Kevin Owens

Team Ciampa defeated Undisputed Era in the men's WarGames match at NXT TakeOver: WarGames on Saturday night.

Tommaso Ciampa captained a team also comprised of Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic and Kevin Owens, who made a surprise appearance as the mystery partner, to victory over the cohesive unit of NXT champion Adam Cole, North American champion Roderick Strong and NXT tag team champions Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish.

A brutal finish saw Ciampa set Cole up for a Samoan drop off the top of the cage. Both men went crashing through a table set up in the ring, but Ciampa's body landed on top of Cole to get the pin. 

Ciampa returned to NXT several weeks ago after missing several months with a neck injury, and he immediately set his sights on Cole, who holds the championship that Ciampa had to relinquish and never lost.

It initially seemed as though Ciampa had Johnny Gargano and the returning Finn Balor on his side, but when Balor shockingly turned on Johnny Wrestling by hitting him with a Pele kick, Ciampa had to look elsewhere for reinforcements.

The first iteration of Ciampa's WarGames team featured Lee and Matt Riddle, who both had issues with Undisputed Era in recent weeks. Things got shaken up again, though, when a neck injury kept Gargano out of TakeOver and required Riddle to step in as Balor's opponent.

With Riddle out of the picture, Ciampa brought in Dijakovic, who helped even the odds during a brawl with Undisputed Era on NXT TV. That added a fun dynamic to Team Ciampa since Lee and Dijakovic had been rivals for many months.

Once Lee and Dijakovic buried the hatchet with a handshake, Ciampa needed to fill out his team, and he did so by choosing Owens.

Undisputed Era seemingly had the advantage at WarGames for several reasons. In addition to the fact that they have been a team for multiple years, this marked the third consecutive year they were involved in a WarGames match.

Ciampa's team had plenty of incentive to perform well and defeat Undisputed Era, though, not the least of which is the notion they would be in line for title shots if they did.

With Team Ciampa coming out on top in Chicago, it stands to reason that all four members could be wearing gold soon, but the main focus will be on Ciampa vs. Cole heading toward the new year.

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The raucous reaction Kevin Owens received on Raw in Manchester, England, on Monday was a strong indication of how popular he remains with the WWE faithful despite the brutal booking he's endured for the better part of 2019.

Truth be told, there aren't many babyfaces on either brand fans genuinely care about to no fault of their own. The company should be blamed for not giving viewers any incentive to want to rally behind them.

Considering how he's been handled by WWE on the whole this year, Owens should be no different than anyone else. However, he continues to come across like a star every time he makes his entrance, as he never ceases to elicit a strong response from fans in attendance.

Owens missed the first few months of 2019 because of injury but was brought back as a babyface in late February. Although seeing him portray a good guy was a refreshing change of pace for his character, WWE did his face run no favors by immediately placing him in the WWE Championship picture over others who deserved it more.

His failure to become champion at Fastlane resulted in him sitting on the sidelines for WrestleMania 35, only to return to his roots as a heel soon after. As well-received as his betrayal of Kofi Kingston was by the masses, their consequent WWE Championship feud did little to reestablish Owens as a top-tier talent.

He proceeded to lose almost every match he had from that point forward until again turning face to feud with Shane McMahon in time for SummerSlam. That program was when Owens' popularity peaked thanks to how hated Shane was, and for a while, the former universal champion was benefiting from working with him.

Owens was able to score two victories over the self-proclaimed "best in the world" and end their rivalry on top. That should have been what cemented him as a main event player on SmackDown, but his move to Raw in the 2019 WWE draft hindered his momentum greatly.

Since October's draft, Owens has made all of two appearances on the flagship show: once aiding The Street Profits to victory against The O.C. and then teaming with Seth Rollins and Street Profits to knock off Imperium on Monday.

He's slated to represent Raw in a multi-man tag team match at Survivor Series, which is clearly designed to be filler to get WWE through November. Beyond that, there doesn't appear to be any obvious plan for Owens on Raw besides feuding with AJ Styles over the United States Championship.

Even if WWE does decide to rekindle that rivalry between Owens and Styles from two years ago (with the roles reversed this time around), it's old hat for The Prizefighter. He needs something he can sink his teeth into higher up on the card—where he belongs.

Aside from his short-lived storylines with Kingston and Daniel Bryan earlier this year, Owens hasn't been consistently featured in the main event scene since his Universal Championship reign was abruptly ended by Goldberg in March 2017.

Now more than ever, Raw could use a beloved babyface such as Owens to build the brand around. Rollins has unfortunately proved that he is not the guy for the job, whereas Owens still has the unwavering support of the WWE Universe.

It's rare to find a Superstar as creatively damaged as Owens who has stayed relevant no matter what. Regardless of what role he's positioned in, he finds ways to make the most of the material given to him and knock it out of the park.

Needless to say, WWE has a serious problem when it comes to booking babyfaces as genuinely likable people. Owens is so relatable and entertaining that he doesn't struggle with that as much as the rest of the Raw roster does, and therefore he is the perfect person to replace Rollins as Raw's leading man.

With 2020 right around the corner, it is time WWE should be starting to build Owens back up as a credible contender to the WWE Championship and make up for what has been the biggest roller-coaster year of his career to date.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, is an Endicott College alumnus and aspiring journalist. Visit his website, Next Era Wrestling, and "like" his official Facebook page to continue the conversation on all things wrestling.

Monday night's episode of WWE Raw, which was pre-taped Friday in Manchester, England, averaged 2.06 million viewers over the course of its three-hour broadcast, according to Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.

Raw's viewership was down this week after it drew 2.13 million viewers in each of the two previous weeks.

On Monday, Raw faced some tough competition in the form of a Monday Night Football clash between the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers. The Seahawks won 27-24 in overtime to improve to 8-2, while the Niners suffered their first loss of the season and now sit at 8-1.

Spoilers for Monday's Raw were available for a few days before the show aired since it was taped after an episode of Friday Night SmackDown.

Raw started with a promo from Raw Women's champion Becky Lynch, which led into a WWE Women's Tag Team Championship match pitting Lynch and Charlotte Flair against The Kabuki Warriors. Asuka and Kairi Sane won thanks, in part, to a distraction from NXT Women's champion Shayna Baszler.

Additionally, Seth Rollins faced United Kingdom champion Walter in a first-time-ever match, and after Imperium attacked Rollins to signal a disqualification, the team of Rollins, Kevin Owens and The Street Profits beat Imperium in an eight-man tag team match.

The main event of the show saw Ricochet, Humberto Carrillo and Randy Orton team up to beat The OC in a six-man tag. Orton teased hitting Ricochet with an RKO on a couple of occasions, and it looks as though WWE may be building a feud between them.

Arguably the biggest talking point coming out of Raw was the continuation of the love triangle involving Rusev, Lana and Bobby Lashley. Lana told Rusev she was pregnant with his child before attacking him and allowing Lashley to beat him down.

At the conclusion of the segment, Lana revealed that she was lying and wasn't actually pregnant.

Much of Monday's Raw was focused on continuing the build toward Survivor Series, and that will likely be the case again next week when Raw emanates from TD Garden in Boston.

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