Bayley and Sasha Banks were a key part of the action on WWE Raw.
This week’s episode of WWE Raw featured a divorce request, Drew McIntyre and R-Truth forming a tag team, Christian taking on one more match, and a renewed rivalry coming into focus for Sasha Banks and Bayley as the Women’s Tag Team Champions.
Here are the five biggest takeaways from the show.
1. R-Truth and Drew McIntyre should tag one more time
R-Truth put Drew McIntyre’s WWE Championship on the line in a tag team match against Bobby Lashley and MVP. The babyfaces prevailed, and McIntyre even gave Truth the chance to get the winning pin on his old rival, MVP, instead of picking up another dominant victory.
Afterward, McIntyre asked Truth to put the 24/7 championship on the line in a future tag match featuring the two of them, but Truth once again cleverly found a way to navigate himself out of committing to a title defense.
Truth and McIntyre were awesome to watch together in this promo, and they had great chemistry together. That comes as no surprise, of course, since Truth tends to bring out the best out of everyone, especially in these fun segments.
McIntyre’s opponent at Extreme Rules is up in the air, but it’ll probably be Lashley again, given how the Backlash match ended. So another tag match next week on WWE Raw seems likely.
2. Bayley didn’t exactly help Sasha Banks out
The IIconics are always up for a good interruption, and they cut Bayley’s birthday celebration very short by coming out to demand an opportunity at the Women’s Tag Titles. Peyton Royce and Billie Kay do have a case, because the Boss’N’Hug Connection pinned Alexa Bliss and not either of the IIconics in their tag title defense at Backlash. Oh, and, as the IIconics love bringing up, Royce and Kay were the ones who first beat Sasha Banks and Bayley for the titles in 2019.
But there was a bigger moment that happened at the end of the segment. Banks got slapped in the face, and instead of Bayley seeking retribution physically, which is what you normally do when someone slaps your tag partner, Bayley tried to play peacemaker. She barely seemed to be concerned for Sasha and rewarded the IIconics by accepting their challenge for a future title match, much to Sasha’s understandable annoyance.
So once again, Bayley has failed to fully support Sasha, who has been taking a backseat in their partnership. And I love it. Bayley is on a power trip that is slowly collapsing in on itself.
3. Randy Orton is downright scary
I feel like this is an “evergreen” takeaway, so it’s more reinforcement than anything else. The Viper is obviously on another level as a heel, but it gets to the point where people start to fall for him again since his work is so good.
But something feels different about the quality of his latest heel run. He’s so evil that we can appreciate what he’s doing, but it’s not cool at all. And it’s enabled the Punt Kick to feel even more savage. After Orton destroyed Christian in his “one more match”, The Apex Predator blamed Captain Charisma for ever interrupting him in the first place.
Orton is in a bad place and in his own little world, where logic doesn’t seem to exist. Only the infliction of pain does, and there doesn’t seem to be anything behind his blank eyes.
4. Natalya and Lana are teaming up
Natalya absolutely lost it after her loss to Shayna Baszler a couple of weeks ago, tearing up the set of the Kevin Owens Show. (And that hilariously led to Owens removing the set beforehand in order to avoid Natalya doing the same thing on a later episode of WWE Raw.)
On this week’s episode, Nattie started chewing out Liv Morgan backstage, blaming her younger tag partner for making “rookie mistakes” in a loss to the IIconics. It was completely unfair for Nattie to do this, showing that she is on the road to fully turning heel again. And honestly, Nattie has generally been far more interesting as a heel. (Note her classic rivalry with Nikki Bella.)
Natalya and Lana then seemed to identify with each other’s completely different predicaments backstage, and it seems like they will come together to form a tag team to give the WWE Raw Women’s Division another (easy) challenger for the Boss’N’Hug Connection.
5. Andrade and Angel Garza aren’t on the same page
Zelina Vega threatened to walk out on Andrade and Angel Garza after El Idolo didn’t exactly provide his stablemate with much support outside the ring. The faction already dumped off Austin Theory, who joined Seth Rollins shortly after, and they are not on the same page.
WWE fans want to see Vega compete for the Raw Women’s Championship sooner rather than later, but her managerial expertise is imperative for Andrade and Garza right now. After so many years together and with Andrade’s world title destiny yet to be fulfilled on Raw or SmackDown, it would be weird to see him on the screen without Vega.
It’s a situation to watch closely in the coming weeks, but it’s likely a tease and nothing more. But if anything were to happen, Garza branching off on his own as a babyface could be great.