3 things that went right on the June 27 episode of WWE Raw

This week’s WWE Raw sucked. I wish I had a more clever way to sum up this sorry excuse for a go-home show (for the Raw side), but when you’ve watched such an aggressively mediocre program for so long (and then write about those shows), finding distinct ways to say that it isn’t good becomes difficult.

Monday’s Raw represented WWE’s second-to-last chance to entice fans to purchase the upcoming Money in the Bank pay-per-view (or premium live event). Naturally, WWE used that valuable television time to promote John Cena’s 20th year in WWE.

That said, this is John Cena we’re talking about and WWE made sure this celebration felt as momentous as possible. Aside from that, WWE scored with a couple of other booking decisions.

These are three things that went right on the June 27 episode of WWE Raw.

Celebrating 20 years of John Cena in WWE

Give WWE credit where credit is due; when the company wants to recognize milestones for its biggest stars, it exhausts as many avenues as possible to immortalize that moment. We didn’t quite get that with John Cena’s 20th anniversary with the company, but we did see some extensive career highlights, his immense charity work with Make-A-Wish, and multiple backstage segments where Cena interacted with full-time talent.

Cena’s return even drew out cameo appearance’s from All Elite Wrestling stars such as Paul Wight/Big Show, Chris Jericho, and Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson.

Eventually, we heard from the man himself, and in only a few minutes, he casually the main roster’s best babyface promo of the year. Cena thanked the fans for their support (and jeers) before doing the “I’m nothing without the fans” bit and leaving the door open for a couple of matches without outright promising them, a truly heartwarming address to an audience that Cena’s built a fascinating relationship with over the last two decades.

Now, we just need to hope that one of those matches isn’t against Theory.

Bianca Belair’s promo on Carmella

WWE gave Bianca Belair some standard material for her final sales pitch of a promo on Carmella before defending the Raw Women’s Championship at Money in the Bank, but, as she’s grown comfortable doing, she uplifted those talking points to turn this into something solid.

Carmella then came out to offer the usual midcard heel rebuttals (“I’m actually smarter than you think”, “If you underestimate me, I’ll take your title”, and so on) and tried to take out Belair with a similar blindsided attack to last week, but Belair instead sent the former SmackDown Women’s Champion fleeing.

The segment didn’t get a lot of time, but it served its purpose considering that this is a replacement match that’s devoid of heat or intrigue.

Becky Lynch wins the final women’s Money in the Bank ladder match spot

To determine who fills the final spot in the women’s Money in the Bank Ladder match, WWE placed Becky Lynch, Doudrop (sigh), Nikki A.S.H., Tamina, Shayna Baszler, and Xia Li in an elimination match with the vacancy on the line.

As Raw’s scheduled main event, the ladies worked hard to create an entertaining match for the fans. However, we all knew Becky Lynch was winning this, and WWE thankfully didn’t overthink things and went with the obvious result.

While you could argue that putting a wrestler of Lynch’s caliber in this match makes no sense given that she just wrestled for the Raw Women’s Championship a month ago and could easily re-enter the title picture without the briefcase, her presence gives the match some gravitas and her being one of the wrestlers someone has to get through to win boosts the briefcase’s credibility (which it desperately needs).

Plus, you have to put Lynch on the card; she’s on the poster, after all!