WWE Raw preview (June 5, 2023): Part-time champions need not apply

Raw airs tonight (June 5) with a live show from the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut. This is the second episode of Raw during the five week build towards Money in the Bank, which takes place on July 1 in London, England.

Part-time champions need not apply on Raw

When Triple H unveiled the new World heavyweight championship in April, he promised that the new belt would be held by a workhorse fighting champ who you can be proud of. Seth Rollins went on to become the first titleholder, and is now living up to that billing by putting the gold on the line tonight against Damian Priest.

This match came about after Rollins issued an open challenge over the weekend. I was hoping that hardened criminal Dominik Mysterio would answer the call after what Seth did to Rhea Ripley last week, but Damian beat him to the punch. Dom-Dom can still get revenge for Rhea by screwing Seth over tonight and bringing the new world title home to The Judgment Day.

Seth has recently been taking shots at part-timer Roman Reigns, pointing out that there hasn’t been a world championship match on Raw since Big E was the defending WWE champion in late 2021. Part-timer Brock Lesnar took the title from Big E soon after that, before feuding with Roman at WrestleMania 38. With the title scene being dominated by part-timers, it was evident back in February 2022 that Raw was about to kiss the WWE championship goodbye for quite a long time.

That era is over now, with Seth Rollins as the fighting workhorse world champion who thumbs his nose down on part-timers like Roman Reigns. But Seth could be making a huge mistake by paying so much attention to what Reigns is up to, instead of focusing on the imminent danger presented by The Judgment Day. This faction essentially has a 4-on-1 numbers advantage over Rollins in tonight’s world title match, at least until the referee starts ejecting Judgment Day members from ringside.

Can Seth do this all by himself, or will he need a friend to help even the odds out a little bit?

The rest of the title scene

Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER doesn’t seem all that impressed with Matt Riddle. In fact, he looks forward to beating and humiliating Riddle sometime soon.

WWE Tag Team Champions Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn are finally taking a break from dealing with The Bloodline. It looks like Imperium is next up on their radar.

Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler are the new WWE women’s tag team champions. Given that Shotzi is on the SmackDown roster, will Raw star Raquel Rodriguez find a new partner and try to reclaim her belts? Or is she instead focused on qualifying for the Money in the Bank ladder match?

It appears that SmackDown Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley has no viable challengers right now on Raw.

Other stuff to keep an eye on

- The feud between Trish Stratus and Becky Lynch spills over into the Money in the Bank qualifying matches tonight. Becky takes on Sonya Deville, while Zoey Stark goes one-on-one with Natalya, with the winners of these matches qualifying for the ladder match on July 1 in London. The outcomes of these qualifiers appear to be obvious, due to Deville being a jobber and Natalya just recently being squashed by Ripley.

- It’s a good thing that Cody Rhodes always has something to talk about, because his current rival Brock Lesnar is not expected to show up tonight. Cody will instead be a guest on Miz TV. The Miz doesn’t like it when his guest hogs the spotlight, so this may very well lead to a match between the two wrestlers, while Cody tries to figure out what he’s doing at the Money in the Bank PPV in a few weeks.

- Johnny Gargano has been saying that “he’s coming back.” A lot of folks assume he’s talking about Tommaso Ciampa. Will he come back tonight?

- Indus Sher is now squashing jobbers on Raw as they look to make a name for themselves on the main roster.

- What’s next for Bronson Reed after he failed to qualify for the Money in the Bank ladder due to last week’s loss against Shinsuke Nakamura?

- Chad Gable announced that Maxxine Dupri has officially joined Alpha Academy. Does this mean Maximum Male Models is just about dead, or is this all part of Maxxine’s plan to steal Otis away from Chad?

- JD McDonagh planned to start his main roster run with some easy wins over Dolph Ziggler, but they actually wrestled to a double count out draw last week. JD viciously attacked Dolph on the ring steps after the match, so this one is far from over.

What will you be looking for on Raw?