Best and Worst of WWE RAW: Big title change, controversial Lana-Lashley segment

For just this one day, Riju Dasgupta won't be doing his regular "Best & Worst" series. I'll be writing it instead and I hope that I can do justice to all the great previous editions. Monday Night saw a rather interesting episode of RAW as the Draft concluded.

RAW desperately needed to bounce back after a dud episode last week and they managed to do so to some extent. It was a solid show but not exactly the best we've seen over the past month.

Naturally, there were a lot of ups and downs, but WWE did have a longer version of the draft, with it going five rounds on RAW as opposed to just 4 on SmackDown. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of things and look at what WWE did right and wrong!

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#3. Best: Title change

The Viking Raiders have done it!

The former War Raiders have found rapid success on WWE's main roster. Perhaps they remind Vince McMahon of an old-school tag team because he's been pushing them like that for a while now.

The Viking Raiders remain undefeated in WWE, including their NXT run - where they vacated the championships when coming up. On the main roster, they've remained undefeated throughout and have dominated just as they have in NXT.

It should come as no surprise that after beating Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode in a non-title match, they earned a title shot and easily defeated the champions to secure their first main roster titles.

We expect huge success for The Viking Raiders and it's going to be interesting to see how WWE handles their undefeated streak. They'll have to lose it eventually, but when they do, it should be to a team that's getting a huge push down the line.

See WWE RAW Results, Highlights of event, & more on WWE RAW Results page

#3. Worst: The Lana-Lashley segment

👀 Oh. Hi, @LanaWWE. #RAW pic.twitter.com/y5Hgb7RJuY

— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) October 15, 2019

The Lana-Bobby Lashley storyline continues to be cringy, uncomfortable and cheesy as well. One has to wonder what the logic is behind this storyline. It's been controversial in every way as it has drawn the ire of the WWE Universe.

This week, Lana was receiving a massage and Lashley came in and joined in on the fun. There was no Rusev although he was a second-round draft, which is a great spot in itself. We believe that it means a push for him and while we're quite sure that the payoff of the storyline will result in The Bulgarian Brute beating Lashley, but one has to wonder whether it will do irreversible damage to himself and the other two.

Hopefully, WWE wraps this storyline up fast because it hasn't been helping RAW, particularly last week when the overall show was quite difficult to watch. With that being said, all we can hope is that there is an endgame here. If there's no satisfying conclusion to this storyline, then it will be a bitter pill for fans to swallow.

#2. Best: A great opening match

These two women can do no wrong

Becky Lynch has been on fire lately after losing some momentum a few months ago. Around the summer, she lost quite a bit of steam and people were already talking about how she probably wasn't the right choice all along. However, WWE doubled-down on their commitment to her with a brilliant feud against Sasha Banks.

That rivalry single-handedly managed to get her back on track and she has Banks to thank for it to a large extent. Thanks to the Hell in a Cell match, she has now regained a whole lot of momentum and it continued on RAW with Charlotte Flair in the opening bout.

It's no secret that Lynch and Flair have phenomenal chemistry together. But it was a very motivated Becky Lynch that wrestled on RAW and translated well on-screen.

The #1 draft pick ended up defeating Charlotte Flair clean and securing the first pick for RAW. WWE established that Becky Lynch is the #1 woman in the company and Flair is a rung below her in the pecking order.

#2. Worst: The later rounds of the draft

Stephanie McMahon

We understand that WWE can't stack every round with top stars as they're all realistically drafted early on, but the bigger problem WWE had, in this case, was that the rounds had gotten increasingly boring with midcard talent.

They tried to insert some top Superstars in between, but you could hear the reactions dying down as each draft passed. Unless there was a big name, there was little to no pop and that's not good because the entire purpose of the draft is to have that suspense.

Next time onwards, WWE needs to do better to build the suspense to each announcement. That's one aspect where they excelled in 2016, but if we were to look at the overall aspects of the draft, this one was far better.

It helped that there were no authority figures minus Stephanie McMahon and she only came out when necessary. Either way, WWE should have mixed it up a bit with the later rounds to ensure that the picks weren't mostly midcarders or low-carders.

#1. Best: A fantastic opening round

Charlotte Flair was picked early even in defeat

We loved the first-round draft picks of the second day on RAW. The picks were as follows:

1) Seth Rollins (RAW)

2) Brock Lesnar (SmackDown)

3) Charlotte Flair (RAW)

4) The New Day (SmackDown)

5) Andrade (w/ Zelina Vega) (RAW)

It's great especially because Andrade was chosen as the #5 pick. It's a huge spot to be in and clear as day evidence that WWE intends to push him to the moon. You may have also noticed how with Charlotte Flair moving to RAW, Andrade followed and so did Zelina Vega and her husband Aleister Black.

It's reminiscent of the Superstar Shake-Up this year when Andrade moved to RAW but was separated from Flair, his real-life girlfriend. He was then moved back to SmackDown and Aleister Black, who is married to Vega, also ended up following them there.

It's interesting how one move can change things for all four of the superstars. But as we know, WWE doesn't like separating couples via brands with a few exceptions. That aside, it was a very satisfying first round and every single pick was a brilliant one.

#1. Worst: Shinsuke Nakamura being such a late draft pick

Shinsuke Nakamura is the Intercontinental Champion

If you're a part of the USA Network or FOX, one would imagine that the demand for the champions would be so high that they would all go in the first round itself. It happened with AJ Styles, Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch and for Bayley, in the second round, but Shinsuke Nakamura was seemingly forgotten about until the third round.

Even in the third round, he wasn't picked first. Being picked second in the 3rd round while being Intercontinental Champion reeks of neglect and it's history repeating itself from last year. A lot of you probably don't remember, but Shinsuke Nakamura was the United States Champion for 3-4 months in the second half of 2018.

He regained the title and lost it again and with the Intercontinental title, he abruptly defeated Finn Balor in a Kickoff show match. The Intercontinental Championship is one of the most prestigious in WWE history, perhaps second to only the WWE title itself.

The championship is supposed to represent excellence, but that hasn't happened. Instead, it remains treated as an afterthought.

Best/Worst: The Firefly Fun House ending

Incredible or abrupt?

We love the fact that Seth Rollins, without an explanation, managed to find the Firefly Fun House. It was a refreshing change as it was a very different type of episode and for once, Rollins ended up getting the better of The Fiend Bray Wyatt.

He attacked him and flipped over his table after he lit it on fire. He also threw some of the frames hanging on his wall away and after that, Wyatt disappeared. While this was an entertaining segment, it felt rather abrupt.

For one, the main event match with The Kabuki Warriors facing Natalya & Lacey Evans ended far too quickly and abruptly for fans to digest what happened. It was evident that WWE was in a rush and cut to the chase at the end. Had they managed better, the Fun House segment would likely get more time on screen to build a more satisfying episode.

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