WWE RAW 2/23/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that featured AJ Styles being announced as the newest member of the WWE Hall of Fame! We also saw Liv Morgan choose her WrestleMania opponent, Brock Lesnar fail to choose his WrestleMania opponent, and the final two qualifiers for the men's and women's Elimination Chamber matches, one of whom reportedly won due to an unfortunate injury suffered by Bronson Reed. We'll cover all of that and more here in the column this week, which means there is a lot to get to!

 As always, if you missed the show and just want to catch up on the bare-bones facts, you can do that via our "Raw" results page, which includes things we didn't have strong opinions about like Nattie vs. Maxxine Dupri and Kofi Kingston vs. Je'Von Evans. For the WINC staff's analysis of the stuff we cared about most, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 2/23/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"

Here are some things I thought GUNTHER's opening promo accomplished on this week's "Raw":

1. It addressed the elephant in the room right off the bat. If the evening was going to be about AJ Styles, you had to deal with the fact that GUNTHER would be there and that his character would love nothing more than to hijack a tribute to AJ Styles, making it about himself instead. It was in character for him to do that, and WWE would have been remiss to not deal with it in some way. Having GUNTHER show up to start the episode, talk his s***, and then get immediately thrown out of the building before he could do any more was the perfect way to handle things.

2. It gave Adam Pearce something to be exasperated over, which is what Adam Pearce does best. I loved Pearce coming out to shut GUNTHER down and GUNTHER just continuing to talk over him, because that is "Raw" General Manager Adam Pearce in a nutshell. 10/10, no notes.

3. It advanced GUNTHER's storyline with Dragon Lee, who has been repeatedly attacking him in revenge for the whole "retiring AJ Styles" thing and did so again on this episode. The two will meet next week and I am looking forward to watching that match, and I'm glad to see Lee continued to be involved in a major storyline. Not only is he coming off as a true threat to GUNTHER, he's really selling the emotional impact of Styles' forced retirement, and that was reinforced when he not only jumped GUNTHER from behind but continued to attack him behind the curtain. Again, it got the storyline ramifications of Styles' retirement out of the way early so the rest of the show could focus on the non-storyline aspects of Styles' retirement, all while keeping the characters consistent and setting up a match for next week. Good stuff.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

It's certainly easy to hate any injury that happens on "Raw," but poor Bronson Reed going down with a torn bicep, taking out yet another member of the seemingly snakebitten Vision sucks a lot. And, honestly, it seems like some strange inner working of the universe is trying to punish WWE creative for running a fake injury angle with former World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins last summer. Well. Maybe it's not THAT dramatic, but it certainly feels like it at this point, between Rollins, Bron Breakker requiring surgery for a hernia just a few weeks ago, and now, Reed.

I didn't see exactly where it happened in the match, but the next thing I knew, Reed was on the outside being checked out by a medical official, and when commentary mentioned he was pointing toward his bicep, I knew the poor guy was cooked. And, from the extremely brief research I just did into the injury, saying he'll be out indefinitely was the right call, as without speculating too much, it looks like things can vary a lot with that type of tear.

Reed was also reportedly meant to win the match, so, of course, when he went down on the outside, the match went to pieces a bit, with the Original El Grande Americano, who just returned from injury himself, working with Jey Uso, who, well, hasn't exactly been the best on his feet as a singles competitor, especially since losing the World Heavyweight Championship quite some time ago. It was clunky, but they got through it, with Uso getting the victory to move on to the Chamber. Now, WWE has even more things to rewrite, though, hopefully not much, as I didn't exactly expect Reed to win the Chamber.

And, perhaps, worst of all, this leaves The Vision with just Austin Theory and Logan Paul alongside Paul Heyman. And yeesh. I don't exactly think those two can carry a faction, even alongside one of the most legendary mangers in WWE history, for an undetermined amount of time at this point. There's too much unanswered, from the masked man attacking the group, to Breakker and Rollins needing to settle their differences, whenever that may be, for the faction to just quietly disband.

I do not have any faith in WWE steering The Vision's ship in any interesting, or at least not extremely annoying, direction, now as Reed sits on the sideline now, as well. The Vision was already going to flounder without Breakker, and this was yet another hit to the group. It all just sucks for everyone involved, and most of all, I just hope Reed has a speedy recovery. He deserves so much more as a performer.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Normally, it's an exciting moment when a Royal Rumble winner picks who they want to choose at WrestleMania. I didn't exactly get that same excitement I usually do watching the 2026 Women's Royal Rumble winner Liv Morgan choose if she would face Stephanie Vaquer or Jade Cargill at WrestleMania 42.

Now let's start with the one thing that I did like about this segment: that Morgan let her actions speak louder than words. Verbal confrontations are the most common catalyst to set up major matches in WWE, so it was nice to see them change it up a bit by having Morgan blindside Vaquer with an attack as her way of saying that she chose to face her at WrestleMania 42.

With that out of the way, the rest of this segment didn't really do much for me. For one thing, Cargill's presence wasn't really needed at all during this entire thing. Yes, the point of all of this was for Morgan to officially pick her WrestleMania 42 opponent but Cargill did nothing except stand there and leave the ring once she saw Morgan firing off right hans on Vaquer. Outside of that and this edition of "Raw" being in her hometown of Atlanta, WWE really could've saved themselves and Cargill the trouble of flying out by not including her in this segment.

This brings me to my other major complaint, and that was this entire segment being pretty pointless on the whole. It was pretty obvious that Morgan would choose to face Vaquer over Cargill at WrestleMania 42, as WWE has built it up for a few weeks now on "Raw" with all of the confrontations between Morgan and Vaquer. Meanwhile, Morgan and Cargill have had virtually no interaction with one another over the last few weeks. There was no chance that Morgan was ever going to pick Cargill, and quite frankly, this was something that she should've done a few weeks ago seeing as it was entirely avoidable and would've made more sense if WWE had her make the decision first and do the build second.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

WWE has a reputation for being spiteful and petty, starting at the top with Vince McMahon, and Paul Levesque has happily carried the torch. In the latest example, they seemingly booked Brock Lesnar to be on "Raw" as a response to Janel Grant making her first public comments (other than to the FBI, where they identified her as a potential sex trafficking victim, where the recipient would have been Lesnar). Grant spoke publicly on Thursday with the video of her speech being released on Friday. Just hours later, WWE announced Lesnar's "Raw" appearance during "SmackDown" and began promoting it all over their social media.

What if it was just a coincidence? WWE doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt and given the segment we got, it absolutely didn't need to happen. Lesnar and Paul Heyman (who had already been out with The Vision a few segments prior) came to the ring. While Lesnar just stood in the ring, Heyman did his duties as a mouthpiece. Since Lesnar has no opponent for WrestleMania just 54 days out, there will be a *check notes* open challenge for Lesnar to find an opponent. A graphic was shown with the dates of Lesnar's upcoming appearances while Heyman said, "if any man is willing to go down in history by taking the absolute worst victimization possible in front of a global audience at the Grandest Stage of Them All."

In a segment that could've been a social media post, it was likely a tactic to get Lesnar on TV in response to Grant speaking publicly. Heyman seemed to be intentionally using the term "victimization." When Lesnar first returned to TV last year, Heyman asked if they should talk about "rumors and conspiracy theories regarding Brock Lesnar." He also said on a podcast that Lesnar couldn't be canceled. While Grant didn't mention Lesnar in her 16-minute speech, she did acknowledge the episode of "Raw" where Liv Morgan, Dominik Mysterio, and the rest of The Judgment Day acted out things she alleged happened to her in her lawsuit. These are the kinds of games WWE plays, presumably because they think it's funny. Instead, it's both gross and completely on-brand.

Written by Samantha Schipman

I did not think this was a strong episode of "WWE Raw" whatsoever until about the last 45 or so minutes, which included what I thought was match of the night in the women's Elimination Chamber qualifier. Raquel Rodriguez, IYO SKY, and Kairi Sane faced off in what I thought was a great match, despite a few bumps here and there throughout. I thought Rodriguez's style worked well with SKY and Sane, and the right woman won here, despite that being a little obvious.

I don't think WWE wanted both members of the Kabuki Warriors and RHIYO in the Chamber match, and honestly, I don't think I would have wanted that either. Rodriguez joins Tiffany Stratton, Rhea Ripley, Alexa Bliss, and Kiana James in the structure on Saturday in Chicago, and I think she's going to be one of the strongest competitors in there. I've really liked watching Rodriguez improve since she started taking advice from Kevin Nash to heart and working bigger, and I see good things on the horizon for her. It's not her first Chamber match, either, so I'm excited to see what she can do in there once again.

With so many things up in the air for WrestleMania 42, to the point it doesn't even feel like WWE has any idea what they're actually going to be doing, I actually think I'd give Rodriguez a good shot at winning the Chamber. It would be cool, and something nice and fresh, to see her go on to challenge Jade Cargill on "The Grandest Stage of Them All." Sure, that would mess up anything going on with her storyline with Morgan in Judgment Day, but I can't say I'm exactly clamoring to see anything that faction does anymore. Anything there seems to be an interesting story there, including even a potential breakup angle, it dies off pretty quickly.

As for the match on Monday night, I'm thankful it helped pick things up on the show. Rodriguez showed off her strength throughout, including with a double fallaway slam to her smaller opponents, and overall, it just worked really well. I also loved the brief reunion of the Sky Pirates, which is likely going to infuriate Asuka, which will be some slight story progression with her and Sane. For a show that didn't do much to get me any more excited for Saturday, I'm glad the women got to show off and be a bright point on Monday night, especially Rodriguez.

Written by Daisy Ruth

As it turns out, AJ Styles had one of the best retirements one could hope for within WWE. Make what you will of the abruptness of his retirement, losing to Gunther rather inevitably at the Royal Rumble. But he got something that not even John Cena got after losing to the "Ring General."

A retirement ceremony complete with a special appearance from the Undertaker – always a pop for the Gong - to announce that he would be the first inductee into the 2026 Hall of Fame class. If ever there was a talent to be celebrated in, as debated as its legitimacy is, the top company's wing of special talents, then it would have to be the "Phenomenal One."

There was a time where it seemed near impossible to think of Styles as someone to be given any backing in WWE. He was an "indie darling," a cornerstone of TNA, who for a time had been one of the company's only competitors, and the company had made a bit of a habit of chewing up and swallowing talent of that ilk.

Nevertheless, he is now a multi-time WWE Champion, Grand Slam Champion, and Hall of Famer. He enters those figurative, commemorative Halls, shared by the likes of Hulk Hogan, Undertaker, Steve Austin, Bruno Sammartino, Bret Hart, and Shawn Michaels. And he does that before the likes of Cena or even The Rock.

Maybe that's a method of deterring him from going elsewhere. Maybe he never wanted to. Either way, the moment itself and the gesture is enough to, at the very least, say that Styles is a WWE legend. And, if we're being completely honest, he is one of the only wrestlers in the world that can say he did it everywhere he went.

The segment itself was very well done, allowing Styles to be the only star in the ring until the fateful Undertaker interaction. He was overwhelmed with emotion as one would have expected him to be, the crowd completely turned up for the occasion, and ultimately he got one of those rare happy endings in professional wrestling.

Written by Max Everett