WWE Monday Night Raw results and observations (09/12/16): Rusev's revenge

It was another painfully long episode of Raw Monday night, as WWE seemingly emptied the benches for its three-hour flagship television program.

As usual, there were some good moments on the show, but it grinded to a screeching halt during the third hour, which brought the quality of the program down quite a bit.

That is not the first time this has happened to Raw, but it was noticeable more than ever Monday night.

Hopefully, change is on the way, as the cruiserweight division is set to debut next week. The insertion of the cruiserweights should provide some renewed energy into the show.

Before going any further, let's run through the full match results from the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Md.:

- Sasha Banks def. Bayley & Dana Brooke

- Bo Dallas def. Brandon Scott

- Best-of-7 – Cesaro def. Sheamus (Sheamus leads 3-2)

- Nia Jax vs. Alicia Fox ended in a no contest

- Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson def. The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods)

- Jinder Mahal def. Jack Swagger

- Epico def. Enzo Amore

- Kevin Owens def. Roman Reigns

Seth Rollins vs. Owens remains a singles match

When Raw general manager Mick Foley booked Reigns against Owens last week, I saw a lot of fans moan and groan under the assumption that Reigns was going to defeat Owens and force his way into the WWE Universal title match at Clash of Champions.

Their fears were not realized this week, as Owens found a way to defeat Reigns to keep the match one-on-one.

While I like the sounds of a singles match between Owens and Rollins, I did find it sort of strange that the latter got involved in the match to get Reigns disqualified.

Last week, it looked like Rollins was definitely trending toward a turn into a babyface, but causing someone to lose the way Rollins did Monday was not what a typical babyface would do.

My guess is that Rollins isn't making an abrupt turn and that it will be one that will play out over the course of weeks, not hours.

Rusev thwarts Reigns

Although Rollins got involved with the main event, a livid Foley came out, scolded him for getting involved and restarted the match.

After Reigns and Owens engaged in a fantastic affair, Rusev came out and attacked Reigns, which allowed Owens to hit the pop-up power bomb to get the victory.

On the surface, it looked like Reigns was making a permanent return to the main event scene despite his suspension from earlier this summer. In hindsight, it was clearly just giving Reigns something to do while Rusev was off having a second wedding with Lana.

Now that Rusev is back, his feud with Reigns is back on as well, which I actually like.

Banks vs. Charlotte now official

Apparently, when Banks announced that she was coming for Charlotte and the Raw Women's championship last week, the match between the two wasn't made official.

But after a great opening segment involving Banks, Bayley, Charlotte and Brooke, and a very good triple threat match, Banks versus Charlotte is indeed official for Clash of Champions.

Banks earned her way into the spot by winning said triple threat after Bayley claimed that she also deserved a shot at Charlotte after beating the champion last week.

Brooke slapped Charlotte for insulting her so many times, but apparently wanted in the match not to win the title, but to ensure Charlotte holds on to it.

Despite that, Banks got the roll-up pin on Bayley for the win. However, it looked as though Banks' shoulders were on the mat as well, causing some to believe that there was going to be a controversial finish to set up multiple people vying for the title.

But the announcers skipped right over that as if that wasn't suppose to happen. The announcers called it as if Banks won in clear fashion. Maybe WWE addresses this next week, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't.

Jericho-Zayn about to have at … IT!

Raw's pay-per-view is titled Clash of Champions, but after Monday, one of the matches I'm looking forward to seeing has nothing to do with championship titles.

It has everything to do with two very talented performers going at it.

What's it?

IT!

Jericho and Zayn will face each other at Clash of Champions after a fantastic interaction Monday night on Jericho's Highlight Reel.

Jericho claimed that he was supposed to have his best friend Owens as his guest, but Foley booking him in a match with Reigns prevented that from happening.

Because of this, Jericho decided to have Owens' former best friend Zayn on the talk show. Jericho bragged about Owens being his best friend while Zayn tried to warn Jericho that Owens is not his best friend and that he only cares about himself.

Jericho wasn't buying what Zayn was selling, which prompted Zayn to wonder what happened to the Jericho that inspired him to work hard enough to get to WWE. Zayn said that Jericho went from a six-time world champion to Owens' [word that rhymes with witch].

This angered Jericho, as he then attacked Zayn and hit him with the code breaker. I don't think this segment could have gone any better and did a good job of adding a match to the pay-per-view that's going to have some heat.

Nia Jax destroys Alicia Fox

No one was really looking to the eventual showdown between Jax and Fox, but everyone walked away buzzing about it after Jax drove Fox through the barricade Monday night.

In all honesty, the move wasn't quite as impactful as the other times wrestlers have been driven through the barricade, but all of those other times were with men. This was with the women, which I don't think WWE has done before.

It may not have looked fantastic, but it was a great idea and got across the message that Jax is a person no one should mess with, not even crazy Foxy.

Anderson, Gallows get serious

After weeks of trying their hand at scripted comedy, Anderson and Gallows hit rock bottom last week with that horrible Old Day segment.

Although Anderson and Gallows are naturally funny guys, but the comedy segments they've done had scripted WWE comedy written all of them, which is not a good thing.

Because of that, Anderson and Gallows apparently got serious this week and defeated Kingston and Woods to show the world that they now mean business.

I'm all for Anderson and Gallows getting more serious. I just hope that the comedy skits didn't do irreparable damage to them.