The biggest winners and losers of last night's Raw (24 December 2018)

December is a notoriously lazy month for WWE. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day episodes in particular are things we shouldn't expect the company to put much effort into, but to their credit, they appeared to try this time around, knowing that their poor content quality of late was bleeding fans in droves.

The Christmas Eve edition of Raw wasn't a world-shaking episode by any means, but we did get a notable announcement, and there was more effort than you would expect to be put into such a show. Count that as a tepidly positive sign.

Who came away with the most and least last night?

Lets take a look.

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Winner: Elias

With his second straight victory over Bobby Lashley, it's probably safe to assume that the rumoured push Elias is due to get is still on track. Hopefully this will be the end of the feud, and Elias will move on to bigger and better things during WrestleMania season.

This was a fun match where Elias surprisingly took most of the fight to Lashley. I could have done without the eggnog spill onto Lio Rush though. Food humour in WWE is something that needs to go away, because it's usually far more bad than good.

Regardless, this was a great start to the coming year for the Drifter.

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Loser: Drew McIntyre

Sure, he didn't take the pinfall, but the longer Drew McIntyre finds himself embroiled with Ziggler and Balor, the greater his main event feel will chip away. Ziggler and Balor haven't been presented as threats to the level of McIntyre at all.

A steel cage match was announced next week for Raw between the former partners. McIntyre should win that decisively and move on. Too much wheel spinning is what kills the aura a star carries.

McIntyre should look to make statements ahead of the Royal Rumble match, where he must still be regarded as a favourite.

Winner: The women's division

I could do without the constant McMahon screen presence, but the announcement that the women's tag team titles are officially on the way was a positive step for the division which has been WWE's hottest ticket this year.

The problem has been that only a handful of women have competed over the red and blue brand's titles, while the rest have felt meaningless. If you aren't in the title picture, you feel irrelevant to fans. This has prevented the division from becoming as robust and entertaining as it should be.

Now there will be something for the women on the undercard to do, and all those tag team matches will at least mean something now. With this development, the random pairings and Sasha/Bayley non-breakup stories will hopefully become a thing of the past.

It remains to be seen what format these titles will take. It will be of interest heading into 2019, at least.

Winner: Ronda Rousey

Ronda Rousey shined as usual in her title defense against her BFF, Natalya. It's interesting to see this match take place at such a comparatively tame time on the calendar, because it would have a big fight feel under other circumstances.

With Asuka also having defended her title in the past week, and with the match between her and Becky Lynch abruptly pulled for the Rumble, we might not wind up seeing any women's title defenses at that event, much like last year, because all the women on hand will be needed for the Rumble match itself.

This match could have done with a bigger audience though. Rousey looks supreme heading into WrestleMania season. Her only real threats happen to be on the other brand at the moment. That's what's going to make the coming few months so exciting.

The Rumble should definitely be a good one.

Winner: Seth Rollins

Seth Rollins began by vowing that Dean Ambrose wouldn't take his heart. He then defeated Baron Corbin, getting some of the momentum he lost after his title loss in a horrible match at TLC.

There are different ways to interpret Rollins' statement, but hopefully he means he is done with Ambrose, and looking to prove himself elsewhere - in the Royal Rumble.

If Rollins must be considered the favourite to win the most anticipated match on the WWE calendar, now would thus be the time to start getting him as hot as possible ahead of the January 27 event.

It's also possible that he'll still go after Ambrose, but that's a retread that's hardly needed at the moment. If Rollins is going to win the signature match, the last thing he needs is to be stuck in a feud that has been lacklustre at the very best.