WWE RAW 2/10/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the program that has as much time as it wants here in "the Netflix Era" but still cuts out early during a big show-closing angle for some reason! We will be talking about that, don't you worry — we'll touch on things like the men's and women's Elimination Chamber qualifiers as well, and we absolutely have things to say about Jey Uso choosing GUNTHER at WrestleMania in the opening segment, not to mention a tag battle stained with Liv Morgan's blood and AJ Styles coming back to feud with Dominik Mysterio (sorry, World Tag Team Championship match, you lost us at "disqualification finish").

As always, if you just want the facts and nothing but the facts, go check out our "Raw" results page instead. If you want to know what the WINC staff actually thought of the show (at least the parts we had strong opinions about at all) here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 2/10/25 episode of "WWE Raw."

Foregoing the cat-and-mouse game played by Royal Rumble winners throughout the brand split era, typically spending weeks teasing their different options before settling on the obvious solution, Jey Uso made his choice of champion to challenge at WrestleMania during "Raw" as the World Heavyweight Champion, Gunther. Uso winning the Rumble was a welcome surprise, rewarding the most organically over babyface on the roster among a who's who of main event guys. And it also set the stage for an excellent redemption story following his Saturday Night's Main Event loss to Gunther just the weekend before, given that in four attempts Uso has yet to overcome the "Ring General." For the week after Uso won the Rumble the idea was teased that he could challenge Cody Rhodes, his former tag title-winning partner, for the WWE Championship. But if we're being honest, it never truly felt for a second like that was the logical path.

So it was refreshing for the decision to be made so early on, making it clear heading into both WrestleMania in April, and the month prior's event Elimination Chamber, that the World Heavyweight title picture is occupied and whomever wins the Chamber will be going for the other belt. This feels like the right angle for a crowning moment too, it'd feel like a waste to have Uso not win the title for a true pay off to his arc over the past five years, and Gunther is both the right champion and at the right stage of his reign to put him over. But it was also the way the segment was done tonight that truly delivered; Uso getting dropped before he had even uttered his decision, demonstrative of the idea that Gunther's challenger has got underneath his skin with him jumping the gun, and thus pushing "Main Event" into pulling the trigger on his choice. It felt like it was hearkening back to Uso's feud with Roman Reigns, beaten down by his much more physically imposing rival as a means to discern him from challenging them – realizing his true potential – but ultimately reinforcing his resolve. The only thing that really bugged me about the segment was the fact it wasn't closing the show.

Written by Max Everett

When AJ Styles returned from a post-"I Quit" match hiatus in October, only to suffer an injury and go back on the shelf, I felt really bad for the guy. He's excellent in the ring, and I hate to say it, but no spring chicken. He even said before that his last WWE contract was the last he'd sign, so I'd be shocked if this one wasn't his last. So, I was excited when he showed up in the Royal Rumble and appeared to be healthy and ready to go. Tonight, however, really squashed some of that excitement for me.

Styles getting time in the ring to cut a promo and say how happy he was to be back after the injury that he even admitted on social media was "challenging" was nice to see, but that ended quickly when Dominik Mysterio's music hit. Well, when music hit and I realized it was Mysterio's, I am fully in the camp agreeing that WWE's music choices are terrible these days. (Thanks, Def Rebel.) I'm not a staunch Mysterio hater like many people, but the fact WWE had to have known the boos for Mysterio were going to drown out everything he and Styles were trying to accomplish with this promo made things seem pretty silly and pointless.

It felt like Mysterio and Carlito ruined Styles' return moment (not just in a storyline way that they were trying to accomplish) after he really went through it the last few months after an almost freak-like injury, and something about it just felt off. All the heels really said was that things have changed since Styles has been on "Raw" and that Judgment Day runs the red brand now, which feels like a weird flex with Judgment Day's story arc right now, so he better watch his back. Styles fired back, saying Mysterio would always be "Rey's punk kid," and Mysterio went for the cheap shot. Things even felt weird here, with Styles hitting the Pele Kick to Carlito, but he completely opened himself up to Mysterio with the move, and it just looked odd.

When Styles was shown backstage talking to Adam Pearce to get a match against Mysterio, he said he didn't just WANT the match, he NEEDED it. I'm glad Styles needs it, because I certainly don't. Styles going face-to-face with Intercontinental Champion Bron Breakker, however, which he did after speaking with Pearce, is something I want to see. It was that interaction that gave me the slightest glimmer of hope back, and I'm crossing my fingers that his match with Mysterio is a one-off in some kind of mini-feud, rather than a full-blown rivalry. Breakker can even interfere and give Mysterio the win, if it means Styles moves on quickly to another young, but much better, star.

Written by Daisy Ruth

One of the most interesting things about how WWE has chosen to use their TV hours in the Netflix Era is that the extra time allotted to the creative team — an extra hour of "SmackDown" on USA plus the supposedly flexible "Raw" runtimes on Netflix — haven't really resulted in more wrestlers being featured on either show. With a few exceptions, about the same number of matches are happening each week; Paul Levesque's strategy has simply been to give them more time. It might not be noticeable in every match, but in the historically underserved women's tag team division, that extra time can go a long way in terms of getting the crowd invested and building to a big finish. This week, Dakota Kai returned to team with IYO SKY against Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez, and the match was absolutely fantastic, partially because it was allowed to go long.

Granted, it helps that the match was made instantly memorable by Liv Morgan getting busted open — sometimes blood in wrestling really is a good thing, especially when the talent is able to work through it the way Morgan did. Beyond that, though, it was just a really well-paced, well-constructed match that was able to stay tense and exciting throughout its runtime without everyone kicking out of everyone else's finisher. Morgan and Rodriguez' tandem offense is getting stupid in the most fun way possible, and Kai came to work in her first match back from a concussion. Most importantly, IYO SKY continues to steal basically any show she wrestles on, and while I don't know that it makes a ton of sense to have Morgan and Rodriguez lose a tag match clean right before challenging for the tag titles, I think IYO stacking some wins is important as we head toward ... well, whatever she ends up doing at WrestleMania...

Written by Miles Schneiderman

When IYO lost the Chamber qualifier last week, I figured they would run some kind of last chance match she could win. When all the qualifiers were announced and none of them was a last chance anything, I figured there was still plenty of time for IYO to replace someone or be added to one of the matches or whatever. It's wrestling, you can write it however you want.

This week, Rhea Ripley announced she would be defending her Women's World Championship against SKY on the "Raw" following Elimination Chamber. And I have to admit, I don't really understand what we're doing here.

For starters, the entire premise is madness. IYO got screwed out of her Chamber qualifier, so now she just gets a title match without doing anything? What kind of storytelling is that supposed to be? It seemed like they were doing a sort of "IYO faces setbacks but overcomes adversity to get the title shot" type thing, but now Rhea is just out here handing her a title match for no reason so I guess that's not what's happening? Regardless, there's no reason to put IYO in the Chamber now, which begs the question ... who the hell is winning?

Obvious answer: Bianca Belair. They've teased Belair/Ripley for actual years now and it's possible they've chosen this year to deliver. It just seems so utterly strange to suddenly have Belair win a WrestleMania singles title match after she's spent the last year in the tag division. Presumably she has her own WrestleMania story to tell with Naomi and/or Jade Cargill, are they really bailing on that?

But if not Belair, then who? Bayley seems unlikely. It could be Liv Morgan or even potentially Alexa Bliss, but to me the smart money is on those two facing each other at Mania as part of a Judgment Day vs. Wyatt Sicks match. The other four potential competitors are Chelsea Green, Naomi, Roxanne Perez, and Raquel Rodriguez — none of those names screams "singles title match at WrestleMania" to me right now. Maybe one of them wins and IYO somehow finds another way into the match to make it a triple threat, or maybe something else weird happens (Becky Lynch is still MIA) but as of this moment I am completely stumped as to why some of these creative decisions are being made, and I have no idea who's coming out of the women's Chamber because none of the potential answers makes any sense.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

It's always nice to see an "NXT" star make an unannounced appearance on a main roster show, and Roxanne Perez is no exception to that rule.

Perez has become a familiar face to WWE fans over the past few weeks thanks to her appearance in the 2025 Women's Royal Rumble, the record that she set for longest time spent in a Women's Royal Rumble match, and her various appearances on "Raw" to confront Bayley. It's nice to see WWE keep consistency by showing her once again on tonight's episode of the show as they make it clear that they've left a spot open for her imminent arrival to the main roster and intend to heavily feature her once she makes the move. Her presence at ringside also further elevated the stakes of what was already a solid match between Bayley and Lyra Valkyria, providing more of a sense of urgency for Bayley to win in order to show Perez that she was perfectly capable of scoring a win in a relatively short period of time (as has been something of a point within their ongoing storyline) and gain some momentum heading into her NXT Women's Championship Triple Threat against Perez and Giulia at "NXT" Vengeance Day.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Since entering it's so-called Netflix era, episodes of "Raw" have been averaging two and a half hours. While there's nothing wrong with that at all and it helps to keep consistency with the product, there still isn't necessarily a hard time that the show has to end at (as we've seen over the course of the past few weeks). Yet, WWE was acting like there still was one tonight which proved to be a bit of a problem in the closing moments of the show.

There's no disputing that having New Day attack Rey Mysterio after he lost his Elimination Chamber qualifier to Logan Paul made sense since the two parties have had numerous backstage confrontations and Rey currently holds a win over both Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston. However, to have New Day blindside Rey literally seconds before the show went off the air was very confusing. Instead of leaving the show with a satisfying or even cohesive conclusion, it left a gap and made viewers at home feel like there was more to be seen. The attack was something that belonged in the middle of the show somewhere rather than the closing moments, and made no sense at all in what turned out to be a let down of an ending for a show that was otherwise rather unnoteworthy.

Written by Olivia Quinlan