WWE RAW 1/12/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where the man who retired John Cena needed a hidden tap out and a low blow to beat another guy retiring this year! Does the WINC crew have thoughts about that finish? You bet we do! We also have thoughts about the women's tag champs getting some new challengers, CM Punk getting a new challenger, and Je'Von Evans getting a "Raw" appearance that actually aired in the United States!

As always, this column will not hit everything that happened on Monday in Dusseldorf, Germany, but those who missed the show can always check out our "Raw" results page! For those who want to know what the WINC staff thought about the goings-on that stood out to us the most, you're in luck — here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 1/12/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"

Strapping your severely-underutilized tag team championship titles onto the waists of your two of the biggest stars, male or female, definitely helps with said titles' visibility, I will admit. Putting the obvious aside, I'm glad that the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships are still being booked like a big deal.

On Monday's edition of "WWE Raw" from Dusseldorf, current WWE Women's Tag Team Champions Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY opened the show, and in a move that is rare for a wrestling episode of Triple H's creation, we featured eight whole women in the coveted opening spot, and put six female competitors to work in a high-intensity, high-energy tag team match as a direct result of it later in the night. The Judgement Day's Liv Morgan and Roxanne Perez, The Kabuki Warriors' Asuka and Kairi Sane, and Bayley and Lyra Valkyria are all gunning for RHIYO's gold. RHIYO's gold: the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships. We have a member of the Four Horsewoman, multiple previous world championships, and the figures of tomorrow's WWE all gunning for the titles that were once considered a booking afterthought, were once considered the most wasteful titles in the company, and the titles that, until recently, never scored higher than a 5.00/10 rating on Cagematch.net. All of a sudden, the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships are something to envy, something to covet, something to fight over. That is incredible.

RHIYO's success is not a flash in the pan. Pairing Ripley and SKY together in such an organic and well-performing tag team took weeks of consistent build, where Ripley and SKY were faced with problems both regarding and outside of the tag titles themselves, only to solve those problems together. Putting the titles on RHIYO required The Kabuki Warriors to legitimize them as consistently-defended titles, not just accessories to be traded off to the company's newest tag team of the month. Now, RHIYO hold the responsibility of making these titles even more meaningful, and by allowing Morgan — someone with deep, deep history with Ripley — to be one half of their first challengers? They could've just given The Kabuki Warriors a rematch, and I'd argue that Bayley and Valkyria are more over than Morgan and Perez. No, WWE is — in a shocking turn of events — putting intention and thoughtfulness into the booking of these titles. RHIYO's insane popularity helps with the titles' visibility, yes, but WWE is doing its part to bring substance to them, and outside of them.

We haven't seen such influential WWE Women's Tag Team Champions since Bayley and Sasha Banks, back in the Thunderdome. RHIYO are just getting started, but mark my words, they will surpass that bar, and set it even higher.

Written by Angeline Phu

It's almost ridiculous how obvious WWE's (meaning whoever is booking and helping in creative, I don't know if I can blame just Triple H at this point) dislike of young guys in the top scene of their shows is getting, and I'm worried that Je'Von Evans is going to be yet another example of that. Last week, there were a few of us here, myself included, who didn't get to see Evans' official signing to the red brand during the commercial break, which sucked. This week, we thankfully all got to see him on our TVs, but I'm not sure I necessarily liked what I saw.

Evans faced Bravo Americano (Tyler Bate), accompanied by the other Americanos, on today's show and pulled out the victory, but it just felt very flat coming off last week's disappointment. While other "WWE NXT" call-ups are either getting extremely hyped up, like Oba Femi's vignettes teasing his arrival every show, or already doing well, like Trick Williams already in the tournament to determine the number one contender for the Undisputed WWE Champion, Evans is already starting to feel like "just some guy" rather quickly on the show. Maybe that's just me and how I feel about the Americanos at this point, but it's worrisome. 

I really like "The Young OG," but with WWE's main event scene, on the men's side of things, at least, skewing older, things may not go so well for him for quite a few years. He's only 21 years old, seven years younger than Bron Breakker who is the youngest star getting a real push right now. Evans is the most recent Iron Survivor and WWE obviously had a lot of faith in him when they put him in a match alongside Leon Slater against AJ Styles and Dragon Lee on John Cena's retirement show. I believe it's been reported that Cena himself was very high on Evans.

That could be what feels so odd with Evans at this point, truthfully. It seemed like he was set for great things almost immediately following Saturday Night's Main Event, despite the loss, and now he's just mixing it up with the Americanos on the mid-card, and I'd go as far as to say lower mid-card. He seemed in a much higher spot than this, initially, and it just feels like a bummer to probably quite a few people who followed him in "NXT."

Written by Daisy Ruth

Adam Pearce has quickly made himself a staple of "WWE Raw." Of course, he's the General Manager, so he kind of has to be a staple. However, in recent years, Pearce has felt less like a detached WWE official — less like a disembodied hand that simply signs matches into existence — and more like a human leader of a chaotic locker room: one who is trying to produce shows with nothing more than duct tape, suits, and a dream. Pearce has been at the top of his game.

Even so, I think he's going to clear the bar with this Bron Breakker feud.

At the top of Monday's episode of "Raw," Pearce told Paul Heyman, in no uncertain terms, that if Breakker showed up to Dusseldorf with ill intentions, he would be in for a world of trouble. So, when Breakker came into Dusseldorf with ill intentions, Pearce stormed the ring, and began berating the young Superstar. Pearce's wrath on Breakker allowed for The Vision's Bronson Reed to land a Tsunami on Penta, which led to The Vision laying waste to Dragon Lee. Pearce reprimanded Breakker, which led to Breakker laying his hands on a WWE official. Pearce was jostled into the corner as The Vision tried to hold Breakker back, and as spit flew from Breakker's mouth and onto Pearce's bald head, the stakes have officially been raised.

When was the last time we had WWE officials get physical with talent? I don't mean Nick Aldis breaking up Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes on "WWE SmackDown," though Aldis is great. I mean, when was the last time WWE officials feuded with the talent themselves? We had our Deville/Naomi storyline (with a brief Deville/Bianca Belair spinoff), which was entertaining, but this Pearce/Breakker feud just hits different. Maybe it's because Pearce has, until this point, been very patient with all of the Vision goons running around backstage, only to be forced to finally snap. Maybe it's because nobody expected Breakker to manhandle Pearce like that. This GM/wrestler feud hits different, because when I see spit dribble down from Pearce's chin as he faces Breakker, I see shades of Becky Lynch's pushback against Triple H and Stephanie McMahon ahead of WrestleMania 36: a bright spot in a dark time for WWE booking. If Pearce can truly lock in — and I think he can, with his nearly-20 years' worth of professional wrestling experience — then I think he and Breakker are sitting on gold.

Even though Pearce indefinitely suspended Breakker, this feud is practically guaranteed to continue, considering Heyman's follow-up accusation of Pearce laying hands on Breakker first. Best believe I'll be tuning in to "Raw" to see how Pearce continues to raise the stakes.

Written by Angeline Phu

Back in my day (meaning five years ago give or take), WWE stars would start declaring for the Men's and Women's Royal Rumble matches in December. It's now January 12, and we don't even have one official star who has declared themselves for the Men's OR Women's Royal Rumble matches.

We're less than three weeks away from Royal Rumble, which is one of the biggest Premium Live Events in WWE's calendar year behind WrestleMania and SummerSlam respectively. It feels ridiculous that no one has declared themselves for either the Men's or Women's Royal Rumble matches, nor has it even been brought up on television outside of graphics by any of the wrestlers, commentators, or valets. The fact that WrestleMania 42 got more air time than anything related to the Rumble on this stream with all of the commercials WWE showed was mind blowing to me, and there was absolutely no excuse for that to be the case considering that WWE has plenty of time to put out advertisements for WrestleMania 42 before late April. It creates the feeling that this year's Rumble is an afterthought when it really shouldn't be, and leaves the impression that WWE hasn't allotted enough time to generate hype for those who will be competing in the Rumble matches or the Rumble matches themselves.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I've often complained about stars getting title opportunities without scoring many (or any) victories ahead of their title shots, with Nikki Bella getting multiple shots at Women's World Champion Stephanie Vaquer the most recent example that comes to mind, but honestly, I'm at the point that mixing things up in the top title scene to freshen things up feels kind of nice, so I'm not mad about CM Punk defending his World Heavyweight Championship against Finn Balor on "Raw" next week. Especially when the outcome is pretty obvious, a one-off match, especially on the European tour ahead of the Royal Rumble really kicking things off, it just feels pretty harmless.

I probably feel that way because I was getting so tired of the Undisputed WWE Championship scene over on "WWE SmackDown" and seeing Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre over and over, even though their last match finally had a different outcome. While I'm no fan of Punk, I've always been high on Balor, so him going out there tonight to shoot his shot for a match in his home country next week didn't bother me as much as it usually would. Maybe it's just because I like when the top title is defended on weekly television, even if the gold is held by Punk.

To acknowledge the elephant in the room, Balor is indeed currently a big ol' loser. He has only two singles victories since late 2023, which is pretty egregious. But, honestly, I don't mind him going after Punk after an impassioned promo the other week on "Raw" about wanting gold for Judgment Day after their terrible 2025. He'll lose this match, and hopefully keep the fire under him to keep going and doing something other than hanging around backstage playing video games. The fact the match is happening in Ireland also makes it feel just slightly less ridiculous. Bottom line, Balor desperately needs to do something, even if it's calling out Punk with no real ground to stand on other than, "I don't jump in line, the line starts with me because of how storied my career has been."

Part of me was sure that Bron Breakker was going to defeat Punk on last week's "Raw," but that didn't happen. And, if Breakker isn't winning for awhile, I'm glad WWE isn't just running that back to have him lose again, a la McIntyre and Rhodes for awhile there. They went as far as to seemingly write Breakker off TV for a bit with General Manager Adam Pearce suspending him indefinitely. Maybe Breakker interferes in Ireland next week, but at least the addition of Balor is keeping things a little different in Breakker and Punk's overall feud.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I actually thought the finish to GUNTHER vs. AJ Styles was kind of creative, at least the part where GUNTHER tapped out by slapping Styles' leg where the referee couldn't see it. It actually does make sense as a heelish way of getting your opponent to release the hold without losing the match, and if wrestling was a real sport, it's the kind of thing I could see being a potential problem. I'm not sure how I feel about GUNTHER being vulnerable to submissions as a continued character trait, and personally I think he should be able to beat a guy at Styles' current level without cheating, but the actual spot itself was clever.

Then WWE went and compounded everything by having GUNTHER hit Styles with a low blow before powerbombing him, and that's about where I got off the train. Coming up with a clever way of cheating is one thing, and if he had just hit his finisher while the ref was distracted by the tap-out confusion, I wouldn't really be mad about it. But did he also need to hit a low blow? Did we need to add a second cheat to an already wonky and somewhat confusing finish? I submit to you that we did not. If the sequence had just been unseen tap-out into ref confusion into the powerbomb, I feel like that's more than enough to protect Styles (who doesn't need to be protected these days anyway) and GUNTHER at least gets to look like a bad-ass at the very end. Adding the low blow just makes it look like he really, really, really couldn't beat Styles, and that is not the direction I'd be going in with the guy who retired John Cena. I'm sure there will be another match, probably at SNME or the Rumble, and GUNTHER will get a clean victory there, but the superfluous low blow kind of ruined the entire thing for me.

Written by Miles Schneiderman