WWE Raw 7/14/2025: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

After a busy weekend, jam-packed with wrestling, the July 14 installment of "WWE Raw" kept the momentum going on the first episode after NXT's The Great American Bash, "WWE Saturday Night's Main Event" and Evolution 2025. Not unlike Sunday's second-ever all-women PLE, Monday's "Raw" was dominated by women's matches, with just a single men's match on the evening. That single match, however, had some big implications, as it was a gauntlet match to see who will face WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther at SummerSlam 2025.

That wasn't the only match with implications for the Biggest Party of the Summer: after Becky Lynch retained her Intercontinental Title at Evolution, Lyra Valkyria and Bayley faced off to determine the No. 1 Contender in a two-out-of-three falls match. And while it wasn't determined in a match, "WWE Raw" GM Adam Pearce announced a triple threat for the Women's World Championship at SummerSlam as well.

WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Bella was in action as well, notching her first singles win on "Raw" in nearly seven years, though she paid the price for it after the fact.

Lots of things happened and we've got lots to say about them, so if you're looking for Wrestling Inc's thought's on tonight's "WWE Raw," you've come to the right place. If you prefer tonight's "WWE Raw" results without our insight, we're hurt but we understand.

In what is a contender for best WWE television match of the year, Lyra Valkyria and Bayley dug deep to deliver an incredible Two-Out-Of-Three Falls match, just 24 hours after their grueling Triple Threat match at Evolution. If you haven't watched Monday's match, do yourself a favor and watch it. This is a match that you just have to experience for yourself; I know I can't do Bayley and Valkyria's match justice with my words (however hard I will try).

This match had everything. Bayley and Valkyria's relationship has far soured since the build-up to WrestleMania 41, and it showed when Bayley scored the night's first fall after slapping Valkyria for a shocking flash-pin. While, in vacuum, this kind of sucks as a fall, it makes sense considering Bayley's recent heelish behavior, and its a Two-Out-Of-Three Falls match, so it's not like they're not going to wrestle after the fact. As the match really got underway, Bayley and Valkyria's in-ring prowess really began to shine. Obviously, Bayley is known for her in-ring work — she's a Four Horsewoman and the first-ever WWE Women's Grand Slam Champion — but Valkyria was operating right up there with her during this match. The two of them made every hip toss, every strike, every bit of mat work look so effortless, yet so meaningful. You could feel the chemistry in every move, the stakes in every sequence. Bayley and Valkyria are the among the best in-ring workers in the WWE women's locker room right now.

Lengthy matches aren't always good matches (which someone else will address later), but Bayley and Valkyria squeezed every bit of emotion out of their match. Honestly, it's surprising that the bout only lasted around 20 minutes, but this truly felt like a 30 to 35 minute instant classic. Bayley and Valkyria were damaged, weary, and the hearts of Birmingham were in their throats as Bayley tried to finally break Valkyria's tortured lower back. When Bayley tried get Valkyria back in the center of the ring, Valkyria shifted her momentum to raise Bayley up for a final, match-ending Nightwing. While there is a bit of continuity issue there — if Valkyria's back was hurting as badly as she sold it during the match, a quick Nightwing seems a bit unrealistic — I'm willing to write it off as Valkyria's sheer aura. She is such a good wrestler, it's almost believable she would be able to pull off a miracle Nightwing to win her match.

Am I craving another Becky Lynch and Valkyria match? Not necessarily; I think the Women's Intercontinental Championship should be contested by other people at this point. However, Valkyria and Bayley did such a good job here, I have full faith that Lynch and Valkyria will make magic in New Jersey.

Written by Angeline Phu

I don't know if it's because we had such a packed wrestling weekend complete with three different WWE events, but tonight's setup of SummerSlam 2025 matches felt like it all happened way too fast, given the three weeks we still have left before the event. Usually, I feel like we're hating on WWE for not booking their premium live events far enough in advance (like the lack of build to Evolution 2025), but for some reason, tonight just felt really off. That's possibly also because a few of these matches were pretty obvious.

While I'm excited to see a proper triple threat featuring new Women's World Champion Naomi against IYO SKY and Rhea Ripley — which we assumed would happen after Evolution, "Raw" General Manager Adam Pearce just coming out and making the match official seemed rushed. Usually we see a brawl or something that would cause him to set up the match and dramatically announce it, but tonight, that wasn't the case. He gave praise to all three women, and that was that. He also just announced that Intercontinental Champion Dominik Mysterio will be taking on AJ Styles at "The Biggest Party of the Summer" in a backstage segment with Judgment Day. It was a fun segment, don't get me wrong, but that felt like a match where the announcement could have been saved for next week, or heck, even in a social media announcement that Pearce seems to like to do.

I also assumed we'd be getting another triple threat for the women's Intercontinental Championship between Becky Lynch, Lyra Valkyria, and Bayley, and I was almost right, as it's going to be Valkyria versus Bayley. I feel like that No. 1 contender's match could have also been held off until next week, as we already had the gauntlet number one contender's match going on in the main event. I think that's another match many fans assumed was going to happen, so it could have officially gone down next Monday.

There were a lot of things that happened, especially at Evolution, that made things more official for SummerSlam and even Clash in Paris well after that, so that could have also made things feel more rushed than they actually were tonight. "Raw" was likely a victim of all the wrestling and big things happening over the weekend. If the gauntlet match was the only thing that made anything official for SummerSlam tonight, I wouldn't have been mad about having a bit of a cool-down week. I understand that SummerSlam is an even bigger deal this year with it being two nights, but when you're so used to WWE doing everything extremely last-minute, tonight almost felt a bit overwhelming.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Generally speaking in WWE, the women's division tends to get less television time than the men's division does on the whole (and several other promotions for that matter). For once, it was very refreshing to see something different on tonight's edition of "WWE Raw" and have the major beats of the entire show be dedicated to the women's division (except the Gunther promo and Gauntlet match that took up the last 45 minutes, give or take).

Considering that it was the first time since 2018 WWE has put on the Premium Live Event, the all-women's Evolution was a major deal for the company. Not only did Adam Pearce announce that Naomi would be defending her newly won Women's World Championship against Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY at SummerSlam, but Lyra Valkyria and Bayley also put on a banger of a 2 Out Of 3 Falls Match, Nikki Bella won her first match on "Raw" since October 2018, and Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez continue to tear through the women's tag team division (despite the involvement of Dominik Mysterio). It's nice to see that the spotlight stayed on the women's division's performers after the event, and made it feel as though WWE actually put care into their women's division by showing Evolution wasn't just meant to be a spectacle.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Let's preface this point by saying, like most fans would likely agree, Roman Reigns' return was a welcome albeit unsurprising one. The moment with him helping Jey Uso up, standing with his cousin and CM Punk to see off the Vision was a great way to close the show. But that doesn't change the fact that for almost 40 minutes there was a boringly predictable gauntlet match which trudged along to lead into the moment. Don't just take my word for it, either. Even the man paid to watch the bout didn't seem phased by it:

pic.twitter.com/QJlx2HSV6v

— WWE (@WWE) July 15, 2025

Bron Breakker started out first, having been positioned throughout the show as the man to take the battle to the World Heavyweight Champion in light of Seth Rollins' injury. He started against Penta, with the luchador getting much of his signature offense in only to be brushed off by Breakker to be the first eliminated. Then it was time for LA Knight, following on from his impromptu win over Rollins on Saturday. Ultimately, he fell to Breakker after, like Penta, being largely outmatched in every facet. Former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Jey Uso was next up to topple Breakker, and as one can imagine that didn't turn out to be the case; Bronson Reed finally decided to get involved and helped Breakker eliminate Uso.

It's worth noting that each of these micro-bouts was literally presented in the same way as any Breakker TV match you would have seen over the past few months, but stacked on top of one another with zero logic put into the idea that he had wrestled three separate supposed world title challengers and didn't appear to carry any visible toll from his matches; yes, it's scripted, but the suepension of disbelief has its limits. All in all, it was a slow trudge to the closing stretch with the very clear intent of positioning Breakker as a monster, as if he hasn't already. But I would argue that it over-exposed him so early at this juncture, there were no discernible differences between each contest and everything was starting to feel like it had been done just moments before.

At the end of the day, most will remember the Reigns return and his standing tall with Uso and Punk, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the main event until that point had been a bore from start to finish, and easily the worst action on the card. But that wasn't the worst part about it...

Written by Max Everett

For the final match, it was time for Punk to step up to the plate. Of course, Punk was the only one who stood any credible chance of winning, because as it would turn out, he was the one booked to win.

Almost as if aware that the match had been boring from the beginning, gears were shifted to take it into plainly stupid territory as the bout drew to a close. With Punk about to defeat Breakker, Reed re-emerged and elbow-dropped Punk in full view of the referee, prompting much confusion as gauntlet matches usually carry disqualifications.

Well, until Michael Cole decided there had to be a ret-con, and suddenly this was a No Disqualifications Gauntlet Match. I have so many questions. Then Uso returned to clear Reed from the picture, disappeared, Punk got the win, then got beaten up some more by Reed and Breakker, then Uso reappeared to make the save again. And then, and only then, did Reigns make his return to stop them from getting beaten down some more.

If this was a No DQ Gauntlet match, why didn't Reed just help him with the rest of the match and work it like a handicap? Why did Reigns only decide to turn up when all the damage had been done? Why didn't he return to help his cousin win the match? Why didn't he enter the match himself? Why didn't he use the ample opportunity he had to attack Paul Heyman when he was stood there for 40 minutes? Why didn't any of the guys use weapons? How come the babyfaces didn't just mob Breakker from the beginning? Why did the referee look like a deer in headlights, like he should be calling for a DQ but knows that's not the finish? And this is an important one, why did it take until the dying moments of the match for the stipulation to be announced?

Cole literally waited until the moment someone should be disqualified to say that they weren't an issue. Why is he – kayfabe, of course – so bad at his job?

Don't let WWE's gaslighting and revisionist history get in the way of the fact that within numerous gauntlet matches booked over the years, disqualifications have been commonplace to eliminate a heel without them losing their shine; wouldn't that have been helpful on a night where Punk needed to beat the guy the company clearly wants us to see as infallible? Not to mention the fact that Punk is now supposed to be taken seriously as a challenger for Gunther, who just retired Goldberg, when he struggled to beat a Breakker that had gone through three separate challengers with a headstart.

This is the issue with, as Paul Levesque himself puts it, just entering the destination in the GPS and seeing where the route goes. You forget rudimentary rules that you yourself put in place to stop things from getting out of control.

Written by Max Everett

At WWE Evolution 2025, Naomi made the shocking decision to cash in her Money in the Bank briefcase on IYO SKY while her match against Rhea Ripley was still happening. Naomi was successful with her cash-in and is your new Women's World Champion.

The champion has really been sinking her teeth into this current version of herself and it's paying off. She's fun to watch and has the gold to match her evolution. Ever full of confidence, the new champ had plenty to say tonight. She called out the fans for not previously feeling the glow and told her former friend, Bianca Belair, that she outgrew her. She addressed her nemesis, Jade Cargill, beating her in their No Holds Barred match earlier in the night at the all women's PLE before declaring that she "made history, baby." She also put the "Raw" locker room on notice and advised them to proceed with caution. 

This drew out Ripley, who admitted she's not cautious, but reckless. She is irate that she was screwed out winning the title. Before Naomi could respond, SKY made her way to the ring. She told Ripley to get to the back and she'll get her title back from Naomi. Unfortunately, Naomi responded with a microaggression by telling her that she didn't understand her. It's not a heel move to say something like that. Besides being a racist trope, it's extremely lazy. After the champ advised them both to move to the back of the line, Adam Pearce did what any predictable GM would do; he made a 3-way match at "SummerSlam".

Despite the line from Naomi, this segment was very solid. Naomi has even more bravado than she did before. Ripley and SKY are understandably angry and want to resolve their issues in the ring. A 3-way match is logical, even if it's a bit boring. The women are riding high after Evolution and it's good to see the momentum going with a big match involving three of WWE's best.

Written by Samantha Schipman