Fixing WWE Raw and SmackDown's Worst Booking Decisions for the Week of Jan. 19

This week's WWE Raw and SmackDown episodes featured some fun segments and great matches, but both shows had a few weak points management could have prevented with a few simple changes.

Surprisingly, the feud between Rusev and Bobby Lashley was not one of the worst things we saw. Their match on Raw was decent, and the storyline progressed in a logical way when Rusev and Liv Morgan challenged Lashley and Lana to a mixed tag team match.

We also saw Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy put on another awesome performance, and the fistfight that closed the show was better than expected thanks to some creative spots.

On SmackDown, we saw the returning John Morrison pick up a win over Big E, and Kane helped Daniel Bryan finally get the better of The Fiend.

Those were the highlights. Let's take a look at what could have been done better.

Charlotte Flair defeated Sarah Logan in what many would call a squash match on Monday's Raw. This was pointless and did nothing for either competitor.

The Queen has proved she is one of the toughest women in the business on countless occasions. She is a 10-time champion with more accolades than some Hall of Famers. Logan is someone who has struggled to be featured on television since The Riott Squad split up during the most recent draft. Jobbing her out is not going to do her any favors.

The purpose of this segment was to make Charlotte look like a badass—and she did by winning in quick fashion. But it should not have come at the expense of somebody who is already being booked poorly.

WWE has used many enhancement talents for The Viking Raiders and Erick Rowan in recent weeks. Why couldn't Charlotte have faced some unknown Superstar to prove a point?

Had this match been booked as a more competitive contest, Logan wouldn't have suffered as much from the loss because she could still claim she pushed The Queen to her limit.

This is not the only women's segment that was hurt by a lack of time this week. Certain people get to have longer matches, but many stars in the division are still fighting to get more than a few minutes, if any time at all.

As stated, Erik and Ivar have been facing a string of jobber tag team in recent weeks, but Monday's show saw them face one of WWE's resident duos, The Singh Brothers.

Samir and Sunil Singh worked with Jinder Mahal during his WWE Championship reign in 2017, and they have put in time on 205 Live and NXT. The problem they have is not being featured regularly enough. The WWE Universe has never been given a reason to care about the brothers, which is sad because they are both talented wrestlers with a lot to offer in and out of the ring.

The Raw tag team division has been struggling because of a lack of challengers, and WWE took one of the few established teams it has and turned them into jobbers. This helps nobody.

The Viking Raiders should be viewed as one of the most dangerous teams in the company, but nobody is going to think that way if they continue to face people who have no chance of winning.

They will likely end up back in the ring with Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson soon because Akam and Rezar are busy with Seth Rollins, Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder have already lost to them and The Street Profits are being used more as backstage hype men than wrestlers.

If WWE doesn't start booking the tag team division on Raw to be more competitive, the titles will become even more irrelevant than they already are.

What is in Erick Rowan's cage? That is the question everyone has been asking for weeks, but what we should be asking is whether we should care anymore.

This mystery was fun in the beginning. Rowan was toting a little friend, and we all wanted to know what he was trying to protect and what made Mojo Rawley run away when he got a glimpse inside the cage.

We have now reached the point when WWE has waited too long to make the reveal. Nothing can live up to how creepy whatever it is should be.

This should have been the week of the big reveal. Rawley getting scared and a jobber having blood sprayed in his face from whatever lives in the cage should have been the precursor to finding out what Rowan could possibly care so much about.

At this point, the memes people are creating on social media every week are more entertaining than the segments they are mocking.

If we don't find out what The Redwood has been carrying soon, the reveal will be met with silence and indifference from the crowd. Rowan doesn't need another setback like that at this stage of his career.

Otis and Mandy Rose have been taking their budding romance slowly, and it has given us one of the more entertaining storylines on SmackDown.

However, Friday's show was not the highlight of this storyline. Rose seemed hesitant to ask Otis to be at ringside for Sonya Deville's match against Alexa Bliss, but she asked him anyway.

The moment when The Dozer saved The Golden Goddess from falling off of the top turnbuckle worked exactly as it was supposed to. The main issue with this segment was the action in the ring.

Deville and Bliss' match was clearly not the priority here since they were only given a couple of minutes to work before the shenanigans outside the ring began.

The women's division is getting multiple segments on every show these days, but if those are as short as this or the match between Logan and Flair from Raw, they are not going to get anyone over.

Yes, Rose and Otis were the main focus, but their storyline doesn't have to overshadow the two Superstars in the ring. Had Deville and Bliss been given a full five minutes or more, they could have put on a good show, and we could still have had the satisfaction of seeing a grateful Rose smile at Otis as he caught her in his arms.

The four moments listed in this article were the only low points this week. WWE put on some great matches and made real progress with a few key storylines. If these are the biggest complaints, then the company had a good week.