WWE Raw Review – 6.8.20

Time to switch things up with the Raw review!

While this recap will cover all that took place on the show, I will highlight three segments I liked from this week’s show.

I hope you all enjoy!

1) Monday Night Messiah sends a message: 

Seth Rollins takes a seat at the commentary desk, he doesn’t want to miss the Rey Mysterio interview. Mysterio says his eye is healing, but when he’s medically cleared, he won’t wait until the end of the match to hit Rollins with the 619. Mysterio is going to kick Seth’s ass.

Rollins gets upset for Rey spreading “misinformation.” He’s giving Mysterio one more chance to walk away and invites Rey and his son to Raw next week. But Rollins was then blindsided by Aleister Black at the desk after the interview.  

Black’s attack was a preemptive attack to this tag team match against Rollins’ disciples.

Aleister Black brought his ‘A’ game, as he delivered a flurry of strikes to Murphy. Humberto helped out with a dive to the outside, taking out Theory. This allowed Black to connect with a knee strike for the win.

But after the match, Rollins came out to Mysterio’s music and donning a mask. This allowed the disciples to attack, and eventually, Rollins joined in the 3-on-2 assault, ending it with a stomp to Black. Even in defeat, the Messiah and his disciples still found a way to stand tall.

Rollins is doing excellent work with this storyline, and he is even pulling the best out of Mysterio. While the Messiah and his disciples took down Black, Aleister still looked incredibly strong here. After Black did not have a storyline for a long time on Raw, he is benefitting from being in the top Raw storyline now and is performing well.

2) VIP Lounge: 

MVP was set to announce his guest, Bobby Lashley, but was cut off by Drew McIntyre’s entrance music.

McIntyre spent this segment poking fun at MVP and threatened him with a Claymore kick. However, Bobby Lashley showed up to stop that from happening. The Viking Raiders ran down, as did the Street Profits.

This led to Lashley and MVP taking on The Viking Raiders. As I thought, Lashley was the star of this match as he displayed his power and strength throughout.

Though the Raiders put up a bit of a fight, Lashley would lock in the Full Nelson on Erik for the win. For good measure, Lashley then put the Full Nelson on Ivar before McIntyre chased him away.

Drew has done an excellent job at restoring prestige to the WWE Championship, and this is the best Bobby Lashley has looked since his return to WWE. Bobby has been built up like an unstoppable force, and his fight with Drew should be a real heavyweight fight.

3) The Peep Show featuring Edge:

Just six nights ahead of the “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever,” Edge joined his best friend in the ring. However, Christan doesn’t mince words and says Edge is running on fumes already.

Edge admits he has self-doubt and doesn’t know how much he has left. However, all Christian hears are excuses. Christian then was brutally honest with Edge, even bringing up his mom, saying that she’ll be there ringside like she always has been, and if the real Edge doesn’t show up he should go home.

But the Rated-R Superstar didn’t budge. He’s got that look in his eyes that Christian wants to see.

Orton then makes an appearance and tells Edge he is going to embarrass, humiliate him, and send him back home to his wife and daughters.

Christian brought the best of out Edge and added a nice and different dynamic to this feud. These two men are professionals and know how to sell a fight. There has been a lot of good promo work here, let’s see if the match can live up to the hype. Giving it the “Greatest Wrestling Match Ever” may not be fair because let’s be honest, it will not live up to the hype.

Below is the rest of what happened on Raw.

Triple Threat Tag Match Kicks Off the Show:

Asuka kicked off the show, as she was scheduled for a match with Charlotte. However, The Boss & Hug connection interrupted the regularly scheduled programming, showing off their newly won women’s tag team championships.

Charlotte finally made her way to the ring, as did the IIconics. It was not long before Charlotte called Banks/Bayley garbage, and a fight broke out between the six women in the ring.

Obviously, this melee would lead to a triple threat tag team match. The IIconics and Banks/Bayley spent the opening minutes of the match going after each other. Once Flair tagged into the match, she teased a tag to Asuka before going after Bayley.

Flair momentarily was attacked by both Banks/Bayley before Asuka tagged herself into the match, and ran wild. After the break is when this match picked up, the pace quickened, and there were more frequent tags. Flair and Asuka kept tagging in, seemingly trying to one-up each other.

Charlotte was attempting to go for a moonsault, but Asuka sneaked in a tag and tapped Billie Kay out with the Asuka Lock. Flair was not too happy with being upstaged and went after Asuka post-match.

Having Charlotte and Asuka pair up to only have them face off later in the night was a bit odd. They did not feel like they had the best chemistry, and they took time away from the other tag teams.

Street Profits vs. Viking Raiders:

– Street Profits win 1600m race (1-0)
– Viking Raiders win Archery (1-1)
– Street Profits win Flip Cup (2-1)
– Viking Raiders win Sword Fighting (2-2)
– Street Profits win Hurdles (3-2)
– Viking Raiders win Stick Fighting (3-3)
– Street Profits win Dance-Off (4-3)
– Street Profits win Shotput (5-3)
– Viking Raiders win Turkey Leg eating contest (5-4)
– Viking Raiders win Pole Vault (5-5)

This was fun, but course, it ended in a draw.

Andrade vs. Angel Garza vs. Kevin Owens: 

The winner faces Apollo Crews at Backlash for the United States Title. Before this match even began, Owens got a bit of revenge by attacking Garza/Andrade ringside.

Zelina Vega’s guys start the match off by both attacking Owens. This was the theme of the first several minutes of this match. However, Andrade tried to cover Owens off a double suplex, and this action spilled to the floor where Andrade threw Garza into the boards.

With Garza and Andrade at odds, Owens finally was able to get in some offense. He first got a near fall off a senton from the top rope, and later another near fall on Andrade off a frog splash.

KO looked like he was going to come away victorious, hitting a stunner on Garza. However, Andrade cut him off and stole the pin of Garza.

Andrade just lost to Apollo, and now gets another shot. Would have rather seen Owens or even Garza pick up the win here, instead of going with a rematch. Also, this breakup of Garza/Andrade/Vega seems a tad rushed.

Storylines like that work best if they are spread out over several shows, but putting both of them in this match seemed like it would cause trouble from the start.

Asuka vs. Charlotte: 

Bayley and Banks wanted to get a front-row seat for this match.

Early on, Charlotte would take the fight to the outside, sending Asuka over the announcer’s table. After the commercial break, Flair slowed the match down and stomped Asuka into the mat several times.

Asuka briefly got in some shots on Flair, but the Queen quickly regained control. Outside, the IIconics jumped Banks/Bayley at the table.

Asuka though, showed plenty of heart by getting back up time and time again. Every time Asuka would look to get in any offense, the Queen would quickly counter with either a big boot or lethal strikes.

The last five minutes of this match were hard-hitting. Claire’s moonsault off the barricade was rather impressive. Asuka also nearly tapped out Flair with the Asuka Lock. Just when this match was hitting its stride, Nia Jax interrupted. This provided a distraction, and Flair hit Asuka with a big boot for the win.

Afterward, Jax laid out Asuka with a Samoan drop to close the show.

First off, not a massive fan of a champion losing six days away from their title defense, even if Jax caused a distraction. Flair has been quite protected of late, and I don’t see a loss or two hurting her momentum. The Women’s division needs more than just Flair. Don’t get me wrong, she’s incredibly talented, I just don’t understand the need for other wrestlers to take a step back at her expense.

Anyways, with that rant over, I thought this show moved rather quickly and did a solid job at leading to the pay-per-view Sunday.

My rating: 3.25 out of 5.