The biggest winners and losers from last night's Raw (April 30th)

Last night's Raw was on the verge of dumpster fire territory until a certain month-stealing main event. As far as a go-home show to Backlash, it not only didn't build interest, it made you less interested in the upcoming pay-per-view this Sunday.

On a show full of notable duds and formulaic tag team matches, did anyone emerge with some wind in their sails? Did the needle move forward for anyone?

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Loser: Roman Reigns

When will Vince McMahon wave the white flag and realize that this push just isn't working the way he wants it to?

As we expected, the Roman vs. Brock nightmare will continue, as Roman Reigns came out to even more vitriolic hatred than usual. Laughably, we heard the propaganda machine in action, talking about how Canadian crowds "react differently." Roman basically talked up how there was another conspiracy to keep him down and that he really should be the Universal Champion.

Thus, we learned that the controversial cage match finish was a planned outcome.

If Vince McMahon thinks this angle is building up sympathy for Roman Reigns, it isn't. It's just making him look like a choke artist and a whiner. Both he and Brock Lesnar are only annoying the fans in what will likely go down as the worst feud of 2018. Far from making fans care more about Roman Reigns, it's only earned him complete indifference, with fans booing out of sheer force of habit.

Losers: Elias and Bobby Roode

Elias continues to be a heat magnet. Bobby Roode continues to be possibly the worst babyface on the roster. The definition of "vanilla" as a babyface, it was hard to care at all about Bobby Roode as the match sold a throat injury. Basically only there to fill time, let's hope that this match doesn't continue into a further feud. It's already dead on arrival.

Elias and Roode can have better targets than each other. Roode himself needs to turn heel. Quickly.

Winner: Seth Rollins

One of the most over superstars on Raw, probably second only to Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins came out to tremendous cheers as he cut his promo. Notably, Seth Rollins called out Brock Lesnar as being the champion he didn't want to be like. It was humorous if nothing else, to see Roman Reigns' far more popular Shield alumnus trying to get him over in this way.

Finn Balor came out, as did the former Miztourage. Thankfully, this didn't lead to another formulaic tag team match. Instead, we got a much better match set for the night's main event.

Losers: Sasha Banks and Bayley

Sasha lost to Ruby Riott while facing the numbers game, seemingly implying that she needed Bayley. It wasn't decisive enough. Both women are doing next to nothing.

What exactly is going on between Sasha Banks and Bayley? If there's a feud at all, it's spun its wheels for far too long. It's either time to pick up the pace with some kind of major, irreversible (for now, at least) breach in their friendship or to simply drop the program.

Loser: Braun Strowman

Braun Strowman was rewarded for his "greatest" Royal Rumble victory by being put in a random tag team match with Roman Reigns. The Mosnter Among Men was notably used to try help get the latter over last night. Apparently we're supposed to forget that these two men tried to murder each other multiple times in their feud that was the best and most important of 2017.

Braun Strowman managed to get tremendous cheers despite his taking on hometown favorites Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, flattening them both when he finally entered the match. He was rewarded by randomly teaming with Bobby Lashley at Backlash on Sunday in replay of last week's Raw match against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

It's so unmistakably obvious at this point that Braun Strowman is a bigger star than Roman Reigns. Yet, his win on Friday doesn't appear to have gotten him off the wheel-spinning wagon. Instead, he's still sitting there, so that this godawful feud between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns can continue. It's both sad and humorous at the same time.

Loser: Baron Corbin

Baron Corbin came out and cut a promo that, while it was well-delivered, no one cared. He then lost to the odd phenomenon of a Titus O'Neil trip distraction, allowing No Way Jose to get an eye-rolling rollup victory.

So it looks as if Baron Corbin will find himself feuding with No Way Jose and Titus O'Neil, newly christened with a tripping gimmick because WWE can't just let moments be themselves. It feels like a feud between geeks, and if Vince McMahon is really high on Baron Corbin, this isn't the way to establish him as a major player. It's too similar to what happened on SmackDown last year.

Loser: Finn Balor

Finn Balor and Seth Rollins not only had what was certainly the best match on Raw all year (and possibly the best main roster match all year, for that matter), they managed to save a show that was circling the drain. Going through it all was worth it to see this spectacle!

Filled with dramatic reversals and near-falls, what I particularly liked about it was that finishers weren't used until the very end. Instead, both men avoided each others' finishers for as long as possible as they went to their arsenal of other moves.

Unfortunately, Finn Balor lost clean in the middle of the ring. We saw some hints of a possible heel turn after he attacked Seth Rollins while his back was turned earlier in the evening. If Finn Balor follows that up somehow after Backlash, this rivalry could move to the next level. If he doesn't, however, there's no reason for it to continue. He was beaten clean as a whistle, so the momentum is totally gone if he stays as a babyface, which is far likelier.

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