WWE Raw 1/15/2024 - 3 Things We Loved And 3 Things We Hated

Another "WWE Raw" has come and gone, which means it's once again time to dissect the things that the staff of Wrestling Inc. loved, as well as what they hated. With three hours of "WWE Raw," there's always plenty in both categories.

From the opening promo battle between Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre, to the zany antics of R-Truth, to the women's tag division, the second-to-last "Raw" before the Royal Rumble was chock-full of action.

We promise that any picks were in no way paid for, bribed, or subject to any other shady tactics from R-Truth. Here's the best and the worst of "Raw" from January 15, 2024.

From needle-moving returns to more wrestling on weekly shows, the Triple H era of WWE has seen some positive trends. There may be some hiccups here and there, but WWE is nearly unrecognizable from the days it was run by Vince McMahon. One of the less notable differences, but one that has the potential to set a great precedent in the industry, is that referees and timekeepers are starting to be referred to by name.

Any hardcore fan might know some of WWE's more iconic referees by name, like Charles Robinson and Dan Engler. However, the casual watcher is not going to take the time to figure out who is refereeing the match, or who is ringing the bell to signal the end of a contest, even when they are an essential part of a match's infrastructure. There can be no storyline without a referee to call the shots or without other crew to make the matches as organized as they can. These people are the foundation of any wrestling promotion, especially one as big and complex as WWE. However, it is embarrassingly common to lose their names in the shuffle of it all.

When WWE takes the initiative to not only name their personnel but incorporate them in storylines, it brings the spotlight to them for just a moment, so they too can be celebrated. Eddie Orengo is not part of the women's division, but his judgment plays a crucial role in Chelsea Greene's frustrations. Berkeley Ottman is a timekeeper, but he was still the person who got sprayed with Shinsuke Nakamura's red mist. Even though we never see Stu's face, we know that he is the main person documenting the matches we see every week.

In order to appreciate the production of professional wrestling, even the smallest things must be acknowledged and appreciated. WWE has an opportunity to set an industry-level precedent by giving credit to their on-screen personnel, and hopefully, this is another positive trend we can expect in the future.

I want this to be clear: the return of Xavier Woods is not a portion of what I hated from this episode. Far from it. I love The New Day, and I love Woods, I'm even a huge UpUpDownDown fan. 

However, his match with Ludwig Kaiser to defend Kofi Kingston's honor just didn't do it for me. The match went through a few commercial breaks, which did it no favors, and the men were too evenly matched. I feel like Woods should have been more brutal in the ring from the onset. It also ended in a disqualification, which I didn't necessarily mind, but why did it take Woods so long to get so angry when he knew it was Kaiser who injured one of his best friends with the running dropkick into the steps? The match and ending were also too similar to Kingston's match against Kaiser last week. It was like you copied and pasted the match, just with another New Day member, who didn't get hurt in the end, right down to Kaiser being thrown over the announce desk. Though Woods was bleeding from the mouth by the end of the match itself.

Woods was also what I call "babyface stupid" enough (no offense to him as a person, of course, it's such a dumb character attribute of most babyfaces on WWE TV) to get attacked again by Kaiser backstage following the ringside beatdown. Jey Uso was there to help him, but even that felt a little strange to me, considering the whole New Day, Usos rivalry. Overall, I'm really glad Woods is back, and I really hope we get a Woods and Kingston versus Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci match on TV when everyone is healthy enough to compete. I can't think of any other direction this would be going, with Kaiser and Vinci out to prove themselves to GUNTHER, and The New Day out to get revenge.

With long-term storytelling seemingly the calling card of WWE these days, and The Judgment Day at least here and there borrowing some story beats from The Bloodline, there has been a groundswell of wonder as to when the storyline and the faction might run its course from time to time, especially as infighting within the group has been teased time and again. I, myself, have been close to sure that the implosion was looming any moment at least once or twice. But the inclusion of R-Truth of late has opened up plenty of new opportunities for the group, its story, and for what's next for all involved, and on top of that, as is anything with Truth, it's been hilarious all the while.

Who knows if this was the intent right away or if they fell into a twist for the faction that caught fire but also, who cares? If it works, it works. And this works for all of Truth himself, Finn Balor, Damian Priest, Rhea Ripley, JD McDonagh, and Dominik Mysterio (not to mention "Tom" and "Nick!") Whether it was planned or whether WWE quickly realized that this was a hot angle, they're throwing a lot of effort into it now, with multiple R-Truth/Judgment Day t-shirts available, and his just-hokey-enough inclusion in their TitanTron graphic for their entrance in tonight's tag match between Truth and The Miz against McDonagh and Mysterio (Dominik, to be clear).

Truth's antics are always entertaining and tonight was no different, with him hoping to gain favor by giving each member their cut of his "bootleg" merchandise sales. Of course, to Truth, that doesn't include McDonagh since, as he said, the payoff was "for members only." Those two will likely have a blowoff in the near future, be it in the Royal Rumble itself or shortly thereafter.

Overall, R-Truth in and around Judgment Day can't last forever, but his involvement has extended the life of the group, which may have been fizzling out before WWE was ready. And maybe more importantly, it's reminded us all of Truth's ability and entertainment value, hopefully leading to an extended run for a surefire eventual WWE Hall of Famer.

The only entity that can separate Cody Rhodes from Shinsuke Nakamura at this point is the Witness Protection Program.

Rhodes and Nakamura are incredible performers, and they had every opportunity to make this feud, as long as it is, entertaining. However, when it's the same thing week in and week out, this feud becomes increasingly tedious to watch. This conflict has become so stale, that even writing about how stale it is worn out.

There is not much more we can say about this topic other than express our grievances on the wasted time of these two stellar individuals. Rhodes has a whole laundry list of people who would like to have a word with him, from Drew McIntyre to CM Punk. He has little to no reason to continue worrying about Nakamura, except for the fact that Nakamura continues to seek him out.

Nakamura's reasons for targeting Rhodes are repetitive and shallow. This is especially disappointing when one considers all the possible angles that this story could have had. There were so many opportunities to set Nakamura apart from other talent by having him explore complicated feelings about how vengeance, and how repeating past disappointments only disallows one's own growth. WWE had the means to experiment with this complex and introspective story, and instead, they chose to have Nakamura make the same empty threats to Rhodes, but in different flavors.

There may be some fans who are holding out on this story to have some huge revelation at the Royal Rumble, or even beyond. I want to share that same sentiment. I want to look back on this opinion piece in a few weeks, and remark on how near-sighted I was. However, the booking has lost its spark; the conflict between the two has become uninspired. If they wanted to plant seeds for some grand reveal, or major storyline movement, they would have already. All we can do is joke about how Rhodes needs to file a restraining order against Nakamura. Even that feels mundane.

If there's one thing I want more than Cody Rhodes finishing the story at WrestleMania this year, it's Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch in the main event of Night One. Tonight, Ripley went out to the ring to "address her division" and said she's sick of people like Nia Jax "running their mouths" and saying it's their division. When she said that, I was worried it would be Jax coming out to "run her mouth" and say she's going to win the Royal Rumble and go on to challenge Ripley at WrestleMania and yadda, yadda. I was thankfully mistaken, however, and tonight, WWE gave me exactly what I wanted, but they did it even better than I could have imagined.

Lynch's music hit and she came out to address Ripley and said they're similar with similar journeys. They're both women from different countries who came to the US to follow their dreams of being in the WWE. What really surprised me most in this segment was that Lynch admitted Ripley might be better than her. That's something we don't often see from The Man, who is always so confident to the point of cocky (as much as a babyface can be), someone who you would never think would say something like that. Lynch said she needs to prove that Ripley isn't better than her and to do that, she needs to take Ripley's title. She said she needs to win the Royal Rumble and point to the WrestleMania sign to do so. That's a YES, PLEASE, from me. Lynch has gone from being my hopeful choice in the Rumble match to my likely choice to win, just from that segment of the promo.

Ripley's response was just as good as Lynch's portion of the promo. She said there's only one person who wants Lynch to win the Rumble more than Lynch herself, and that's Ripley herself. She ended the segment with "See you at WrestleMania," and I almost squealed watching from my couch. This segment really made me think that my hopes for WrestleMania can come true. Right now – I don't believe it's necessarily a main event, but there's also nothing else currently sticking out for me for Night One, so why the heck not, if Lynch wins the Rumble? There's plenty of time to then build the feud up to the main event level. Fans (including myself) love Mami, and there will always be massive love for The Man. I absolutely loved this segment. These women can talk and they can certainly wrestle, so let them cook.

The women's tag team division is stacked with talent and full of performers who I enjoy watching do their thing in the ring. However, I can't say that I enjoyed either of tonight's women's tag team matches that much.

Piper Niven and Chelsea Green took on Indi Hartwell and Candice LeRae while Shayna Baszler and Zoey Stark collided with Tegan Nox and Natalya later on in the show, with the winners of both matches being more likely to be considered the next in line for a shot at Kayden Carter and Katana Chance's Women's Tag Team Championship. While I enjoy watching all eight women across the board compete in the ring, something felt like it wasn't gelling in either match for me.

This brings me to the bigger issue I have with the landscape of WWE's women's tag team division, which is that they simply don't have enough talent involved in it to build viable storylines. WWE is working towards legitimizing the Women's Tag Team Championship by giving Kayden Carter and Katana Chance more screen time, as well as featuring more women's tag team matches. However, this goal is made much harder to achieve without a set pair of number-one contenders or any program being built up aside from every women's tag team on "Raw" wanting a title shot.