The biggest winners and losers of last night's Raw (January 21)

Last night's Raw was the red brand's go-home show before the Royal Rumble this Sunday. For the first 90 minutes, WWE did its part in building up the key matches and players, and some of it was novel, which should be commended. When the six man tag team match began though, things began to drag.

Who looked the best heading into the Royal Rumble? Who got the least out of the show last night? What will last night tell us about Sunday and beyond?

The Road to WrestleMania is well underway, and nobody wants to get left behind. Here's what we learned about who might take center stage in MetLife Stadium.

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Winner: Braun Strowman

If you were watching carefully, you'd see that Braun Strowman got the most out of this portion of the show. Nobody expects Finn Balor to beat Brock Lesnar on Sunday, even though he looked very good in last night's segment, tired old "David and Goliath" promo and the needless presence of Vince McMahon aside.

Braun Strowman had a good match with Balor, but he was protected by the interference of Brock Lesnar, who hit the F5 on the latter and caused the match to end in a disqualification.

This essentially preserves Braun Strowman from taking another big loss against Lesnar, with the Monster Among Men making it clear that somehow, someway, he would get to Lesnar and the Universal Championship.

Does this leave open the possibility of a WrestleMania confrontation between the two? If so, it would be a year too late, but the fact that Strowman is back in the hunt at all is significant. It lessens the odds of Seth Rollins emerging from Sunday as the Royal Rumble winner, which can either make the match more exciting or turn it into a train wreck.

Winner: Apollo Crews

It looks like that chatter about some kind of push for Crews is true. This wasn't a great segment, but the previously overlooked athlete got the chance to show more personality than he ever has during his time on Monday Night Raw, and it was something the crowd appreciated.

With Lashley appearing to have thankfully moved on from Rollins and Ambrose for now, Crews was set up to be his next rival. Lashley defeated Crews last night, but only through distraction assistance from his hype man, Lio Rush.

This protection tells us that Crews has more things on the way for him, and the commentary was keen to remind us about his eight eliminations during the December 31 battle royal, making him a potential highlight of the Royal Rumble match on Sunday, where you would think a feud-building confrontation with Lashley would be in the cards.

Winner: Seth Rollins

Seth Rollins did one of his best promos last night, where he was immediately relatable, without coming across as a panderer. If this was done as an attempt to make him the fan favorite in Sunday's match, it did a great job.

Drew McIntyre, another favorite on Sunday, came out to taunt him ahead of their match, which was very good. During the bout, Michael Cole and Cory Graves both talked about how McIntyre was their pick, which probably means he'll have a standout performance on Sunday, but won't win.

A rivalry with Rollins for the match was set up as well, with the Architect barely scoring a victory via roll-up.

McIntyre will be looking for revenge come Sunday, which makes Rollins' path to victory much harder, and thus more satisfying, when as should still be expected - he wins. Everything was well done in this segment of the show.

Loser: Elias

Why this happened is beyond me. Elias is a fan favorite. Few can control crowds like he can, whether as a face or a heel. He should be getting set up for bigger and better things this year, but instead, he took another clean loss to Baron Corbin.

It's a puzzling choice. Corbin has few upsides besides being a nuisance for fan favorites like Elias to eventually overcome. Instead, it appears the opposite keeps happening.

Elias has fallen behind in the race to MetLife Stadium as of late, and it's far from out of the question that he's just there to do another musical performance as he did in New Orleans last year.

It would be a waste of resources, but that appears to be the trajectory at the moment. Nothing indicates any kind of standout performance at the Royal Rumble for him in Phoenix on Sunday night.

Winner: Alexa Bliss

These Moment of Bliss segments continue to drag down the programming on Raw, and I'm not sure why the company continues to insist on airing them.

Starting with Nia Jax on the microphone is never a good idea. Then you had a generic brawl that let us know it's everyone for herself on Sunday, as usual. By the way, expect the same thing tonight on SmackDown.

Lacey Evans announced her participation. No surprise there.

Alexa Bliss walked away the winner because she announced her own participation, indicating that she's been cleared to compete at least in matches like the Royal Rumble.

It remains to be seen if she'll be able to compete in longer, more grueling and physical matches, since it's possible Bliss stays outside the ring for long periods of time, and then gets eliminated in rudimentary fashion.

Either way, it was a step up for her career.

Winners: Heavy Machinery

Heavy Machinery had their first match on the main roster, and defeated the Ascension. There wasn't a whole lot more to this than that. It remains to be seen what brand the two wind up on permanently, or what trajectory they'll be on when they get a permanent home on the main roster.

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Losers: The Revival

Would you honestly be surprised if the rumors were true and The Revival asked for their release?

More referee shenanigans were around in this match, though it was on The Revival for trying to cheat, and not surprisingly the incompetence of Kurt Hawkins. The champions felt like an afterthought, seeming to confirm their belief that the tag team division was disrespected on Raw.

It's hard to justify The Revival getting another shot after this.

More interestingly, Kurt Hawkins seemed to reform his partnership with his former fellow "Edgehead" - Zack Ryder. It's good for them, but it's in truth just another jobber tag team in a division full of them.

Winner/Loser: Sasha Banks

We all knew Sasha Banks had virtually no chance of victory on Sunday night. That was confirmed by her getting the submission victory against Natalya last night.

Since Sasha already had her "moment" on Monday, she won't get one on Sunday. It's standard, boring, and formulaic WWE booking, and I don't expect the "new era" to change that much, less when Ronda Rousey is involved.

On the other hand, Sasha Banks set herself and Bayley up well as a unit heading into Elimination Chamber, where they're probably the favorites to walk out with the new women's tag team championships.

Their rebuilding has been successful on that end, and I expect Sasha Banks to give Ronda Rousey the toughest test she's had in her WWE career, falling just short. It should be a great match, on a card that has all the potential in the world to be WWE's best in years.