5 Biggest Winners & Losers From WWE Raw (29 Aug)

5. Loser: Nia Jax

Squash matches are a highly effective way to show a superstar’s dominance and have them rack-up a few victories against overmatched opposition. It’s a tried and tested formula that wrestling companies have been using for years, and with Nia Jax and Braun Strowman routinely obliterating local talent on Raw every week, it’s clear WWE have no plan on dropping the technique any time soon.

Rely on squash matches for too long, however, and they start getting stale, which is exactly what’s happening with Nia Jax at the moment. Strowman’s jobber-flattening spree still has legs owing to the former Wyatt Family member’s viciousness in the ring (he even pulled the poor sod’s lucha mask off this week), but for the most part, Jax shows-up, performs a couple of moves, then leaves.

She’s always in-control, but Jax rarely looks like an actual monster. Rather than just throwing her opponents around, Jax should be lobbing them out of the ring, smashing them into the ring steps, and brutalising them all over the ringside environment. Jax attempted this a few weeks ago, but her matches mostly consist of a clothesline, a couple of throws, then her new front powerslam finisher. There’s no real nastiness to her work, and it’s starting to come off as a performance routine rather than a beatdown.

Jax is still finding her feet as the women’s division’s resident powerhouse, but she’s got to start exhibiting some more monster-like traits before she loses the crowd forever.