3 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (19 January - Results & Review)

1. A Raucous Main Event

Even during last week’s whiplash-style “build” for Monday’s world title match, there was little doubt that CM Punk and Finn Balor could create magic given their skills and surroundings with Raw emanating from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Coming out to his old entrance music (drawing a big pop from this writer) and playing to the crowd, Balor rode a wave of home island (WWE was more careful to use this term this week) support to take Punk to the brink in their World Heavyweight Championship match. The fans were firmly in Finn’s corner, casting Punk as the villain, a role he leaned into with a smirk, feeding off the boos.

Punk and Balor mixed in some legit great little moments, such as Punk hitting a superplex, only for Finn to catch his legs in a desperate cradle.

When Balor kicked out of a Go-to-Sleep, Punk lost it a bit, raining down elbows and mounting Finn with a series of punches before cinching in an Anaconda Vice – just in case anyone was confused about who they should be cheering on this night. Balor would get a near-fall of his own with a Coup de Grace before falling to a GTS.

Afterward, Punk offered a handshake and a hug to Balor, who lost honorably (not exactly a feature when it comes to Judgment Day members). It’ll be interesting to see if this show of sportsmanship was a one-off thing because of the audience, or if it will factor into clubhouse tensions with Liv Morgan insisting on a cutthroat attitude to become champions.

As a one-off World Heavyweight Championship match, this was about as good as you could expect, with a memorable entrance from Balor to boot. It just would have been nice if they had actually prepped Finn with a singles win in the lead-up rather than just having him demand a title match after winning one singles match in 19 months.