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Monday night's latest "WWE Raw" in Dallas set the stage for this weekend's Crown Jewel PLE. To open the show, Roman Reigns landed his next match — an appearance at the company's return to Australia. However, it will be a rinse-and-repeat of the last match Reigns had at WWE Clash in Paris.

😑 Revisionist History of the Night

WWE is blatantly lying to its audience's faces now. Not that it's necessarily anything new, but the swiftness of tonight's case of revisionism is impressive.

Roman Reigns is "back" — no, he's not — after defeating Bronson Reed one-on-one at Clash in Paris at the end of August. However, you'd never know that match happened judging by how Monday's opening segment played out. After being confronted by Reed immediately upon getting on the mic, Reigns then was told by Paul Heyman that he fears Reed. Now reread the first sentence of this paragraph.

Heyman then claimed that Reigns had never been put on a stretcher and kept off TV like he was after Clash In Paris, but that's also not true at all. It's literally the formula for Reigns' appearances and fake "returns" these days. The dude is a bonafide part-timer. And if you're asking who the hell cares about a Reigns vs. Reed rematch, well, that's what this segment set up: An "Australian Street Fight" at Crown Jewel this Saturday.

Of course, Triple H had to end the segment with a lazy, uninspired brawl too. The Usos were nowhere to be seen after what happened last week, though the twins did end up approaching Reigns backstage, leading to a conflict with Jimmy, as Reigns clearly manipulated Jey to get him worked up for later in the night.

Overall, this was one of the most uninteresting starts to a "Raw" I've seen in a long time.

Golden Knight

LA Knight was given time on the mic to shine brighter than he's been allowed to in a good while. Between him, CM Punk and Jey Uso, he scorched these dudes, and they're all clearly headed toward a triple-threat match.

There was a ton to digest with this trio's segment, as it started out by welcoming Punk back to "Raw" for the first time since his big Wrestlepalooza win alongside his wife, AJ Lee. What was Punk's reason for the absence? He promised Cody Rhodes he wouldn't get involved with his business involving Seth Rollins. That was a pretty weak and illogical explanation, but at least it was an explanation. What was even better was Punk pointing out that Rollins hasn't beaten him without bizarre implications and promising to take the title back before the year's end.

Knight's interruption followed, during which he told Punk that he had yet to get what he's earned and deserved: A world title run. At various points in Knight's promo, his real-life frustrations could be felt because the dude has been brutally screwed over by WWE creative this year. 

Some of his lines were so good that Punk broke character, and their banter was once again exceptional. And then Jey Uso arrived to sprinkle in more revisionism, falsely claiming he never got his world title rematch. However, that was the entire basis of his reasoning to be included in the Fatal 4-Way against Rollins, Punk and Knight.

Jey Uso continues to be completely forced into these world title contender roles despite a much bigger picture unraveling. That was evidenced by Jimmy Uso's arrival, a superkick to Punk and Knight, followed by Jimmy's frustrations with the breakdown.

Realistically, Jimmy Uso should be a lot more annoyed by being left out of all this World Heavyweight Championship chatter. The writing feels like it's on the wall for this brief Uso reunion, especially since they lost the impromptu tag-team match later on.

The "Raw" main event was far less lustrous than anticipated. WWE is building to some sort of dissension, because Knight and Punk won clean as a sheet after a decent match. The finish was unnecessarily funny, as Knight hit Jimmy with a BFT, then Punk hit Jey with a GTS — and Knight tagged himself in solely to steal the pin. Sure, Punk didn't even try to go for the pin, but all Knight did after the tag was steal it.

This isn't a knock at all, but it was just hilariously fitting for Knight after what happened earlier on "Raw." A very subtle one-up, but a one-up nonetheless.

😬 Toxicity of the Night

I mean, wow. Not to get too personal on a Monday, but anyone who has experienced a toxic relationship surely felt some feels during Asuka's backstage interaction with Adam Pearce to get Kairi Sane a match with Iyo Sky. It was honestly a bit hard to watch because of how incredible Asuka has been in this supreme manipulator role, and this was the apex of their abusive on-screen relationship. Sane ultimately succumbed to accepting the Sky match once Asuka physically smacked her.

The match between the two was unsurprisingly great, and the story within it was brilliantly told as Sky launched herself to Asuka outside the ring before the match even started. Sane is the innocent victim here, being puppeteered to do the dirty work, and she did so en route to a dirty roll-up pin. Admittedly, I really do hate these blind referee finishes, because Asuka held Sane's arms to help with the pin leverage right in front of the referee — after attempting to interfere.

It may have been the same referee who had the same finish recently, and if so, you can play it off as a character thing. But man, it's been lame thus far.

👍 MONDAY NIGHT MONEY 👍

1. We have to accept that there's no time left to give John Cena's ending to his career any story depth. So the video packages will have to do, and the one for his upcoming Crown Jewel match against AJ Styles was good and deserved an upvote almost solely for the TNA footage.

2. Rollins confronted Heyman backstage, essentially asking for the truth about what will happen with The Vision if he loses to Rhodes at Crown Jewel. Heyman pressured him to get the job done because of how it would bring into question the formation of The Vision in the first place. This was really great and created tension between the two. Additionally, Rollins' feelings in the pre-segment video package were once again justified, highlighting how he felt his aid in Rhodes' first world title win became meaningless once Rhodes teamed with Reigns after their big feud.

Considering how all this played out, a Rollins loss now feels like the more compelling outcome.

3. AJ Styles, Dragon Lee and Penta defeated The Judgment Day when Styles hit JD McDonagh with a Styles Clash. This match was good and relatively harmless, advancing Dominik Mysterio's storylines and giving Styles another win before his match against Cena. Ultimately, an angry Rusev marched to the ring to scare off Mysterio and lead to the finish.

👎 RAW DEAL 👎

Roxanne Perez defeated Lyra Valkyria clean with a Pop-Rox — after outside squabbles between Bayley and Raquel Rodriguez. Matches between these four women continue to be good, but the problem is they've become nearly pointless due to the ongoing repetition and the same formula of interference attempts. There's been zero progression with Bayley as well, who feels like her story has plateaued. Considering the history between her and Valkyria, the former Intercontinental Champion shouldn't even be entertaining Bayley. For some reason I can't understand, Valkyria has really been portrayed as a horrendously stupid character more often than not in recent months.

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

I never expected two things from WWE. First, Maxxine Dupri going over Becky Lynch, and second, Dupri to earn the Uncrowned Gem of the Night on any WWE program. However, this "Raw" was a pleasant surprise.

Realistically, Dupri is pretty good in spurts, both in or out of matches, but she could still use a lot of work. Tonight was arguably her best match to date, though, and was essentially a massive test run on her potential title win. WWE got wild to such a degree that it could even be argued that the referee and Lynch botched a pin that should've seen Dupri claim the title. It honestly wouldn't have felt wrong either. The sequences leading to that moment were excellent.

In the end, Lynch's incredible arrogance was her downfall after she got in the ref's face and put a beating on Dupri outside the ring. She shouted at the crowd, resulting in her being counted out as Dupri was in the ring. That's an official win — and a pretty damn good combination of underdog storytelling, an unexpected upset, and heel champion's character progression.

As the match started, the recycling of this mini-feud felt random and like filler. However, now several viewers will likely want a title change, and I wouldn't mind one either if it's done as well as this was.

👑 I give this show a Crown score of: 7.5/10. 👑

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