WWE RAW 5/12/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that's so dedicated to setting up future world title matches, it's already looking past SNME and MITB to the second Monday in June! We're actually going to talk a decent amount about the GUNTHER promo that established that match in this column, because more than one of our writers had strong feelings about it and strong feelings are what this column is all about. If all you need to know is what happened, check out our "Raw" results page.

With that in mind, how are we feeling about the big Saturday Night's Main Event tag match? Did we enjoy the women's tag main event? And most importantly, how can we — like everyone else — make this more about Pat McAfee? Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 5/12/25 episode of "WWE Raw."

The opening segment of "Raw" this week may not have gone exactly the way I would have booked it, but it was still a perfectly good advancement of the Rollins/Heyman/Breakker storyline. I thought Punk's promo was excellent, particularly his acknowledgment that he should have seen Paul Heyman's betrayal coming, and Heyman was his typical brilliant self, conveying worlds of emotion without even having to speak, everything done with facial expressions and body language. Bron Breakker continues to shine as Rollins' enforcer, and while I still don't find Rollins' character to be terribly compelling, I'll take his messianic heel work over this company man babyface every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

I really enjoyed the fact that after Breakker and Rollins started beating up Punk and it was time for Sami Zayn and Jey Uso to make the save, they did so spontaneously, without musical cues. It had the effect of heightening the immediacy of the brawl and making the stakes feel higher because of how much the characters appear to care. It also helps that Punk. Sami, and Zayn are three of WWE's more richly-drawn main-eventers, so there's a lot to work with, character-wise, with things like a Punk/Zayn backstage conversation. Punk and Zayn vs. Rollins and Breakker adds a MUCH-needed jolt to an SNME card that otherwise features R-Truth and Logan Paul, and bringing GUNTHER back around to Jey means we could be adding him into this mix somehow, which leads to all kinds of possibilities.

I didn't think it was perfect, but I like several of the directions we could be headed, and more importantly, I like the approach being taken to the main event picture by the creative team. It's the kind of thing that makes you want to tune in next week.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Somehow Pat McAfee didn't get squashed by GUNTHER on Saturday night, so he decided to make "Raw" all about himself. He wasn't on commentary when the show started, but got an entire entrance while Penta and Chad Gable were in the ring waiting for their match to start after a commercial break. He was allegedly cleared right at that very moment after "answering a bunch of questions." He proceeded to spend the match yelling into his mic about how it was Chad Gable in the ring and not El Americano Grande.

Throughout the show, he was more loud and annoying than usual. As a fellow writer said, he made himself the Main Character and not in a good way. What might have been the worst part of his behavior was when WWE was airing a video tribute to the legendary Sabu, who passed away on Saturday night. Instead of just sticking to the talking points, McAfee began his comments by centering it on himself by talking about being an ECW fan and about how "we had our Trampoline Associations around the country." While he was attempting to relate to the other fans, he did it at a time that should've solely been about Sabu. He should've read his notes and once the video tribute was over, he could've talked about being an ECW fan.

Commentary is supposed to add to the show, not overshadow the product. WWE made the choice to take McAfee from behind the commentary table and put him in a match with a former World Champion. It seems like his ego has expanded and decided to make "Raw" about himself throughout the night even though he got choked out (again) at "Backlash." It's one thing to momentarily be part of the show and another to take over and dominate everything else going on around you. He has his own daily show where he can make everything about himself. On Monday nights, someone needs to remind him it's not about him.

Written by Samantha Schipman

Rusev left WWE due to COVID-era budget cuts, and of course 2020 feels like an actual lifetime ago, so re-introducing him with this new character to fans is a good idea and something I think WWE is doing really well so far. They're also not oversaturating "Raw" with him and doing too much too quickly. He's only had one match back since re-signing with the company and he wasn't even on the show tonight, but his pre-taped backstage promo tonight was really good. 

I really liked how the promo was shot, from the lighting to how the footage from last week's match was used in between cuts of Rusev talking to the camera backstage. He had some really interesting lines, too. He said he didn't want to hurt Otis, he just "wanted to go home and be rich" but he was once "programmed by lesser people, too." I don't know if these are shots at AEW in any way, but it does sound like his previous character in the other company, from what I know, talking about being rich but not going as far as to mention his "hot, flexible wife." He mentioned he can't leave his "brothers until we all wake up," so it sounds like he's going to be targeting men that he thinks can be doing greater things within the company. He ended the promo by mentioning the "abyss" once again, which he has yet to really fully explain, but I'm assuming it's some kind of abyss that the big men mid-carders and perhaps others are stuck in.

Even if fans remembered Rusev in the "before times," as I like to call them, he's playing an entirely new character. I wasn't watching AEW when he was playing "The Redeemer" or "God's Favorite Champion," but I know some kind of God-like complex was involved for a bit there, and it seems kind of similar here. Re-introducing him to all fans, even those who knew him in his "Rusev Day" era when he was coming out in a tank at WrestleMania, or back as far as when he was getting heat for getting engaged to Lana in real life, he seems like an entirely new person in storyline, and gone are the silly days of calendars with every day marked as "Rusev Day." 

This pre-taped promo was really effective and intriguing and I'm interested in seeing what Rusev is going to do next. From what we saw backstage tonight, he might be squashing Tozawa like a bug whenever the much smaller man is cleared, but we're obviously going to get some more story with Otis through that, so I can't say I mind it.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It's tradition in WWE that every titleholder is entitled to a rematch once they are dethroned by another competitor. This sentiment absolutely applies to GUNTHER after losing the World Heavyweight Championship to Jey Uso at WrestleMania 41, but there is a time and a place for that rematch to be set up. Tonight's edition of "Raw" was certainly not that time or place.

Jey hasn't even put the World Heavyweight Championship on the line in his next defense against Logan Paul, and yet, we're already setting up GUNTHER to be his next challenger. Not only are WWE getting ahead of themselves by featuring this confrontation on tonight's "Raw" instead of at a later date after Saturday Night's Main Event has taken place, but it also essentially gives away the ending of the Jey and Paul match by having GUNTHER actively choose to approach Jey. Even if WWE had chosen to keep this segment as part of "Raw" regardless, it would've made far more sense to have GUNTHER approach both men in the ring at the same time to keep some of the intrigue and mystery around the Saturday Night's Main Event World Heavyweight Championship match. All around, it was such a weird plot point and felt so out of place in the context of the rest of the storyline.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

It's only been just over three weeks since WrestleMania 41 when GUNTHER tapped out in very short order to Jey Uso to lose the World Heavyweight Championship, but when you pit "The Ring General" against a retired NFL-punter-turned-commentator, it makes the weeks feel much longer. Thankfully, after tonight, I can say I'm quite happy with GUNTHER getting back on track. Maybe we can all forget about whatever the heck the Backlash match against Pat McAfee was, because now, he has his sights set on gold once again.

He interrupted Uso in the ring tonight and let him know that things might not be over between them and said his feelings toward the "YEET Man" certainly hadn't changed. And, thankfully, he didn't go punch McAfee in the face at the commentary desk or even acknowledge his or Michael Cole's existence throughout this segment or even after. He let Uso know that he'll be facing whoever wins between Uso and Logan Paul at Saturday Night's Main Event on the June 9th episode of "Raw," a little over two weeks after the premium live event.

The other good part about that is it has me believing that Uso is walking out of Tampa, Florida with the World Heavyweight Championship still in tow and Paul won't be champion. While seeing Uso face GUNTHER again isn't exactly on the top of my list of "must-see rematches," seeing "The Ring General" take on a YouTube star is even farther down that list of matches. I could certainly be wrong, but it's giving me hope. I think WWE did this because they see how uninterested fans are in the Paul versus Uso match, with Paul's "Go Away" heat, so hopefully this setup means we can all just look past that match, as well.

So, while GUNTHER was derailed for Backlash, at least he didn't enact the sometimes-utilized, but previously dissolved automatic rematch clause. Especially now that he could be facing Paul and not Uso. There wasn't too much to love on tonight's episode of "Raw," but this simple act of bringing out GUNTHER and seemingly getting him back on track, at least enough to make him seem more serious post-McAfee match that was way too competitive, was good. We may never know why WWE chose to have him face McAfee post-tap out loss at 'Mania, but at least we can all move on from it. That episode of "Raw" is also a few days after Money in the Bank, so we really could see something interesting and not just an Uso and GUNTHER rematch. This gave me hope for quite a few things tonight, so it's an easy one for tonight's "loved" section.

Written by Daisy Ruth

This week's "WWE Raw" main event saw an intriguing clash between the established upper echelon of the women's division, Rhea Ripley and the Women's World Champion Iyo Sky, against the newly called-up pair of former NXT Women's Champions, Roxanne Perez and Giulia. It was an opportunity to establish the next chapter for the champion and any three of her potential new challengers, whether that be the one by her side or the two standing across from her. It was also an opportunity to establish Perez and Giulia as credible threats, whether that be in singles pursuits or for the Women's Tag titles that desperately need challengers. 

This match had been built to from the very first night after WrestleMania 41, with Giulia and Perez attacking both Sky and Stephanie Vaquer; Perez and Giulia both lost the NXT chapters of their war, the former in an NXT Women's title match and the latter against Jordynne Grace for an opportunity at the title, effectively spelling the end of their runs with the developmental brand as they made their way to Monday nights. 

So surely the scene had been set for them to get a statement victory against a cookie-cutter "Can they co-exist?" team-up. Alas, what transpired was Ripley pushing Giulia into a cross-body from Perez, which Sky avoided, to then hit Riptide and get the pinfall, while Sky also held Perez down for the three-count – in effect pinning both of them at the same time. Of all of the avenues one could go down to get to the obviously planned rematch between Ripley and Sky, why did it have to be the one that involved making light of the new stars? Ripley could have turned on her partner, they could have miscommunicated, anything that didn't provide as damning of a statement that Perez and Giulia are not at that level from the off.

Written by Max Everett