WWE Set Things Up for Next Week's Season Premiere

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In this week's edition of Monday Night Raw, WWE fulfilled its promise by delivering an intense NXT Women's Title match, while also showcasing the prowess of several women in the division. Nia Jax, Raquel Rodriguez, Shayna Baszler, and Rhea Ripley engaged in heated confrontations and Natalya accepted Piper Niven's challenge, setting the stage for an upcoming singles match.

The show featured an interview interruption for DIY, a thrilling Viking Rules match between Kofi Kingston and Ivar, and a high-stakes Triple Threat No. 1 contenders match involving Chad Gable, Big Bronson Reed, and Ricochet. The main event ramped up the excitement, as the WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championships were on the line.

Here are your winners and losers of this Monday's WWE Raw episode:

Winner: WWE Sets Up Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins

The show started with Seth Rollins -- the fighting World Champion -- taking the ring and asking the fans if they would be cool if he took one week off from wrestling. That brought out Drew McIntyre who said he wanted a title match. When Rollins started to flip out, McIntyre said it wasn't for tonight. It was for Crown Jewel. Rollins accepted.

Damian Priest attacked from behind and when Dominik came out to try and give the Money in the Bank briefcase to Priest to cash it in, McIntyre stopped him. The Scottish Warrior didn't exactly help Rollins, but he did protect him from having his title stolen. Throughout the night, McIntyre was seen having multiple conversations. There was even a moment when he was conversing with Rhea Ripley in the background of another interview. It's not clear what the hint was there.

Either way, Rollins vs. McIntyre will be a big match for Crown Jewel.

Winner: Ivar Picks Up A Big Win

In the opening match of the night, Ivar faced Kingston in a Viking Rules contest. The match came about after Ivar's loss to Xavier Woods last week and his subsequent attack on The New Day members. The fight quickly spilled outside the ring, with both competitors employing the shields and other weapons found around the ring. After a sweet table spot, Valhalla intervened and helped Ivar get the upper hand. Woods tried to get involved but got squashed against the barricade.

Ivar countered Kingston's Trouble in Paradise, slamming him through a table and sealing the victory with a moonsault. This was a big singles win for Ivar who looked strong and put on a solid match without his partner Erik by his side.

Winner/Loser: Nia Jax vs. Raquel Rodriguez

Formidable forces of Nia Jax and Raquel Rodriguez collided on Monday night, actually having a better match than many probably expected. In particular, Jax showed fairly well considering her reputation for being less-than-stellar in the ring, and oftentimes unsafe. The intensity was off the charts and whoever booked the match was smart to make it a smash-mouth affair.

The ending came quickly as Ripley ran down to the ring and started laying in shots on both women. The match was essentially thrown out and then Shayna Baszler came down and wanted to get he licks in on Jax too. That caused friction between Baszler and Ripley, with The Queen of Spades actually laying out the Women's Champion.

This was a big moment for Baszler who stood tall at the end of the segment and looked strong. She'll get a shot at Rhea Ripley on the season premiere of Raw next week. Ripley vs. Baszler should be even harder-hitting than Jax vs. Rodriguez.

Winner: Bronson Reed

Big Bronson Reed will move onto face Gunther next week on Raw, and for that reason alone, this was a winning segment. That said, the match itself was well-constructed and fun. Ricochet was at an early disadvantage after an attack by Shinsuke Nakamura. Still, he was in this match until the very end, when Ricochet hit a German suplex, only to have Reed come in from behind and pick him up and slam him on top of Gable. Reed hit his signature Tsunami splash from the top rope, onto Ricochet for the win.

The fact that Reed will crash head-on with Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship is going to be a match to watch.

Loser: JD McDonagh

JD McDonagh was tasked to take care of McIntyre and he was set for a one-on-one to try and prove himself to Damian Priest, who had to restrain himself from taking out the wannabe member of Judgement Day. A distraction by Dominik Mysterio allowed McDonagh to target McIntyre's knee and while that gave him an edge for a moment, this match was never really close. McIntyre took care of McDonagh fairly easily. He executed the Future Shock DDT on McDonagh before delivering a devastating Claymore, securing a decisive victory.

This was a predictable result, putting McIntyre on his road to Crown Jewel and making the road for McDonagh to get accepted by Judgment Day that much harder.

After footage of DIY being attacked by Imperium in a backstage interview was shown, the next match-up was Tegan Nox versus Becky Lynch.

Winner: Tegan Nox

In a tactic WWE doesn't often take in women's matches, both Lynch and Nox focused on takedowns and counters early in the bout. The idea was to earn some respect for both competitors with the live audience and it mostly worked. This was a match set up to showcase Nox's technical abilities and highlight talents many fans don't know because she hasn't been used all that much. It will be intriguing to see if Nox got over enough to get the fan's support moving forward.

Despite Nox's strong performance, Lynch wound up with the final counter of the contest and applied disarm-her for the victory.WWE teased another NXT Women's Championship match with another underutilized talent, Xia Li.

Winner: Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso

The night's main event was Cody and Jey vs. Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. It was a match that came up during an earlier segment where Michael Cole was interviewing the new champions and prodded Cody about finishing his story and whether winning the title was going to derail him from achieving the ultimate prize he really wanted. It's not clear why Cole acted the part of the pot-stirrer, but there was certainly a tease here that this bromance between Rhodes and The Main Event Uce might not last.

The tag match itself was as good as anyone would have expected with these four involved. Rhodes and Uso picked up the win with their new modified 1-D finisher. All four men stood in the ring to close the show and shook hands, showing a measure of respect for one another.