WWE Raw Results, Highlights, and Grades: Draft wraps and Vikings rise

WWE Raw closes out this year’s WWE Draft while also giving us several exciting matches and too many other disappointing moments.

WWE Raw continued the WWE Draft tonight, while also trying to give us interesting matches and build up some of the stars drafted. There wasn’t a bad match in sight, but some duds elsewhere really dragged down an otherwise decent edition of Raw.

The night’s opening match saw Becky Lynch taking on Charlotte Flair to decide which brand would get the first pick. Unfortunately, the logic flaws in the show began that quickly. Lynch was initially scheduled to face Sasha Banks, but Banks wasn’t medically cleared following her match back at Hell in a Cell.

Instead of someone already on SmackDown, or the reigning SmackDown Women’s Champion, representing the brand, it was yet-to-be-drafted Charlotte Flair representing her old brand against Lynch. Despite those issues, they went on to have a really fun match. Flair got in a lot of offense, but ultimately got frustrated with Lynch’s resilience and left herself open to a sudden crucifix pin that gave the Raw Women’s Champion the victory.

That victory gave Raw the chance to pick first, which they didn’t take long to do. Just like SmackDown, all picks were announced by Stephanie McMahon at a podium on the entrance stage. Universal Champion Seth Rollins was grabbed by Raw, WWE Champion Brock Lesnar by SmackDown, solidifying their priority choices moving forward.

Despite some excitement by commentary when a champion was drafted, there seemed to be no sense of urgency for champions to be drafted aside from those first two selections. The WWE Draft also gave us several crossover moments, with celebrities from various NBC programming hyping the draft.

We also got a callback to WrestleMania 35, as Colin Jost and Michael Che from Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update joked about Braun Strowman and what he did to Jost back at WrestleMania. It was the most fun celebrity crossover moment of the night, but the worst wasn’t hard to decide on.

As silly as some of those NBC studio segments were, Tyson Fury’s contract signing with Braun Strowman for their Crown Jewel clash was truly terrible. The segment was moderated by Jerry Lawler, and started with a bunch of bad line recitation from Strowman and Fury.

Neither man’s words seemed even remotely believable. After a brief staredown, Strowman’s big moment was smashing the table in half with a single punch. In response, Tyson Fury pretended to struggle to break a pen before snapping it easily, grinning, and leaving.

WWE continued to build up some of their blood-money Saudi Arabia show Crown Jewel, announcing that Seth Rollins will defend the Universal Championship against “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt in a Falls Count Anywhere Match. Don’t count on that one ending any cleaner than Hell in a Cell, especially since Wyatt is a SmackDown superstar.

Perhaps the only part of WWE Raw worse than the contract signing was a segment showing Lana getting a massage while covered only by a towel. The dialogue between her and the masseuse specifically included the phrases “I like it harder” and “I like it deeper,” which should tell you a lot about the message they were trying to send.

Bobby Lashley later showed up and replaced the masseuse, even moving his hand beneath Lana’s towel. The entire interaction felt awkward, and it’s easily one of the worst women’s segments WWE has done in some time. I’d prefer to forget this ever happened.

Fortunately, the night wasn’t all bad. Amidst the periodically announced draft picks, we got a sea of solid matches. Andrade vs. Ali, Aleister Black vs. Eric Young, Ricochet vs. Shelton Benjamin, and Buddy Murphy vs. Cedric Alexander all rounded out a solid show. Each of those matches felt like a solid “B” rating, as they were all good but didn’t stand out as extraordinary.

Surprisingly, tag teams were the highlight of the night. In the main event, The Kabuki Warriors took on Natalya and a partner of her choosing. Stating that her choice had taken her to the limit, Natalya brought out Lacey Evans as her partner.

Evans and Natalya worked decently well as a team, despite the fact that they’re on separate brands and have been rivals for some time. They put up a good effort, but ultimately the craftiness of the champions was too much. A green mist and a roll-up secured the win for The Kabuki Warriors.

While outside of the ring, we also saw two tag teams tango for the first time. Street Profits were backstage being their usual hyped-up selves, only to be interrupted by The O.C. After a few choice words, AJ Styles and company pounced and used the numbers advantage to beat down Dawkins and Ford.

Later in the night we saw Street Profits again, who talked about the numbers game getting the better of them. They talked about getting a third man to help even the odds, but stopped short and left that person’s identity a mystery. It was solid work in both segments and really helped plant seeds for what could be a great rivalry.

The night’s other tag team contest, and the match of the night, saw Dolph Ziggler and Bobby Roode defend their Raw Tag Team Titles against The Viking Raiders. All four men brought their best, going back and forth with each team seemingly controlling the match at different points.

Roode and Ziggler stayed in the fight, almost looking like they’d end the momentum of The Viking Raiders, but there was no stopping Erik and Ivar. With a dominant performance at the end, they conquered Team RooDolph to become the new Raw Tag Team Champions. Later in the night, the new champs cut a strong promo backstage about being undefeated in WWE.

Unfortunately, the goodwill of the night’s great wrestling was chopped off at the legs in the last few moments of Raw. After declaring he’d go “Fiend hunting” earlier in the night, Seth Rollins somehow interrupted an episode of Firefly Fun House.

As Wyatt was talking to his beloved puppet pals, Rollins came barreling into the frame and attacked him. After beating down Wyatt and throwing him into the wall, Rollins exclaimed “BURN IT DOWN” before lighting the central table of Firefly Fun House on fire to end this episode of WWE Raw.

While the execution by Rollins and Wyatt in the segment weren’t bad, the entire concept was bad. We’ve been under the impression that Firefly Fun House could have just been a figment of Bray Wyatt’s imagination.

The Fiend’s mystique has been aided by that unknown, but now Firefly Fun House has seemingly been destroyed. It felt like a rushed escalation of a rivalry that WWE already ruined at Hell in a Cell, and a terrible way to end the night.