Over 10,000 wrestling fans splurged a large chunk of cash to head to the OVO Hydro in Glasgow for Monday night RAW. The European tour just weeks away from WrestleMania had been a master stroke for WWE as the crowds had been loud and wild for seeing the WWE superstars up close and personal.

I myself sat at home to watch live on Netflix, Irn Bru in hand and a couple Blue Riband’s ready because I’m a classy bitch.

John Cena opened the show to lambast the crowd before announcing that he’ll retire with the WWE Championship when he wins it at WrestleMania.

Cody Rhodes challenged John Cena to fight him now but Cena walked away.

A heated opening 20 minutes with Cena repeating some of his earlier verbiage while also sprinkling in some of the criticism he had received for the last 25 years, namely the spinner championship on this occasion. Using all the insults to direct it towards his goal to ruin wrestling by winning his 17th world title, erase Ric Flair’s record, and retire as the real WWE Champion so that any championship created afterwards would just be a stand in, a toy, because nobody would be able to claim to be the WWE Champion following him hanging up his sneakers.

Cody also offered a bit more passion, the previous encounter almost felt like he was bemused by what a whining sell out John Cena had become but a with week to stew on the words, and hearing Cena dismiss the notion that he could lose at WrestleMania lit a fire under the belly of The American Nightmare to fire back with more aggression. A step up from last week.

The Usos (Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso) defeated A-Town Down Under (Austin Theory & Grayson Waller) by pinfall.

Those wanting and expecting Joe Hendry were left sorely disappointed when Jimmy Uso appeared from the shadows to join his brother Jey to YEET all over the OVO Hydro.

Jey Uso continued to defy the yammerings of the internet by being by far the most popular live act on the WWE roster as the venue was bouncing along.

Grayson Waller has certainly grown on me since his main roster debut with his unwavering shit-eating grin just infuriating the masses.

The action was back and forth, an early highlighting being Austin Theory knocking Jimmy Uso silly with a forearm to head while he was at ringside.

Testament to Austin Theory though, Jimmy popped him up for one of the best spears Jey has connected with since employing the move with A-Town Down Under falling to a 1D to wrap up the win for The Usos.

Gunther attacked Jey Uso after the match, Jey tried to fight back but slipped when trying to hit a spear so Gunther pounced until Jimmy Uso chased him away with a chair.

After last week’s errant dive, it looks like there is a play to work Jey being rattled by Gunther that is making him sloppy in the ring. A bold move to try and take the negativity of the readiness of Jey Uso to be in the World title picture as Royal Rumble winner and harness it to further cement him coming into WrestleMania as the underdog.

We got a hilariously weird AI story about El Grande Americano before Chad Gable arrived in Pearce’s office with a sick note. He suggested El Grande Americano took his place against Dragon Lee, who accepted the switch in opposition.

I can’t look at El Grande Americano without thinking of that Smackdown vs Raw 2011 storyline where Jack Swagger masqueraded as Todo Americano.

WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship – Lyra Valkyria defeated Raquel Rodriguez w/Liv Morgan by pinfalll to retain the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship.

It was a tale as old as time, Raquel tried to muscle Lyra, whereas Lyra tried to outmanoeuvre Raquel. Though the increase in speed saw a big boot from Raquel send a mid-air Lyra violently ricocheting off the canvas.

Rodriguez missed a spinning second rope Vader Bomb then got her head mashed into the mat with a frenzied top rope leg drop that could only muster a count of two.

Liv Morgan tried to get involved but was knocked down by Lyra, who then countered a Tejana Bomb into a victory roll for the three.

Morgan and Rodriguez attacked Valkyria until Bayley made the save. Question now is that Lyra’s WrestleMania opponent saving her or is this leading to a Women’s Tag Team Championship defence in April.

This was certainly a match, they had to work hard to get a reaction from the crowd who weren’t sounding impressed by the actual matches so far. The crowd interaction of the entrance music was by in large where the pops where coming from and despite a solid match between these two, there was little by way of feedback from the audience that could be heard.

Jimmy Uso tried to hype up Jey backstage before spotting Gunther to challenge him to a match next week then slapped The Ring General so hard that even I felt it. A stunned Gunther just accepted it as fair play after needling Jimmy with snide comments.

Adam Pearce marched out to attempt to make sense of the WWE Women’s Championship kerfuffle last week but was interrupted by IYO SKY, Bianca Belair, and finally Rhea Ripley. Pearce announced Ripley versus IYO next week to determine who faced Belair at WrestleMania. The three brawled with Bianca standing tall.

The trade off of counters and moves was a great preview of what will inevitably be a triple threat match at WrestleMania. Bianca Belair was soundly booed in the scenario with IYO and Rhea being juggernauts when it came to fan support and with the Jade Cargill-Naomi situation lingering on Smackdown I’d be shocked if there’s a change up and we find out Belair had more to do with Jade’s absence than we’ve been lead to believe.

El Grande Americano defeated Dragon Lee by submission.

In what was by far the best match of the night that aired on the tv, a train of counters, silky smooth offense, along with the thrills and spills you would want from these two.

A suplex off the apron from Americano to Lee was a crash and burn, but Lee recovered as both crawled back into the ring at the count of nine.

Dragon Lee set up for a corner double foot stomp but Americano grabbed and removed the mask of Lee, before then slapping on an ankle lock for the tap out.

The little extra flair that El Grande Americano provided by shouting “SILENCO” and “GRACIAS” was top notch.

The revenge from El Grande after Dragon Lee tried to pull at the mask in the early exchanges in an attempt to prove that his opponent may, or may not, be Chad Gable was a lovely bit of mirroring.

CM Punk entered to a heroes welcome, it was like Clash At The Castle never happened. For shame Glasgow. Punk captivated the crowd by giving his thoughts on his WrestleMania opponents, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, ending with the killer line that he brought them into the WWE, and he would enjoy taking them out.

Nobody quite holds an audience quite like CM Punk.

Chad Gable and American Made made a quick cameo to give a shout out to El Grande Americano. It happened, must’ve been during an ad break for those on the Peacock.

WWE Intercontinental Championship – Bron Breakker defeated PENTA by disqualification to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship.

The main event was derailed early on with Carlito and Dominik Mysterio coming out to support their targeted new member of The Judgement Day, PENTA, which distracted from the action somewhat.

Breakker showed off his impressive strength, muscling PENTA up and showed little signs of struggling. PENTA held up his end and more as the clash of styles really gelled together. Dom and Carlito tried to assist PENTA but Breakker fought one off while the referee was distracted by the other.

The Judgement Day eventually attacked Bron Breakker in front of the referee to cause the disqualification. Mysterio handed PENTA a chair to crack over Bron must to the annoyance of Finn Balor, but PENTA rejected Dom’s offer to join The Judgement Day, then laid him and Breakker out with a chair to close the show with The Judgement Day standing over a fallen PENTA.

This felt like an episode of RAW, and by that I mean there was no indication really that this was on tour. Spain got Gunther versus Axiom, the crowds in Italy and Belgium were wild and crazy, but Glasgow didn’t sound as excited. Was it the high cost of tickets coupled with a less than exciting TV card that was making an impact of the reaction. Maybe it was a tech issue so it wasn’t translated as well to TV. Could it be the last time WWE rolled into Glasgow they saw their favourite son, Drew McIntyre, screwed out of the World Championship so they haven’t learned to love again yet, who knows.

No Drew appearance, or Joe Hendry, or even Gallus, they couldn’t find time to have Gallus versus The Viking Raiders perhaps?

There were also way too many post-match attacks. Three out of four matches had this, and the one that didn’t featured a cheated victory. A poor show of creativity.

One of the fun things about a UK show is spotting familiar faces in security or extras. None of that, it was a very trimmed down roster of bodies. Were they on a budget or something?

Maybe this was better live, with the dark bonus bout making it all worthwhile, but watching it on TV made the show come across as filler that could’ve been in anywhere in the world.