WWE RAW Surprises & Stuns: Makes Up For Lackluster WrestleMania With Cena, Rollins, McAfee

/ Tuesday, April 22, 2025 - 2:21AM
RASW Stuns, Makes Up For Lackluster Wrestlemania With Cena, Rollins, McAfee

Monday Night RAW on Netflix stuns and shocks the world and makes up for what some feel to be a rather lackluster WrestleMania, as John Cena, Seth Rollins, and even Pat McAfee bring the house down.

John Cena Kicks Off RAW

Immediately kicking off from Sunday night’s controversial win, RAW starts off with – you can’t see me – John Cena entering the squared circle. Cena talked for nearly 15 minutes and announced that he will be going home with the WWE title when all is said and done. It actually sounds like the WWE might be planning on some sort of soft reboot, that is assuming Cena does retire with the title. However, standing in Cena’s way happens to be the Legend Killer himself! Randy Orton! Orton hit an RKO on Cena, which is likely setting up a feud between the two OG WWE Superstars. Great segment.

Women’s tag team title rematch

From there, we go into the women’s tag team title match, as Sunday saw the surprise reappearance of Becky Lynch. Raquel Rodriguez and Liv Morgan took on Valkyria and Lynch in a rematch. In another big surprise, Valkyria and Lynch won the match to win back the titles after only one day, making them four-time title winners. They’ll be on NXT defending the titles next.

Rusev returns

Next up are Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods coming to the ring. Then out comes Otis, Akira Tozawa, and Maxxine Dupri. It looks like another rematch is about to happen but then Rusev made his surprise return to WWE! Kingston and Woods bailed, but Rusev gave Tozawa and Otis a beat down. Rusev sports a new entrance, and an overall new look with a shaved head, and the dude is even more jacked!

Women’s champ match

Following the commercial break, Iyo Sky is in the ring, who retained the title in her triple-threat match at WrestleMania. In another surprise, NXT Women’s champ Stephanie Vaquer came to the ring. They start their match but Roxanne Perez eventually ends up attacking Sky for the DQ. Giulia then shows up and goes after Vaquer. Rhea Ripley then runs to the ring to take out Perez.

Yeet! Yeet! Yeet!

Yeet! Yeet! Yeet! The crowd erupts as Jey Uso makes his way to the ring through the crowd. Sami Zayn comes out and congratulates Uso saying he deserved to win, etc. That’s it.

McAfee choked out

Next and possibly even more controversial than what happened with Cena and Rhodes at Wrestlemania, is the aftermath of Jey Uso defeating Gunther via submission. Gunther is shown yelling at Michael Cole, as he seems upset by Cole and McAfee’s commentary. The crowd is going ballistic yelling, “You tapped out!” Cole says it’s not his fault Gunther tapped out, which saw Gunther push McAfee to the ground and then start to choke out Cole. McAfee then smashed Gunther! However, Gunther got McAfee in the choke hold and wouldn’t let go! All hell broke out as McAfee’s entourage tried to intervene, but WWE security stepped in. Eventually, Gunther let McAfee go who was visibly injured and wouldn’t return to RAW for the rest of the night. Cole returned to commentate with Joe Tessitore.

Intercontinental Title match

Following that fiasco, Dominik Mysterio defended his Intercontinental Title against Penta. Finn Balor and Carlito also accompanied Mysterio. Balor interfered with Penta hitting a hurricanrana on Balor. JD McDonagh then appeared and interfered, which set up Dom hitting Penta with a Frog Splash for the win.

The Next Paul Heyman Guy

Monday Night RAW ends with Seth “Freaking” Rollins and Paul Heyman making their way to the ring. As they are about to talk, CM Punk’s music hits! Punk runs to the ring, and they immediately start duking it out. As CM Punk takes out Rollins and grabs Heyman, Rollins recovers and gives Punk a curb-stomp. Heyman gets on the mic and says that Rollins is the new #1 WWE star. Roman Reigns music hits! Reigns takes out Rollins! Gives Heyman a Superman punch! He’s setting up Heyman for the spear! OOOH-AAH!!! Out of nowhere, Reigns gets speared!!! It’s another big surprise from someone wearing a black hoodie! OMG (in Joey Styles’ voice)! It’s Bron Breaker! He then hits Punk with a spear! Reigns is outside the ring! Breaker and Reigns start battling! Breaker runs around the ring for a super spear to Reigns through the wall! Rollins, Breaker, and Heyman stand victorious in the ring! Bron Breaker is the next Paul Heyman Guy!

The Verdict

Probably one of the best Monday Night RAW’s that I can remember in a long time, and easily the best of the new Netflix era.

I thought WrestleMania was okay. The women’s triple threat and the Rollins, Punk, and Reigns triple threat matches were the best of the weekend, IMO. Yeah, I was disappointed with the Cena vs Rhodes fight. Travis Scott is a joke (lol). I suppose the argument is that it played out exactly as Cena said. Also, where’s The Rock?

So an at best mid WrestleMania, but RAW was electrifying!

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About The Author

Matt McGloin
Matt McGloin created, designed and launched Cosmic Book News in 2008, an independent website that covers entertainment news including movies, comics, tv, video games and more. Matt helped Marvel Comics promote 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Nova' and has expanded into movies, TV and more. Matt's scoops include the biggest of them all when he released the 'Avengers: Endgame' title before 'Infinity War.' Recently saw Matt first say Marvel is retooling 'Daredevil: Born Again,' which was confirmed exactly as he said months later by the trades.

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