The biggest winners and losers from last night's Raw (July 2)

Another pedestrian showing from the red brand kicked off the month of July, showing that the company still hasn't gotten out of its lazy mode booking. When you were watching the show, did you ask yourself whether it made your more or less excited for Extreme Rules? Like many of you, my answer is "no."

2018 is fast on track to be one of the worst years, creatively, in WWE history. This is more than just a hit or miss thing at this point. It's an institutional problem.

Aside from a few important segments and a reappearance that might bode well for the tag team division, everything on the show was decidedly must-miss, and no one really shined like a star on Monday.

Did anyone manage to look OK heading into Extreme Rules?

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Loser: Matt Hardy

The tired WWE formula of putting on singles matches ahead of a tag team contest continued from last week. Undoubtedly, Bray Wyatt would have been in Matt Hardy's place, but a car accident injury intervened.

Which meant that Matt Hardy lost twice in two weeks, this time to Curtis Axel.

Again, when will WWE finally realize that having jobbers beat people higher on the card doesn't make them look better, it only makes the people higher on the card look worse? No one believes that Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel, who have been booked like jobbers their entire careers and are a middling comedy act now, are threats to win the tag team titles.

Instead, this was just the lazy 50/50 formula that will no doubt see the Deleters of Worlds victorious at Extreme Rules.

Who cares?

Oh well, it could be worse. They could actually put the titles on them and give them the Carmella treatment. Thankfully, that's unlikely.

Winners: The Authors of Pain

This wasn't anything special, but it didn't need to be. It was nice to see the Authors of Pain being featured at all.

Raw's tag team division is in the midst of a feud between ice cold, silly champions, and comedy jobber challengers. Someone needs to bring legitimacy to this division and quickly. With McIntyre and Ziggler seemingly uninterested, the Authors of Pain are the natural choices for the job.

The faster they become champions, the better.

Winners: Both teams in this segment

This was the only segment on Raw worth watching. It was an explosive contest.

Sure, it's annoying to see the company continually trying to transfer Seth Rollins' heat to Roman Reigns, but the quality of this match made up for it. It was a back and forth brawl that made everyone involved look like a threat.

The ending helped to keep that image because The Revival interfered and caused a disqualification. The inconclusive ending made sure no one lost any heat. The Revival would pay soon enough.

Winner: Bobby Lashley

At least Bobby Lashley has something important to do now. That's about all you can say at this point.

The segment's set-up was fine enough to start the rivalry explicitly, but for some reason, it didn't really feel like it mattered. Having no world champion and going up against a team that was invisible until a short while ago didn't help matters.

We'll have to see how this rivalry builds up.

Loser: Nia Jax

Nia Jax's transition back down the card is just about complete. Sure, she'll challenge at Extreme Rules, but this felt like such an afterthought that few cared. It didn't help that the match itself was boring.

The real person fans are focusing on is Ronda Rousey. This feud is just filler until she makes her comeback. Unfortunately, it also means we're going to have to get one more Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax match, which this contest certainly didn't help to build up as an exciting prospect.

Loser: Braun Strowman

A portapotty.

Yeah, this segment had Vince McMahon's fingerprints all over it. Unsurprisingly, it was an attempt at humor gone bad.

It's always fun to see Braun Strowman smash things and people, but it's obvious that he's on standby until the mess with Brock Lesnar works itself out. It doesn't make for good weekly programming, nor should it make for a compelling Extreme Rules pay per view.