7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (17 Feb - Results & Review)

1. Going Back To The Well

In recent weeks, Gunther and Jey Uso’s exploding rivalry has become one of the hottest items on Raw, but the warning from last week – “There are nine more episodes of Raw before WrestleMania 41. Keeping this feud this hot is going to be tough.” – might have been a bit prescient.

Gunther entered the arena ala Jey, trying to “feel what Yeet is all about,” mocking Uso’s entrance. He cut his typical strong promo (more on that later), inciting the fans and then getting in Pat McAfee’s face before Jey came out, ducking the referees and sprinting to the ring for another pull-apart fight. Gunther and Uso broke loose a couple of times before finally being separated for good to close out the segment.

It was the second consecutive in-ring brawl between champion and challenger, and there are still eight more episodes of Raw before Mania. Monday’s pull-apart already was less heated than last week’s battle, and WWE has two months of build to go. In some ways, it almost feels like this would work 100 times better if Gunther and Jey were facing each other at Elimination Chamber rather than Mania.

None of this means the feud is doomed, or even in jeopardy, but this is a cautionary “down” serving as a warning that WWE needs to measure things over these next eight weeks to not retread angles or burn off too much heat before WrestleMania. There’s still a ton of potential here.