6 Ups And 8 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Jan 14)

7. Monster Down

Clearly Braun Strowman hasn’t yet recovered from his elbow surgery, which necessitated a big change to the Royal Rumble PPV Monday night.

Strowman was written off TV late last year with an elbow injury so he could have surgery. His TLC match in December was turned into a gag of sorts, with various wrestlers banding together to topple Baron Corbin for Braun. And a confrontation with Brock Lesnar last week was entirely avoided presumably because Strowman hadn’t been cleared.

This is a huge setback and letdown for Braun and for fans who wanted to see him challenge for the Universal Championship. Although he’s been pushed strongly for more than a year, Strowman has never quite gotten over the hump, and it looks like we’ll definitely have to wait longer.

That said, this could be a blessing in disguise if Braun was going to come up short again, given how his Money in the Bank cash-in went last fall.