The biggest winners and losers of last night's Raw (April 22)

WrestleMania and the Superstar Shakeup are now over. After a year in the doldrums for Raw, last night was the first real test to see how the new red brand roster would do in turning the show's fortunes around. How well did they work? Who got the most and least out of the show last night?

Let's take a look.

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Winner: Samoa Joe

At the start of the show (which came with another unnecessary opening promo, of course), Triple H went back to an old trope - there would be two triple threat matches and the winners of those matches would square off to determine Seth Rollins' challenger at Money in the Bank.

This was a fine match, with all three guys showing what they're going to do in the next year. The result shouldn't be too surprising, though. AJ Styles went over here by pinning Rey Mysterio, thus advancing to the number one contender's match to come later.

While Samoa Joe wasn't the winner of the match, he did make a strong impression, and was protected in defeat by not being the guy to get pinned. He should be one of the best aspects of Raw going forward.

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Losers: The IIconics

After another cringeworthy promo, we were treated to yet another band IIconics match with one of the champions losing like a joke. Whether Naomi will find a partner or not remains to be seen, but this segment was yet another pitiful showing from the "champions."

Those women's tag team titles need to go onto Asuka and Kairi Sane quickly. It's debatable whether the company should even wait until Money in the Bank to do so. If the gold spends any more time in their hands, it is going to be disrespected as a joke. It arguably already is.

Winner: Sami Zayn

Sami Zayn cut another disgruntled promo last night on the fans, which was well delivered and got good heat. For now, his new act, finally separate from Kevin Owens, is doing a good job.

We still need to figure out what this eventually translates into, though. It was notable that he wasn't gunning for the Universal Championship last night. These promos are fine for now, but he can't keep doing them forever.

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Loser: Cedric Alexander

This wasn't a soft landing for Cedric Alexander in his proper main roster debut. Suddenly, Cesaro is now a singles star again, and he defeated the former Cruiserweight Champion without much fanfare. Cesaro is a known commodity and Cedric Alexander (who will probably get his name changed sooner or later) could have used the victory much more here.

Was his main roster promotion something that happened just for the sake of it?

Winners: The "Viking Raiders"

Suddenly, they changed their name again with no explanation. At least it shows a willingness of the company to listen, given the universal panning of the previous name.

This match didn't really start. The "Viking Raiders" raided the Lucha House Party before their match even began, destroying them. It shows that they're going to be in line for a decent push regardless of their name troubles. I still think they'll be tag team champions by June 1st.

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Loser: The Raw Women's Division

An academic match against Alicia Fox was what it was, but this was more about getting Lacey Evans over in the segment afterward. The results are mixed. Evans' finisher is really bad. The Big Show's knockout punch wasn't received well, and he's a 450 pound man. This just looks worse.

Safe to say, the Raw women's title match at Money in the Bank probably won't steal the show.

Loser: Ricochet

Trying to repackage "Robert" Roode into the character that actually worked is one thing. Doing it at Ricochet's expense is something else entirely. Audiences have already been conditioned for the past 18 months not to care about Roode, and even if they had been, we all know which one of these two has the higher ceiling.

It's good that Ricochet can go on his own as a singles competitor as a result of the badly handled follow up to last week's shakeup, but he may be wishing to have stuck with his tag team after last night!

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Winner: Bray Wyatt

Bray Wyatt returned last night with a much needed new gimmick. Your opinion on it will vary. It depends on how much you like this kind of hokey stuff (the house of horrors match two years ago made me permanently sour on it), but regardless of what you think about it, it gives Bray Wyatt a second breath that he's needed for a long time.

Now we'll see if it translates to anything substantial.

Winner: AJ Styles

What do you know, AJ Styles is advancing to Money in the Bank to challenge Seth Rollins. I didn't expect this to happen until SummerSlam, but it's actually a good thing that it's happening now.

It shows that WWE is finally taking the phenomenon of the post-WrestleMania slump seriously and at least trying to present premier content throughout the "down months," rather than just lazily wait until certain times of the year to try its best. They understand the need to retain viewers, particularly with the move to Fox on the way. That's good news for everybody involved.

Now we get a long awaited dream match that will go a long way in selling viewers on the Money in the Bank pay per view, rather than a filler feud with the irritating Baron Corbin.

As far as revamping Raw goes, it's a nice start for the company.