5 Takeaways From Monday Night Raw - 1/14/19

The WWE was all about "fresh faces" and "opportunities" a couple of weeks ago. This was likely all talk (more on that later) but they proved this week on Raw that they are fully capable of putting on some solid television, any given week.

Between a new title contender to brand new titles, I will be sharing five things I took away from this week's Monday Night Raw!

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At the end of a pretty solid triple threat match between Bobby Lashley, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose, Lashley was able to hit Ambrose with a spear to capture the Intercontinental title for the first time in his career. Throughout the years, he has held the US and ECW titles (not to mention a number of championships in TNA), but never the IC or any WWE World title.

This opens up a number of potential routes he can take. For example, with Kevin Owens slated to make his return soon, I can easily see KO challenge for the belt (against the same man who put him on the shelf). While this would make sense (and I would love to see this feud), I can't see Owens being brought back as a face.

I just hope we don't see a four month long rivalry between Lashley and Elias that ultimately goes nowhere.

A few weeks back, Vince McMahon made an appearance on Raw to announce that WWE is going to "shake things up", and followed that with weekly vignettes advertising a number of NXT stars who would be called up to the main roster.

Since then, that's all we've received... empty promises and floating superstars. On Raw, we saw Lacey Evans, EC3, and Nikki Cross was even in a match. They did, however, make it a point to say that just because Cross is wrestling in a match doesn't mean she is officially a Raw superstar, and basically that they're auditioning for a spot on Raw or Smackdown... despite the fact that this was reason why NXT was created in the first place.

What this means to me is WWE never had a plan for these call ups, just simply panicked from all of the negative feedback from their recent episodes of the show, and threw ish at the wall, hoping something would stick (so to speak). This is quite disappointing, yet unsurprising at the same time. I hope they can get a legitimate plan together and put more passion and thought into their product... but we know what to expect at this point.

One thing WWE got right in my opinion was the matchup set for Royal Rumble between Raw Women's Champion Ronda Rousey and her challenger, Sasha Banks. This is a fresh match that promises great in-ring work. Despite what WWE has a history of, the story between the two is simple, but effective.

After teaming up to defeat Nia Jax and Tamina, it got a bit heated between the future opponents. The way creative went about this was totally lame and it made no sense, but I guess it helps to keep this match from becoming a bland face vs face, "mutual respect" storyline.

Anyway, while being interviewed about their upcoming bout, Rousey says she will fight her hardest to make Banks tap out (pretty standard stuff), but for some reason, The Legit Boss takes this extra personally, and ends up yelling back and storming off. I'm absolutely excited about this match, but the buildup isn't looking too promising.

The Women's Tag Team title were recently announced, and on "A Moment of Bliss", Alexa Bliss announced they will be defended at Elimination Chamber, inside of the steel structure. There will be three teams from Raw and three from Smackdown involved in the match to determine the first ever Women's Tag Team champions.

Now, I'm all here for these titles (the belts look great too), and I have no problem with the official match taking place at the Elimination Chamber event. However, I'm not a fan of deciding the first ever tag champs in a chaos-filled match like the chamber. I personally would have liked to see a tournament leading up to the pay-per-view, to get a team from Raw and a team from Smackdown in the finals for the belts.

I am also a fan of what appears to be "floating" championships (one set of belts, being defended across multiple shows). I think it'd be awesome to see the titles appear on Raw, Smackdown, and NXT.

Wow, what a night it was for Finn Bálor! After putting himself in the talk of guys who think they deserve to replace Braun Strowman and face Brock Lesnar at the Royal Rumble, Bálor had to fend off Jinder Mahal (NOT a fun match to watch), and defeat John Cena, Baron Corbin, and Drew McIntyre in a fatal four way to close out the show (a VERY fun watch).

During the fast paced, hard hitting main event, McIntyre laid out Cena with the Claymore, before Bálor took advantage and sealed the deal with the Coup de Gráce to earn his Universal title opportunity. Afterward, Cena picked up the mic to say "you made a believer out of me" and raised Finn's arm to end the show.

Most likely, this will end with Lesnar adding another name to the list of superstars he's defeated, but I'd love to see a major upset. Hopefully this will lead to the return of the Demon, so we can have The Beast vs The Demon for the Universal championship. No matter how this one turns out, at least we get to see a fresh feud, with a challenger we can truly root for.

What do you guys think? Agree with me about any of these points? Am I absolutely wrong? Let me have it in the comment section below, and thank you for reading!