Raw Winners And Losers: Babyface Dolph Ziggler Returns

This week's Monday Night Raw opened with Brock Lesnar and closed with, of all people, Dolph Ziggler. The show was tag match heavy, limited to a couple of singles bouts, but not a terrible show considering the odd mix of personalities that WWE decided to run with for the three-hour program. The big winners were Ziggler, Lesnar and R-Truth who stole his segment with The Street Profits and The Usos.

All in all, not a bad show. Here are your winners and losers for Monday Night Raw, July 11, 2022:

Winner: Brock Lesnar

Lesnar's return is always special and anytime he shows up, he gives the show a little boost. When he destroys people, that's when he's at his best. On Monday, fans got a mix of both the goofy Lesnar and the Beast Incarnate, when he absolutely demolished Alpha Academy with Paul Heyman and Theory looking.

Lesnar began the show with a bit of strange promo and when Heyman came out, the two seemed to cut each other off more than get to the point. Finally, Heyman took over and the segment turned to gold. Heyman painted the picture of two different competitors for the upcoming match between Roman Reigns and Lesnar. Reigns was a more defined and athletic champion who defeated his opponents. According to Heyman, Lesnar was an uncontrollable beast who destroyed them.

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It wasn't clear why Chad Gable and Otis came out to attack Lesnar, but it didn't really matter. The beating that proceeded their arrival was pure entertainment and the strength display Lesnar showed when he picked up Otis and dumped him through the table was awesome.

Loser: Alexa Bliss

This week felt like another week where WWE didn't know what to do with Alexa Bliss. Having her back is great, but she's constantly being fed new tag team partners and not given any sort of rival or program she can sink her teeth into. WWE has her winning, but it feels like it's only to keep her relevant until they find something more intriguing. This week she got Asuka as a partner, which makes sense because The Empress of Tomorrow just finished her program with Becky Lynch and she doesn't have much to do now either.

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The match was alright. Nothing really to write home about as Bliss and Asuka pick up the win.

Winner: R-Truth

R-Truth might have stolen the entire show on Monday. As The Usos and The Street Profits were in the ring and going back and forth over their upcoming SummerSlam match, Truth came out and pitched the idea of him being the special guest referee for that match. He showed his tag match counselor registration and license and then pulled off his shirt to show he had an official's shirt on underneath. He then boasted all the things he could do properly as a referee, including count to seven before Jimmy Uso cut him off.

MVP came down to the ring with Omos and the Nigerian Giant wanted to team with The Usos and help out The Bloodline. They happily accepted and ended up winning a decent tag match when Omos got the pin on Angelo Dawkins.

R-Truth was really funny and it was a nice treat to have him back in a big segment like that.

Loser: Ciampa

It's good to see Ciampa on Raw each week, but his alliance with The Miz could turn out to be a short-term thing that doesn't help him much. The way he was presented on Raw, it appeared he was happy to take second fiddle to Logan Paul as The Miz's possible tag team partner, but said he was aligning himself with The Miz because he wanted to be more relevant and get ahead? How does that storyline make any sense?

Winner: Dolph Ziggler

It's not at all clear what Ziggler is up to, but his involvement in the main event was fascinating. He's apparently a babyface because he targeted Theory and there was no Robert Roode around to help him. Riddle and Bobby Lashley picked up the main event tag match win when Theory tried to cheat and Ziggler removed his feet from the ropes. Theory was distracted by Ziggler's actions and walked into an RKO. After Riddle and Lashley celebrated their win down the ramp, Ziggler popped back into the ring and super kicked Theory to end the show.

Where Ziggler fits into everything isn't clear. Is this WWE lacking a singles star and calling upon the always-reliable Showoff? Or, is WWE splitting the Dirty Dawgs up and pushing Ziggler as a babyface. If so, what's his beef with Theory? Moreso, what does this mean considering WWE is pushing Theory vs Lashley for SummerSlam and that match is already officially on the card?

Raw Match Results: