WWE Raw Results: Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights from September 11

Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage of WWE Raw on September 11 in Norfolk, Virginia.

With Gunther having recently surpassed The Honky Tonk Man's record as the longest reigning intercontinental champion of all time, Imperium decided to hold a celebratory ceremony this week.

In addition to Cody Rhodes making an appearance, we also saw Rhea Ripley put her Women's World Championship on the line against one of the few women who can match her for power, Raquel Rodriguez.

Let's take a look at everything that went down on Monday's episode of Raw.

The Judgment Day vs. Kevin Owens and Jey Uso

"Main Event" Jey Uso kicked things off this week, but he didn't get to say much before Kevin Owens slowly made his way to the ring.

KO said he made a lot of mistakes and spent a long time trying to earn back everyone's respect, but now he has people who don't even respect him telling him that Jey doesn't belong on Raw. He told Jey he has a long way to go before he proves he has changed.

The Judgment Day came out and said Owens doesn't speak for the locker room because they respect Jey. Damian Priest told him the door is always open if he wanted to join the group. He brought up Dominik being a champion as proof that joining the stable can help.

Jey suggested he and KO team up to fight The Judgment Day since Sami Zayn wasn't at the Scope Arena. The Prizefighter accepted, and they immediately started brawling.

The match was made official during the break and started when the show resumed.

Dom sat this one out while Finn Bálor and Priest worked the match. This was a solid tag team bout that did a good job making it clear that Jey and KO don't have the same chemistry as they do with Jimmy Uso and Zayn, respectively.

Jey accidentally hit Owens with a superkick and paved the way for Bálor to hit the Coup de Grace for the win.

The announcers did a great job laying out why this ending is going to make it harder for Jey to earn anyone's respect.

Winners: The Judgment Day

Grade: B-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Jey has dropped all the red from his gear and logos in favor of blue. It's clearly an effort to differentiate himself from The Bloodline with its red color palette. 
• Jey's superkick to Dom looked tremendous.
• WWE needs to stop turning the crowd volume up when Dom speaks. The crowd boos loud enough without the production team needing to make it even louder. It's just excessive and not nearly as special as it would be if the noise sounded natural. 
• Bálor's new moniker is "Grand Slam." Considering a bunch of people have hit that milestone, it's shocking he is the first one to use the term as a nickname. 
• KO's fisherman's buster is one of his coolest moves. 

The Miz vs. Akira Tozawa

Two weeks ago, Akira Tozawa picked up an upset victory over The Miz; this week, The A-Lister looked for some retribution.

Tozawa tried to use his speed to stay out of The Miz's grasp, but the former WWE champion eventually took him down and started beating on him.

The A-Lister doesn't often have a size of power advantage like he did in this match, so he made sure to enjoy having that.

This match was on the short side but not so short that it felt like a squash. The Miz scored the win in a surprisingly clean fashion.

Winner: The Miz

Grade: C

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Right after The Miz came to the ring, Michael Cole threw to a video package about 9/11. As usual, WWE's production team did a great job. 
• The hurricanrana Tozawa hit early in the match looked great. 
• The It Kicks don't get the same kind of heat they used to. Daniel Bryan's departure from WWE is probably why. 

Gunther Celebrates a New Record

After a backstage segment with Chelsea Green and Piper Niven, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci stood in the ring to celebrate Gunther's record-setting IC title reign.

Chad Gable came out to challenge The Ring General for one more shot at the belt. The segment ended in a brawl that Otis joined when his partner was in danger.

This was as predictable as it gets, but it was fine for what it was. Gable deserves to be the man to dethrone Gunther, so it made sense.

Grade: C+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• The pyro on the ring was a nice touch. WWE barely ever uses pyro anywhere but the stage these days. 
• Gable using his crying daughter as motivation to win the title did not seem to matter to the crowd. 

Xavier Woods vs. Drew McIntyre

After some accidents and misunderstandings in recent weeks, Drew McIntyre and Xavier Woods decided to have a singles match to settle their differences.

Since both Superstars are babyfaces, the match started out relatively clean, but things picked up right before the commercial break when McIntyre threw Woods onto the announce table.

The second half of the contest was a lot more aggressive and featured some stiff strikes and close two-counts.

McIntyre picked up the win with a Claymore, but it feels like this story is far from over.

Winner: Drew McIntyre

Grade: B+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• The look on McIntyre's face after Woods chopped him across the back was hilarious.
• Woods is one of the best at selling in WWE. He has great body language and facial expressions when he is making his opponent look good. 
• Speaking of great sellers, where has Dolph Ziggler been?
• Matt Riddle being absent wasn't surprising, but it was a little shocking to see Kofi Kingston leave his partner unaccompanied. 

Chelsea Green vs. Shayna Baszler

During a backstage segment, Chelsea Green and Shayna Baszler had a confrontation that led to the latter issuing a challenge. Luckily for Green, Piper Niven returned this week to have her back.

The couple of minutes we got were fine, but what happened after the match is what matters the most. Niven attacked Baszler after The Queen of Spades scored the win, but Zoey Stark ran down to make the save.

It looks like we know who the next challengers will be for the women's tag titles.

Winner: Shayna Baszler

Grade: C-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• It's going to be interesting to see how WWE books Stark and Baszler. Both work well as heels, but it seems like WWE is toying with the idea of making them babyfaces. 
• Baszler using Ronda Rousey's old finisher would mean more if it was a move she won a lot of matches with, but it's not. She only employed it a handful of times. 

Tommaso Ciampa and Alpha Academy vs. Imperium

Seth Rollins gave a lengthy promo about finding his true self and wanting to put the title on the line against Shinsuke Nakamura.

Instead of answering the challenge, though, The Artist was shown attacking Ricochet backstage.

Gable, Otis and Maxxine Dupri made their way out before the break, and Alpha Academy then teamed up with Tommaso Ciampa to take on Imperium.

While the good guys may have had control for a while, Imperium had the upper hand for most of this bout. As always, the babyfaces had a late-match comeback and started to regain some momentum.

Gable almost won with Chaos Theory, but Gunther broke up the pin to set off a sequence involving all six men.

The match ended with Gable making Vinci tap out while Ciampa held Gunther back.

This was well done and kept the storyline going for another week.

Winners: Ciampa and Alpha Academy

Grade: B+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• The combo of Ciampa and Alpha Academy felt so random. It's always nice to see Ciampa wrestle, but it would have made more sense for this to just be a standard tag match. 
• Watching Gable dead-lift a grown man off the mat to hit a German suplex will never stop being entertaining. 
• The triple-team spot Imperium hit on Gable in the corner looked brutal. 

Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Rodriguez

The main event of this week's show was the Women's World Championship match between Rhea Ripley and Raquel Rodriguez.

The fight started off hot, with Rodriguez nailing a huge clothesline. She tried to hit her trademark powerbomb right away, but Ripley countered with a sunset flip.

As two of the most powerful women on the roster, both seemed to feel comfortable doing things they might not do with smaller or weaker opponents.

They had a great feud in NXT, but this was their first singles match on the main roster, so they were clearly looking to impress with their performance.

Unfortunately, we were never going to get a clean finish to this. However, it wasn't someone from The Judgment Day who interfered.

Nia Jax made her WWE return and attacked Rodriguez while the ref was distracted, making it easy for The Eradicator to get the win.

When the match was over, Jax attacked Ripley to end the show.

The match was good and worth watching, but we will have to see where this ending leads.

Winner: Rhea Ripley

Grade: B+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• There is something about Ripley that brings out the best in Rodriguez. She is just different when she is in the ring with The Eradicator. Some people just have that perfect opponent and for Rodriguez, it might be the Australian. 
• The sunset flip counter Ripley used to escape a powerbomb looked great. 
• Rodriguez kicking her rival into the barricade would have looked better had she not hesitated when she was about to get a running start. It was a minor thing, though. 
• Ripley hit a frog splash complete with an Eddie Guerrero pose. 
• Jax has lost a lot of weight and clearly worked to get herself into better shape for her return. 

The Final Word

This week's episode of Raw had a few really good matches and moments, but it was largely forgettable as a whole.

A three-hour show only having six matches isn't that ridiculous when you consider most WWE PPVs are three hours with six or seven bouts, but when a couple of those matches are five minutes or less, there will be a lot of filler.

The six-man tag match and the main event were highlights, but Woods vs. McIntyre and the tag match between The Judgment Day and the team of Owens and Jey were both fun in their own way.

If this show had one or two more matches and not so many interviews, promos and video packages, it would have been much more enjoyable.

Grade: C+