Raw airs tonight (May 6) with a live show from XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut. This is the first episode of Raw during the three week build towards King and Queen of the Ring, which takes place on May 25 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The new Raw roster is already giving us a potential match of the year
The new rosters for Raw and SmackDown are locked today following last week’s WWE Draft. Let’s check out what the new Raw roster looks like:
- Becky Lynch
- Sami Zayn
- Awesome Truth (The Miz & R-Truth)
- The Judgment Day (Damian Priest, Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio, JD McDonagh)
- Jey Uso
- Seth Rollins
- Bron Breakker
- Liv Morgan
- Ricochet
- Sheamus
- Alpha Academy
- Kiana James
- Imperium (GUNTHER, Ludwig Kaiser)
- Damage CTRL (Iyo Sky, Dakota Kai, Asuka, Kairi Sane)
- CM Punk
- Braun Strowman
- LWO (Rey Mysterio, Dragon Lee, Cruz Del Toro, Joaquin Wilde, Zelina Vega, Carlito)
- Drew McIntyre
- Ilja Dragunov
- The New Day (Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods)
- Lyra Valkyria
- The Final Testament
- Bronson Reed
- Isla Dawn & Alba Fyre
- Ivar
- Shayna Baszler
- Zoey Stark
- The Creed Brothers (Julius & Brutus Creed) and Ivy Nile
- New Catch Republic (Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate)
- Dijak
- Kayden Carter and Katana Chance
- Natalya
- Odyssey Jones
Given that Cody Rhodes is now on SmackDown, Seth Rollins is out injured, and Drew McIntyre is preoccupied with CM Punk’s fragile body, GUNTHER stands out in the men’s division as someone who can make a quick move right to the top spot on Raw.
To that end, The Ring General is the favorite to advance all the way through the Raw side of the King of the Ring tournament bracket. That tournament begins tonight, and GUNTHER is already matched up with his old rival Sheamus in a first round match. These two stars had arguably the WWE match of the year in 2022 at Clash at the Castle, and they’ll try to reproduce that magic tonight when they square off again, even if TV commercial breaks make that a tall order.
If GUNTHER can eliminate the Celtic Warrior, he may be looking at a future tournament match against another guy he once had a match of the year candidate with, and that’s Ilja Dragunov. Ricochet is tasked with fighting Dragunov in a first round tournament match tonight on Raw. It’s not a Speed match, so Ricochet is the underdog against the former NXT champion.
The other two King of the Ring tournament matches that are scheduled for tonight are Drew McIntyre vs. Finn Balor and Kofi Kingston vs. Rey Mysterio. These bouts are a little unusual in that the former is a battle of heels, while the latter is a battle of babyfaces. McIntyre and Mysterio might normally be the slight favorites in these matches, but we’ll see if their respective enemies CM Punk and Dominik & Carlito show up to screw them out of the tourney.
The rest of the card
The Queen of the Ring tournament also begins tonight with four first round matches on the Raw side of the bracket. Here’s what WWE is advertising:
- Natalya vs. IYO SKY
- Lyra Valkyria vs. Asuka
- Zelina Vega vs. Shayna Baszler
- Ivy Nile vs. Zoey Stark
On the women’s side of the bracket, it will be interesting to see if Damage CTRL stablemates Asuka and IYO SKY meet up later in the tournament, and if allies Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark also cross paths in a future round.
Between both tournaments, WWE has eight total matches booked for tonight. The women were shortchanged on ring time compared to the men the last time WWE held the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments at the same time, and I suspect the same thing will be evident tonight.
Other stuff to keep an eye on
– Sami Zayn has both Chad Gable and Bronson Reed gunning for his Intercontinental championship. Will a three way title match be officially booked for Saudi Arabia at some point tonight?
– Liv Morgan defeated Nia Jax last week and looks like the biggest threat to Women’s World Champion Becky Lynch. But will Kiana James make a splash with her Raw debut by interrupting whatever is going on between Lynch and Morgan tonight?
– Bron Breakker is now on the Raw roster. Does that mean he’ll be squashing some jabroni tonight in between all the King and Queen of the Ring tournament matches?
– Will Jey Uso find a way to get a rematch with World Heavyweight Champion Damian Priest after all of the Judgment Day cronies helped Damian beat Jey at Backlash? Is Damian being genuine when he tells his stablemates to stay out of his matches, or did he watch the Backlash footage over again and realize he would have lost his belt without their involvement?
– Braun Strowman is back on Raw. Will Braun decide to squash the same jabroni that gets pulverized by Bron?
– The Final Testament has a chance for a fresh start now that they are on the Raw roster. Will they immediately target World Tag Team Champions Awesome Truth with their first big move on Raw?
– Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill can show up on both Raw and SmackDown now that they are the new WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions. Will they take advantage of that roster flexibility with an appearance tonight on Raw?
– There’s a new mystery campaign going on similar to the White Rabbit, and a big reveal should be coming soon, if you are a BOliever. Could Dexter Lumis finally be returning to WWE as part of this angle?
– What’s the probability that we never see Odyssey Jones on Raw television before next year’s draft?
– Where the f*ck is Omos?
What will you be looking for on Raw?
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