'WWE Raw' results and highlights (Dec. 9): CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre explain themselves

Look, I had a lot of mixed feelings about this installment of "WWE Raw" as it was happening. Things came full circle in a fun way though, and the storytelling was a strong continuation from last week. We're cutting deep. And I mean deep deep, folks.

It's all setup for the return of "Saturday Night's Main Event" and it felt like it.

We're going to see some titles change hands this weekend.

Explanationville, population: CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre

So let's start with something we don't often see: Three different explanations from people who all intertwine. We started with CM Punk in a pre-recorded backstage interview putting "the favor" Paul Heyman chatter on the back burner and detailing why Seth Rollins is such an entitled brat.

That might be a little bit of paraphrasing summarization, but it's not far off.

Punk justified his lack of interest by retelling Rollins trying to leech off him back in the day and dropped a blatant reference to The Shield.

This. Is. Everything.

You guys might see the idea I'm trying to manifest. That will be dropping soon here on Uncrowned but we look to be trending in that direction. I'm crossing my fingers and toes over here. All in all, the Punker made sense again.

However, there are two sides to every story.

Before we get to Rollins, I will say he gets a thumbs down for continuing to wear the goofy outfits from his ridiculous goober-troll gimmick. He's back to being much more serious and it just does not fit at all.

Rollins claimed Punk is spinning and manipulating the truth, as he does oh-so-well. We took a trip down memory lane with digs to Punk's WWE departure in 2014 and how Punk cut off all his friendships — including Rollins. Once Punk was gone? He tried to tear down WWE, according to Rollins. (He had his own very fair reasoning due to some well-documented legal drama and whatnot, but I digress.)

In the end? Punk came back because he failed on the outside and, of course, the money was right. Excellent. Neither of these guys is wrong and that's the beauty of this.

Sami Zayn got involved in all of it by interrupting Rollins and apologizing for his accusations last week. That was a nice little piece of refreshment, and they both agreed they were on good terms again. Friendship for the win!

But then it all ended with poor Sami getting beat down by Drew McIntyre. The returning Scotsman's earlier vignette saw him reflect on Punk joining Roman Reigns and The Original Bloodline at "Survivor Series: WarGames," and like Rollins, he was upset that anyone would aid Reigns. McIntyre described how they all sold out for nothing, similar to Rollins' prior qualms — and again, the man's not wrong. McIntyre has been a big victim of practically Reigns' whole career at the top. He seems over Punk — for now — and set to take out the others. That's where the Jey Uso attack question was answered.

It previously felt rushed going to a Drew vs. Sami match at Saturday Night's Main Event, but having Drew serve as an OG Bloodline hitman makes it work much better and is kind of cool.

Great way to boost him back up even when he inevitably falls short to Reigns — again.

Realistically, I will say Drew would've been fired a long time ago if he had a competent boss.

Unnecessary burial...

Undoubtedly and unequivocally, Dakota Kai losing and getting beaten down was the stupidest thing on WWE television I've seen in a good while.

Kai is in the middle of the Intercontinental tournament, which she rightfully advanced in last week after her hype vignette. So we start building her up, right? She presumably will be in the finals, or at least should be because of how this all started. Then in the middle of that, she gets a random match with the WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPION Liv Morgan? This was beyond a lose-lose. I don't get it. Why?

It's another example of WWE's continued mess of occasional directionless "angles" given to female wrestlers. Obviously, this isn't as bad as before the women's revolution, but man, the whole point felt like a way to get Iyo Sky out to attack Morgan, who in the end was planted with an ObLIVion. That came from Pure Fusion Collective beating up Kai, who just lost — and that got out Damage CTRL, yada, yada.

This match and booking was terrible and pointless and the proof of that was in the main event.

NOW we're getting somewhere!

"Monday Night Mami" in the main event. Perfect for Rhea Ripley.

The show closed with Ripley's "Anything Goes match" against Raquel Rodriguez — so, a no DQ match. Not sure why a name change was needed there, but anyway...

This was fast, hard-hitting action from the start as Ripley attacked Rodriguez mid-entrance on the ramp. They brawled through the crowd and into the chair-filled ring set up by Ripley mid-commercial. All wonderful touches.

The stipulation made the match's booking obvious: Morgan was going to "shockingly" make a save. That was to be expected, and as much as this rivalry should've died at Survivor Series, I was hoping it could die here. And it feels close.

But why did this match make the Kai booking pointless? Well, Iyo came out to even the odds with one of the most flawless attack entrances you'll ever see — in street clothes too! She was magic.

Our final shot? Ripley and Iyo both holding up Liv's title. Yes. This is the progression. Anything to get away from Ripley's Morgan rivalry and Ripley vs. Iyo will be awesome.

🧾 Repeated history of the night

After long enough, history repeats itself. Unfortunately, that's not always a good thing.

This is one of those conflicting instances of a great match with an awful finish. Does the bad finish outweigh everything that came before? Not always, but Final Testament vs. The Wyatt Sicks was one of those times.

As much as I'm not vibing with them, the Wyatts' entrance is perpetually cool. And the match was super high-paced, action-packed, you name it. Everyone worked well together. Then it ended with a Paul Ellering return interference with what looked like a chalk cloud to the face of Uncle Howdy.

Dude. This feels like The Fiend all over again. You create this supernatural, borderline unkillable creature in its own world, and then it loses and there goes that. Suddenly it's nothing more than goofy cosplay because they realistically shouldn't lose. The Fiend couldn't die, but Bill Goldberg had his number!

It sucks to see. Same thing all over again.

😈 Villains of the night.

There wasn't much to the first heel show for The New Day and there didn't need to be.

Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods were greeted with scolds and disapproval by fellow wrestlers and staff throughout the night — including Cody Rhodes. They were oblivious, trying to be cool with people.

The New Day didn't know what they did wrong and were booed out of the ring when trying to talk. This was that heat they so desperately needed and it was wild to see Kingston in the middle of it. I couldn't help but think back to "KofiMania" and the Daniel Bryan feud. "FICK-LE! FICK-LE!" That would have been such a great callback to break out. I won't be surprised if he does at some point. Wild scene.

👍 MONDAY NIGHT MONEY 👍

Zelina Vega vs. Ivy Nile vs. Lyra Valkyria was unsurprisingly another fun triple-threat match in the Intercontinental title tournament. We had to have Valkyria get the win and she did. They sold me a ticket on a possible Vega upset so it did its job in that realm. Good stuff.

👎 RAW DEAL 👎

1. Bron Breakker, Ludwig Kaiser and Sheamus were nowhere to be seen on this episode. I'm cool with giving Sheamus the night off, and even Breakker could use some rest after the chaos he's produced in recent matches. But at least give me everyone's favorite budding James Bond villain.

2. The Pete Dunne burial is still and will remain indescribably awful. No idea how this gets saved, but I'm hoping. What did he do to piss off Triple H? I demand answers, Paul!

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

We've taken an interesting turn with Gunther, and as it was unfolding, I wasn't sure how I felt. But he earned himself the night's gem.

Gunther feuding with Finn Bálor is that rare — but greatly appreciated — heel vs. heel scenario. However, the weird thing is Gunther felt like he was randomly turned into a face as the show started. Good pop, Bálor is the more "evil" of the two, and Gunther was the one attacked last week. He had a great callback to Bálor's one-day Universal title reign and how Bálor will never be on his level as a champion.

The theme of the night was truth. Bálor even took a swipe at Dominick Mysterio, who he said didn't deserve the match last week. That had a very Christian Cage and The Patriarchy feel to it.

Ultimately, Gunther fell back into the "I'm my own man role" when Damian Priest showed up to save him from Judgment Day and Gunther attacked Priest. They dodged a bullet with that booking, because those two teaming up would've been a big miss.

It's a relatively sharp turn from the brief coward Gunther just was, but it's good. This was a low-key hit with everything else on the show. And you guys know me, we got a triple threat out of it! My favorite.

Gunther vs. Balor vs. Priest. Thanks, WWE.

👑 I give this show a Crown score of 7 out of 10. 👑