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Circling the drain

The biggest winners and losers of last night's Raw (May 20)

WWE had a chance to create some notable programming off of the Money in the Bank pay per view. The company didn't. Instead, we saw the usual 50/50 booking, more "wild card" nonsense confusing the show, more Shane McMahon, another Baron Corbin main event, the same stale Brock Lesnar act, and a new title that already feels like a pale imitation of its ancestor.

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Did anyone manage to get anything out of this show, or did everyone lose for being part of it?

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Loser: WWE

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Put simply, Brock Lesnar in the title picture is a disaster that threatens to turn into a catastrophe. The only notable thing we learned last night was that he could cash it in on either the Universal or WWE Champion, but this bit of unpredictability gives nothing in return for what it takes.

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Seth Rollins and Kofi Kingston both came out, but this segment was basically the same Brock Lesnar segment you've seen more or less since 2012.

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The nightmare just doesn't end. There is a place for Brock Lesnar in the company as a special attraction, but he's long overstayed his welcome in the title picture, and is the biggest detriment to anyone getting over and becoming an actual star.

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Loser: Sami Zayn

So much for Sami Zayn getting hot. Braun Strowman had to get his win back last week, because of course he did. No one is allowed to go above the 50/50 formula.

This was just the usual nonsense. Bobby Lashley came down to confront Braun Strowman during this segment, trying to set up the build to their match on June 7th in Saudi Arabia, but that isn't a match that anyone's excited to see.

The morass of Monday Night Raw continued with this match. It was not yet over.

Loser: Lars Sullivan

This Lars Sullivan thing just isn't working out.

Never particularly popular in NXT, he finally made his main roster debut after WrestleMania, and has just been attacking lower card talent ever since. It's the same generic monster act we've seen countless times, but nobody seems to care. It was dead silence at Money in the Bank and again on Raw last night.

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Perhaps it's his height. Sullivan looked imposing in NXT, but on a show with guys like Strowman, Lesnar, McIntyre, Lashley, and Corbin around, he looks positively tiny.

This was time that could have been better spent.


Loser: Ricochet

This was an incredible match and easily one of the highlights of the night, but it's alarming at just how quickly Ricochet has been normalized. Sure, he sold his injuries from Money in the Bank, which protected him somewhat and made his loss more believable, but he's firmly on the wheel to nowhere right now.

At some point, you need to invest in someone, and Ricochet has more upsides than Cesaro at this point. Yet, the company doesn't truly get behind anyone, which is why it's in the mess it is.

Losers: Drew McIntyre and The Miz

The Miz continued to look like a geek against Shane McMahon. Drew McIntyre needed Shane McMahon's help to beat The Miz. It's a humiliation of two superstars for the price of Shane, who will now have a match with Roman Reigns on June 7th in Saudi Arabia. Roman Reigns appeared because "wild card rules."

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Losers: The Usos

This was another incredible match, but the ending left little room for inspiration. The Revival have been known to use cheap roll ups, so even that's not part of the overall problem.

The problem was that they just pinned The Usos, a team that pinned Daniel Bryan, a former WWE Champion, just the night before. This was also a team that had been humiliated for weeks on end, scoring a victory over WWE's best tag team.

This kind of off the wall booking is the exact reason why nobody ever becomes a star and why nothing feels important.

Winner: Bray Wyatt

Bray Wyatt continues to be the best thing on Monday Night Raw, even though his competition isn't exactly strong right now.

Images of innocent little children quickly turned to captions written on their shirts and foreheads, saying "let him in." Then the masked version of Wyatt returned to close out the video.

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Good stuff. Let's just hope he delivers when he finally returns to the ring.


Winner: Nikki Cross

Nikki Cross seems to have formed something of an odd couple partnership with Alexa Bliss, who stood on the sidelines of the match. Nevertheless, this was good progress for the up to now overlooked Cross. It was also good progress for the women's tag team division, which needs more teams.

Bliss as the talker and Cross as her crazed heavy could work.

Oh, and Billie Kay was pinned again, because of course. Hopefully those titles go on Asuka and Kairi Sane very soon. A feud between them, Cross, and Bliss could be fun.

Winner/Loser: The 24/7 title

I don't quite know what to make of this. On the one hand, this breaks up WWE's monotonous formula of show presentation, which has been badly needed. On the other, the rollout just felt like a dud, particularly with that race to the ring to see who became the first champion.

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The old Hardcore title was always presented in comedic fashion, but there were brutal, entertaining fights for it anywhere. Entire episodes centered around one champion surviving multiple ambushes in odd places.

This simply felt like a comedy title through and through, with the rollout and all of the title changes just for their own sake.

Let's hope the presentation gets better in the coming few weeks. This could be good, but WWE hasn't yet made the case that it will be.

At least it should give more people something to do than competing in random matches.

Meet the man who called CM Punk the softest man alive HERE

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Edited by
Gabby Duran
 
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