WWE Raw - 3/2/2026: 3 Things We Loved And 3 We Hated

With Elimination Chamber in the rearview mirror, the road to WrestleMania has begun in full. This used to be known as the Fastlane to WrestleMania, but they stopped doing that show. Anyway, "WWE Raw" stopped into Indianapolis, IN on Monday, to get plenty of table setting, and one major title change out of the way, as the card for WrestleMania weekend begins to take shape.

Enough about what happened though, as that has already been handled by the fastidious results page. Instead, it's time to break down the good and the bad from Monday's show, and there was plenty of it. There were intoxicating highs, like the aforementioned title change, and also egregious lows, like the overall tone of the women's programming.

Enough introducing, let's get the appetizers out of the way and dig into the main course: the good, the bad, and the ugly from March 2nd's edition of the WWE flagship show.

WWE's need to advertise the upcoming edition of WWE 2k, meant that we got a good ol' fashioned exhibition match on "Raw." 

Former World Heavyweight Champion Gunther and former World Tag Team Champion Dragon Lee had a solid, hard-hitting, dramatic match on Monday. The match was an example of how "Raw's" elastic run time allows the immensely talented roster to have matches that used to be hemmed-in by the restrictions of "The TV Match." Gunther and Lee were given enough time for Lee to feel like a legitimate threat to the former world champion.

WWE displayed the upcoming 2K ratings of the two men, as if to highlight how little chance Lee had, and the two men used that drama to great ends. Lee put up enough of a fight that Gunther was forced to remove the luchador's mask to aid in his victory. It was exactly the kind of low-stakes, entertaining bouts on which weekly televised wrestling is built. I know Gunther will likely be moving on, but I can't wait to see the next outing from these two.

Written by Ross Berman

We're two days into Women's History month and the "SmackDown" locker room is in shambles online, and Liv Morgan is cutting racist promos. Add in Rhea Ripley being brought out while clearly upset about what's been transpiring online, RHIYO breaking up, and a weird segment with brand new Women's IC Champion, AJ Lee, and it was not a great night for the women's roster.

In a pre-taped promo (which was smart because the crowd would've not reacted well), Morgan agreed that she's privileged before saying she was sorry Stephanie Vaquer "grew up in a mud hut and trained in flea-infested rings for 10 years." What are we doing here? This promo was followed by a match featuring two fake luchadors with two more fake luchadors ringside, by the way.

If you've been on social media the last 48 hours, you've likely seen the exchanges between Ripley and Jade Cargill. Chelsea Green and Piper Niven got involved. In a now-deleted post, Ripley stated "not having fun. Not friends. Learn to work and never lie to defame someone's real human character by breaking the fourth wall." WWE trotted Ripley out, along with IYO SKY. When asked about the last 48 hours, Ripley clearly looked upset. Then, RHIYO split as SKY told Ripley she'd be fine by herself on "Raw" and to go win the Women's Championship.

Roman Reigns, of all people, seemed to reference the online drama in his promo with CM Punk. He asked Punk if his tweet hurt his feelings and told him he was too thin-skinned for a champion. Reigns and Punk were saying similar things that Cargill got in trouble for online. It was unnecessary, especially with Ripley backstage. (The whole promo sucked, but I digress.)

What should have been a positive with a promo from Lee turned out to be an awkward segment. It started off okay with the champion admitting she didn't know if she still had it, but the fans' belief reminded her that she did. She is now focused on WrestleMania and issued an open challenge. Instead of anyone coming out, she left, and OG El Grand Americano made his way to the ring. We briefly saw former IC Champion, Lyra Valkyria, hype up Bayley to answer the challenge (why isn't she challenging for the title she held?). They went to Pearce's office, only to find SKY leaving.

On a very weird episode of "Raw", they managed to be extra weird with the women. Unfortunately, having Morgan say and do questionable things isn't new, and neither is having wrestlers say petty things in relation to other Superstars (especially when those Superstars are women). Everything I talked about here is completely on brand for WWE. I mean, they're bringing back Brock Lesnar on a weekly basis through WrestleMania (and he's named 44 times in a former employee's lawsuit) after said employee spoke publicly about what's happened to her since filing said lawsuit. But hey, at least Corporate Officer #3 – I mean, a woman – is getting inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year.

Written by Samantha Schipman

I was pretty surprised tonight when Becky Lynch didn't show up to interrupt AJ Lee's celebration after Lee dethroned her for the Women's Intercontinental Championship at Elimination Chamber, especially with all the shenanigans that went on during the match, and Lynch's subsequent crashout on social media. While I'm still fully convinced it will be these two women running it back for the gold at WrestleMania 42, the fact Lee came out and declared that she wants to be a fighting champion was pretty cool.

She started off with her whole, "I'm exactly who I said I am" schtick, which is what made me believe we were destined for yet another ridiculously annoying crashout from Lynch after she lost the title. But, thankfully, we just got to hear from the new champion. She said that when she came back, she mentioned wanting to get her hands on various new opponents in the locker room, and now that she has the Women's IC title, maybe those women she wants to face will be more likely to want a piece of her now, too. Lee said she wasn't waiting until WrestleMania 42 to start defending the gold, which was kind of surprising, but in a good way, to me, and that whoever deemed themselves championship material could get a shot at her.

Following her promo, we saw two moments backstage showing us who could be her first challenger for the gold. Liv Morgan told Raquel Rodriguez that beating Lee for the championship could be her ticket into WrestleMania. Lyra Valkyria and Bayley were also shown backstage, with Valkyria making the great point that she didn't want to see Bayley left off the WrestleMania card again, so she should challenge Lee.

Later in the night it was revealed via a graphic that we're getting a number one contender's gauntlet match next week, which I love. In addition to Bayley, Valkyria, and Rodriguez, IYO SKY and Ivy Nile will also compete in the gauntlet. While we could see Lynch interrupt the match, or even the bout herself to get another shot at Lee, I still think it's going to be a great match with all the talent involved, no matter what.

We may be on the "Road to WrestleMania," but thankfully, we seemingly don't have to wait until April to see Lee in singles action again. It's a pretty critical time to keep things moving and interesting on the weekly shows, and I think Lee helped accomplish just that tonight.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Every company wants to have an opening segment on their weekly shows in order to keep the fans interested and tuned into their product. While I certainly think that the opening minutes of "Raw" were definitely interesting with The Vision, I don't know that they necessarily grabbed the attention of the fans for the right reasons.

I will admit, I was a little torn about how I initially felt about this segment after watching it. On the one hand, I did appreciate WWE trying to do some actual storytelling by following up on Seth Rollins' attack on Logan Paul at WWE Elimination Chamber and doing something a little bit different from what they normally do. The more that I sat with it, though, the more that I realized it was all just a little bit cartoonish for my personal liking.

WWE tends to do two kinds of comedy: actually good comedy and the cringey comedy that makes you ashamed to be a fan. I found that this entire segment leaned more towards the cringey side of things for me, between the several masked men pretending to be Seth Rollins and LA Knight being the one to drive the ambulance. While I think there are definitely those out there who enjoyed this, it just wasn't for me, and it wasn't quite my sense of humor.

I also couldn't help but get the feeling that WWE doesn't quite know what their plan is for Rollins, The Vision, Knight, or The Usos as of right now. There was a lot of room for interpretation with this opener, and while I think that there's definitely an upside to keeping the fans guessing, it very much felt like it was a little bit all over the place just so that door could be kept open for whatever plans they end up going with.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

After not being overly impressed with his debut on Saturday night, Monday saw Danhausen introduced to "WWE Raw" in a much better, more to the point of his character, segment. First, he surprised Adam Pearce with his appearance and a wet list of humble demands, including but not limited to a blimp and a Hall of Fame induction – this year.

Pearce looked around desperately to find someone to offload this new Danhausen-shaped problem onto, settling on the Judgment Day's Finn Balor, JD McDonagh, and Dominik Mysterio. They came over none the wiser, and like Keyser Soze, Pearce was gone.

Danhausen immediately asked for the Intercontinental Championship and had no idea who JD McDonagh was, which is to say he hardly made friends of the trio. And Danhausen wound up giving Mysterio a curse, sparking laughter and then concern when he pulled a Batman and disappeared.

Later in the show, Mysterio appeared to defend his Intercontinental title against Penta. And they had a perfectly reasonable match when all was said and done, culminating in Mysterio trying to dip into his bag of illegal tricks and asking McDonagh to grab the bell hammer. Finn Balor stopped McDonagh, reasoning that Mysterio said he wanted to do things by himself, and then Penta took them out and went on to win the title.

The curse came full circle, Penta has himself a first title in WWE, and there finally seems to be some progress on the long time coming Judgment Day split. A title change on TV is always exciting and when it has a little more going for it, the comedic catharsis with Danhausen and the internal division plotline, then it does make things a little more interesting.

Written by Max Everett

I am pretty darn tired of quite a few storylines in WWE right now, but none quite as much as the Grande Americano/Los Americanos storyline. Of all the things to be wasting TV time on right now, this entire storyline just isn't it, and I'm already tired of the matches pitting the Original El Grande Americano against one of the other Americanos. Outside of being pretty offensive, despite fans in AAA loving Ludwig Kaiser, who can at least speak Spanish, this just feels like it's been done into the ground and nobody really cares anymore, both in the live crowds here in the US, and on social media. I'm assuming we're heading toward a mask-vs-mask match at WrestleMania, and I'm not entirely sure I can handle 50 more days, or however long we have, of this.

The storyline hasn't been "it" in a long time. Chad Gable, now going by the "Original" El Grande Americano, returned at the end of January during the Royal Rumble, so I guess it hasn't gone on too long, when you really think about it, but enough is enough. It doesn't make sense that Gable returned as a babyface, either. He was a heel before he was put on the shelf with injury, and Kaiser taking over the gimmick was over here in America for a bit, but certainly fell off with the inclusion of Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate as Los Americanos. The silly gimmick just got too silly.

"Creatively bankrupt" is the saying going around right now about Triple H and his booking, and you don't have to look much farther than Gable, Kaiser, Dunne, and Bate being wasted with this ridiculous story that currently doesn't have an end in sight. All four men are being wasted with this right now, and I just want to see all of them wrestle as their normal characters, not some borderline, if not over it, offensive white luchador angle. Needless to say, tonight's match pitting the Original El Grande Americano against Rayo Americano did absolutely nothing for me, and that time on the show could have been used toward something else, perhaps furthering a better angle for WrestleMania 42.

Written by Daisy Ruth