WWE RAW 8/19/2024: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where apparently every other match gets interfered with before the bell rings and never officially starts. WWE: Where The Best Almost Wrestle! As always, the WINC writing staff is here once again on a Monday night to offer our thoughts and opinions about the episode. We definitely won't get to everything because that's simply not feasible for a three hour show, but you can always take a gander at our "Raw" results page if you need more info, and please give our apologies to The New Day vs. The Final Testament and the women's tag team title match. It's not that we didn't care about these things, it's just that there were other thing we cared about more. That's wrestling for you.

So, are we stoked for Uncle Howdy vs. Chad Gable next week? Are we stoked for the strap match between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre at Bash in Berlin in two weeks? And most importantly, did Randy Orton actually manage to hit the RKO on GUNTHER again and none of us got to see it? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved from the 8/19/24 episode of "WWE Raw."

There are so many levels to the ongoing saga of The Wyatt Sicks, beginning of course with the emotional attachment to (and inspiration from) the late, great Windham Rotunda as Bray Wyatt. First and foremost, that attachment starts with his brother Taylor, better known as Bo Dallas for the majority of his WWE career. Of course, now playing the Uncle Howdy character (with a brief cameo from the Dallas alter ego once or twice), even before Wyatt's untimely death, we've never seen Howdy in a match of his own. He interjected on Wyatt's behalf here and there (and to his detriment at times as well) and most notably, helped finish off LA Knight at the 2023 Royal Rumble in the last televised match of Wyatt's career, landing an elbow drop from an elevated portion of the set, but he's never had an official match.

Now, we'll get to see Howdy himself compete next week on "Raw" against Chad Gable as the feud between American Made and The Wyatt Sicks continues onward and potentially ends. It's certainly something to look forward to, especially when you realize that not only have we never seen Howdy in the ring for a match, we also haven't seen Taylor Rotunda in a WWE ring since November 2019. Coincidentally, he last wrestled on a WWE live event featuring both Howdy and Gable (as Dallas and Shorty G, respectively) as part of a six-man tag match. Taking things back a bit further, the last time Dallas competed in a match on "Raw" was a few months prior in August.

But at this point, it's all about the Uncle Howdy character and the evolution of The Wyatt Sicks as a whole. The conversation centered around these larger-than-life characters and whether or not they'll be able to actually wrestle should have ended when Joe Gacy, Dexter Lumis, and Erick Rowan took care of business against Gable and The Creed Brothers, but now, with Howdy's first match set to take place, I'm putting a lot of faith in the man behind the character (especially up against someone as good as Gable) pulling this off without a hitch and moving forward smoothly from there.

Written by Jon Jordan

After Sheamus returned to the main roster, Pete Dunne hunted down his former mentor with a shillelagh in hand and a thirst for vengeance in his mouth. Dunne's lust for revenge made sense; Sheamus stripped him of his name — the name that claimed the "NXT UK" Championship and made him a menace in the black and gold era of "NXT" — and made him into a sidekick, an afterthought. As much sense as it made, though, it did not absolve Dunne of his sins; he brutalized Sheamus and refused to forgive or forget. With their recent history and explosive, violent, vitriolic wrestling styles, the two men had all the tools to create a great feud, a pin in the caps of their careers, and what they had put together, at this time of writing, had so much room to expand.

Dunne broke Sheamus' hand and strapped it to the turnbuckle during their match on Monday's edition of "WWE Raw." Sheamus then tore the turnbuckle — broken hand and all — clean off, and won in less than five minutes. One could say that the hastiness of this match, particularly in its finish, is representative of the whole Sheamus and Dunne feud: gone too soon, with no lasting consequences. This feud — whatever little we got of it — was good! So was the match. However, any positive memories associated with them are overshadowed by the rushedness of their endings. You mean to tell me that Dunne, meticulous in his joint-breaking, is willing to roll over and accept defeat, after all the de-identification and gentrification he's experienced? You're telling me Sheamus is already moving on to a hinted feud with Ludwig Kaiser? Their feud, which could have been taken to at least Bash in Berlin, is over after a random Monday — not even on the go-home show for the event? Is it not really odd to suddenly kibosh a feud between two vitriolic and hard-hitting adversaries, both with solid motives and history together? By having things end like this, we are robbed of our catharsis, we are denied understanding, and neither party is better off than they were pre-feud. Like the broken hand in the turnbuckle spot, I wish they'd done more with Sheamus and Dunne.

It's not like these two men are going to forget this feud — especially if they clash in the recently announced Intercontinental Championship tournament. However, whatever grazes they have with each other now cannot be considered a fleshed-out feud. The concept of a Sheamus/Dunne rivalry, from the turnbuckle spot to the feud itself, was a cool idea. However, it was executed with unneeded haste, and it flopped before it even started. We were robbed of a good something with these two — match or feud — and it doesn't make sense why.

Written by Angeline Phu

Last week, Bronson Reed took out R-Truth in one of the biggest heel moves he could've made. The Miz felt like he had to avenge his friend and requested a No DQ match. This was a creative way to get us where we knew it would eventually end up, and kudos to him for trying.

"The A-Lister" stepped up for his friend, even though he knew the dangers. It was smart to use weapons to try to get an advantage. It worked to an extent, but in the end, The Miz got sent through a table before taking the Tsunami. Reed continues to be the threat that he is; it's good to see him finally being booked this way. He made a name for himself on the indies and in NJPW. He's a former NXT North American Champion, too, but that was in 2021. It's time to start making him more dominant and this is the best and quickest way to do it.

Strowman was an obvious choice to go up against Reed because there aren't many big men that can go up against him. Strowman has size and some good will from the fans, but that's about it. He's limited in what he can do, where Reed is agile and very effective in everything he does. Strowman will put up a fight, but it won't be enough to stop Reed, who will continue to Tsunami his way through the roster.

Written by Samantha Schipman

WWE got Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest out of the Judgment Day to make them bigger babyfaces than they were already becoming organically, and it seems like they're booking them to be the worst kind of babyfaces: stupid ones. Monday night, we saw dueling pre-recorded video promos from the teams of Women's World Champion Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio and Ripley and Priest. In his portion of the "bad guys" promo, Mysterio said he didn't want to wait for Bash in Berlin to take on Priest, so he challenged him for "Raw," and for whatever reason, even though I'm sure he had to known what was going to go on, General Manager Adam Pearce agreed to let it happen. In the dumbest babyface angle possible for the "Terror Twins," in a backstage segment, Ripley asked Priest, "You know it's a trap, right?" And Priest agrees with her. Then ... The trap goes off without a hitch and Ripley and Priest are left lying in the middle of the ring, The Judgment Day triumphantly standing over them. Queue the shocked Pikachu face meme. Who ever would have thought?!

Priest didn't even make it to the ring to face Mysterio before he was jumped by Carlito, Finn Balor, and JD McDonagh. He took all of them out, and Ripley thought she had the upper hand, appearing behind Mysterio and distracting him for long enough that Priest was able to get behind him. Ripley tore apart the commentary desk like she was going to put Mysterio through it, but of course, we hadn't seen the women's champion yet, and she was ready to go and protect her man with a chair shot to Ripley's back. Morgan then sent Ripley previously injured shoulder-first into the ring post. Once again, I ask, who EVER could have seen that coming?!

The dumb babyface angle doesn't work when the babyfaces are both menacing powerhouses, but they will always be defeated by the numbers game. That's also the thing with the "Terror Twins": they don't have anyone available to come save them. Jey Uso, who has previously hit on Ripley in storyline before, could be her new knight in shining armor, and I believe I remember him getting along with Priest, but I still think that he and tag team partner Sami Zayn will somehow get roped into the Roman Reigns vs. The Bloodline story on "WWE SmackDown" before Survivor Series.

This angle just didn't convince me tonight, because Ripley and Priest have never been made out to be dumb characters who would just willingly walk into a trap. I understand where they think they might have had a chance to outsmart Judgment Day, but any reasonable duo would recognize the numbers game from the start. Ahead of a premium live event where they're already taking on Mysterio and Morgan, this did the "Terror Twins" no favors.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It may be a bit odd to love a stipulation match that hasn't happened yet, but walk with me.

In between calling himself "Taylor Swift for men" (hilarious) and bringing up his wife and his dog yet again, CM Punk interrupted his rambling to propose a titillating match proposition to Drew McIntyre, the thief of bracelets and bane of CM Punk's existence. If McIntyre wasn't a "coward," Punk said, then the two of them will clash at Bash in Berlin to settle their differences in a strap match.

The stipulation alone makes this one of the more interesting matches on the card. The feud between GUNTHER and Randy Orton for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship is okay, but no more than okay, and we're all uncomfortably aware of my thoughts on the Cody Rhodes/Kevin Owens "feud" for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, so those are already two matches that I don't feel particularly excited for. Rhea Ripley and Damian Priest vs. Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio is sure to be fun, but the singles department at Bash in Berlin is severely lacking. Punk's proposition of a strap match is guaranteed to at least diversify the card, if not bring it back from its lackluster state entirely. It's also worth mentioning that this match involves weapons and other third party objects, which has become unusual for a WWE premium live event as of late, and even more exceptionally rare for a smaller PLE like Bash in Berlin. Not only does it increase the stakes of Punk and McIntyre's intense feud, but it's a huge comfort to know that a match known for its intensity/silliness (however you look at it is up to you) will prevent Bash in Berlin's currently underwhelming card from being a total can-miss PLE.

There's also something poetic with Punk and the Strap match in the first place. While this is technically Punk's third strap match — the first two being a little-known OVW match in 2006 and a "Samoan Strap Match" against Umaga at Extreme Rules 2009 — it is not the repeat nature of this match that is notable. The way the match is being presented, storyline-wise, is what really stands out. By having this strap match, Punk and McIntyre reinvent the bracelet imagery, and they remix the object of their current feud without completely derailing the main plot beats of it. This is still about the bracelet that McIntyre stole from Punk, but by riffing off of it and having them engage in a match with a different bracelet, it calls back to their narrative's inciting incident and also refreshes it, so that fans don't lose interest in this high-production feud. This reinvention is not something WWE has a chance to play with very often, so I'm pleased to see that they are taking advantage of that cool narrative opportunity.

Strap, friendship bracelet, whatever the object of their fixations may be, this match has a lot of potential and a solid start. Hopefully the boys can deliver in Berlin.

Written by Angeline Phu

Part of me doesn't want to hate on this week's Orton vs. GUNTHER feud advancement, because I see what they're doing and I'm sure it's really effective for a lot of people. This kind of thing has been really effective for a long time, after all — the foreign heel yelling at the crowd who won't stop chanting "USA," a two-on-one beatdown to get heat, a main event that sees the heel's foremost lackey beat up the plucky babyface for a while before he inevitably comes back and wins. I can absolutely get into it too — provided I have some kind of previous investment in the storyline.

That's the rub for me with this stuff, at least so far. I like GUNTHER's matches well enough but he's never really grabbed me as a character, and while I have been an unapologetic Orton mark since like 2004, he's always been most interesting to me as a heel. Here, he's doing fairly generic babyface work, and I just don't think he's terribly well-cast in that role. It doesn't help that it's the exact same role regularly filled by Cody Rhodes over on "SmackDown," who is the king of playing the old-school babyface, and it doesn't help that the same point I made about this past Friday's "SmackDown" also applies here — it's GUNTHER's first defense, so there's no way he's losing. I know it's in Germany and it's WWE and they love hometown losses, but having GUNTHER lose his first defense is unfathomable. Dude was IC champ for 666 days; knowing Triple H, he might not lose the World Heavyweight title until 2029. There's no drama in terms of who's going to win, so you have to create some kind of external drama. GUNTHER and Orton came out this week and did a whole mini-storyline about whether Orton could hit GUNTHER with another RKO. Not exactly top-tier stakes, and to top it all off, the USA broadcast cut off the show off before the end AGAIN, meaning we didn't get to see Orton hit GUNTHER with another RKO, which was the entire point.

I understand that the drama is supposed to be conveyed in the ring with this one, and the whole point of both the opener and the main event was to make Orton sympathetic, but I just can't get there right now with these two. And frankly, I'm starting to dread the prospect of a lengthy period of time with both Cody and GUNTHER as world champions.

Written by Miles Schneiderman