6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (23 February - Results & Review)

WWE is inside two months until WrestleMania 42, but you wouldn’t know that if you looked at the card… or ticket sales… or the excitement that they’re supposedly building for the biggest show of the year.

The company brought back Brock Lesnar for WrestleMania Season, but rather than launch him into a feud, they had him declare an open challenge for 'Mania… before leaving for three weeks. A third member of The Vision in as many months got injured, leaving the group limping along with a guy who has 32 matches to his credit and a generic guy whose matches play out to utter silence, managed by a guy whose meal ticket just issued an open challenge for WrestleMania… to gross indifference.

Following up on a successful segment last week involving the Women’s World Championship, WWE took an odd route that ultimately will likely be a bump in the road. but still was a curious choice.

Faced with a mid-match injury to the wrestler destined for the Elimination Chamber, WWE decided to go with the guy who has been having increasingly bad matches… because fans like to yell, “Yeet!”

It wasn’t all bad. AJ Styles’ retirement celebration was really nicely handled. The World Heavyweight Championship feud has quietly become a strong suit, which is great considering the Royal Rumble winner made his choice and then disappeared for the month. And Gunther had a fun opening segment that reminded fans that he still has a lot of juice.

But it’s seven-plus weeks out from WrestleMania 42. Crowds shouldn’t be filling arenas and then sitting on their hands. That’s a bigger indictment of the current build than any single list-based article. Speaking of which…

Let’s get to it…

DOWNS…

5. Relying On Liv’s ‘Acting’

Last week, Raw nailed its backstage confrontation between Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer, with the Women’s World Champion absolutely shredding Morgan, calling her spoiled and leaving her shook.

The question coming into Monday night was how they’d play off that genuinely great moment. The answer came when Liv brought out Vaquer and Jade Cargill to make her decision about who to face at WrestleMania 42. Morgan decided to “act” and try to be emotional and contrite with La Primera, as she told her that she was right, that Liv was selfish and had every advantage, which Stephanie had to fight and struggle to make it to WWE.

And then Liv bonked Vaquer with the mic, laid her out with an Oblivion, and chose her for her opponent.

In the grand scheme of things, this shouldn’t hurt the overall story, but it certainly won’t be remembered like Batista deciding to face Triple H in 2005. It was poorly acted and poorly staged on the heels of last week’s segment. Vaquer looked like a geek while Liv basically got to no-sell last week’s evisceration.

4. More Uso

Accidents do happen, and it’s got to be incredibly difficult to change plans on the fly because of an injury.

But that’s exactly what happened during the opening match of the night, with Bronson Reed being taken out after he dove to break up a pinfall attempt. Prior to Reed’s injury, the match wasn’t trending toward being some great, memorable battle. After Bronson was sidelined, Jey Uso and Original El Grande Americano stumbled about for a couple minutes – in part likely due to Reed’s injury and because Big Bronson was supposedly the intended winner.

Once the action picked back up, it wasn’t all that great, spiraling toward a finish that saw El Grande drop Uso by getting the knees up on a splash attempt, only for Jey to escape an anklelock, overcome a rolling Liger Kick, and nail a splash and spear for the win.

In addition to the action being subpar, getting another Jey Uso WrestleMania season push means we have to deduct some points. They had the opportunity to do something different and book Americano into something actually meaningful, but they instead went back to the well with Jey. In reality, it’s probably for the best that El Grande doesn’t “exist” in a lot of WWE context, but that doesn’t make it disappointing to see them stick to making him the pin-eater and dropping one-half of their tag champs into the Elimination Chamber.

3. More Nothing From Nattie

For the second time this month, WWE allegedly tried to pay off the feud between student and teacher with Maxxine Dupri and Nattie. For the second time this month, WWE s**t the bed with an embarrassing excuse of a match that completely turned off the fans.

Despite Nattie having a new character that is supposed to be a no-nonsense ass-kicker, Maxxine inexplicably got the upper hand right away with a dropkick, spin kick, pump kick (detecting a theme yet?), and then a high kick on the outside.

Nattie’s one offensive move was to shove Dupri into the ring post, which knocked Maxxine out cold. Nattie pounced and started punching until the referee pulled her off and called for the bell, with Neidhart rushing back and continuing the assault.

And that was it. One lucky shove into the post was Nattie’s only offensive move, and it ended the match. What an absolutely dismal performance. If there was any doubt that Nattie’s new character was deader than Maude Flanders, this was it. She got owned for the first minute, got a post-assisted knockout, and no one cared.

2. Stick A Fork In Them

It’s time for WWE to give The Vision the (metaphorical) Old Yeller treatment and put them out of their misery.

Honestly, one could have made a solid case for this before Bronson Reed tore his biceps Monday night. They probably could have been shelved as a unit after Bron Breakker went down with a hernia a few weeks ago – and they weren’t exactly setting the world on fire before that either.

But now, with Reed out, you are left with a “stable” featuring Logan Paul and Austin Theory. Even Paul Heyman has his own side project with Brock Lesnar and isn’t fully invested in The Vision these days. His meal ticket is The Beast, not the YouTuber and everyone’s favorite CAW.

Maybe the group will limp into WrestleMania 42 if Breakker can return in time, but 2026 has not been a good year for a stable that has been professing to dominate Raw for six-plus months now. The Judgment Day is a more influential stable in its current iteration by miles than The Vision.

1. And The Crowd Goes Mild!

Seriously, this is where we are? Brock Lesnar is issuing an open challenge for WrestleMania 42?

Some will say that this adds a bit of intrigue to 'Mania, but what it really says is that WWE doesn’t have a story to tell. It says that Lesnar has been so detached from WWE (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) in recent years that there are no obvious rivalries to dust off.

Even worse, the crowd reaction to Brock could be described as “muted” at best, with fans making more noise chanting for “Oba” Femi than anything else during that segment (other than the obvious seal-like chant-along with Paul Heyman). But no one seemed to care, and they cared even less once it became obvious that Femi wasn’t going to come out to answer the open challenge.

What does this mean? Brock will return on 16 March and appear on the five Raws leading up to WrestleMania 42. Is he going to just issue an open challenge every week and no one responds? Or will someone (LA Knight? Oba?) answer it right away, and then they’ll build the feud?

Honestly, someone better answer the challenge on the 16th, or the eventual opponent is going to look like a chump, with Heyman dressing down the locker room and no one stepping up. At least this week, Knight is focused on the Elimination Chamber, and Femi was already contending with Rusev.

Regardless, it seems pretty clear that Brock Lesnar is no longer a thing, and WWE brass is the last one to know.

UPS…

6. Not His Best, But…

CM Punk is a rare example of a wrestler who could have an off night but still deliver a promo that most people would think is perfectly fine.

Monday night’s Punk promo was a bit clunky as he tried to tie all the “what if?” together before pointing out that he doesn’t deal in “what ifs;” he deals in reality. He speculated about Finn Balor not becoming a top contender had he not jumped Punk and ruined his last match against AJ Styles, becoming a problem Punk had to tackle. He also asked an awkward “what if?” about Roman Reigns being at Raw Monday night before tying it to his “deal in reality” line.

Clunky, yes. But the fans came up at the right spots, and CM Punk teased an encounter with Roman at next week’s Raw, which reminded everyone that stuff is about to get real for WrestleMania after Saturday’s World Heavyweight Championship match.

5. Another Good Je’Von Showcase, But…

Another week, another good showcase match involving Je’Von Evans.

However, WWE deserves some criticism for booking a match between Evans and Kofi Kingston as an impromptu, mid-show bout that had just as much focus on outside shenanigans as it did on the in-ring action.

They had a nice moment in the beginning with Kofi reversing out of an arm wringer, only for Evans to reverse the hold, but in a flashier manner. This prompted Kingston to slap Je’Von, who stewed for a moment before delivering a thrust kick. Cute moment between two of the flashier wrestlers on the roster.

The action picked up after Evans missed a moonsault and tweaked his leg. That didn’t stop him from hitting a Red Dot and a suicide dive. After some interference, Je’Von soared with an OG Cutter for the win.

Solid enough work, but it’s ridiculous that WWE burned a first-time ever match between two wrestlers who have drawn comparisons and could actually draw as a featured bout. Big misfire here by WWE.

4. Balor Focused On The Prize

"I'm sorry Dominik, I've been focusing on the biggest match of my career. It's time to take some responsibility, Dominik, and grow up." - Finn Balor

FINN BALOR GETS PISSED WITH DOMINIK ?#WWERaw pic.twitter.com/49f4vSJc6p

— EliteRockerz ? (@EliteClubS0B) February 24, 2026

The Judgment Day has been in varying stages of turmoil for years now, so it really shouldn’t generate a headline when there’s drama coming out of the clubhouse. But Finn Balor being laser-focused on becoming World Heavyweight Champion and putting other members in their place? That’s a bit noteworthy.

Since losing his title shot in Belfast last month, Balor has dialed in on his second chance against CM Punk at the Elimination Chamber this weekend. Last week, Finn held his stablemates back when they wanted to defend him against Punk. Monday night, Balor told them that he wanted to face Punk alone at the PLE (of course, this is the Judgment Day).

When Dominik Mysterio complained that he didn’t want to go it alone in his matches – especially next week against Penta – Finn “apologized” for being focused on the biggest match of his career, and told Dirty Dom to “take some responsibility and grow up.” There’s a chance this is Finn finally breaking free of the group, or it could be yet another red herring. Still, it’s good to see Balor focused and also giving the younger Mysterio a bit of a jolt.

3. Big Mami Cool Punches Her Ticket

Raquel Rodriguez earning the final spot in the women’s Elimination Chamber was not something everyone would have predicted, especially with Iyo Sky in Monday’s triple threat and Rhea Ripley already in the Chamber match. You would be forgiven if you were already visualizing spots with the tag champs squaring off.

But Rodriguez overcame a series of double-teams from the former Damage CTRL stablemates, using her size and power to her advantage to overwhelm Iyo and Kairi Sane. Sky had her usual good night, but Kairi also performed well in defeat. The closing moments saw Sane and Sky team up to (presumably) take Raquel out of the match before resuming hostilities against one another. Just when it looked like Iyo had it won with a moonsault, Rodriguez pulled Kairi out of the way and waffled her with a clothesline.

Iyo had Raquel on the ropes with a springboard dropkick, Bullet Train Attack, and Tornado DDT, but Kairi interjected and tried to land the Insane Elbow, only for Rodriguez to get the knees up and drill her with a Tejana Bomb.

Fun match with a small surprise of a finish.

2. A Phenomenal Send-Off

Heading into AJ Styles’ career celebration Monday night, the only outstanding question was whether it would descend into chaos. Would Gunther return and interrupt it? Would someone attack him from the crowd to trigger one more match?

Instead of any kind of shenanigans, WWE reintroduced Creed as the soundtrack for their montage videos, gave Styles the floor to talk about his career and his family, and then made him the next inductee into the company’s Hall of Fame.

There really isn’t much else to say. Styles was gracious, humble, and earnest. His comments about his wife Wendy and family were the most heartwarming part. Then he left his gloves in the center of the ring, ending that brief non-controversy. This brought out the Undertaker for the only negative part – having to listen to that Kid Rock theme - but 'Taker delivered the good news about the Hall of Fame, so that balanced things out.

If this really is the end of AJ Styles’ in-ring career and he’s not stepping back between the ropes, then it’s great that WWE gave him a proper send-off. It would’ve been a bit nicer if some of his former rivals had more of a role than a few short backstage clips and a quick soundbite in a video package, but that’s a minor quibble.

1. Gunther Gets What’s Coming

Since submitting and ending the career of John Cena, Gunther has (for a heel) understandably gloated at every turn. Tack on his win to retire AJ Styles, and the Ring General has been downright insufferable lately.

But when Michael Cole and Corey Graves tried to open Raw by setting the stage for AJ’s career celebration later Monday night, Gunther took it too far. He chased the announcers out of the ring and proceeded to deride the fans and WWE for wanting to celebrate a loser.

Gunther didn’t get any further in his rant, though, because Raw GM Adam Pearce charged out and shouted over him that he’d gone too far, kicking him out of the ring. Gunther responded that he would leave, “not because you told me to, but out of my own free will,” because of the disgrace that was going to happen later that evening.

That in itself seemed to be enough, but when Gunther turned around to gloat one more time at the entrance, Dragon Lee jumped him and pummeled the Ring General until the Austrian was forced to the back. Dragon Lee rushed Gunther again backstage, leaving him laying on the concrete before security could separate them.

Pearce screaming, “Are you happy? This just is not your night!” pretty much summed it up.

Dragon needed to get the upper hand on Gunther at least once in this mini-feud, and doing it on AJ Styles’ big night was the right call. It also dished Gunther just a bit of humble pie before he inevitably puts Lee down and goes right back to boasting.