WWE RAW 6/22/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that saw Lyra Valkyria turn on Bayley after one tag title match, while The Street Profits captured gold in the other! The WINC staff have thoughts about both those developments here on the column this week, along with many other subjects, from Jey Uso facing off against Oba Femi to Chad Gable apologizing to Alpha Academy.

If you missed the show, you know you can always check out our "WWE Raw" 6/22/26 results page to catch up on everything that went down in objective, orderly fashion. If you want to know the WINC crew's opinions on what went down in London — or at least the parts of the show that spoke most to us, either in a positive or a negative way — this is the place to be. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/22/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"

We're just days away from Night of Champions, so today was the go home episode of "Raw." It started off promising with another Oba Femi promo. Femi has really upped his promo game the last few weeks (as I've written about in this column previously). Then, Opening Segment Jey Uso had to ruin the fun.

Since they were in London, we were treated to/suffered through an extended version of Uso's entrance. By the time he finally got around to addressing Femi, he was huffing and puffing from that very long entrance. While Uso is better on the mic than most, he couldn't hang with Femi, mostly because he painted himself as the underdog in their upcoming King of the Ring finals match.

Uso said he was "going to shock the world and silence the haters," but it won't be shocking when he wins because Brock Lesnar interferes to cost Femi the match. Femi hinted at it during last week's promo when he mentioned he was surprised Lesnar didn't show up. Ever since Rollins was knocked out of the tournament, it was fairly obvious that Uso was going to win and go on to SummerSlam. It seemed logical that he'd challenge his cousin, Roman Reigns. However in this promo, he called out Cody Rhodes. There's a possibility that Rhodes won't even be champion going into SummerSlam since he's facing GUNTHER and Sami Zayn on Saturday. If Rhodes loses and Uso wins, then what?

Regardless of the outcome of the Undisputed World Championship match, Uso is still the favorite to beat Femi. It's been fairly obvious that Femi will face Lesnar at SummerSlam since they're 1-1. Femi is also very likely retiring Lesnar in said match. So, it's obvious to everyone in the WWE Universe that Uso is winning and is not the underdog, no matter how hard he tries to convince us otherwise.

Written by Samantha Schipman

WWE is rarely ever unpredictable these days, but tonight, I was pleasantly surprised that it was Lyra Valkyria to turn heel on Bayley following their Women's Tag Team Championship loss to Brie Bella and Paige on "WWE Raw." I saw the Fightful Select spoiler ahead of the match, and I had to read it three times to make sure what I was seeing was correct. I thought it would be Bella turning heel on Paige and maybe Nikki Bella returning to WWE programming following her ankle injury. They were close to Paige's hometown in England tonight, so that would have made all the sense in the world to me. I've been predicting that for awhile, so when I saw it was Valkyria, I was genuinely surprised, which I love. I'm not often surprised when it comes to WWE's booking, so it was actually nice to be caught off guard, especially by something that isn't stupid.

When it was Valkyria to take the pin, I wondered if the spoiler had been wrong, as I thought she'd freak out on Bayley for eating the loss. I don't mind that it was Valkyria to take the Rampage and look up at the lights, however, because it's not like she's doing anything or on a big win streak or anything important. I had admittedly been losing interest in Valkyria for awhile, but now, I'm fully back in on her. This is the first time she's been a heel in her WWE career, and I'm here for it; I really hope she can pull it off.

There's nobody better to try a new character against than Bayley. While I did think maybe WWE would finally circle back around to her split personality gimmick that she was teasing for quite some time before linking up with Valkyria as an official team, I like this better. As annoyed as I get with WWE dropping storylines, Valkyria as a heel is much fresher.

I'm excited to see where we go with this story next week, as neither woman wanted to talk about Valkyria snapping and beating down Bayley after the match when microphones were shoved in their faces later on in the night. I always love a strong women's division feud outside of any of the title pictures, and Valkyria and Bayley have the opportunity to be great here.

Written by Daisy Ruth

Chad Gable is apologizing, that's his thing now.

After spending much of the past way too long masquerading as the most American luchador in history, losing the right to call himself a luchador to Ludwig Kaiser and discovering the ways of lucha libre through the shedding of that problematic persona, Gable has seen the light. He apologized on the night to Kaiser, the man who stole the fake identity — let's not get into that — and then apologized to every luchador through WWE's own Yoda of luchadors: Rey Mysterio. Mysterio accepted it on behalf of everyone, as is his right as Lucha Yoda. And in return, Gable has been using the special powers imparted to him by that forgiveness to stand as the one and only man who can defend them in the wild west of WWE.

This week, the wheel of forgiveness continued to turn. Only he was done doing all of the apologizing required to reverse parodying an entire culture to no end. This week, it had to be an apology to the Alpha Academy. Long before he had donned the mask on a mission to end the masked scourge on WWE — his words, not mine — he was already being a not-so-nice person to those he formerly called friends. He bullied and eventually turned on his partners in Akira Tozawa, Otis, and Maxxine Dupri, aligning with the Creed brothers and Ivy Nile in turn. But he has since seen the light, much like the mask stuff. That was enough to make Tozawa stand there and do nothing, as well as seemingly bring Otis closer to forgiving him.

But then Dupri got in the way, laid out all of the facts of the matter and essentially told Gable that this apology was too little and too late. Though, contextually, she is clandestine talks with the Vision, having been seen in segments with Austin Theory, so eventually the lady who spoke the truth is made the bad guy. So yeah.

It must be hard for a company so morally bankrupt to consider what heroism actually is. But none of what Gable has done in the time since losing a Mask vs. Mask match has he come even close to righting any wrongs. Yet, he is already being presented as the good guy that only the jealous and bitter, more heelish characters, like a Dupri or, later on, a Rusev will question.

The company will move a character from a sheet that says "heel" to one that says "babyface" and that will be far too evident in the programming. There's a process through time and patience that needs to occur, that isn't, and it leaves everything feeling like artificial and inconsequential slop.

Written by Max Everett

I would be absolutely remiss here if I didn't mention the fact that the stuff between Chad Gable and the rest of Alpha Academy happened many months ago and it feels far too late at this point to be dredging up the stuff between them from the past. It happened a number of months ago and did leave me a bit on the fence at first when it came to their in-ring segment tonight. After sitting with it for a bit though, I actually did end up coming around to this one because of the fantastic character work of two people who were involved.

In general, I haven't loved what WWE has done with Chad Gable's character as of late amid his mission to gain forgiveness from those on the WWE roster who he's wronged. It's not really my cup of tea, but credit where credit is due: I actually thought he did a really good job in his segment as a true babyface. He really spotlighted the great character work he's always been capable of, and was able to put a lot of emotion in a segment that would've gone really sideways had he not done that. It was a bit of a tough spot for him to be in, but I think he managed to pull it off quite well.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Maxxine Durpi's role in the segment. She's been spotted with Austin Theory a handful of times backstage, but until now, we haven't really seen even a glimpse of her work as a heel. This segment is what I would consider to be her first proper showing, and I thought she really knocked it out of the park. She also did a really good job of being the dominant force who led Otis and Akira Tozawa away from Gable, not sugarcoating the fact that she wanted nothing to do with Gable's apology. While I think that Dupri has improved in the ring, I haven't been that interested in her character as a babyface. Based on the glimpse we saw tonight, I think that she's going to do much better as a heel and this was a perfect little tease as to what the audience can expect from her as a (likely) future member of The Vision.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

First and foremost, Liv Morgan is obviously immensely talented. She's quite rightly one of WWE's top stars, a solid in-ring worker who, once upon a time, could carry a decent promo. But she seems to have grown into the most obnoxious, overexposed, and frankly boring character of late.

She won the World Championship from Stephanie Vaquer in April, having spent the build-up to that referring to the "mud huts she lived in" in Chile and the "flea-infested rings" she wrestled in in Mexico. So that's fun. All the more fun is that she has completed a grand total of zero defenses of said title. But at least she is competing in this year's Queen of the Ring tournament, ensuring she will not be defending the title this month since she is in the final at Night of Champions — and maybe even ensuring she doesn't defend the title until SummerSlam in August if she does win, since she plans to challenge Rhea Ripley for the other WWE Women's Championship. It's not as though the title is supposed to be a brand-exclusive proverbial North Star for the women's division. Whatever. Pure and unadulterated fun.

Morgan set about that grand mission of Liv-saturation this week by interrupting IYO SKY during her in-ring interview, bellowing that she is the greatest Women's World Champion of alllllllllllllll- you get the point. Then she appeared in a later backstage segment, interrupting the Judgment Day's little pity party for one another with her own selfish grievance about SKY.

See, Mysterio had lost money to Danhausen, leading to JD McDonagh, attempting to see that debt paid, getting electrocuted by a nondescript yet very expensive gadget. Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez are not in the Queen of the Ring final as they hoped. Mysterio appeared less upset about being ejected from the King of the Ring than his money. Fair, this economy is tough.

So Rodriguez pointed all of that out, leading to Morgan to explain that she will get their money back, Rodriguez will go and win the Intercontinental title from Sol Ruca. So there will be more, much more Morgan moving forward. She also omitted Perez from her plans because there's a slow-burning angle that will likely, hopefully, though not certainly lead to her feuding with Morgan. This is so fun.

It's tiring that there are so many great names on this roster and Morgan is just bulldozing over all of them to no end. A bland character that relies on all of the worst tropes to get heat hardly entices one to watch an already boring show.

Written by Max Everett

There was a lot to like about the main event of "Raw," but the part I really loved was the fact that Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins, The Street Profits, are once again WWE World Tag Team Champions. Those guys absolutely deserve it, especially after their return two months ago, and it's good to have an established tag team holding the titles. Thrown together teams can challenge them until WWE gets itself together when it comes to the tag division, but for now, I guess we have to take what we can get, and the best of the best on the red brand have the gold.

I didn't love the title being thrown on Bron Breakker once Logan Paul went down with a triceps injury. Breakker has a lot going on with Seth Rollins, though that feud never really fully regained steam following both men's injuries that kept them away from one another at WrestleMania. It just still didn't feel right to have him as a tag champion with that going on. Now, Breakker doesn't have to deal with that going into his rubber match with Rollins, their steel cage bout at Night of Champions.

That match was announced via two separate pre-recorded video promos last week, so thankfully this week, Rollins and Breakker did have some interaction. Rollins took out Austin Theory with the brass knuckles that Logan Paul left behind, and Breakker chased him off. Sure, they didn't get physical or have a face-to-face, but this was enough to at least keep me from hating the fact the match was made last week with them not even seeing each other ahead of Riyadh.

The main event also saw the return of Joe Hendry, who hasn't been on "Raw" since May 25, probably thanks in part to Paul's injury. Like Rollins, he didn't do too much, either, but it was nice to see him, especially in Europe. I had just been thinking we haven't seen him in weeks, so, once again, it's nice WWE is at least doing the bare minimum to bring him in, in front of that hot crowd.

I'm never usually a fan of go-home shows before premium live events, as they often don't feature a lot of action. I figured that would be the case tonight, but between Lyra Valkyria's heel turn, and the Street Profits finally taking the tag team championships off The Vision, I didn't think this go-home was too boring.

Written by Daisy Ruth