WWE Raw Results: Biggest Winners, Losers and Moments from September 25

The September 25 episode of WWE Raw should have been a red-hot followup to a quality No Mercy pay-per-view. Instead, it was a creatively disappointing show that featured questionable decisions and a lack of urgency on the part of the writing team.

At the same time, though, it did ignite new rivalries and set the stage for better, more intriguing storytelling in the near future.

The booking decisions made Monday night, for better or worse, did spawn a few winners and losers who will shine bright and engage thoroughly in the weeks to come.

There is the veteran Mickie James, who found herself launched back into relevancy as she began a program with Raw women's champion Alexa Bliss.

The Shield was strongly hinted at as Roman Reigns found himself beaten down and embarrassed by a Miztourage openly mocking the legendary threesome.

Not everyone was quite as lucky as James or fans of The Shield, though.

There was Nia Jax, who saw her momentum following the best performance of her career at No Mercy wasted on a meaningless tag match no one will remember, and a WWE Creative team that has gone to the Finn Balor-Bray Wyatt well one too many times.

They were the night's most prominent losers.

But why, beyond the obvious? Take a look for yourself. 

Winners: Fans of the Shield

If you have been waiting since June 2014 for the magical moment in which Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns reassemble as The Shield, your patience and anticipation are about to pay off.

Monday night, Miz TV with Roman Reigns kicked off the broadcast. During the verbal exchange between the intercontinental champion and The Big Dog, Miz was quick to reference the trio and claim no one would care about The Shield if The Miztourage had been around five years ago.

This, of course, was typical hubris out of the loudmouth heel.

Later in the show, after a beat down of Reigns that left him lying in a heap at the feet of the Hollywood A-lister, Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel, the trio of heels extended their fists and engaged in the ceremonial fist bump practiced by The Shield during their two years of utter dominance over WWE.

That action alone not only suggests The Shield is on its way back to WWE programming it guarantees it.

Reigns, Rollins and Ambrose were once the cornerstone of WWE, relied on to strengthen television broadcasts and guarantee a certain level of quality on pay-per-view. Together, they beat everyone from John Cena to Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton to The Undertaker, in tag team action.

The idea of Miz, Dallas and Axel being legitimate competition is comical but not the point.

The point is that WWE Creative has recognized the need for a red-hot act in the absence of Cena and universal champion Brock Lesnar and has decided now is the time to go ahead with the Shield reunion.

Expect things to get interesting ahead of the October 22 TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs pay-per-view and, more importantly, the sound of "Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta" to explode over the PA system sooner than later.

Losers: WWE Creative

One could suggest WWE Creative should be a big loser coming out of Raw for delivering the low quality of show it did Monday night, but that is not why they have landed in this spot.

Yes, Monday's show sucked, but WWE Creative winds up a big loser for the September 25 episode because it continues to insist on dragging out the Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt feud for another freaking month.

Balor definitively beat The Eater of Worlds at SummerSlam. He followed that victory up by beating Wyatt, again, definitively at No Mercy. There is nothing else for the Irishman to accomplish in this rivalry, nor can Wyatt gain anything from it.

The story is over. Finished. Complete.

Dragging it on because WWE Creative is too lazy and/or incompetent to come up with anything else for them is a poor excuse. It makes for repetitive television and worse, it eats away at overness of the Superstars in question.

Balor should be mixing it up with top Superstars in main events, while Wyatt is in desperate need of a reboot or some time off to freshen up his character. 

What neither man needs is another month of substandard promos, illogical twists and turns and another pay-per-view match.

Winner: Mickie James

Anyone who has followed the career of Mickie James through the indies, into Ohio Valley Wrestling, to the main roster of WWE, into TNA Wrestling and back to Vince McMahon's wrestling empire knows how talented the former six-time women's champion is.

Adaptable, smart, athletic and engaging, she is a future Hall of Famer who has more than earned her place among the greatest of all time.

Monday night, she returned from obscurity and irrelevance to confront Alexa Bliss and kick off a rivalry that was jumpstarted during Sunday's Raw Talk, where Bliss referred to James as an "old lady."

After taking a few verbal jabs at Bliss, including a funny line about kicking ass before the Raw women's champion was wearing bras, James followed up Bliss' insult with a hard slap to the face that sent her scurrying to the arena floor.

The most important part of James' performance Monday night was the fact that the fans in Ontario, California, were invested in her. They were hot for the veteran, bought into the idea of her as a challenger to Bliss and genuinely reacted favorably to her promo.

That is the sign of a legend.

James, after being off television for months and doing nothing but live events and the occasional Main Event taping, walked through the curtain with confidence and engaged Bliss in a verbal confrontation. And the audience bought it.

Fans respect James and instantly buy her in that role without the need for some convoluted story or underdog journey.

Most importantly, the prospective rivalry breaks up the monotony of the same handful of women fighting for the title, a welcome addition to a division in need of fresh matchups.

Loser: Nia Jax

Nia Jax is a loser coming out of Monday's Raw, though that's through no fault of her own.

On the heels of a breakout performance that saw Jax generate the loudest reaction of the five women involved in the Raw Women's Championship match at No Mercy, she was treated as somewhat of an afterthought, teaming with Emma in a loss to Sasha Banks and Bayley.

The emphasis, creatively, was on Banks and Bayley and planting the seeds for dissension.

Jax was merely a wrestler in a match, the momentum she built for herself at No Mercy disregarded.

It is majorly disappointing, especially when one takes into consideration that Jax delivered one of the better performances on the entire pay-per-view, never mind the women's match.

To waste that momentum on a tag team match no one is likely to remember on Tuesday morning is a major misstep on the part of a WWE Creative team that deserves the criticism it will receive on the heels of Monday's less-than-solid broadcast.