5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (27 Jan - Results & Review)

1. A Poor Substitute

WWE Raw Paul Heyman Roman Reigns WWE 2K25
WWE

Maybe it was how WWE pulled the Tribal Chief ceremony from Raw. Maybe it was that Roman Reigns didn’t even bother to show up for the reveal of his WWE 2K25 video game cover. And maybe it was sitting through a series of uneventful promo segments all night.

But Paul Heyman’s appearance on Raw felt like little more than a space- and time-filler.

Heyman delivered the same Reigns-worshipping promo fans have heard a billion times during the past four years, just with the added bonus of the video game cover art dropping from the ceiling during it. Roman is going to win the Royal Rumble. He’s the biggest star on the planet. Everyone in the locker room wants to be Roman. The end.

Drew McIntyre’s appearance and “I’m the Bloodline’s daddy” tale was both amusing and delusional, serving to reconnect Drew to the Tribal Chief in time for Saturday. But that could have been accomplished with three lines of dialogue from Michael Cole during the Rumble. McIntyre’s warning he wanted Paul to deliver to “your boy” was cute when he revealed that it was Punk, not Roman.

Ultimately, though, this segment existed to fill time that originally was going to be a major celebration for Reigns, and it paled in comparison to some significant Bloodline drama.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.