Breaking Down the Best and Worst of the WWE for Week of January 19

Stakes created much of WWE's best work in the week leading up to the Royal Rumble.

John Cena had both his WWE title shot and three men's livelihood on the line on Monday night. He would have failed if Sting had not stepped out from the shadows.

NXT featured four wrestlers battling for a chance at a future title shot against Sami Zayn. On SmackDown, Superstars had to win or else be shut out of the Rumble. 

The success of all those moments serve as a reminder how much suspense high stakes can create. WWE leaned on that element several times over with some excellent action and one memorable debut coming out of that strategy. 

On the negative side of things, poor planning led to Main Event being in limbo. Poor effort has left the Tag Team Championship match a big yawn.

The Usos haven't had the benefit of taut, tense narratives that we saw elsewhere on WWE TV. They didn't have Sting to help them out either. 

Best: Sting Comes to Raw

Sting's presence in WWE still feels special. Every time he has emerged so far, it has been momentous.

He charged in just as it looked like The Authority was going to add cheating John Cena out of his title shot to its list of bad deeds. Cena had to defeat Seth Rollins, Kane and Big Show to not only keep his world championship match but to get Triple H to reinstate Dolph Ziggler and company.

Instead of another Superman-like moment for Cena, the ending to Monday's Raw became historic.

Sting debuted on the show after so many years of performing for the competition. Again WWE nailed making The Icon look powerful and like a major star.

His arrival elevated Raw, set up a match with Triple H and made it feel as if WrestleMania season officially kicked off. After spending the last few months in neutral, WWE is ready to pick up the pace, to charge toward the biggest show of the year.

What it does with Sting with the rest of the way is one of the many things to keep an eye on.

Worst: No Main Event

WWE eventually put up clips of Tuesday's Main Event, but only a select few saw the show in its entirety. It did not air on the WWE Network.

PWInsider's Mike Johnson reported the following about the situation:

"

Sources indicate that with the official launch of the WWE Network in Ireland and Great Britain this Monday, it places the company into a situation where they are unable to broadcast Main Event into those countries due to an existing deal with Sky for that series.

Since WWE Network cannot currently geotag programming for certain regions and block the series in the UK, we are told the company instead pulled Main Event until something is worked out.

"

Why didn't WWE work this out before finalizing the deal with the UK? The WWE Network didn't launch there until a full year after it did in the U.S. Did no one see this coming and plan accordingly?

Now the rest of the world has to miss out on Main Event because of an arrangement with British Sky Broadcasting. That's hard to wrap one's head around.

The situation makes WWE look foolish. 

Best: NXT Tournament

The underused tournament format got some love on NXT and will for the next few weeks.

NXT General Manager William Regal announced that the No. 1 contender to Sami Zayn's title would be decided single-elimination style.

A pair of first-round matches resulted in fun, engaging action. Finn Balor beat out Curtis Axel to advance. Hideo Itami outlasted Tyler Breeze to move on. That sets up a future collision between Balor and Itami that promises to be tremendous.

The bouts on Wednesday's NXT would have been good regardless, but having something on the line amplified the importance of victory. As Breeze and Itami traded near-falls, anticipation grew. The result was Itami's best NXT effort to date and one of the week's best bits of in-ring storytelling.

Fans are set to get a lot of more of this as the second half of the first round gets underway next week. Bull Dempsey takes on Baron Corbin in one of the scheduled contests.

Harnessing the power of a tournament is just the latest smart move NXT has done that WWE should emulate.

Worst: No Effort, No Energy for Tag Title Feud

The current recipe for the rivalry between the tag team champions and the challengers is to have The Miz battle one of The Usos in singles action and hope Damien Mizdow can make up for the lack of story.

There has been no narrative to this feud since the subplot about Naomi and Miz's relationship faded away. Instead, WWE has failed to add motivation, animosity or anything to spark interest in these men's fights.

They enter the Royal Rumble with no momentum as a result.

It's expected at this point that that rest of the tag team division gets ignored. The top team and the duo coming after them can't even get any attention from WWE Creative now.

The Usos have proved themselves to be an excellent tag team. Miz and Mizdow have been a fun pair. Without any effort from WWE's writers, however, their clash is set to be a so-so one. 

Best: Royal Rumble Qualifying Matches

The Authority welcomed Ryback, Erick Rowan and Dolph Ziggler back to work by forcing them to earn their way into the Royal Rumble.

Rather than just compete in standard matches, each man had to defeat his opponent or be left out of the 30-man match on Sunday.

Suddenly, Rowan vs. Luke Harper, Ziggler vs. Bad News Barrett and Ryback vs. Rusev all had more electricity surrounding them. Ziggler knocking off Barrett wasn't just another non-title loss for the IC champ, it was The Showoff surging into the Rumble. Rowan's loss became a heartrending misstep for the big man.

Rusev and Ryback's first official encounter was much better thanks to those added stakes as well.

WWE was smart to not just have SmackDown be another rehash of Raw. Instead, it gave the show something special, its own narrative tributary. 

The tried-and-true method of improving pro wrestling by giving fighters something to fight for worked again.