WWE RAW 3/16/2026: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that officially gave us Brock Lesnar's opponent for WrestleMania 42! The WINC staff has some thoughts about that, as you might expect, and we also have thoughts on both the previously announced women's Intercontinental title match and the unplanned match for the men's IC title. Oh, and Danhausen. We have more thoughts on Danhausen.

As always, if you missed the show and need to catch up, our "Raw" results page is the best way of doing that, since it'll tell you exactly what happened in clear and objective terms. If you want to know what the WINC crew actually thought of this week's offering from the red brand — or at least the parts that caught our attention the most, for better or worse — this column is the place to be. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 3/16/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"

I'm going to be really honest: I was so worried when the opening segment of this "Raw" started off. It looked like it was shaping up to set something up for Brock Lesnar and Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 42, which isn't a match I personally really wanted to see as it's been done before at WrestleMania 31 and WrestleMania 35. I was bracing for a rough start to "Raw", and not looking forward to what was to come in the minutes that followed Lesnar's appearance.

Then, Oba Femi showed up.

I've been a big fan of Femi's since his days in "NXT" and have been waiting for WWE to do something notable and impactful with him since his arrival on the main roster. Prior to tonight, all he had done was spend the last several weeks beating up talent on the main roster who are on the lower end of the card as a means of racking up wins for him. However, I knew that something cool was about to happen the second he showed up. Not only did WWE set up the much-speculated WrestleMania 42 match between Femi and Lesnar, but they had Femi make a huge statement by leaving Lesnar laid out with ease with one sit-out powerbomb. It shifted my entire feeling towards the opening segment, and made me really excited about the prospect of a match between them (something which I did not expect to happen). It'll be interesting to see where WWE chooses to go next with the storyline given that Lesnar was previously advertised to be featured on the next several editions of "Raw", but I'm hoping it'll spell good things for Femi no matter where the company chooses to take things.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I wrote last week that I was a big fan of Judgment Day turning on Finn Balor and "The Prince" finally breaking free of the stable, but tonight, there wasn't much follow-up to that, perhaps due to Dominik Mysterio's latest injury. The one thing that did happen, however, was Liv Morgan attempting to re-write history via promo segment, and it didn't quite land for me.

I guess if Mysterio is injured, they had to do something tonight to continue the story, or at least acknowledge the big angle from last week. Morgan was already there to accompany Raquel Rodriguez to the ring for her match against Morgan's WrestleMania 42 opponent, Stephanie Vaquer, so it seems like WWE just threw her in front of a camera to cut a promo about it all.

The contents of the promo basically tried to rewrite Judgment Day history, or at least, relatively recent history. Morgan said that getting Balor out of the faction had been her plan since the day she joined Judgment Day. That was really odd, as WWE accompanied that sentence with video of her actual goal, which was to destroy Rhea Ripley and take everything she had, including Ripley's then-boyfriend, Mysterio. As she said it, the video from SummerSlam 2024 played when Mysterio sided with her and left Ripley in the ring, and it just didn't work.

Morgan then continued, telling Balor he had been on borrowed time and she only tolerated him because he was friends with Mysterio. Sure, the Judgment Day has had its issues, but none of them have really been focused around Morgan taking over the faction. There have been more issues between her and Roxanne Perez, before Morgan got injured, that were starting to be the focus on the stable's storyline, and Morgan sometimes didn't agree with Balor, but there was never a strong story about her taking over the group entirely, though she and Balor did butt heads at times.

The one thing Morgan mentioned that was correct was that Balor had gotten soft, which we had seen when he chose to do things himself, like go after World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk. But, that was really the only thing that made sense here. Morgan mentioned the other members of the stable, but nobody else was there with her.

It would have made more sense, and actually would have been more interesting, to hear from JD McDonagh, who really turned his back on his friend last week and sided with Judgment Day instead. This didn't work, and it's likely because of Mysterio's injury, but to have such a hot angle last week not get a good follow-up kind of stunk.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It's becoming a bit of an indictment on the rest of the show that every week I found myself looking to Danhausen as the one constant fixture of entertainment in hours of "WWE Raw," but here we are.

There is something about Danhausen that just makes sense for WWE, a character that really captures the spirit of the circus, something maybe the company tries ever so hard to ignore while almost always continuing to borrow it's worst tricks.

In a commercial break, which again, really demonstrates the levels of indifference in the rest of the show, Mr. Hausen came out to the crowd, promised them a gift, ran backstage to grab that gift – that gift being a T-shirt cannon, loaded for one – and fired it, realized it was just a singular T-shirt cannon before unveiling a rotating T-shirt cannon and... I am acutely aware that this is a very boring way to describe what, to be honest, you would have had to seen to understand. Point being, there was something even within this segment that felt, bizarre and hokey as it all is, wholesome and belonging to a show for the fans. It was just a little bit of stupid fun.

And then he appeared in a later backstage segment with Kofi Kingston and Grayson Waller too. This segment managed to do a lot more than just have Danhausen cursing someone and disappearing. Kingston approached Je'Von Evans to continue pushing for the team I really want to actually happen, but in slandering Dragon Lee irked Evans and he walked off.

Grayson Waller, the 2016 Ghostbusters-equivalent of a New Day member, came over and started talking bad about Evans. And then Kingston started talking bad about Waller, in a somewhat indirect way, but them breaking up is a great idea so let's go.

Then, Danhausen appeared and made his pitch to join the New Day, because that dead horse deserves yet another beating. Of course Kingston said no, Danhausen pitched a frankly great cereal merch idea only to get told no again. Danhausen went for the most dangerous three words in all of sports entertainment – you are cursed – and Kingston pulled Waller in the way. It was cinema.

There is a part of me that recognizes that I am gushing over a backstage segment and a commercial break segment thing. Is that an issue? Almost certainly. But if one is looking to have fun with wrestling then Danhausen just manages to scratch that itch. It's very stupid. Very fun. Very nice. Very evil. Regardless of which. I love that Danhausen and he deserves all of the belts, purely for being the most entertaining attraction on TV.

Written by Max Everett

I'm sure a lot of people loved the match between Penta and Dragon Lee this week; personally, I thought it was pretty good, if perhaps giving a few too many AEW vibes. Despite Penta kicking out of a finisher and the ref clearly holding the ropes open so Lee could dive through them, I'm actually not here to hate on the match itself. I am here to hate on WWE's ideas for the Intercontinental title, which currently appear to be "what if it was the United States title?"

I'm sorry, Penta is great and we all dig a fighting champion, but it's a little rich to have the man start doing open challenges when his "SmackDown" counterparts — Carmelo Hayes, and Ilja Dragunov and Sami Zayn before him — have been doing open challenges for months now. Like, is this really all Paul Levesque has in his creative bag? The only alternative seems to be "Dominik Mysterio gets a title rematch" which will apparently happen when he's cleared to compete (talk about repetitive storytelling; Dom wasn't cleared to compete for basically his entire title reign). I guess Penta open challenges are preferable to that, but that doesn't make them creative. That's what y'all do with the men's midcard title on Fridays, man. What else you got?

Written by Miles Schneiderman

I really loved that AJ Lee's first Women's Intercontinental Championship defense was against someone she had so much history with in Bayley, rather than immediately giving Becky Lynch her rematch for the gold. She and Bayley had a solid match tonight, and I saw someone say on Twitter that Lee's current singles run is showing why "#GiveDivasAChance" was a thing back in the day and why Divas deserved 10 minutes back then.

Bayley looked to have the match won with a sidewalk slam, but when she went up top for the elbow drop, Lee rolled out of the way. Lee retained the gold when Bayley tapped out to the Black Widow. While I don't love that Bayley took a loss here on the "Road to WrestleMania," it helped Lee, who is still getting her feet back underneath her and shaking off the ring rust, look like a strong champion. Bayley had a solid win last week in the gauntlet match, too, so it wasn't all bad.

I also loved Bayley's backstage segment with Lyra Valkyria tonight, where Valkyria promised that she was going to help Bayley get to WrestleMania this year, and that they were going to do it together by going after the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships. Whether WWE realizes they're doing it or not, they're doing some long term storytelling, as Bayley was meant to be Valkyria's tag team partner at last year's WrestleMania, before she was taken out by Becky Lynch and couldn't compete at the event. I love that Valkyria still feels bad, though it wasn't her fault, and is now making it her mission to help Bayley get back on the "Grandest Stage of Them All."

I really like Bayley and Valkyria as a tag team, and while I would like to see Bayley with the Women's Intercontinental Championship sometime in the near future, just getting her on the 'Mania card is fine for now. It seems likely that WWE will book a multi-team match for the women's tag titles for the event, and I would love to see Bayley and Valkyria somehow get into the likely match with the Bellas Twins, the Irresistible Forces, and CharLexa. They'll have to make the jump to the blue brand, but I wouldn't hate seeing them on Fridays for a while. Even if they're in some kind of crazy multi-team ladder match to become number one contenders for the titles, as long as it's on WrestleMania, I'll be a happy Bayley fan.

Written by Daisy Ruth

We're just over a month away from WrestleMania and it looks like we'll be getting a promo segment between CM Punk and Roman Reigns every Monday night until then. When the match was first announced, I had some interest, but these two have managed to shrink that interest every time they speak. I'm a fan of both men, but I'm mostly just annoyed by them now. They cut virtually the same promo (not that it's anything new). The first promo was pretty solid, but since then it's just repeating that Reigns hates Punk for real and Punk thinks he's a part-timer who hides behind his family. Punk got some heat from the family when he told Reigns he was going to "bury you next to your father."

Reigns has been referring to Punk by his real name since their promos began. Tonight, Punk responded by telling Reigns he wasn't going to call him Joe "because that would be insulting to a real Samoan who I love very much." Reigns decided to hone in on the part-timer argument and invoked AJ Lee and told him to "go ask your wife." While it got a visible reaction, it wasn't enough to cause Punk to get physical. That only happened when Reigns called him old. Of all of the things to get mad at, why is that the one? Most of the men's champions are old.

Punk did get in a good line about hitting him with the GTS and splitting the OTC's ego in two before winning at 'Mania. Punk is known for his excellent mic skills (which even the Tribal Chief acknowledged) and Reigns can hold his own, especially when he's gaslighting. Unfortunately, other than a few lines in these promos, they've just haven't been hitting the way they should. I don't know what they're going to say in the next 4 weeks that they haven't already said. Last week, they had the Usos cut promos on Reigns's behalf. Are they going to have Lee cut one of her own on Reigns? "The Road to WrestleMania" has been bogged down, even with the main events sorted out. Not even a weekly promo battle between Punk and Reigns can save this build to the biggest show of the year.

Written by Samantha Schipman