WWE Raw results, highlights (Sept. 29): Dominick Mysterio is a star, steals win over Rusev

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Crown Jewel season is in full effect, and it's a rather unique one, as "WWE Raw" passed through Raleigh, North Carolina on Monday night. Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins' big champion vs. champion match is building toward a fourth epic encounter since Rhodes' WWE return at WrestleMania 38. And most importantly, Dominik Mysterio is on fire. 

Let's talk about why.

The Vision is blurry

Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed have become very dumb characters. For a variety of reasons. If you're a recurring Uncrowned reader, you'll know how many plotholes I've poked into their approaches to — well, practically all of their matches. On this "Raw," they rematched The Usos in the main event, and when they had them beat with a Jagged Edge and Spear combo, they, instead of going for the pin, stacked them up for a Tsunami.

Therefore, it prompted Roman Reigns to come out with a chair and assist The Usos in winning.

The Vision has been booked to be completely careless about winning since their run began. So why do they even wrestle in matches? They're clearly good and should be pursuing tag team titles because of how rarely they've lost. And now that they just did, with the help of Reigns, who already beat Reed, this feud is turning into a forever-feud that is far, far, far less needed than anything else WWE has ever done. Also, this main event rematch wasn't even needed. The Vision won entirely fairly under the circumstances WWE itself booked for Wrestlepalooza, forcing LA Knight into the picture because they don't know what to do with him.

Additionally, the real meat of this storyline appears to be the devolution of Jey Uso once again becoming a Reigns puppet — with Jimmy Uso not too into it. It's just rehashing The Bloodline all over again. (So far.)

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

Dominik Mysterio vs. Rusev is an incredibly rare moment where I can't give WWE enough credit for how their Intercontinental Championship match was booked. Since the Sheamus feud started, Rusev has been appropriately booked, and Mysterio is a certified star. The pop he received from the Raleigh crowd was that of a superstar babyface — which is far from what the guy is.

The match was everything it needed to be, and Mysterio retained in a justifiable manner that did not involve a very expected interference, whether from Los Americanos or The Judgment Day. It was legitimately brilliant.

So let's break it down a bit. Rusev essentially beat the [expletive] out of Mysterio for the entire first half of the match, and at one point, a well-placed Machka Kick looked like it would seal the win for the Bulgarian. Mysterio continued to slip and slide his way out of Accolade attempts before attempting to simply run away with his WWE and AAA titles. Rusev cut him off, and the referee threw one of the titles out of the ring before Mysterio hit Rusev in the back with the other while the ref's back was turned. He rightfully no-sold it, turning around to instill fear into the champion.

That's when Mysterio attempted the Eddie Guerrero weapon toss classic, but the ref saw that, too. Mysterio seemed in trouble, then he grabbed the ref from behind, prompting Rusev to grab him and get hit with a low blow, then the roll-up win.

"Dirty Dom" at his finest, the crowd goes wild; Rusev looks like a beast who needed to be cheated against (by a single person) to be beaten. This was gold.

🧼 Soap of the Night

The Iyo Sky, Rhea Ripley and Kabuki Warriors saga has hit peak soap opera drama. I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's definitely entertaining and sometimes funnier than maybe it should be. On this "Raw," Ripley kicked things off to call out Asuka and Kairi Sane before Sky emerged to defend her former friends.

Then, Asuka cut a promo on the titantron that was shot entirely like a shoddy Japanese film with silly zooms and subtitles. Listen, I've seen my fair share of Japanese cinema, and this attempt at replicating that feel, at least in a quality fashion, was hilarious.

The segment ultimately ended with Sky rescuing Ripley after the Kabuki Warriors attacked, taking the mist for her trouble. Before the night was over, their tag team match was made official for Crown Jewel in Ripley's home country of Australia.

They're trying (but not)

Seth Rollins' showering of "CM Punk" and "OTC" chants to start his segment with Cody Rhodes couldn't have further exemplified why the concept of the Crown Jewel championship is a stupid, forced, random roadblock in the middle of ongoing storylines. There has been no resolution whatsoever between Rollins, Roman Reigns and CM Punk — the latter, in particular.

Speaking of Punk, let's talk about something I touched on during the last "SmackDown." Where is he? Where is AJ Lee? They haven't been seen since their win over Rollins and Becky Lynch at Wrestlepalooza. 

There's no better way to strike while the iron is hot with momentum than by keeping them off TV, right, Triple H?

I don't understand it, but Punk (without Lee) was advertised for next Monday's "Raw," so it will be extremely interesting to see where he heads now. Meanwhile, Rollins did his best to sell the Rhodes match with pretty silly logic — even Rhodes questioned it. 

Rollins claimed their match would decide the next 10 to 20 years of WWE. Clearly, he must have forgotten that both men are 40 years old. Although Rhodes questioned it in the promo, it wasn't for that pretty easy reason to point out.

Their whole interaction really boiled down to Rollins' manipulation, or even jealousy, of Rhodes over the years, and how he has yet to beat him. That's about all this feud needs, and that's fine. The timing is just off, and what's most intriguing are the continued mentions of Brock Lesnar.

To circle back to Lee real quick, Lynch has kept herself away from Rollins and The Vision, but attacked Alpha Academy backstage, setting up (another) Maxxine Dupri match next Monday. It feels pretty easy to predict that WWE will rinse and repeat the two's last match, but replace Natalya with Lee in the savior role.

🤔 Contrast of the Night

WWE has really tried to sell viewers on the magnitude of the men's champion vs. champion match. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the women's side, whether that's due to their own poor booking decisions or not. The momentum-desiring Stephanie Vaquer and puttering Tiffany Stratton received nothing more than a brief backstage promo to sell their match.

😮 Botch of the Night

Alright, this was a small moment, but too funny not to highlight. Somebody backstage completely botched Rhodes' entrance and missed the pyro button. Whoops.

👍 MONDAY NIGHT MONEY 👍

1. LA Knight defeated Kofi Kingston clean with a BFT. The match was exclusively held so that WWE could claim not to be incurring a constant flow of losses to Knight, which they had been doing previously. Unfortunately, the win is nearly meaningless because The New Day has also done nothing but lose since their World Tag Team title reign. It was fun while it lasted, though, and a Knight win was definitely better than the alternative.

2. AJ Styles and Dragon Lee defeated Los Americanos clean after Styles hit the Styles Clash. This match was relatively harmless and brief, but the right team emerged victorious. Styles and Lee each cut quick promos on their upcoming opponents, Mysterio and John Cena. It was fine, and a rare Americano loss.

👎 RAW DEAL 👎

Raquel Rodriguez defeated Bayley with a Tejana Bomb after Roxanne Perez interfered in the match finish. It's insane that this happened directly after Rusev vs. Mysterio. The finish completely ruined what was a great match. Perez raked Bayley's eyes right in front of the apparently blind referee to help Rodriguez escape a Figure-4-Leg-Lock. They each attacked Bayley afterward, enticing Lyra Valkyria out for the save to rinse and repeat the same thing that happened last week.

Valkyria's character also still looks like a total idiot who doesn't watch "Raw," because she still doesn't understand what's going on with Bayley.

👑 I give this show a Crown score of: 6.5/10. 👑