WWE RAW 7/21/2025: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE Raw," the show where we're adding IC title matches to SummerSlam and adding stipulations to other IC matches for SummerSlam and ... well, let's be honest, probably not adding a tag title match to SummerSlam based on WWE's recent track record, but definitely giving the LWO a tag title match, which is almost as good! These are all things we're going to touch on in the column this week — a strangely tag team centric column in some ways, as perhaps befits a somewhat middling episode of "WWE Raw."

There are actually a lot of things we're not going to touch on this week, including Sheamus vs. Rusev, Karrion Kross vs. Sami Zayn, and the opening promo segment between GUNTHER and CM Punk. Sorry, that's what happens when they decide to do a random three-hour "Raw," but you can read all about that stuff on our "Raw" results page if you missed anything. On the other hand, if what you're wanting is to find out which segments from Monday night inspired the WINC staff to either praise or excoriate them, from Cruz Del Toro to Roman Reigns, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 7/21/25 episode of "WWE Raw!"

I can't say I was ever a huge fan of Grayson Waller and Austin Theory's A-Town Down Under tag team, but what WWE did tonight when they're forever struggling for tag teams that aren't just thrown together at the last second was pretty ridiculous. A-Town Down Under was broken up in a very brief backstage segment with Waller and The New Day. Waller told Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods that Theory was injured, so he wanted to join them in their quest to get the World Tag Team Championships back. 

For one, I don't believe Theory is injured. If he is, I certainly haven't seen any reports from a reputable source just yet. With all the speculation on a current "is he or isn't he injured" angle in the main event scene, I hope this isn't something that WWE is going to make a habit of. I also kind of saw this unceremonious breakup coming, but also, quite literally didn't, as the segments involving Waller and New Day in recent weeks were played during commercials on Netflix in the States. So while I didn't actually see it coming, I heard about it on social media. I believe tonight was the first night the American audience actually saw Waller interact with New Day. We may have seen him in the back of a segment or two, but never actually speaking with Kingston and Woods.

It's also really frustrated that WWE teased this breakup for months – and I mean months. Back in February, Waller and Theory were in a triple threat match on a "WWE NXT" premium live event against NXT Champion Oba Femi where it really felt like they were going to break up that night after being tossed around by "The Ruler." With that in mind, I went searching for answers as to when they last actually teamed together. That was as recently as June, but in a match on "WWE Main Event." Their last televised match as a team was a loss to the Usos in March. So, this has been bubbling for awhile, and WWE just chose to break them up in a throw-away segment. I don't think you have to particularly love the tag team to be frustrated with this overall, it's just really bad booking. Even if Theory is hurt, he could be around to at least do a backstage segment or two to make this make any sense.

While Waller is the A-Town Down Under tag member I do prefer out of the pair of them, I really don't think New Day need him hanging around. Woods and Kingston have just been floundering themselves after their initial heel turn on Big E, and "the Grayson Waller rub" is not something that's going to fix them or the way they've been booked. This just sucks overall, for everyone involved, and especially for us as fans of tag team wrestling... and of good booking that actually makes sense.

Written by Daisy Ruth

As in "hey look at that, they are," quickly followed by "hey look at that, they went!" On an episode of "WWE Raw" that was largely uninspiring from the crowd to the Kross match, one really cool thing that happened was that Joaquin Wilde and Cruz Del Toro won the three-way tag match to name the new No. 1 contenders for the world tag titles.

This is cool first and foremost because Wilde and Del Toro are cool wrestlers who deserve to have more good things happen to them, and it seems as though WWE audiences have also realized that — even this largely lifeless bunch in Houston was popping for the LWO's high-flying spots, and even harder for their victory. Pushing them gets a fresh team in the tag division spotlight for the first time in forever, and really, what were the alternatives? Reasonable wrestling fans can disagree about why the New Day's heel run has sucked, but sucked it most definitively has; while I always want the best for Woods and Kingston, nobody was clamoring for them to get another title shot. New Day winning would also have set up another dubious heel vs. heel title match with the Judgment Day, something that also applies to the third team in the match, the Creeds. The LWO were the only babyface team in the match and thus the only team who truly made sense to win — but I still wasn't expecting it, simply because of how they've been booked. While occasionally featured on TV, there's been little for them to do of late with their leader (Rey Mysterio) and their primary nemesis (Chad Gable) both sidelined, but that really shouldn't be a limiting factor with talent like these two.

Wilde & Del Toro actually winning the belts from Finn Balor & JD McDonagh seems unlikely this quickly after Balor & McDonagh's win over New Day, and I expect it's too much to hope for the match to take place at SummerSlam, but I'll be happy if we get a good-to-great spotlight match for the LWO guys that hopefully leads to them being a more consistently utilized part of a "Raw" tag division that could really use them, regardless of what creative looks like for the faction as a whole.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

Last week, Lyra Valkyria barely defeated Bayley after an incredible 2-out-of-3 falls match on "Raw" with Valkyria earning a shot at the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam. Tonight, Bayley got them a shot at the tag titles because *checks notes* they didn't get to have their tag match at WrestleMania. Even Valkyria didn't think this made any sense.

The match was the classic "can they coexist?" trope. The answer was sort of. They were never really on the same page. Bayley made interesting decisions, such as getting the crowd to cheer them instead of being prepared to tag in if needed. This allowed Raquel Rodriguez to take advantage. They had a hard time when it came to double teaming their opponents. As you'll read in this column, there were multiple interferences in matches throughout the night. This match was no exception as it had three. "Dirty Dom" tried to distract Bayley and ended up eating a big boot from Rodriguez. He was attended to by a medical official before a second one came out, only for that to be AJ Styles. Styles then chased Mysterio. While that was happening, Lynch tripped Valkyria, sending her into the steel steps. Rodriguez connected the Tejana Bomb for the win.

What would have happened if Bayley and Valkyria won and became the new tag team champions? There is a tag title match already announced for SummerSlam with Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez scheduled to face Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss. If new champions were crowned tonight, one would assume Bayley and Valkyria would defend their newly won titles. Would Valkyria wrestle twice at SummerSlam, defending one title and attempting to win another? It was obvious Perez and Rodriguez would retain, but this kind of booking is nonsensical. It's further proof that WWE severely lacks women's tag teams and they desperately need to beef up their division.

WWE had many annoying booking decisions tonight (and as of late, to be honest), but this match was one of the more perplexing ones.

Written by Samantha Schipman

AJ Styles may have had a big, phenomenal homecoming moment at TNA Slammiversary last night where he was all business, but he was back to some comedic antics tonight while attempting to get under Intercontinental Champion Dominik Mysterio's skin. WWE upped the comedy with it all this week after finding success with a few bits here and there over the last few weeks, but since the SummerSlam match between the two was made official tonight, we know the goofiness won't overstay its welcome. That's always a concern with WWE, but since the match was booked and Mysterio got serious and took Styles out backstage, revealing he is medically cleared, I don't think they're going to continue to make Styles look silly. Tonight was just enough, and I really enjoyed it.

We started off with Styles as the valet at the beginning of the show, to him pretending to be a janitor mopping the floor and catching Mysterio off guard and having a fun interaction with the New Day, to finally, what I thought was the silliest, though most clever, a ringside medical official who checked on Mysterio after he was accidentally taken out by Raquel Rodriguez during Judgment Day's tag team championship match against Lyra Valkyria and Bayley. Styles was stopping at nothing to get in the head of Mysterio, and I thought all the comedy to it really worked tonight. WWE capitalized on the meme that came out of Styles praying backstage last week.

I think all of this was pretty cute and fun, but I worried we were going to drag it out another week, right up until the match would have been made official, a few days prior to SummerSlam weekend. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, and it was Mysterio who blindsided Styles, no disguise needed, to let him know he was cleared and ready to go. I think that was the right call on WWE's part, because now the pair can get serious next Monday ahead of their match at "The Biggest Party of the Summer." 

The comedy bits, which work really well with Mysterio, got me invested in this match. Jokes are over now, and it's time for these guys to kick each others' heads in. And, if Mysterio really was injured, it was a good way to keep him on screen and keep things interesting with Styles without getting stale. There wasn't much to write home about on "Raw" tonight, but Styles and Mysterio were certainly a bright point of the show for me.

Written by Daisy Ruth

IYO SKY and Stephanie Vaquer are two of WWE's best female performers without a doubt, and deserved to have a match between them main event an episode of "Raw." In theory, a simple back and forth contest between them that naturally would excite a large part of the WWE fanbase should make for an incredible watch and it did indeed ... for the most part.

No matter which one of them would've ultimately ended up going over (and either one was a perfectly good choice), SKY and Vaquer deserved to have a match with a nice and clean finish. There was absolutely no need for any sort of interference from an outside party who wasn't an ally of either woman, let alone multiple parties who fit that very description. There's nothing wrong with WWE looking to build up multiple storylines at once in the SummerSlam Triple Threat Women's World Championship match between SKY, Rhea Ripley, and titleholder Naomi, Vaquer and The Secret Hervice over on "SmackDown", and the Women's World Championship shot Vaquer has at Clash In Paris. However, there comes a point where it feels convoluted and not productive which was incredibly evident in SKY and Vaquer's match. Too much happened all at once, and there wasn't really a good reason for that to be the case when there's still plenty of time to build up Vaquer's ongoing storylines in particular.

WWE already ran this match in April, and they used interference to get out of the finish then, too. Doing the same thing three months later (to the day!) is profoundly frustrating. 

Written by Olivia Quinlan

The main event segment saw Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman come face to face for the first time since the "Wise Man" stabbed his "Tribal Chief" in the back to join the side of Seth Rollins and what would come to be known as The Vision. But if the truth should be told, considering the precedent that early-to-mid Bloodline narrative development had set, this was a segment that vastly underdelivered on what it could have been. 

Heyman spent most of the opening moments berating the crowd and effectively letting them hijack the segment, and thus started a ticking clock towards the end of the show, and less time for something to actually unfold. He did offer Reigns a position as a stand-in for Rollins after his injury, but that was a hollow proposal at most and there was very little actually delved into before things inevitably turned to physicality. 

Reigns, as one would expect him to, made it clear he wasn't going to take another deal with the devil; had it been five years ago, he said he would have done. But times have changed, backs have been stabbed, and there is too much water under that specific bridge. That's the first classic babyface trope in the books. Then he said that was a move to be made by a "Wise Man," but he's not anymore; he's just a dumbass, in Reigns' words I must stress. He dropped the catchphrase, you know the catchphrase, the one where he wants the crowd to acknowledge him – originally rooted in insecurity embedded in the fabric of his heel persona, but now very much in the same league as "YEET" or "YEAH" but with a whole other word. 

That's a previous heel flaw now flaunted as a hollow catchphrase – *whispers* for the sake of marketing – and that is certainly another classic babyface trope. Bron Breakker and Heyman did the whole, "Hold me back. Oh I'mma-" and Reigns then pulled at the low-hanging fruit to son Breakker off. But then Reigns continued to shut Breakker down entirely to close the segment, asking Breakker to repeat what he said through his mic, throwing it to him to catch and open him up for a Superman Punch. Potentially burying a young heel presented as dominant in recent months, well that is a classic babyface trope if ever there was one. 

Everything up until this point has been framed for your own interpretation, but the one that seems to prevail for me is the fact that Reigns has finally taken the intended spot as the company's top babyface. He has technically been a babyface for quite some time, but it was in this segment specifically that Reigns had got into the groove as the cool badass he was originally intended to be in 2015. It was by no means his best character work, promo, or exchange in the ring, but there is very little he can actually do wrong at this stage in time.

Written by Max Everett