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Last night's Raw may have been "shaken up", but it still felt like the same old filler that it's felt like for the past year. With WWE losing half a million viewers from just two weeks ago, you'd think the company would try harder to put on compelling television. Alas, Raw again fell short. The show was all formula, and one of the most compelling things that could have come in the next few weeks - Money in the Bank qualifying matches, were thrown away for another long, protracted Alexa Bliss segment.
A mess.
Nevertheless, who got the most and least out of last night's episode?
Winner: Ricochet
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Of all the superstars set to compete on Raw's side for the Money in the Bank match, Ricochet is the most exciting. One wonders why he lost to Roode last week just for him to be announced in the match. Nevertheless, this is going to be Ricochet's first real chance for a breakout on the main roster.
We all remember what the man did at the legendary North American Championship ladder match at TakeOver: New Orleans last year. Ricochet's stunts in the middle of May should work to put him on the map in front of main roster audiences and catapult him into at least midcard title contention. He won't win, but his stock will have the largest room for growth amongst any of the Raw competitors.
Winners: The Usos
SmackDown suddenly lacks another tag team, not that we would notice much either way. Gallows and Anderson are by all accounts on their way out of the company, so it wasn't surprising that they lost here.
The Usos, from this match to a segment with The Revival, are on their way to dominating Raw's doubles division and will certainly be on a collision course with the next team.
Winners: The Viking Raiders
The push for The Viking Raiders continues with an academic squash of the Lucha House Party. Surely, it's only a matter of a few more weeks before they get into title contention. The question of what will happen to the NXT Tag Team titles still lingers, but it's not like Vince McMahon to care.
The Viking Raiders should be the Raw Tag Team Champions soon, and a feud with The Usos will then be on the way.
Loser: The Raw Women's Division
This was just an odd segment and an odd match and it shows just how weak Raw's women's division is. The Women's Money in the Bank match lineup already feels underwhelming. SmackDown's side should be stronger, but with Asuka and Kairi Sane going for the tag team titles, it won't be as strong as it can be.
Truly, the golden age from SummerSlam to the Royal Rumble is over.
Winner: Bray Wyatt
The Firefly Fun House continues and what do you know, for the second week in a row, this actually looks like an interesting gimmick. Bray Wyatt needed a makeover and yet again, this segment worked.
It remains to be seen what he'll do when he actually comes back to the ring. These segments can't last forever. Who will he feud with? What will he go for? But for now, he's doing a good job.
Losers: The Revival
It boggles the mind why WWE would supposedly want to pay half a million dollars to guys they're just going to humiliate. Because from this segment to taking yet another loss to Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins, the former NXT darlings and Raw Tag Team Champions were humiliated last night.
The Revival are somehow even worse off than they were before they won the Raw tag team titles in February.
Loser: Samoa Joe
Have a champion, job him out in a non-title match. That seems to be WWE's modus operandi these days. Rey Mysterio needed to get his win back from WrestleMania, after all.
This will probably lead to a third match at Money in the Bank that Samoa Joe will win, but is anyone really excited about such an encounter? What happened to that tease with Braun Strowman just a few weeks ago, which looked like it could be an awesome feud.
Maybe WWE is holding off on that until SummerSlam, but with the company already doing Styles vs. Rollins, that excuse doesn't hold up as much as it used to.
Samoa Joe is one of those few performers that always carry an aura, but he can't bring back the fortunes of the United States title if he keeps taking these non-title pins.
And WWE wonders why fans have been driven off with this silly, formulaic booking.
