WWE Clash of Champions 2016 Results: Biggest Winners and Losers from Event

In hindsight, WWE Creative should have understood the lack of emotional backstory to many of Sunday night's Clash of Champions matches and changed up Raw's storylines to ensure that the show was more memorable and exciting that it appeared on paper.

Failure to do so resulted in an event that at best featured solid wrestling up and down the card but was little more than a bloated episode of Raw.

WWE Creative deserves the blame for what can best be described as a missed opportunity, a failure of a followup to SmackDown's acclaimed Backlash pay-per-view from two weeks earlier.

The writing team's inability to put together a show with any sort of intrigue or excitement doomed the PPV to mediocrity and left the management teams in charge of the flagship brand as the biggest losers of the night.

Winner: Chris Jericho

The Gift of Jericho was in abundance Sunday night as Y2J battled Sami Zayn in an advertised match, then made his presence felt in the night's main event, which pitted friend and tag team partner Kevin Owens against Seth Rollins.

Jericho was a step behind Zayn throughout the match, showing the physical toll years of in-ring action has taken, but what he lacked in flash he more than made up for with in-ring expertise and an ability to tell a story.

The recent partnership with Owens came into play in the marquee bout when Jericho interfered on behalf of the WWE universal champion and helped him earn a major victory in his first televised defense.

It raises the question: Is WWE prepping Jericho for one last main event run?

The fact that Jericho has been so clingy to Owens since The Prizefighter captured the top prize on Raw has not gone unnoticed. It is almost as if Jericho is lulling Owens into a false sense of security, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and reclaim championship gold.

Whatever the case may be, Jericho has interjected himself into the main event scene, and considering the lack of star power available to the Raw writers, there are far worse options, even if Y2J has lost a step between the ropes.

Losers: Sheamus and Cesaro

Sheamus and Cesaro once again proved to be two outstanding professional wrestlers, capable of great in-ring production despite the company's creative bankruptcy. And again, WWE Creative let them down in the most monumentally misguided and profoundly stupid way imaginable.

The finale of the Best of Seven Series should have been one Superstar's coronation as the next top contender to Kevin Owens. After six weeks of grueling matches and an inconceivable comeback from Cesaro, one man should have stood tall, his arm raised in victory and a championship match on the books.

Unfortunately, someone thought it a great idea to book a non-finish, ensuring that an audience already tired of seeing the same match every week would be further frustrated by one last showdown between the two, presumably on Raw.

Cesaro and Sheamus found themselves in this position because management had no idea how to use them. The finish suggests indecision on the part of the writing team and once again leaves the competitors directionless, the only option left being to continue wrestling each other until Vince McMahon and his merry band of stooges decides to quit the 50-50 booking and push one of them without hesitation.

Winner: Seth Rollins

Was the main event of Clash of Champions an overbooked mess?

Absolutely, but it also protected Seth Rollins, allowing The Architect to look like an unstoppable babyface whose championship aspirations were dashed only after Chris Jericho interfered, a referee was bumped and Stephanie McMahon appeared with another official in tow.

For a Superstar who was halfheartedly assigned the babyface role in the feud with Owens, Rollins needed a breakout performance that announced to the wrestling world that he is, in fact, the lead hero on Monday nights.

He got it Sunday night and should arrive at Raw ready to be the top good guy in Vinnie Mac's live-action morality play.