5 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (22 July - Results & Review)

3. Dragging Lyra Down

When Lyra Valkyria debuted on Raw, she was immediately shot into the limelight, reaching the Queen of the Ring finals, earning Becky Lynch’s endorsement, and competing in the Money in the Bank ladder match. She seemed destined for big things right out of the chute and felt like a rare instance of WWE not fumbling an NXT call-up.

Monday night, she was out there losing a heatless, boring match to Sonya Deville where the only bright spots came when Valkyria was firing on offense – or loudly calling a spot because Sonya screwed up taking a gutwrench powerbomb.

Lyra losing the match – and her overall involvement in this feud – feels like a step down for her, and it’s disappointing that it’s come so quickly after such a promising start. While one disappointing feud does not mean the end of the world, it’s still no less frustrating.

Worse, this mini-rivalry likely exists only to put the trio of Deville, Shayna Baszler, and Zoey Stark over so they can feud over the tag titles, or with a newly turned Damage CTRL, whom they took out recently. That would mean Valkyria and the TikTok twins are little more than shine for the heels.