This week’s RAW started as Riddle was seen standing inside the arena. WWE RAW stars were standing surrounding the ring. It was the time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Randy Orton. A promo footage was shown where the greatest moments of Randy were remembered.
Riddle introduced Randy Orton and Randy came out to the arena. Randy then cut a promo by thanking the fans and the people throughout his career. He mentioned Mick Foley, Triple H and Ric Flair. At the end, he thanked Riddle and hugged him.
WWE RAW 25.04.2022 Results & Ratings
Riddle brought Cody Rhodes since he had been really close to him ever since. Cody and Randy hugged each other as Seth Rollins interfered the moment. He congratulated Randy and said that he was past of WWE, so as Cody, and Seth is the present.
Ezekiel entered the ring and introduced himself to congratulate Randy. Kevin Owens came out and said that he was not Ezekiel but Elias. The Usos came out now. They said that they would beat RK-Bro at WrestleMania Backlash and that would be their favourite Randy Orton moment. Adam Pearce came out and made and eight man tag team match.
Match 1 – WWE Raw Women’s Championship – Bianca Belair defeated Sonya Deville to retain
Sonya Deville was buried from the very beginning of the match. She received a jobber entrance. Sonya kept on changing the stipulation of the match in her own favour. Carmella and Queen Zelina tried to assist Sonya. It was almost a three on one handicap match. But Bianca was terribly overpushed in this match. She beat everyone and pinned Sonya with the KOD.
Match 2 – Veer Mahaan defeated Sam Smothers
In this match, Veer Mahaan squashed another local enhancement talent in less than 1 minute. He made him submit with the Cervical Clutch. After this match, Veer beat this guy down as well.
Bobby Lashley and Omos made each other in an arm wrestling match. Omos came out first in the ring with MVP who cut a short promo. Lashley arrived after that. Lashley defeated Omos in the arm wrestling contest and after the contest, Omos beat down Lashley quite badly.
Match 3 – Tamina and Akira Tozawa defeated Reggie and Dana Brooke in a mixed tag team match
This match was booked for less than 2 minutes and Tozawa pinned Reggie clean with a Summersault. Tozawa tried to pin Dana after the match, but R Truth stopped him who was the special guest referee. R Truth also tried to pin Dana but Dana managed to escape.
Becky Lynch came out to the arena. She lamented about her defeat at WrestleMania 38 to Bianca Belair. She said she would rise soon and that would be an inspirational story. Asuka made her surprise return and stood face to face with Becky.
Becky avoided the fight and escaped. This might be a potential start of a feud between the duo. It would be a really good thing if they have a feud since we do not get to see long running non title women’s feuds. One more thing we need to say here is, Becky was quite good on the mic in this segment.
Match 4 – Damian Priest defeated Finn Balor
Finn Balor literally jobbed in this match. WWE should let him go rather than making him job like this. The match was booked for 4 minutes and Priest pinned Balor with a new face first finisher.
Next up was the Miz TV with the host being the Miz. The new United States Champion Theory was the Special guest. They had a small conversation before they were interrupted by the returning star Mustafa Ali. It might happen shocking to a lot of fans but it was rumored earlier. Ali would have a feud with Theory for the title next.
Match 5 – Mustafa Ali defeated The Miz
This was one of the better matches of the night and it was booked for around 7 minutes. Miz was trying to lock Ali in a Figure 4 Leg Lock which Ali countered in a roll up to pick up the victory. It is really good to see Ali back to action. Hopefully he will receive a good mid card push this time. After the match, Tommaso Ciampa attacked Ali.
Backstage Rhea Ripley was interviewed where she said that she was done associating herself with losers. She won the RAW Women’s Championship on her own. During the interview she got attacked by Liv Morgan.
Match 6 – Cody Rhodes, Ezekiel and RK-Bro defeated The Usos, Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens
It had been really long since we last saw an 8 man tag team match until this week. Indeed this was the best match of the night. The match was booked for over 12 minutes. It was mainly booked to give a tribute to Randy Orton. At the end of the match, Randy delivered RKO to all four members of the opponent team and at the end pinned Jey Uso for the win. The winner team celebrated as this week’s RAW went off air.
Overall, it was quite a good week of Monday night RAW. There were a number of returns as well as new feud build ups. But why all of the wrestlers are coming to RAW? What would happen to SmackDown? We are pretty sure that they are going to end the brand split very soon. But is it the way?
They are completely burying Friday Night Smackdown. Another thing, Kane was present this week on RAW and WWE did not utilize him at all. It was a bad decision, he should have been a part of Orton’s 20th Anniversary celebration. With a lot of things going on in Raw, there is no main event segment and that is the biggest drawback. We give it 2.5 stars out of 5.
Sportzwiki Ratings – 2.5/5