Winners, News And Notes On January 2, 2022

WWE Raw advertised Alexa Bliss vs. Bianca Belair for the WWE Raw Women’s Championship and Seth Rollins challenging Austin Theory for the WWE United States Championship. Raw also featured The Bloodline in action as Solo Sikoa defeated Elias in a Music City Street Fight while Sami Zayn and The Usos defeated Kevin Owens and The Street Profits.

Last week’s “Best Of” broadcast of WWE Raw drew a record-low of 1.041 million viewers.

WWE Raw Results on January 2, 2022

• Bianca Belair def. Alexa Bliss via DQ | WWE Raw Women’s Title
• Solo Sikoa def. Elias | Music City Street Fight
• The Bloodline def. Kevin Owens and The Street Profits
• Damage CTRL def. Becky Lynch and Michin
• Dexter Lumis def. Chad Gable
• Austin Theory def. Seth Rollins | U.S. Title

WWE Raw Ratings

• December 26, 2022 | 1.075 million
• December 19, 2022 | 1.705 million
• December 12, 2022 | 1.472 million
• December 5, 2022 | 1.54 million
• November 28, 2022 | 1.67 million

• WWE Raw Venue: Bridgestone Arena (Nashville, Tenn.)
• WWE Raw Tickets Distributed: 9,218
• WWE Raw Tickets Available: 170

WWE Raw Winners And Match Card

The Bloodline Brawls with Raw Locker Room

The Bloodline continues to be booked like the NWO, with the entire Raw locker room emptying to challenge four men in order to defend its turf.

Adam Pearce really took control of this segment by forcing The Bloodline to compete in matches. After making his announcement, he dropped that mic with first-month-of-the-new-year confidence. We’ll see how competent of a leader Pearce is come April.

Backstage, while everybody was bickering over who gets to face the Bloodline, Elias called out Solo Sikoa for a Street Fight. Nobody objected, because they didn’t want the smoke with Solo.

Bianca Belair def. Alexa Bliss by DQ

Corey Graves was openly writing Alexa Bliss’ obituary with his commentary throughout this match.

Fans in Nashville were unpredictably behind the hometown hero Bianca Belair.

An inevitable Alexa Bliss faceoff with a rando in an Uncle Howdy mask received a tepid response from fans at best. The reaction improved for the second rando in an Uncle Howdy mask. Fans then popped huge for the Bray Wyatt logo on the Titantron.

The finish of this match came when Alexa Bliss attacked the referee after seeing relics of Bray Wyatt.

Bianca Belair’s mouth was covered in blood, but the blood seemed to have come from Alexa Bliss’ seemingly broken nose.

Solo Sikoa def. Elias

WWE has really stepped up its game for recent themed street fights, and I expect Solo Sikoa vs. Elias to be no different.

WWE continued to put over the damage done to Bianca Belair, not only by having Montez Ford come out to console her, but also with a “breaking news” update during this match.

Fans didn’t really react to this match until country music star HARDY got involved, smashing his guitar over Solo Sikoa’s back. Sikoa no-sold it and HARDY ran for his life.

Elias crashed through the table, but it did not break the way it should have, making the spot look even more painful.

The Bloodline def. Kevin Owens and The Street Profits

Kevin Owens was firmly wearing Roman Reigns’ receipt from Friday night. Meanwhile, The Street Profits already mocked up Tennessee Titans-inspired gear ahead of their season-ending loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars this Sunday.

Montez Ford did not seem to be an any hurry to get the hot tag from Kevin Owens, but he fired up after Owens basically chopped him.

Sami Zayn scored the winning pinfall, which should slow down rising tensions between him and Roman Reigns.

Of note, Monday Night Football was suspended due to a very serious, potentially fatal injury by Bills safety Damar Hamlin. As of this writing, he is in critical conditions. My thoughts are with his family.

Damage CTRL def. Becky Lynch and Michin

This started out as a two-on-one handicap match against Becky Lynch until Michin came out.

Following another loss (which Michin took), Becky Lynch showed the same unhinged frustrated as when she was in the midst of her ill-advised heel turn.

Dexter Lumis def. Chad Gable

Dexter Lumis lost a winner-take-all Ladder Match, and WWE hasn’t quite explained why he gets to compete with his NXTXT
theme song and all.

Dexter Lumis defeated Chad Gable in what felt like a hard restart of his character. I still feel he’s be much better off in NXT, reunited with Indi Hartwell or either of the above.

Austin Theory def. Seth Rollins

Nashville was one of the best singalong crowds as far as Seth Rollins’ theme music goes.

This was a very long main event match, but fans eventually got into it even past the singing along.

Seth Rollins began selling his right knee midway through the match, and you knew the title likely wasn’t changing hands. This did open the door for an impressive one-legged frog splash, however.

Like a true heel, Theory won this match with a combination of a ref bump, a low blow, a chop block and his A-Town Down finisher.