WWE Raw results and highlights (Jan. 13): Penta finally debuts, Lyra Valkyria wins Intercontinental gold

The "WWE Raw" on Netflix era is in full swing, and while episode two was toned down compared to last week's debut, the newness of change still wafts through the air.

Netflix is providing WWE with an overall comfort that might not have been there on cable TV, and it was more noticeable tonight than last week. Not that things felt rushed before, but segments and matches were really allowed to breathe.

To start, however, we had to hear from the "Voice of the Voiceless," who continued today's theme of brutal spoilers.

🫠 Spoiler season

Surprises are what make wrestling special. Kill kayfabe all you want, but keep me in the dark and don't tell me a thing so the unexpected can reach its full potential.

The Royal Rumble has largely lost its allure of those incredible surprises, no matter how big or small. That's been one of my biggest gripes with WWE since the company started telling us who's going to be in February's big 30-person match. Why? Why do we do this?

John Cena was a prime example last week. This week, CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre all declared themselves in pursuit of WrestleMania through the match. Sure, these guys are expected to be in there, but it takes something away to do it like this — especially when we get down to telling everyone which number entrants are slotted at. I'm fine with the first two or three but end it there.

I'm begging you, Triple H. Stop where we're at.

Ultimately, the trio of rivals were all on point for their promo sparring — aside from poor Chicago Phil, who had some balance issues on the announce table and rail. Surely I wasn't the only one fearing he was about to hurt himself before even grabbing the microphone.

But they were all great together, as always. Rollins wants to stop Punk from winning the Rumble by winning it instead, while McIntyre called them both idiots for continuing to ignore Roman Reigns.

(I really do love this man's persistence with his mission.)

Rollins and McIntyre will have a match next week. A loss wouldn't be great for either after they both came up short this past Monday, but it feels like it would hurt McIntyre more. Letting Rollins slip back into a psychosis of sorts might actually really work for his character. He's already returned to a much-needed sense of seriousness, and him doing literally anything he can to ruin Punk's return to a championship would be like karma for how Punk screwed McIntyre.

There will be more matches between these three, folks. Don't worry.

🎭 The big spoiler...

As a fan, I sincerely hope whoever runs the WWE Shop X account made a horrible mistake today. Unfortunately, I don't think they did because the post revealing Penta's debut was never deleted.

This. Drives. Me. Crazy.

The art of surprise is virtually dead in wrestling, minus the rarest of occasions, and I don't know why. Yes, I'm aware all the teaser videos gave it away in the weeks prior, which also sucks. I've never liked those either, and for how big of a deal they made this debut feel, it makes it even more bizarre.

Chad Gable vs. the debuting Penta was awesome and a perfect pairing to give fans who had never seen the luchador a glimpse of what he's about. This one did come with some goofy bumps early on, though they got past it and delivered quality action.

Penta already has an awesome entrance and still received a nice pop despite the secret's exposure. The "knockoff Kurt Angle" Gable sold the newcomer's offense brilliantly, including a perfect Mexican Destroyer. Pro wrestling as a whole devaluing that once-devastating move to no longer be a finisher is another one of my biggest gripes. Thankfully, the Penta Driver is badass and a worthy follow-up to get the win.

I miss the Lucha Brothers already, and to an extent, I wish Penta had squashed Gable, specifically because of the introductory presentation he was given. But it was a fun match that received time, as did Penta in a great moment on the microphone afterward when he addressed the crowd in both English and Spanish. It was crazy to see, considering his career thus far.

There are lots of cool things that can be done with Penta, and I'm not sure which direction WWE will go with him. A title of some sort feels obvious. There's a Cody Rhodes match that must be revisited, and at the very least, I'm sure he'll give us some awesome spots in the Rumble.

🏆 Champ of the Night

Lyra Valkyria winning the inaugural Women's Intercontinental title was the right call. Since she now has her crown and place in history, we also have to reward her with...

👑 Uncrowned Gem of the Night 👑

Valkyria and Dakota Kai work beautifully together. Their match was awesome, and as much as I despise Kai's finisher, she showed up and put on a show with her opponent for this first-ever title tilt.

They hit big spot after big spot, starting with a nasty suplex from Valkyria off the apron and onto the ground. Then the finishing sequence with Valkyria hitting the Nightwing after a GTK survival. She's awesome and the perfect person to hold this title as its first champion.

What a character contrast between her and Chelsea Green, huh?

🥱 Filler of the Night

The yawn emoji doesn't best depict the segment between Gunther and Jey Uso, but it objectively felt like filler.

It's funny to see how Gunther was oddly shoehorned into that brief, pathetic and unconfident version of himself during the Damian Priest feud. That guy is gone, and he's back to his rightfully dominant and confident self.

Gunther's promo started off swift and furious before it was quickly cut short by Uso. I guess he all of a sudden deserves a crack at the title because of his McIntyre win? I don't know. That's what the real filler of this whole scenario is — the match. Uso challenged Gunther for his World Heavyweight title at the Jan. 25 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event" and I can't imagine any of us believe he'll pull it off. His emotional response to Gunther pointing out the facts of his career was good, but it all feels relatively forced.

🚗 Car Crash of the Night

You knew this one was coming when WWE announced Priest and Finn Bálor going at it in a Street Fight!

First off, I've never understood why all matches of this extreme nature don't allow pins outside the ring. Yes, there's Falls Count Anywhere, but that's the same thing. Unless it's a "plain old" No DQ match, let them finish matches anywhere.

More than anything, this was just a big spot-fest more than a match. I say that in the most positive way possible, because there was a good mini-swerve in here after Bálor was hit with an absurd Broken Arrow through some tables in the crowd.

WWE made it look like the match was going to get called off, which we've seen several times before. Instead, Priest — somewhat hilariously — went and attacked Bálor, who was on his way out of the arena via stretcher.

Carlito and JD McDonagh expectedly made the save to keep Bálor in the match before the War Raiders came in and took them out. Priest won after breaking some tables and a pair of South of Heaven Chokeslams. Bálor looked way stronger than I expected him to, though. That was refreshing, especially after the match looked like it was concluding roughly five minutes in after a mega spot. It was all constructed nicely and hopefully puts an end to everything The Judgment Day very soon.

🤡 Clown of the Night

To top off that last point, Dominick Mysterio being obLIVious to Liv Morgan's condescension when he gave her flowers backstage was a sign that WWE will keep this going. It was mildly comical, but a bit more cringe than anything.

👍 MONDAY NIGHT MONEY 👍

1. We can hate on drones all we want in 2025, but I like the drone camera. It's pretty cool and makes the shows feel more special.

2. We had some more hinting from Rollins to Sami Zayn about him helping Roman win last week and his overall continued aid. This is good. There's that common interest between Rollins and McIntyre that makes me think maybe, just maybe, they'll join forces down the line to get back at Reigns in some capacity.

3. Miz and Zayn had a match. It was short and sweet, also falling under a bit of the filler category, obviously. Most of all, the finish was great, as Zayn hit the Helluva Kick into a Blue Thunder Bomb for the win. That's essentially what I was asking for a few weeks back. Keep doing that, Sami.

4. Bayley responding to Nia Jax with "I live here" when asked what she's doing in the arena was absolute comedy.

5. Punk asking commentary why it couldn't be Rhea Ripley interrupting instead of Rollins garnered a similar pop to the Bayley response. It's the little things, guys.

👎 RAW DEAL 👎

1. Unfortunately, to springboard off the Bayley and Ripley mentions, their whole segment was awful. Ripley started to celebrate and was almost immediately cut off by a cheetah-print Jax, who was as rough on the microphone as ever. Some of the lines delivered by her and Bayley were just not good. Similar to Uso and Gunther, this all felt forced and uninteresting.

The fans practically booed Jax out of the building too, so there's your indication of interest in that potential feud.

2. Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser was a good match. The winner was just wrong, as Sheamus will go on to challenge Bron Breakker for the Intercontinental title (again) at Saturday Night's Main Event. Unless this is taking a long build to Sheamus winning that belt at WrestleMania and Kaiser ascending to the ultimate villain, I don't know what we're doing with this repetition.

3. The Wyatt Sicks have officially moved to "WWE SmackDown." Aside from supernatural characters being treated as normal roster members (which is dumb), this further undermined how lazy the Final Testament feud became. It never should have gone past the match. There's nowhere to go with characters like the Wyatt Sicks in this day and age. It's sad, but true.

👑 The bright spots of this show were pretty bright, but none were perfect outside of Valkyria's title win and maybe Priest vs. Balor. It was a pretty breezy watch, though. I give this show a Crown score of: 7/10. 👑