Monday Night Raw 1/13/25

Hello! and welcome to my thoughts on tonight's episode of Monday Night Raw this is my first time making a blog post so apologies for any slopiness or lengthy read. The starting segment with Punk, Rollins, and McIntyre was entertaining. With the WrestleMania rematch between Rollins and Mcintyre set for next week I wouldn't be surprised if Punk somehow gets involved I know he said he's tired of both of them but cmon it's his two biggest haters wrestling each other if not then we'll just have to wait till the royal rumble to see the three clash. Moving onto the debut of Penta this is what I was looking forward to the most now I won't act like I've been watching Penta for a long time the most exposure of him I've seen are clips on Twitter or TikTok, but damn was this match entertaining Gable was the perfect opponent for his debut. I was curious to see if Penta would change up his style of wrestling since the WWE style is different from say the AEW style of wrestling and after weeks of seeing people on Twitter say that this man was washed they were wrong this man still has it you just don't pull off a Canadian destroyer as cleanly as that and get called washed the selling by gable was also great both men knocked it out of the park tonight. And that promo by Penta at the end chills man chills and as a fellow Mexican the promo hit harder and as of today I am now a Penta soldier cero miedo. Moving to the small segment with the Judgement Day I get the feeling that tension is starting to rise in the group I fully expect the group to break up this year. Moving onto the second match of the night Sheamus vs Kaiser and when these two are involved you just know you'll be treated to a hard-hitting match or as Sheamus puts it "banger after banger after banger" crazy to think that he's not too far away from his fifties and still producing entertaining matches as for Ludwig I do think that compared to Gunther he is underrated but on his own, he is a great performer I like that the company lets him do his own thing not always being a lackey towards Gunter. After the match, we get two segments the first one involves Sami Zane, Karian Kross, and The Miz from this what I got was that Kross is just a straight-up instigator dude who had a whole toothy smile while watching the other two argue. The ring general Gunther cuts a promo before being interrupted by Jey Uso and honestly. I honestly thought that Jey was gonna let Gunter bitch him out like that with all the talk of proving that Jey's just a tag wrestler and not on his level but with the match set for Saturday Night Main event I expect them to have an entertaining match. Still, I don't see Jey dethroning Gunter for the title. The third match and it's for the inaugural women's Intercontinental championship between Lyra Valkyria and Dakota Kai this one could've gone either way both of these women are very talented performers but ultimately only one woman could make history and call themselves the first women's Intercontinental champion and that was Lyra nothing but huge congratulations to her this is only the beginning of great things to come in her career. The fourth match of the night is Sami and Miz going one-on-one as a result of their earlier encounter and honestly in my opinion this was the weakest part of the show I don't think this match was necessary but what I do think the most interesting part of this match was that the blue thunder bomb got the match won for the 1,2,3.  Rhea Ripley comes out to cut a promo after and goes she's back on top talk before being confronted by Nia Jax and then having Bailey confront Nia after being called out this leads to Rhea and Bailey attacking Nia and one interesting thing I saw was that Bailey was eyeing Rhea's title so maybe we'll see a program between them soon. Finally, we get to the main event Damien Priest vs Finn Balor in a street fight Priest comes out first kendo stick in hand only to get sneak attacked by Balor in the ring, and from there all hell breaks loose and they fight it out in the crowd and after some brawling Priest sends them both through a table from where the crowd was and once it came back from the commercial break I did not expect for Finn to be stretchered out or attempted to at least as Priest attacked the other members of the judgment day before going after Finn and pushing him back into the ring and after interference from the judgment day and war raiders and both men going through tables again Priest came out on top and ending the rivalry or at least I hope it's over and to be fair I know I said I expect the judgment day to break up this year but I honestly thought that tonight would where everything implodes for the group but I was wrong we'll just have to wait till next week to see what's next for everyone involved. And with that, I end my thoughts on this week's episode overall I'd say I enjoyed this week's episode more than last week lastly thanks to anyone who read this far into my ramblings I'd love to hear what others might've thought or any wrestling talk in general and if you haven't watched any wrestling I always recommend to give it a try. 

your friend Dino