The road to WrestleMania continued through Memphis for tonight’s edition of WWE RAW live from the FedExForum. With Elimination Chamber two weeks away in Chicago, tonight’s show will feature two qualifiers in each of the men’s and women’s divisions, respectively.
Without Roman Reigns, the man scheduled to challenge heavyweight champion CM Punk at WrestleMania42, it is difficult for WWE to properly promote the major main event. So, until the conclusion of EC, there seems to be blinders on for the sake of Elimination Chamber.
MEN’S ELIMINATION CHAMBER QUALIFIERS
GUNTHER VS DOM MYSTERIO VS JE’VON EVANS—Triple Threat Match
The Judgement Day segment left Dom without a cohesive unit ahead of his Chamber qualifier—a situation Dom has found himself in at different times over the last year, and as his star power began to brighten. This was Dom’s first match on TV since returning from an injury that kept him shelved for two months.
Je’Von Evans was the early MVP of the match, hitting a ‘no-hands’ dive from inside the ring onto Gunther standing over Dom on the outside. Last week, Evans hit an internet-breaking cutter off the top turnbuckle, and tonight, he continued the trend as the 21-year-old raises his profile with each performance.
Following Evans’s big spot, Dom took the moment of chaos to sneak the ring keeper’s hammer and conceal it on his person. The match continued as Gunther gained momentum, powerbombing everyone in sight.
Gunther found the hammer on Dom, but Dragon Lee showed up at that exact moment and hit Gunther with the ring keeper’s bell. This left Dom and Evans to battle it out for the right to qualify.
Dom went for a frog splash almost immediately, and that is when Evans moved out of the way. He quickly leaped atop the turnbuckle and springboarded his way to both a match-ending cutter as well as a pinfall victory over the IC champ Mysterio.
Evans qualifying victory puts him in a field amongst Randy Orton, LA Knight, and Cody Rhodes, with two more to qualify.
BAYLEY VS AUSKA VS NATTY—Triple Threat Match
The fans at times seemed confused about who they were supposed to root for, likely because each of these superstars has worked as a heel in the short span of 2026. Bayley worked as the face in this match, and she has enough goodwill with fans that they will always root for her when she plays as an underdog.
Bayley had a strong performance, nearly winning twice before with near falls on both Auska and Natty. In the end, Auska picked up the win and qualified for a Chamber match that includes Rhea, Tiffany Stratton, and Alexa Bliss, with two more spots to qualify.
At the end of the match, Maxxine Dupri attacked Natty just before she reached ‘Gorilla.’
BALOR RUNS OUT ON PUNK, PUNK RUNS DOWN ON THE JUDGEMENT DAY
The Punk V Balor booking has been met with both questions and debate—the notion that Punk and Roman cooked up the most prolific promo battle in recent memory only to run Punk-Balor deux. Punk ruminated on his response to Michael Cole’s question of whether he was risking the big Mania main event.
It was not long before Finn Balor came out with the IC champion, Dom Mysterio, and a returning JD McDonagh. They surrounded the champ, but Balor insisted that all he wanted to do was speak—Punk did not trust his words and stayed in a fighting stance for the initial promo battle.
When Balor challenged for the heavyweight title in his home country of Ireland, he made a good showing of himself despite losing to the champ. In the aftermath of that match, Punk challenged Balor the very next week on RAW to ditch The Judgement Day and be his own man—claiming that’s the Balor that he would gladly defend his title against once more.
Punk kept this same rhetoric tonight, at one point turning his back on the Judgement Day faction and asking to be attacked because those are the expectations of Balor’s current character. Balor held back the boys from attacking, and Punk ended the segment by once again leaving the innuendo of choosing between being a champion caliber superstar, opposed to hanging out with ‘clowns.’
In a backstage segment that followed, TJD were in their clubhouse discussing the Punk situation—challenging Finn as to why he did not allow them to ‘soften up’ Punk for EC. Balor told McDonaugh that if he wanted to help, then he needed to let him win the title his way.
WHEN IT COMES TO ‘THE VISION,’ ALL WE SEE IS A MID-CARD MESS
In 2025, when Seth Rollins aligned with Paul Heyman to later bring in Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed to form a nameless faction, they were the centerpiece of the post-Mania world in WWE. By the time they acquired Logan Paul and adopted a name, it was clear they were a real powerhouse dominating the wrestling landscape on RAW.
Fast forward to tonight, and after the last few weeks, The Vision feels, well, visionless. After turning on an injured Seth, Breakker was able to keep an aura of relevance as the focal point for the faction. With Breakker injured, Creative has all but abandoned the momentum we have come to expect from the group.
They interrupted the USO’s entrance through the crowd before LA Knight interrupted them, and Pearce then booked a six-man tag. The Vision would pick up the win after Reed dropped a tsunami on Jimmy—though the big man’s big spot was his tope suicida dive to the outside and taking out the tag champs.
Following the match, Logan grabbed Cole’s headset and started ranting on commentary, and that is when the ‘masked man’ hit Logan with a curb-stomp before being chased off through the crowd. Immediately after that segment, Heyman demanded retribution from the GM, and Pearce responded by claiming the hooded figure is as much a headache for him as it is for Paul.
Pearce also dropped a line about Paul, once again, ‘making calls’ and going over his head. Interestingly, this came just after a segment in which a big box was waiting in the back of RAW that read: Delivered to WWE—DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 02/28/2026 (the date of the Chamber). He ordered a WWE staffer to send it to SD so that it could be an ‘Aldis problem.’
OTHER TIDBITS
PENTA BECOMES IC TITLE #1 CONTENDER
Penta defeated El Grande Americano (Ludwig version) in a very fun match to crown Dom’s next contender for the Intercontinental title. Penta won the honors, but Americano had the big post-match showdown.
After weeks since OG Grande (Gable) returned, we finally got to see the two put hands on each other. OG Grande already qualified for AAA’s Rey de Reyes tourney with a chance to challenge for the Mega championship—decided by the winner between champion Dom and challenger Vikingo.
LIV AND CRY…
It was an odd segment tonight when Michael Cole sat down with both Liv Morgan and Dom Mysterio in a pre-recorded backstage interview. The need for translation made sense when Stephanie entered the chat to berate the 2026 Royal Rumble winner in Spanish—so it did make sense to run this kind of segment.
What did not make sense, however, was Liv crying after Dom translated the champ’s final words before she stormed off. Stephanie’s promo was more about her accomplishments than Liv’s shortcomings.
Still, Liv would end up being left in tears, crying into the shoulder of Dom as Cole awkwardly ended the interview. It did not leave Liv looking very strong, and it is difficult to believe they would ever attempt the same booking with, let’s say, the men’s 2026 Rumble winner in Roman.
Could this be setting up a face turn for Liv? That was at least the early speculation online following the segment.
OBA FEMI BEING PURSUED
RAW GM Adam Pearce offered Oba a contract after delivering very strong showings since his call-up. Pearce claimed his offer was better than the one he received from SmackDown, though Oba said he had to consider the offers. To close the short segment, Rusev got in the face of Oba, and the two had a stare down—indicating the next direction for the former NXT champion.
AJ LEE CALLS OUT EVERYONE
AJ Lee skipped down the aisle to cut her promo during her scheduled segment. Of course, Becky came out, and the two confronted their upcoming IC title match. But what was more interesting was Lee claiming that she has other matchup ideas for her future in WWE—naming Charlotte, among others. Lee came back to WWE to ‘do the job’ with her husband, but she ‘ghosted’ after that. Now that she is back, hopefully, we get a meaningful final run.
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