WWE Raw Results: Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights from August 14

Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus.WWE

Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage and recap of WWE Raw on August 14.

After being bumped from SummerSlam, Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus finally had their big showdown this week, but Zoey Stark was banned from ringside this time.

We also saw Shinsuke Nakamura address his attack on Seth Rollins from last week's show, as well as more buildup for the upcoming Payback pay-per-view on September 2.

Let's take a look at everything that happened on Monday's Raw.

After the announcers welcomed us to the show, The Judgment Day came out to kick things off. However, Finn Bálor was not with the group.

Damian Priest questioned where he was, but JD McDonagh came out instead. He tried to give them a message from his fellow Irishman, but Rhea Ripley said they don't take orders from anyone who isn't in the faction.

Sami Zayn came out and started fighting with McDonagh in the aisle. The Judgment Day made no effort to help him, but he was able to get the upper hand by attacking Zayn's injured elbow anyway.

When we returned from a break, the match officially began. Zayn went right after the man who injured him but was still favoring his elbow.

Zayn did a great job selling his injury while continuing to find ways to take McDonagh down, and The Irish Ace kept finding ways to attack his arm in return. This match was given two segments, so they had more than enough time to tell their story.

Both men looked good and gave us a physical encounter to open the show. Bálor pretended he was going to attack Zayn as a distraction, but Zayn kicked out of the roll-up.

Zayn knocked Bálor off the apron before hitting the Helluva Kick for the win.

Winner: Sami Zayn

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

• Dom flinching at the pyro was kind of funny. It was reminiscent of the way Eric Young used to always get scared of his pyro in TNA back in the day. 
• If he ever stops wrestling, Priest could have a great career in the voiceover industry. 
• It was legitimately hard to hear Dom speak when the crowd booed. Either WWE turned his mic down or the crowd noise way up. 
• They had some technical difficulties trying to do a replay at one point. 

Gunther came out with Giovanni Vinci and Ludwig Kaiser to talk about being 25 days away from breaking the record for the longest intercontinental title reign.

Alpha Academy then arrived to trade some insults to hype up Chad Gable's IC title bout against Gunther.

Kaiser had a long exchange with Maxxine Dupri that ended with her slapping him across the face before we got the match.

Vinci had a slight size advantage over Gable, which he used to take control early on. But the Olympian used his superior grappling ability to counter and take him down with ease.

Both men are incredibly gifted athletes and wrestlers, so they had no trouble working together despite limited time in the ring together. Before this, most of their encounters were six-man bouts at house shows, so this was a first-time singles contest.

After a great technical exchange, Gable scored the win with his rolling German suplex.

As soon as the match was over, Gunther challenged Otis to a match so he could get revenge.

Winner: Chad Gable

Grade: B+

Otis got the crowd to cheer with some of his dance moves before he and The Ring General locked up. They fought for control and started trading shots.

This was two powerhouses trying to hit each other as hard as possible, and it made for a very entertaining encounter.

Even though Otis was still doing some of his comedy stuff, he was also being taken seriously as a competitor and portrayed as a threat, even to someone as successful as Gunther.

As expected, Gunther got the win, but the fact that he was able to powerbomb Otis to do it was what made it impressive.

Gable hit The Ring General with a German suplex to send him out of the ring after the match was over.

Winner: Gunther

Grade: B-

Notable Moments and Observations

• Really listen to how Samantha Irvin announces each Superstar. She does so many different things for so many people. 
• Somebody needs to cast Kaiser in a movie once the strikes are over. 
• It's so easy to underestimate how strong Otis is. He seems able to pick up anyone without any effort at all. 
• Otis and Gunther's chops both sounded brutal. 

Matt Riddle was shown interrupting a backstage interview to ask Drew McIntyre to be his tag team partner against The Viking Raiders. The Scot did not seem excited at the prospect but promised to consider it.

Riddle looked almost surprised when McIntyre showed up to be his partner, but as soon as the bell rang, Erik and Ivar took control of The Original Bro.

He was able to fight his way out of the corner, but instead of making a tag, he tried to take on both Vikings by himself, which ended poorly for him as the show went to a break.

We returned to see Erik and Ivar still dominating. When McIntyre finally got the hot tag, he went on a rampage.

This was a pretty standard tag match. It was nothing to write home about, but the fans seemed to be enjoying themselves, so it definitely had people invested.

McIntyre hit Erik with the Claymore to get the win.

Winners: Drew McIntyre and Matt Riddle

Grade: B-

Notable Moments and Observations

• Riddle had cartoon raccoons during his entrance. That is not a sentence anyone has ever expected to write. 
• The backstage interviewer totally disappeared as soon as Riddle entered the frame. 
• Ivar had an unfortunate slip when he tried to hit a springboard clothesline. 

Indi Hartwell got the video-package treatment before she had a non-title match against Rhea Ripley.

Candice LeRae and Dominik Mysterio were both at ringside, but The Eradicator didn't need any help to dominate her opponent.

Other than a short burst of offense from Hartwell, this was a one-sided affair that ended with Ripley getting the win with the Riptide.

LeRae and Hartwell attacked Ripley and they left the champion down in the ring.

This wasn't much of a match, but it appeared to set up a possible title feud between Ripley and LeRae, so that is something to look forward to.

Winner: Rhea Ripley

Grade: C

Notable Moments and Observations

• The way Ripley's shoulder hit the ring post looked good, but WWE has to stop leaning on that spot. It seems like it happens in every match with Brock Lesnar or Braun Strowman, too. 

Shinsuke Nakamura gave an interview with Michael Cole to explain why he attacked Seth Rollins. The Visionary came out and ended up granting him a title shot with no arguments.

The segment ended with Nakamura laying the world heavyweight champion out with a Kinshasa again.

The next match saw Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus finally get the one-on-one match they should have had at SummerSlam had WWE not decided to cut it.

The first couple of minutes felt like a genuine struggle for both women to take control. Stratus kept using dirty tricks to take down The Man, but whenever she gave an opening, Lynch would capitalize on it.

Stratus was doing a lot of showboating whenever she had the upper hand, but Lynch was all business. After the veteran revealed that her face was fine, she discarded the mask.

Even though she is still in great shape, nobody expects Stratus to have the same kind of matches she had when she was a full-time wrestler. She and Lynch did a good job, but this bout had some sloppy moments.

The match ended in a double count-out when they started fighting in the crowd and didn't even try to get back to the ring. They fought up the stairs and into the concourse area. They fought for a long time until Stark appeared to lend Stratus a hand.

This ending deflated the crowd a bit. This feud should have ended here, so dragging it out even longer is going to be difficult.

Winner: Double count-out

Grade: C+

Notable Moments and Observations

• Whatever Nakamura whispered to Rollins really seemed to mess him up. 
• Stratus lost her mask at one point, and the ref allowed her to take the time to put it back on. 
• WWE actually made a shirt with a lemon on it for Lynch after she joked about making lemons into lemonade while SummerSlam was happening. 

The main event of this week's show saw Finn Bálor take on Cody Rhodes. These two have met before, but this was more personal than their last encounter.

This started off like most normal bouts. They were locking up, running the ropes and wearing each other down with holds. They didn't try to make this a brawl, which is kind of how it seemed like it would go leading into it.

Dom and Ripley showed up to provide a distraction as the show went to a break. Priest arrived after the break and tried to help, but Rhodes ended up taking out him and Bálor at the same time with a suicide dive.

The ref caught Dom trying to pass a chair to the Irishman. When Priest tried to slide in his briefcase, Rhodes caught it and used it to get the win.

This was a solid main event, but all of the stuff with The Judgment Day just felt repetitive.

Zayn showing up at the end was a nice bonus for the Winnipeg crowd, but the Canadian probably ended up regretting his decision after The Judgment Day beat him down and put him through a table.

Winner: Cody Rhodes

Grade: B

Notable Moments and Observations

• Rhodes mentioned Bálor's time in Japan during an interview earlier in the show, but there was no hint or mention of the fact that both men have been in The Bullet Club. 
• Ripley is so funny when she is trash-talking at ringside. 
• Rhodes doesn't get quite as much rotation as his brother, Dustin, does on the snap powerslam. Maybe it's because Dustin is so much taller. 

This week's Raw was pretty much "business as usual." We got some forward progression on a handful of storylines and a couple of fun matches.

The ongoing Judgment Day story is the main attraction on the red brand these days, but Alpha Academy vs. Imperium has become a surprise highlight in recent weeks.

Otis vs. Gunther, and Gable vs. Vinci were both great and showcased how all four men are capable of putting on entertaining performances at the drop of a hat.

Piper Niven returning early in the show and declaring herself to be Chelsea Green's new tag team partner was not only hilarious, but it also opened up some interesting possibilities for the latter's character.

Grade: B-