WWE RAW 4/28/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where Seth Rollins seems like he might officially be a heel again after Curb Stombing Sami Zayn's face into the mat after he had taken four Spears from Bron Breakker. Obviously we have thoughts about that, as well the Backlash card expanding in ways that ... might not make everyone happy! Don't worry, we'll get into all of it — remember, this is about our opinions, which are completely subjective.

If you want a more objective take on the show, allow us to direct you to our "Raw" results page, which is just the facts and none of the personal thoughts and analysis. If you do want to know our takes, however, from Logan Paul challenging Jey Uso to Lyra Valkyria challenging Becky Lynch, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 4/28/25 episode of "WWE Raw."

Logan Paul doesn't just have heat in WWE, he has pretty bad go-away heat, and while it might be a good idea to put him up against World Heavyweight Champion Jey Uso, in theory, because crowds will only cheer louder for the champion and boo the heck out of Paul, I just really don't like it. Yes, I will admit it's some personal bias here because I don't like Paul as a person, but the more I think about it, the more I dislike it and don't want to see it at Backlash.

Throughout the night I kept wondering to myself why Seth Rollins, who just came out of a huge WrestleMania match victorious, wasn't gunning for the title. He didn't say a word about it tonight when he was facing off against Sami Zayn. Toward the end of the show, it hit me. They're keeping Rollins away from Uso, likely for as long as possible, to give him a longer reign than when he held the Intercontinental Championship, like Paul said in his promo, and also to keep the gold on Uso to make fans happy, and of course, sell more merchandise. Sure, Paul was victorious at WrestleMania as well in a pretty big match against AJ Styles, but it just seems weird to put him in this spot instead of someone who is much more deserving. With Rollins going off in promos about how the future of the industry runs through him, it would only make sense for him to be World Heavyweight Champion, or to even send Breakker to attempt to do his dirty work first.

However much I dislike it, when you look through the "Raw" roster, there aren't many others who could fill Paul's spot against Uso in anyway that would make sense. Karrion Kross, maybe, with all the great work he's been doing in promos, but he's only wrestled once on TV this year. With Rusev back so recently, you wouldn't want him eating a loss to Uso, and he's also going to get a babyface reaction. Ludwig Kaiser may not been on "Raw" much, but he would be a good matchup for Uso and could easily take the loss, and it would make sense since he's GUNTHER's buddy. But, no amount of fantasy booking is going to change the match at Backlash. I think I'm pretty confident that Uso will retain. I like him a lot, don't get me wrong, but I can't say I really want to see the champion defend against Logan Paul, of all people.

Written by Daisy Ruth

The women's division kind of outshone the men this week.

Throughout Monday's episode of "WWE Raw," I found myself revisiting that thought over and over again. While there were some men's promo segments that you could argue outshone the women's (Sami Zayn is so good), there wasn't really a men's match that wasn't outshone by a women's contest. On Monday's episode of "Raw," Roxanne Perez took on Rhea Ripley while visiting "NXT" Women's Champion Stephanie Vaquer faced off against Ivy Nile in singles competition. Across those two matches, all four women showed Kansas City — and the entire WWE Universe — why WWE has some of the best women's wrestlers (perhaps wrestlers *period*) in the world.

The night started off strong with Perez and Ripley. Perez performed well as always, with her style a perfect mix of crowd-wowing agility with grounded strikes. Perez's style feels like the perfect medium between a technical wrestler with realistic-looking strikes (think Seth Rollins or Zayn) and a wrestler whose high-flying antics look like they came straight of a superhero action movie, or a video game boss fight (think Will Ospreay). She is a perfectly balanced worker, and her balance served her well against Ripley, who showed us that she, in fact, can wrestle. Ripley is such a good seller and powerhouse, I genuinely don't know why WWE keeps her from wrestling matches. She's not here *just* because she is everyone's goth girl dream; she's here because she is one of the best in-ring workers in women's wrestling.

I personally could have done without the in-ring interference and DQ finish, but it's always nice to see Giulia and IYO SKY get involved. Giulia and Perez is an odd pairing, but they're both so good it makes sense in a roundabout way, so no complaints here. Obviously, SKY is *the* premier wrestler in the world, male or female, so to even just have her involved in a post-match brawl is a sight to behold.

If SKY is the top wrestler in the world, Vaquer is a close second. She took on Nile in singles action later in a non-title match, and she gave "The Pitbull" her best WWE match to date. Vaquer is much like Perez, where she is consistently good at everything she does, whether it's spectacular and acrobatic or grounded and technical. Her style absolutely captivates you, especially when she innovates clever reversals and transitions between holds. Vaquer's confidence rolls off her in waves when she is working, and I honestly cannot look away. Her confidence must have rubbed off on Nile, who seemed pretty assured when she managed to land the occasional blow on Vaquer. Great improvement from Nile, and great support from Vaquer. Giving Vaquer the win was the right decision, because Vaquer absolutely rules.

WWE doesn't have a perfect track record when it comes to their women's booking, but tonight (thank God) was an exception. Two women's matches, and they managed to steal the show from all the other contests. What a strong division!

Written by Angeline Phu

With the wrestling world buzzing over the TLC match that closed "SmackDown" on Friday, it was a somewhat dire experience returning to its counterpart over on "Raw." The World Tag Team Championship match was one of the low points of a very up-and-down 'Mania, but there was a potential silver lining: With the modern heel version of The New Day finally winning the tag titles, maybe they could break out of the weird holding pattern WWE has seemingly kept them in since their incredible and inflammatory heel turn. Maybe after WrestleMania they would be presented differently. Given more TV time. Put in a real storyline.

Well, on the "Raw" after 'Mania they got murked by the returning Rusev in a moment straight out of 2014, and then this week they got to sit on commentary while War Raiders beat Judgment Day to become No. 1 contenders again. So not only do The New Day not get a new presentation, they get jobbed out to a singles guy immediately after winning the titles, and now they appear to be back in a program with the Raiders, which is definitely a thing everyone wanted after that WrestleMania match everyone loved so much, right?

I don't know, man, it's just discouraging, especially when you look at the state of tag team wrestling across the American scene. Even on "SmackDown," it's not like the tag division gets any respect, which is why that match didn't happen at WrestleMania. Maybe they can keep the momentum going over on the blue brand, but I'm about ready to give up the ghost on this New Day thing and the "Raw" tag division in general. If this is the best Paul Levesque can do, he should hire somebody else to do his job properly.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Now, despite my intense and still-complicated feelings about Becky Lynch's return on Night 2 of WrestleMania 41, I can still acknowledge that Lynch is "The Man." Regardless of the backstage drama (if there is any in the first place), I'm cautiously enjoying Lynch's current heel persona (and, obviously, for a Becky Lynch stan, it *is* good to have her back on my television screen). However, when Lynch and WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion Lyra Valkyria came to verbal blows on Monday's episode of "WWE Raw," I found myself enjoying Valkyria's mic work a lot more than Lynch's, and that's saying a lot.

Lynch opened up her promo segment on Monday's episode by addressing the Bayley-sized elephant in the room. After leading the Kansas City crowd on with some pretty neutral speech, she loudly and proudly confessed that she was the one who attacked Bayley backstage. Honestly, on the surface, it was a pretty funny moment. With the typical backstage attack angle, you're looking at a few weeks of "who dunnit" programming — take, for example, Naomi's attack on Jade Cargill. While there's nothing wrong with that booking, it is pretty funny for Lynch to come out and so joyously, so proudly proclaim her guilt. For lack of better terms, it slayed. I support women's rights and women's wrongs.

All joking aside, Lynch's mic work was good as always — great, even. However, it did feel a bit too inauthentic, too inappropriately-placed, too Bayley-forward, considering her feud partner is supposedly Valkyria. This could have very well spiraled into a Hate, but Valkyria's presence, however, saved the segment from the wrath of this news writing nerd.

Valkyria isn't exactly known for her mic work, but with Monday's segment, there was just so much passion in her promo that, once she got her footing, I found myself hanging onto every word she said. I found myself rooting for Valkyria — I found myself paying more attention to Valkyria than Becky! While she might be the logical option to rally behind as the babyface in this feud, it's hard to get the crowd to back you over someone as acclaimed as Lynch. Valkyria managed to do it — "managed" being the operative word. It wasn't effortless, and that's its appeal. You could feel how hard Valkyria tried in this promo segment, and that effort enhanced the entire segment. It pulled us back to a Lynch/Valkyria feud, instead of a Lynch/Bayley feud. Valkyria's grit made her words just so much more effective and engaging, and it resulted in a super authentic character that managed to outshine "The Man's" polished and experienced performance. Valkyria seriously impressed me tonight.

I get that this feud is not the end goal for Lynch (it's probably just to hold us over until Bayley and Lynch at SummerSlam), but I'm honestly super excited to see where they take this feud. Valkyria is really starting to blossom as a "Raw" Superstar, and this program with Lynch can really give her the pressure she needs to make diamonds.

Written by Angeline Phu

I'll be honest: I was never going to be a fan of the idea of a match between GUNTHER and Pat McAfee, especially considering that the former is just coming off of losing his World Heavyweight Championship to Jey Uso at WrestleMania. The promo that McAfee cut tonight on "Raw" did not give me any hope that feeling would be changing anytime soon.

For starters, McAfee didn't even touch on GUNTHER until the very end of everything that he had said. While perhaps not my biggest objection with the segment overall, it didn't help anything that the material of the promo didn't focus on the man that McAfee is supposed to be feuding with. The promo also felt completely wrong tonally, and you would think that McAfee would be extra fired up or angry considering that GUNTHER had gone after Michael Cole or put him to sleep last week, but nope! McAfee instead had an optimistic attitude, spent several minutes sharing adversities he had experienced in his lifetime, and began talking about what he wanted to be remembered for. It all felt so random and out of place for both McAfee's personality/character as a commentator, and was certainly a bold choice to garner interest in the match between him and GUNTHER at Backlash per Nick Aldis' offer to him (although not one I'm sure necessarily paid off in the end).

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Last Monday saw the establishment of a new group between Seth Rollins, Paul Heyman, and Bron Breakker to decimate the pair of CM Punk and Roman Reigns, putting them on the sidelines to cement their place as "the future" of the company according to "the vision." That was cool and all in itself, putting Breakker in a great position to get over as a credible top heel and adding a new dynamic to the ongoing story between Rollins, Reigns, and Punk. But this week had to sustain that excitement and unfold the next chapter in the story as two of its protagonists had been written off. 

In step the reliable and criminally underused Sami Zayn – he will remain criminally underused until he wins a World title, for those who want to list his resume as some testament to not being so – to bring believable emotion and a proverbial lily pad for the story to continue. He and Rollins had grown a bond forged by their joint battles against The Bloodline and Reigns previously, and that made him the right character for Rollins to bounce off of now he is on the path to become the thing he claimed he had sought to destroy. But what made him the right character was the fact that he was not perfectly innocent in his argument, considering he had himself gone back to The Bloodline much to the chagrin of Rollins ahead of Survivor Series last year. It was a credible argument from both sides of the coin, and theirs wasn't a relationship that was immediately broken like so many in wrestling. Instead, the angle was built throughout the show, with Zayn making it clear he couldn't get with what Rollins was trying to do to close their original segment. 

Then, Heyman personally visited Zayn, doing what he did best and making a proposal under the guise of mutual benefit – essentially telling Zayn he can fall in line or go to "SmackDown" under the threat of unleashing Breakker otherwise. Everything built to the final segment of the night, with Rollins imploring Zayn to take him up on the offer and go on to accomplish his career-long dream of holding a World title. However, Zayn declined with a powerful promo from the heart about how he will become the champion the right way, telling Rollins to go to hell but telling the audience that his fate was sealed. 

Breakker made his entrance, and courtesy of watching Netflix internationally during the last commercial break Rollins was shown to be arguing his rationale with Michael Cole and Pat McAfee. Cole would continue to beg Rollins and Heyman to call off Breakker as their match gradually turned into a mauling. The match never found a true end with the referee throwing it out after four stiff spears, but this was less about the result and more a point-making exercise for the new trio, encapsulated with Rollins delivering a speech to Breakker about empathy for those who deserve it – only to turn around and hit a stomp to Zayn as he was being checked by medical staff. Point well made, I would say. 

Written by Max Everett