character, which doesn't just open the storyline up to a degree of scrutiny it is absolutely incapable of passing, but also confirms that he's admitting to lying and manipulating the fans for his entire career. I'm not sure there's any coming back from that, narratively you can't just have Cena turn face again in December and retire forgiven, can you? After he's been manipulating the fans for 20 years?
Beyond the fact that this just feels like too big of a swing for WWE to land successfully, it's also not one I have any real interest in seeing them attempt. If they had just continued to paint by the numbers, they would have had a simple, character-driven slam dunk, but that's not enough in "The Paul Levesque Era." No, now Cena is trying to RUIN WRESTLING by taking away the WWE Championship (which, we have another world title, we could just switch to that one, couldn't we) and oh, that sentence really cut to the heart of Babyface Hero Of The People Cody Rhodes, who now has to SAVE WRESTLING. It's all just very cartoony very much the same flavor as Rhodes' title match at last year's WrestleMania, when Steve Austin wasn't available so The Undertaker filled in, and nobody cared that it didn't make sense. So far, this doesn't strike me as intricate, detail-oriented storytelling, which is what it should probably be if you're rewriting the entire history one of your primary characters. It strikes me as big, broad strokes, bold colors, "look another explosion" storytelling. Which, if that's your thing, fine, but you will forgive me for officially checking out at this stop on the Heel Cena roller coaster.
Written by Miles Schneiderman
Here's the thing: Jimmy Uso hasn't really been doing much of anything over on "WWE SmackDown" except compete in various midcard matches. Having him as the mystery tag team partner of Jey Uso in their match against A-Town Down Under gave him back some of the momentum that he's been lacking since the original Bloodline came to an end. It provided him with a good opportunity to gain some television time while also being a fun little exciting throwback to his days teaming up with Jey and giving some life back to the storyline between GUNTHER and Jey.
Jey has been blindsided by GUNTHER after matches against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller for the last few weeks, and while he's finally managed to gain the upper hand over him finally, it's grown to be quite stale and expected. Inserting Jimmy into things by having him come to his brother's aid after he tripped looking to land a spear on GUNTHER, hyping him up backstage, and squaring up to GUNTHER himself demonstrates just how much the brothers are willing to go through for one another and will always make themselves available for the other when the time calls for it. It's a rather sweet sentiment in the often cutthroat world of WWE, and is the perfect lead-in to a possible full time reunion between Jimmy and Jey at some point down the line.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
While I will admit I was hopeful that Joe Hendry would return to his native Scotland to be Jey Uso's mystery partner against A-Town Down Under today, it was exciting to see Jimmy Uso come out to team with his brother. Then I thought about it for a second. Why wouldn't WWE hype this up more to get me excited for this match? I guess "mystery partner" is pretty interesting, but an Usos reunion with GUNTHER waiting in the wings sounds even cooler. Except... it happened on a pretty random episode of "WWE Raw" against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller, of all people. I had a lot of mixed feelings about this when I really thought it through. When Michael Cole said on commentary that it was the first time in a year and a half that the Usos had teamed together, with the last time being against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa, I realized how much I hated this.
It only got worse after the match when World Heavyweight Champion GUNTHER got in the ring to beat down Jey for the millionth time in recent weeks. Jey did a scripted little trip and fumble on the spear, and I immediately rolled my eyes knowing how normally the IWC would react. (Sarcasm there, of course.) Thankfully at least there, we learned it was scripted when Jimmy brought it up backstage.
While this wasn't overall too terribly bad, it was annoying on what was a pretty good, solid episode of "Raw." I feel like hyping up a mystery partner made people think it would be someone like Joe Hendry, only for us to then be even further disappointed when WWE "waisted" the Usos in-ring reunion on a random episode of "Raw." Good for the crowd in Glasgow, I'm certainly happy for them, but in terms of stories, this just wasn't it tonight when the build to Jey and GUNTHER at WrestleMania could use all the help it can get.
Written by DaisyRuth
Divorced from WWE's long and horrific history of misusing luchadors, I thought the stuff with Rey Mysterio, Dragon Lee, and El Grande Americano (who is definitely not Chad Gable) was the overall strongest part of "Raw" this week. The video package purporting to tell Americano's origin story was extremely funny (especially since Rey got to immediately react to it) and Americano had an unsurprisingly sick match with Lee that ended with Americano getting the victory after removing Lee's mask, forcing him to cover up his face rather than defend himself.
I like that finish a lot, for two reasons. First, it allows Americano to pick up a win, which he needed, without making Lee look weak. Second, and more importantly, it told us something new about Gable's character. Gable isn't stupid he really has learned some things about lucha libre, including how the importance of the mask can be weaponized by someone who doesn't respect lucha traditions. Gable doesn't respect those traditions, but he did study them, and there's something more deeper personal about him dressing up like a luchador and beating real luchadors with tricks he learned from studying lucha especially on top of the initial disrespect represented by the video package . It just really makes you want Gable to get the absolute s*** kicked out of him by some luchadors, and to be clear: He had better.
A lot of people who love lucha libre are understandably wary of this storyline given WWE's past use of this exact type of angle, which tends to result in the white heel wearing the fake lucha mask getting pushed while the actual luchadors from Mexico get nothing. Much like MJF's "American Championship" storyline last year in AEW, this angle can avoid being actively offensive (I think) by giving the babyface(s) a clear and decisive victory over the heels, in this case at WrestleMania. If that doesn't happen, we'll have to have a conversation. For now, though, I'm as invested in Mysterio and Lee getting revenge on Gable as I am in anything "Raw" has to offer.
Written by Miles Schneiderman
If you ask me, IYO SKY, Bianca Belair, and Rhea Ripley are three of the best in WWE's women's division without question. The current storyline that they are all entangled in against one another is certainly not one of the best that WWE has produced within their women's division.
No matter how you end up looking at this storyline, all paths seem like they're going to converge at the same ending: a Triple Threat Women's World Championship Match between SKY, Belair, and Ripley. Adding in this extra plot point of Ripley earning herself a title rematch next week against SKY with Belair serving as Special Guest Referee does nothing except further convolute a storyline that has already been convoluted enough as is.
On top of that, this is the third week or so that WWE has produced essentially the same segment in a different font with SKY and Belair confronting one another in a fairly tame fashion only for Ripley to storm down to the ring and intervene in things before shoving SKY to ignite a brawl between the three of them. In the case of tonight, SKY, Belair, and Ripley did confront Pearce instead of one another directly but it didn't really do much of anything to further things in a productive manner or change up the script to do something a little different. There's just a much easier way to get to where WWE wants to go by slotting Ripley into the match by having her sign the contract, but instead, these extra plot points are taking away from getting there rather than adding to the excitement and hype of everything.
Written by Olivia Quinlan
While I usually wouldn't be one to love a good main event match that ends in a disqualification, especially when the DQ comes at the hands of the Judgment Day, when things fall into place for WrestleMania because of it all, Ido end up liking it a lot. That's what happened tonight at the end of "Raw," when even though Penta and Bron Breakker were having a banger of a match for the Intercontinental Championship, Dominik Mysterio and Carlito interfered in an attempt to get Penta to join the group. Breakker won via the DQ and everything descended into chaos with Finn Balor and his drama involving Mysterio thrown in there. Even though I was pretty sure he wasn't ever joining Judgment Day, Penta thankfully gave Mysterio a hard "no" when he dropkicked a chair into his face.
I loved this for the simple fact it's legitimately setting up a multi-man match, seemingly a fatal four-way (sorry, Carlito), at WrestleMania for the IC championship. I was hoping this would be the case and I have of course seen the rumors and hopes of others all over social media, but I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself in my hopes with the way Triple H has been booking things of late. I think us fans are so accustomed to having a multi-person ladder match for a championship at WrestleMania, that this just seems like a natural fit, so people have already assumed it to be true. While we don't have ladders involved in the match yet, that could be an easy natural progression in the few weeks we have leading up to WrestleMania. Would certainly keep things spicy in the build.
There's enough time to continue to tease dissension in Judgment Day even more to have it make sense that both Balor and Mysterio are in the match. Hopefully this breaks them up for good, but that's a topic of another rant for another day. Penta is of course in since Judgment Day messed up his shot at Breakker. This is a setup I think has just the right amount of time around it to keep me interested ahead of WrestleMania. All four of these guys in a match together, ladders or not, would cook for days. Here's hoping that WWE can continue to get this right for the next almost four weeks and not muddle things up like they're doing to other matches.
Written byDaisyRuth
