WWE Raw Results: Biggest Winners, Losers and Moments from February 16

The February 16 episode of Monday Night Raw was the penultimate stop on World Wrestling Entertainment's road to its Fastlane pay-per-view. The focus of the show, as has been the case for the last month, centered on Daniel Bryan and Roman Reigns as they prepare to clash for the opportunity to battle Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania.

Once again, the top two contenders to the top prize in the industry found themselves the targets of The Authority. Reigns battled Kane and Bryan squared off with Big Show, as WWE Creative opted to switch up rivalries in a daring booking move.

Or not.

Elsewhere on the show, the Bella Twins attempted to humiliate Paige to no avail, John Cena laid out Rusev ahead of their huge United States Championship match this Sunday night, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair confronted Triple H and Seth Rollins battled Dolph Ziggler.

By night's end, however, all eyes would be back on Reigns and Bryan, who engaged in an intense brawl with each other to close out the show. Chants of "this is awesome" greeted their pull-apart fight, proving that WWE Creative may not necessarily be on its hottest streak of late, but it certainly provided fans a lasting impression ahead of this weekend's extravaganza.

Reigns and Bryan certainly emerged from this week's show as winners, the two participants involved in Sunday's biggest and most anticipated match.

But who else joins them in that category? And who are the unfortunate performers heading into Fastlane lacking the momentum everyone would hope for before such an important show?

Take a look now with this week's biggest winners and losers from Raw.

Winners: The Prime Time Players

Titus O'Neil and Darren Young reunited as the Prime Time Players Monday night, fighting of The Ascension and sending them scurrying. Of course, their reunion will have a disappointing conclusion when they prove to be fodder for Konnor and Viktor.

At the same time, neither O'Neil nor Young were doing anything of note prior to Monday night, languishing around the WWE's midcard. Now, they are back together in the team that provided them the greatest success, at a time when the company's tag team division could use an injection of fresh faces.

The Prime Time Players may never win tag team gold, and they most certainly will not defeat The Ascension, but reuniting will allow them to do much more than what they were previously. For that reason alone, O'Neil and Young come out of this week's Raw as winners.

Winner: Stardust

It should be a surprise to absolutely no one that Cody Rhodes, as Stardust, made the most of an opportunity given to him Monday night. After all, the second-generation star has impressed every time he has been handed the ball and asked to run with it. For whatever reason, WWE Creative typically loses interest and the talented young star finds himself wasted in meaningless midcard schlock.

But that is another discussion for another time.

Monday night, Stardust not only betrayed brother Goldust but also spoke down to his father, declaring Cody Rhodes dead. He finished by telling the legendary Dusty Rhodes: "...and as far as I'm concerned, so are you."

It was a strong promo from Cody, who has often thrived as a mentally unstable character. As the deranged, mask-wearing lunatic in 2011, he enjoyed his greatest creative stretch. Now, as the completely bonkers (clinical term, I assure you) Stardust, he has the opportunity to let the creative juices flow in a way he was never really allowed to as just plain Cody Rhodes.

It should be interesting to see where the company opts to take the character at this point. A match with Goldust is almost a shoo-in for WrestleMania but beyond that, where does Stardust go?

A performer in his prime, Cody Rhodes certainly deserves the opportunity to hang with the top stars in the industry at some point. He has proved in the past that he has all of the elements of a headliner. Now, if he can bring them all together at once, he may have the chance to enjoy the biggest push of his career.

Losers: Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins

There may not be two more consistently great in-ring performers in WWE than Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler. However, Monday night, neither was done any favors by the booking, as they competed against each other in a match barely lasting six minutes and marred by constant interference by Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble.

At this point, Ziggler and Rollins can have an excellent match while blindfolded, but the quality of the match is not the point here. What is, however, is the fact that two of the most talented stars on the roster are without matches on the Fastlane card just six days out. Instead of giving either something interesting to do, something that would suit their considerable talent, they have been thrown together to bring the workrate.

While nothing has been announced officially, it would not be out of the ordinary to see these two resume their rivalry at Fastlane, either in singles competition or as part of a huge Six-Man Tag Team match of sorts.

Regardless of what the case may be, WWE Creative has done both Ziggler and Rollins a tremendous disservice by allowing them to wander aimlessly over the last few weeks.

Losers: The Bella Twins

Watching NXT and seeing all of the outstanding work put in by the Divas down there makes watching Nikki and Brie Bella and their cookie-cutter Mean Girls impression that much more intolerable.

Sure, both have made tremendous strides when it comes to their in-ring work, but their personas are absolutely grating on the nerves.

Nikki is the consummate heel and comes across that way on both Raw and SmackDown, as well as Total Divas, but Brie standing by her side as a lackey makes no sense. Worse yet is the fact that their idea of being heels is making fun of a fellow Diva's skin or wardrobe.

It is ridiculous, especially when fans can switch on the WWE Network and see Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch and Bayley tearing the house down in a legitimate four-star bout.

Perhaps taking Triple H and adding one more job to his position—that being head of the Divas roster—may not be a bad thing.

Especially since he is the biggest supporter of women's wrestling in the company, as he revealed during a recent edition of The Steve Austin Show podcast.

Talented women on the roster such as Paige, Emma, Natalya and Naomi certainly deserve better than the garbage handed to them and the rest of the Divas by WWE Creative.