WWE Raw Results: Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights Before Fastlane

Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage and recap of WWE Raw on October 2 at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.

Fastlane is this Saturday, so quite a bit of this week's show was devoted to hyping up the matches that WWE has booked for the premium live event.

One of the big segments on Monday's show was the contract signing between Gunther and Tommaso Ciampa for their Intercontinental Championship match at the weekend.

We also saw Becky Lynch, fresh off a successful title defense at NXT No Mercy, put her NXT women's title on the line against Tegan Nox.

Let's take a look at everything that went down during the go-home episode of Raw before Fastlane.

Opening Segment

Raw opened with Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler fighting in the aisle. The show was supposed to start with their match, but it started with mayhem instead.

Raquel Rodriguez joined Baslzer's side, and Rhea Ripley linked up with Jax.

After everyone else was cleared out of the ring, Ripley grabbed a mic and said she's not done until she takes care of Judgment Day business.

After a commercial break, Ripley said she left the group in Priest's hands and he disappointed her. He threw Dominik Mysterio under a bus and pointed out how he lost his title. Ripley told Dom if he doesn't get his belt back, he may as well not come home.

Jey Uso came out because he was originally slated to face The Archer of Infamy on Monday, but Priest wasn't cleared to compete.

He said they missed Ripley on Raw, which caused Dom to get angry and say he would take care of Jey for Mami. JD McDonagh came out to help Dom, but Cody Rhodes joined Jey and helped him clear the ring.

Opening the show with two brawls and a bunch of talking instead of having any matches for the first 25 minutes is definitely not unusual, but it still felt like a lot of nothing.

The tension building within The Judgment Day has been handled well, but now that Ripley is back, the storyline can really be kicked into full gear.

By the time the segment was over, most people probably forgot that the show opened with a different set of people brawling.

Grade: C+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Dom carrying Ripley's belt with him to the ring looked like every boyfriend who has had to carry his girlfriend's purse while she went shopping. 
• Dom's black eye from No Mercy is already healing nicely. 

Alpha Academy vs. Imperium

Chad Gable and Otis can't seem to escape Imperium, and they stepped into the ring with Giovanni Vinci and Ludwig Kaiser for a tag match this week.

We have seen all of these men fight each other in various combinations in tag and singles bouts for the past few months, so there was nothing new here. But that didn't mean it was bad.

All four guys are known as being good workers, so everything they did looked good. It's just hard to get excited about a match we have seen in some form several times.

The new wrinkle in the story here was Gunther telling Kaiser he was responsible for Vinci now, so Kaiser was trying to make sure Vinci didn't do anything to get them in trouble.

This is one of those matches that is only made less enjoyable by how repetitive it is. The action was great and the crowd reacted to everything, so those in the ring did their job well.

Result: Kaiser pinned Otis to get the win for Imperium

Grade: B

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Maxxine Dupri keeps showing signs of being more comfortable with her character. She has improved so much since the Maximum Male Model days. 
• Kaiser hit a great uppercut that sent Gable out of the ring. 
• Gable's counter into an ankle lock was smooth. 

Cedric Alexander vs. Bronson Reed

In what feels like his first televised match in a long time, Cedric Alexander had a chance to face Bronson Reed this week.

The high-flyer didn't get a TV entrance, but he did manage to get in a lot of offense early in the fight to throw his opponent off balance.

However, Reed eventually took him down with a senton before climbing to the top rope to hit the Tsunami for the win.

This wasn't really a squash match by definition, but it was pretty close.

Result: Reed pinned Alexander with the Tsunami

Grade: C-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Alexander is such a great talent. It's a shame WWE barely does anything with him, especially now that Shelton Benjamin is gone. 
• Reed might benefit from having a manager. 

Xavier Woods vs. Ivar

Ciampa and Gunther met for their contract signing. The former gave a passionate promo about how much fighting for the IC title means to him before putting his name on the dotted line.

Gunther respected Ciampa's motives for fighting, but Ciampa didn't care. He just wanted The Ring General to sign the contract.

Once the papers were signed, WWE official Adam Pearce confirmed the match would take place later in the show. Ciampa and Gunther started to brawl.

With Erik out with an injury and Valhalla nowhere to be seen, Ivar was all alone when he took on Xavier Woods in the next matchup.

After what appeared to be a botched powerbomb in the corner, Ivar tried to hit a moonsault. Woods was able to avoid it and rolled Ivar up for the pin. The Viking immediately attacked him and took out Kofi Kingston when he tried to help.

This was a decent match, but the storyline feels incomplete without Erik. All of this feels like filler until everyone is back.

Result: Woods pinned Ivar with an inside cradle

Grade: C+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Kingston dancing at Wade Barrett to mock him was so funny. 
• Michael Cole was doing a lot to put Ivar over on commentary. It was nice to hear him being recognized for how good he is without it being as part of a team. 
• Kingston's energy on commentary is amazing. 
• Woods is so much stronger than he looks. It's too bad that powerbomb didn't work out. 

Chelsea Green vs. Tegan Nox

Seth Rollins gave a promo about his feud with Shinsuke Nakamura, but The King of Strong Style attacked him from behind and proved he could keep him down for a 10-count.

The next match was between Chelsea Green and Tegan Nox. Piper Niven was at ringside to support her teammate, Green.

After it looked like Niven would get involved, Natalya came out to stand in Nox's corner and even the playing field. This gave the Welsh wrestler the chance she needed to hit the Shiniest Wizard for the win.

This was too short to be much of anything, but nothing they did looked bad. This will likely lead to Nox and Nattie teaming up to challenge for the women's tag belts sometime soon.

Result: Tegan Nox pinned Chelsea Green with The Shiniest Wizard

Grade: C

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Notable Moments and Observations

• Heel Nakamura is hilarious without even trying. 
• The way Green fell off the apron into Niven's arms was great. 

The Miz vs. Drew McIntyre

Drew McIntyre came out to give a promo about why he has been acting the way he has in recent weeks.

The Scot said he doesn't owe an explanation to anyone except his fans. He said he is going to stop being everyone's savior and getting involved in fights he didn't start.

This was supposed to be a Miz TV segment, so The A-Lister showed up and started ranting about what McIntyre did to him last week. Of course, this turned into a fight that ended with The Scottish Warrior taking him out.

We returned from a break to see a ref calling for the bell. The Miz tried to run away to avoid fighting in his suit, but McIntyre caught him and slammed him into the barricade and apron a few times.

McIntyre won, but he did it in a dirty way. He exposed the turnbuckle and slammed Miz into it before hitting the Future Shock DDT. Like most of the matches this week, this wasn't much, but it wasn't terrible. It was just kind of there.

Result: McIntyre defeated The Miz with the Future Shock DDT

Grade: C+

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Notable Moments and Observations

• It can't be easy for The Miz to wrestle in a suit, especially with the vest still on. 
• It felt like McIntyre was going to turn heel soon, but this segment definitely made him look like a babyface. Maybe those plans to make him a villain didn't pan out. 

Gunther vs. Tommaso Ciampa (IC Title)

The main event of the show was the IC title match between Gunther and Ciampa. WWE gave this bout the last half-hour of the show, so they had plenty of time to work.

Kaiser and Vinci did not stay at ringside, so the champion didn't have his henchmen to rely on this time. It was just him and an angry, bearded man who loves gold.

Ciampa came out of the gate strong, but once The Ring General regained his composure, he began dominating his smaller opponent.

Even though Ciampa was giving up a lot of size, he never really felt like an underdog because he was so aggressive with his offense. It's one of the things that makes him fun to watch.

After a long and competitive match, Gunther won with a sleeper hold to retain his intercontinental title. This was an excellent match between two guys who are known for producing great performances.

As Kaiser and Vinci delivered a beatdown, Johnny Gargano came out to make the save for Ciampa. The show ended with DIY hitting their tag team finisher on Kaiser.

Result: Gunther retained the IC title over Ciampa

Grade: A-

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Notable Moments and Observations

• WWE rarely does a contract signing the same night as the title match, so this felt unique and almost spontaneous. It was a nice surprise to find out we were getting this bout this week instead of having to wait. 
• A lot of fans were holding up their phones with the flashlight on during the match. 
• The way Ciampa was hanging in the Tree of Woe looked more painful than usual because he was hanging out of the ring instead of in the corner. 
• The dragon sleeper suplex Gunther hit looked awesome. 
• The USA Network feed cut out right before Gargano and Ciampa hit their finisher, but the international feed showed it. 

The Final Word

Monday's Raw only had a couple of matches worth the time to watch if you didn't see the show live, but the non-wrestling segments did a decent job building up the Fastlane card.

Gunther vs. Ciampa was the Match of the Night, but Alpha Academy vs. Kaiser and Vinci was a solid entry, too. Imperium had a good night on Monday, especially since Gunther retained his title.

The segment involving Nakamura and Rollins stood out above the rest due to The Artist timing everything perfectly.

As a whole, this week's show was down the middle, but that tends to be how a lot of go-home shows are before a PPV.

Grade: C+