WWE RAW 6/29/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show that officially gave us two new matches for SummerSlam — Oba Femi vs. Brock Lesnar in Hell in a Cell, and Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship. As you might expect, the WINC staff has some thoughts about those matches, and the segments in which they were made. We also have thoughts about The Vision, Maxxine Dupri, Chad Gable, and more!

If you missed the show, you can catch up via our "WWE Raw" 6/29/26 results page, where we cover everything and anything that happened in complete, objective detail. That's not what this column is, though — this column is for the WINC crew's completely subjective opinions, and we only cover the things that stood out to us in a positive or negative way. If that's your jam, stick around, because these are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/29/26 episode of "WWE Raw!"

Many of us have heard the rumblings that WWE was planning on running a match of some sort between Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar at WWE SummerSlam on August 1 and August 2. It's not necessarily a surprise to see that WWE are choosing to run a Hell in a Cell Match between the pair, but the manner in which they've chosen to book it feels absolutely baffling and infuriating to me.

First off, I know that not everyone will share this opinion with me and that's totally okay. Personally, I'm not exactly the most hyped about seeing Brock Lesnar back in WWE or having his series of matches with Femi go to a trilogy. Yes, I knew that there was a very good chance that would end up happening sooner rather than later, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that I'm not frustrated with seeing Lesnar pop in and out of WWE to have the same match over and over again.

It's also completely unclear whether or not WWE is having Femi wrestle both nights of SummerSlam: once against Lesnar in their Hell in a Cell Match and once for a World Championship given that he's the winner of the 2026 King of the Ring. I know that it was alluded to by "Raw" General Manager Adam Pearce that Femi would have to give up his King of the Ring crown to face Lesnar at SummerSlam, but it also wasn't really definitive enough of an answer for me to make that clear about whether Femi would be wrestling on one night or two. I think WWE was aiming for there to be some room for interpretation as to the answer of that question, but I can't help but feel that there was a little too much murkiness that started to border on outright confusion.

If Femi is going to wrestle on just one night and not get his King of the Ring prize anyways (which it seems there's a good fairly chance that's what will happen), then I don't see the point of having him win the 2026 King of the Ring Tournament. There are plenty of other people on the roster that could've held the crown instead to get a World Championship shot of their own in Femi's place, and it just makes things that much more convoluted than they already are.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

Since returning from Mexico, Chad Gable has been on an apology tour. He's been good at admitting exactly why he was wrong and understanding why he was wrong. He admits his jealousy is the reason, but not an excuse. So far, everyone has accepted his apology, except for Maxxine Dupri. Otis seemed ready to accept his apology, but Dupri stepped in the way. She laid into Gable and yelled at him. She refused to accept his apology.

Tonight, Dupri stopped when she saw Gable. She said that she still meant what she said and started to say that maybe she shouldn't have spoken to him that way, but Gable stopped her. He told Dupri that while he appreciated what she was trying to say, she didn't owe him an apology and she doesn't owe him forgiveness. That is such a surprising thing to hear on a wrestling show, especially coming from a male wrestler. It almost seems like Gable is taking control of his creative because WWE writers don't write like that. They used Kit Wilson to mock toxic masculinity for months (among many other examples). Maybe it's a small thing, but it's refreshing to hear Gable speak like that to a woman and affirm her, especially when they opened the show with a man named in a civil lawsuit as a potential recipient of a sex trafficking victim.

Written by Samantha Schipman

It seems quite obvious that Paul Heyman's involvement with The Vision is over, as the faction has been floundering, due in part to numerous injuries to most all involved, for months. It would be nice, however, if WWE would address this outright, and after tonight, they have an easy way to do so, one that makes a ton of sense. Of course, I highly doubt WWE creative will make anything of it.

I thought maybe it wouldn't be addressed at all, but following Oba Femi and Brock Lesnar, with Heyman by his side, making their SummerSlam match official tonight, we did get a backstage segment where Austin Theory addressed Heyman's lack of communication. Instead of going further into it, however, Heyman basically was like, "Yup, here I am," and walked away from Theory. That was it. He wasn't present for Theory's match later in the night.

I can't remember the last time Heyman was around The Vision. I think maybe it was when he told Theory that their tag team championship contract just read "The Vision" not "Theory and Logan Paul," when Paul went down with injury. That led to the reveal Breakker could take over as champion, but the pair lost the belts in their first defense, so that matters little, anyway. After that, I'm not sure if I've seen Heyman around any of them, at least not for anything else of note.

It also looked like Theory ended things with Maxxine Dupri backstage tonight before whatever it was that they had going on even began on-screen for fans. With no Breakker in sight following his steel cage loss to Seth Rollins at Night of Champions, Paul seemingly off TV due to his triceps injury, and Reed still out injured, The Vision is dead.

Heyman shouldn't be anywhere near the faction at this point, but I do think fans need some kind of explanation, even if it's a simple one where he calls them all losers and says he's too busy with Lesnar to be bothered with them anymore. The rest of The Vision can just dissolve somehow, I guess, as Breakker's future certainly doesn't look nearly as bright as it once was, and Theory has always felt like a hopeless case. I fear, however, this will be yet another instance of WWE failing to tie up loose ends, with the powers that be just hoping we forget about it all. The Vision felt has felt like a bad fever dream since October, anyway.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I know some fans may have wanted Lyra Valkyria's first promo following her heel turn on Bayley last week after their loss to the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions in front of a live crowd, but I much preferred this pre-recorded segment for Valkyria to be able to explain herself fully, without interruption. Sure, crowd involvement is great a lot of the time, but I'm not sure if the Atlantic City fans would have let Valkyria get out everything she needed to say.

Now it feels like next week, she'll be able to go out there and explain herself once again, this time, to plenty of boos, I'm sure, and Bayley will likely make an appearance. Seems like WWE could be setting them up for a SummerSlam match; it's a great story and has the potential to be awesome.

Valkyria's promo tonight was really good, and I especially liked the slightly-disheveled look she had going for it, with minimal makeup and her hair wild. She had some really strong heelish points, as well. She said it takes two to lose a tag team title match, which it does, though failed to address that she was actually the one to take the pin, which has got to come up at some point, hopefully during a face-to-face confrontation with Bayley.

Valkyria said she's been the bigger person for a year and she's not proud of what happened, but she's also not losing sleep over it, either. She mentioned being the one to carry the load, and how she sacrificed her success because she wanted to take Bayley to the top with her, which I thought was a pretty fire line for Valkyria's first time as a heel. That, and she mentioned she was supposed to be "working with one of the best," which was a great shot to be fired toward Bayley, who is undeniably one of the greatest.

I thought this was a really strong segment tonight on a show that wasn't the best, so it really stood out to me. I was glad Valkyria got this time to start to explain herself, without anyone interrupting. Now that she's got enough out in the open, it makes sense to throw her in front of a hot crowd, though I do hope Bayley is around to back her up and confront her, just in case she may need a little extra help in a segment in front of people, since this is her first time working heel. I'm really interested in this storyline, and I always love a good women's feud outside of the title scene.

Written by Daisy Ruth

We're fully into SummerSlam season now with three matches being confirmed for "The Biggest Party of the Summer." During the closing segment of "WWE Raw," Seth Rollins interrupted Roman Reigns and Jacob Fatu. Rollins immediately played the Shield card and droned on and on about their history. He believes Reigns owes him and then claimed he owns him in the ring, mentally, and in his heart. Rollins claimed that Reigns had never beaten him even though Cagematch proves that to be a lie — Reigns defeated him in their first singles match.

Rollins continued playing the nostalgia card, revisiting what they did as The Shield. He pointed out that they are closer to the end than the beginning and it may be their last chance to wrestle each other for the title. Reigns agreed to defend his title against Reigns at SummerSlam after listening to Rollins' very long, boring spiel. If Rollins was going to challenge Reigns for the title at SummerSlam, why not just have him win King of the Ring? Oba Femi is already foregoing his title shot to face Brock Lesnar in a Hell in a Cell match. Jey Uso says he's going to challenge Sami Zayn (assuming he's even the champion by then). It seems like plans for King of the Ring and SummerSlam have constantly been in flux.

Reigns vs. Femi should be the WrestleMania match and we've got a long way to go to get there. The way creative has gone in WWE this year, even that's not a clear guarantee at this point. Reigns vs. Rollins has been done before and Femi would've provided something new, even if I think it's too soon to do it. For me, Reigns vs. Rollins is just another match that I have no interest in and the promo from Rollins made sure I don't care.

Written by Samantha Schipman

A brighter spark of this week's show, which was really underwhelming on the whole, came in glimpses of segments featuring the Bloodline throughout. It maybe doesn't bode well for the show that the more compelling aspects were mere teasers for or transitions to things to come. But there were certainly bright sparks to the interactions between the Usos and Jacob Fatu, and then later the interaction between Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns – with Fatu standing witness – to set up their SummerSlam bout.

Continuing the issue between LA Knight and the Bloodline, Knight faced Jimmy Uso in singles action. The match was about as exciting as one could imagine, coming just one week after Knight won over the same opponent in a match just as exciting as one could imagine. But then Knight attacked the Usos and looked to fall victim to the numbers game, had it not been for a sneak attack from Solo Sikoa.

That then necessitated a backstage segment between the Usos and Fatu, them asking where he was while all of that had gone down. Fatu, and this is a particular trait to his Bloodline character that has been enjoyable, reiterated in his own way that he doesn't answer to the Usos but Reigns and Reigns alone. And speaking of answering to Reigns, he would be headed to "WWE SmackDown" to take care of Sikoa once and for all. Jey told Fatu that meant he would be going with him, especially with Sami Zayn as WWE Champion and having no challenger determined at the moment. So there is the promise of more to come in both regards, a hook to watch Friday's show and find out what happens.

In the main event, Fatu flanked Reigns as he fielded an interruption from Rollins. These are normally great segments with the wealth of history and attached emotions to explore. This segment didn't really capture that and rather went for a slightly inaccurate recounting of the highlights. Rollins claimed that Reigns has never been able to beat him, which is just false. But the point of that segment was to make Rollins versus Reigns at SummerSlam, and that is just a really great match-up no matter how many times it gets booked.

Point being, this week's show was a little drab taking everything into account. But there are some things in the works that at least feel compelling enough to warrant notice.

Written by Max Everett