3 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (12 January - Results & Review)
Breakker runs wild, Gunther gets sneaky, Punk hands out title shots and tropes galore on subpar Raw.
Well, 2026 is certainly off to a roaring start for WWE Raw.
The red brand kicked off the new year last week with a deeply flawed episode that vastly underperformed WWE’s own preset expectations, and this week’s offering wasn’t exactly a vast improvement.
The company didn’t help itself by kicking off the show with a trifecta of bad tropes to set up a match that was just a decently executed spotfest. And that match undercut the premise of a world title mini-program, with Finn Balor essentially being able to walk out and egg CM Punk into giving him a World Heavyweight Championship match despite winning just two televised singles matches in the past 28 months.
Another world champion got jumped in the entrance about 20 seconds after she stared off her potential challenger, displaying the worst peripheral vision since Hans Moleman. And WWE announced a rematch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship, an experiment in how low can diminishing returns go.
But Raw did manage to correct an injustice by putting Je’Von Evans on television in a match one week after signing him to the show during a commercial break. The show was also anchored by a solid main event between Gunther and AJ Styles, with the Ring General relying on trickery to escape with a win.
All told, another disappointing effort from Raw. But don’t worry, the Road to WrestleMania starts soon, and that’s when they really start to hum, right? Right?
Let’s get to it…