What was the format of the Raw main event?

The main event of Raw was a seven-way gauntlet match held to determine the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship.

How long did the gauntlet match last on Raw?

The gauntlet match lasted 54 minutes, which many viewers felt contributed to the pacing issues throughout the three-hour program.

Why are fans critical of current WWE gauntlet matches?

Skeptics argue that gauntlet matches are often used by the creative team as a default way to fill time rather than building compelling narratives to advance feuds.

Which women's match was highlighted as superior to the gauntlet?

The match between IYO SKY and Roxanne Perez was noted as a technical showcase that fans felt deserved more prominence than the bloated men's gauntlet match.

What is the main critique regarding the Intercontinental Championship?

Critics claim it is difficult to care about a number one contender's match when the current champion has been largely inactive since the spring.

Raw's Gauntlet Match was a booking disaster that wasted everyone's time

The seven-way gauntlet that felt like an eternity

Last night's episode of Raw gave us a seven-way number one contenders gauntlet match for the Intercontinental Championship, and the internet is currently acting like it just watched a masterpiece or a war crime. Your timeline is probably split between people crying about the pacing and others busy defending the sheer athletic output of the guys involved. It was exactly what you expect from a long-form television experiment that forgot it had a three-hour run time to fill.

The consensus among the die-hards on the subreddits is a mess of contradictions. You have the enthusiasts who are obsessed with the technical execution of the move sets. They are obsessed with every transition and every near-fall, acting as if the match quality makes up for the thin storytelling surrounding the belt lately. One user pointed out that the 54-minute duration was a bold choice given the lack of build for a clear challenger. It is hard to care about a number one contender when the champion has been barely active since the spring.

The skeptics are pointing at the booking void

Then you have the skeptics, the crowd that usually lives in the comments section calling out the creative team for booking by inertia. They are not impressed with the spots. They are sick of "gauntlet" matches being used as the default button for WWE writers who cannot figure out a compelling way to advance three feuds at once. When you put seven people in a ring with a single goal, nobody ends up looking stronger.

As reported by Wrestling Inc, the gauntlet was the centerpiece, but the structural flaws were glaring. If you need nearly an hour to determine a challenger for a mid-card title, you are not elevating the championship. You are just admitting that you have seven mid-carders with nowhere to go. It is a classic move from the late-night television playbook: fill the air, keep the viewership high through the segments, and hope nobody notices the lack of a coherent narrative arc.

IYO SKY and Roxanne Perez deserved more

The IYO SKY versus Roxanne Perez match on the same card is where the real heat is coming from, and honestly, the crowd is right to be annoyed. These two women are operating in a different league than the rest of the roster, yet they were relegated to the undercard shadow of the gauntlet match. It feels like the show hierarchy is stuck in 1998, prioritizing a bloated men's gauntlet over a technical showcase that could actually anchor the women’s division for the next quarter.

I personally think the anti-gauntlet crowd wins this round. If you force your audience to sit through an hour of rotating talent, you better have a payoff that feels like it matters. Instead, we got a match that served as a glorified cardio workout. The industry needs to realize that more minutes do not equate to a better show. We need stakes, not just a bunch of guys taking bumps until the clock runs out.

The social media reaction is mostly performative outrage about the finish, but the real issue is the lack of urgency. When you strip away the bright lights and the loud commentary, this was just a way to kill time until the next premium live event. The talent tried, the moves were clean, but the booking was a reminder that even the best wrestlers in the world cannot fix a script that has zero flavor. Let's see some actual characters next week, not just another gauntlet or battle royal to paper over the creative cracks.

If WWE wants to stop the discourse from turning toxic, they need to stop relying on these massive, multi-person slogs to keep the show moving. We want stories, we want personal stakes, and we want to see the titleholders actually have a reason to show up. Until then, we are just watching 12 guys bump for nothing, while the actual stars are left standing on the sidelines. It is a waste of talent that could be doing something interesting with their screen time.