Zelina Vega's Stature Grows, Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre, More Raw Fallout

A week removed from WrestleMania 36, the April 13 episode of WWE Raw saw the introduction of Seth Rollins as WWE champion Drew McIntyre's first challenger and the first hints of big things to come for Zelina Vega and company.

The prospective title program and prominence of Austin Theory, Angel Garza and United States champion Andrade were only two of the buzzworthy topics on Monday's show.

Which moments and stars joined them?

Find out with this recap of the USA Network broadcast.

Seth Rollins Apparently Set as Drew McIntyre's First Challenger

It took two stomps from Seth Rollins to Drew McIntyre to position The Monday Night Messiah as the top contender to the WWE Championship, despite the most recent competitive match for Rollins ending in defeat at the hands of Kevin Owens.

Rollins used that loss, and what he considered the crucifixion of his character, to fuel his attack on The Scottish Psychopath. While that certainly makes sense from a creative standpoint, there is one question that demands an answer: is McIntyre vs. Rollins an interesting enough feud to carry the champion through the first couple months of his reign?

Throughout Monday’s broadcast, WWE Creative built up a faction, strengthening it with every victory and promo. It could have easily created fresh faces in the main event scene but, instead, it sacrificed them in the final segment of the evening to make way for Rollins’ latest run at the top of the card.

With Rollins comes experience and credibility, but it also comes with a sense of sameness and repetition. It was, after all, Rollins’ staleness as a main event staple that turned fans against him in the first place and necessitated his heel turn.

It will be of the utmost importance that Paul Heyman and the rest of the writing team find an interesting angle to exploit here. Rollins has been, for all the polarity surrounding him from the internet wrestling community, the MVP of Raw for the last year. He can star and still manage to put McIntyre over in definitive fashion.

The new champion’s reign is still in its infancy, though, and he needs hot stories to keep audiences invested. It was easy to get fans interested in the Scot’s journey to the gold. The strength of Rollins vs. McIntyre’s program will determine if management can keep them that way.

Zelina Vega's Stature on Raw Grows with Prominence of Her Faction

Zelina Vega has been one of the better and more engaging performers on the WWE roster since her days in NXT. There, she almost single-handedly elevated Andrade’s game and made him a star that Triple H and that brand’s creative team felt comfortable putting the world title on.

Over on the main roster, her ability to talk for him and cut these scathing and insulting promos on his opponents has kept him relevant even when it looked like he might slip into obscurity.

After years of hard work keeping El Idolo over, she has begun building a faction that includes young stars Austin Theory and Angel Garza and Monday night, they received their greatest exposure as the Raw writers worked to create credibility and legitimacy for a faction with a ton of potential to dominate the red brand for months to come.

Theory, Garza and Andrade are extraordinarily talented and have the potential to fight alongside McIntyre, Rollins, Kevin Owens and even Aleister Black at the top of the red brand’s card, but it is Vega who will (and rightfully should) see her stature on the flagship enhanced as a result.

Like the Executive Director of Raw Heyman did back in 1992 as the leader of the Dangerous Alliance in WCW, Vega has the ability to be the face and voice of a heel faction that almost supersedes the wrestlers themselves. She is that good that she can be the heel around whom programs are built while her minions do her bidding for her. The result? Her star burns brightest, but those around her benefit as well. Andrade, Garza, Theory and any other Superstars she takes on (Apollo Crews, I’m looking at you) will go along for the ride and conceivably compete against top talent on the preeminent brand in WWE.

Is that a bit of fantasy booking? To an extent, yes, but Monday’s show gave us a hint of what that can look like.

Hopefully, Andrade’s loss to McIntyre in the main event of the show does not quell what the creative team accomplished elsewhere on the broadcast because the thought of a fresh new, dominant faction tearing through the brand was more than appealing.

Shayna Baszler Shockingly Brutalizes Sarah Logan En Route to Money in the Bank

We knew that Shayna Baszler was going to avenge her loss to Becky Lynch at WrestleMania but what we did not know was that The Queen of Spades would do so by obliterating and assaulting the competition the way she did Sarah Logan Monday.

There was no semblance of competition in their Money in the Bank Ladder Match qualifier. Instead, Baszler looked to maim and injure her opponent, which she did with a sickening stomp to the arm that twisted Logan’s limb in ways the human body was not meant to.

Prior to the bout, Sarah Schroeder caught up with Baszler and asked her about Ronda Rousey’s comments over the weekend, in which the former Raw women’s champion labeled WWE as fake fighting. Baszler stared stoically at the interviewer, then proceeded to execute her attack.

The Rousey comments are clearly setting up her return and some sort of partnership between her and real-life friend Baszler, but that is not nearly as interesting as what we saw once the former No. 1 contender hit the ring this week.

Is Baszler going to look to hurt her opponents, winning by referee stoppage rather than concerning herself with pinfalls and submissions? If yes, the result will be a much more interesting and compelling character than the one we were treated to in the lead-in to WrestleMania.

For Baszler, that is a very good thing, the perfect way to recover from a loss and set up another high-stakes, red-hot championship encounter with The Man.

Lana in Limbo as On-Screen Marriage to Bobby Lashley Disintegrates

Give WWE some credit: it certainly tried to give Bobby Lashley and Lana something interesting to do in the form of a shock-TV storyline with Rusev last fall and winter. The program, which saw Lana leaver her Bulgarian Brute husband for another man elevated her star, popped TV ratings and drew interest from some Attitude Era-loving casual fans, but it ultimately disintegrated following a wedding angle that was too much for its own good.

Since then, Lana and Lashley have wallowed in obscurity, barely making television until The All Mighty’s match with Aleister Black at WrestleMania. A loss in that match, due to Lana insisting that her husband use the spear instead of the dominator left the heel wondering if he needed new management...or a new wife.

A frustrated and irritated Lashley continued showing cracks in his relationship with his spouse, telling a loudmouthed Lana to “shut up” and “stay quiet” as he battled No Way Jose Monday. Her verbal interference in the proceedings nearly cost him what would have been a major upset.

Lashley won, sure, but the takeaway from the segment was not that he beat the glorified enhancement talent but that Lana’s place in the WWE Universe is getting murkier and murkier with every passing week.

If the on-screen marriage falls apart, the question quickly becomes: what happens to Lana?

Where does the Ravishing Russian fall? The entire angle was created to give her screen time in the first place. If it does not work and the creative team abandons the storyline, Lana is in more limbo than she has ever been.

Considering the fact that she just re-signed with the company at the beginning of the year, that is not at all where she wants to find herself.

Perhaps more importantly, such a breakup would seemingly position Lashley as a babyface for kicking her to the curb, a role WWE Creative almost assuredly does not want him in.

If anything, the fact that there is discussion at all about two performers who appeared to have fallen out of favor with the writing team earlier this year suggests something is working.