Monday Night Raw preview: Three questions heading into August 8 episode

WWE Monday Night Raw comes live from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland tonight and the company will continue the march towards next month's Clash at the Castle pay-per-view in Wales.

Whether it’s an extremely important episode or a completely throwaway show that will be forgotten about in two weeks, there are always questions that surround each edition of Monday Night Raw. I’ll ask some pertaining to tonight’s episode.

Will Ciampa capture the United States Championship?

Surviving a triple threat match and a battle against A.J. Styles last week, Ciampa earned the opportunity to challenge Bobby Lashley for the United States Championship tonight. It’s the biggest showcase opportunity for the superstar since being brought up to the main roster earlier this year. So can he actually pull it off?

The former NXT Champion has been featured more and more prominently in recent weeks alongside The Miz and him scoring the upset title victory wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities. It’s not lost on anyone that Triple H is pushing more of his former NXT superstars now that he’s in charge so a potential Ciampa victory here wouldn’t be a surprise.

How will the women’s tag title tournament play out?

It was announced on Smackdown that the tournament for the vacant WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship will begin on tonight’s show and it’s speculated that it will conclude at Clash at the Castle. There are multiple questions surrounding the tourney, particularly, who will walk out with the belts?

The early money is on Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai, who returned with Bayley at SummerSlam and wreaked havoc during last week’s episode of Raw. Them winning the belts would deliver instant credibility to the new faction and stamp them as legitimate threats. With the announcement of the tournament, there is already speculation that this will be the vehicle that brings Sasha Banks and Naomi back to WWE television. Since Vince McMahon’s retirement a few weeks ago, online reports have suggested that the company has reached out to the former tag champs for a possible return in the near future. We’ll see how this shakes out.

Will any other superstar return on tonight’s show?

With Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in charge, there is excitement over the possibility of the WWE bringing back several talents that were released over the last few years. That was evident at SummerSlam with Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai and Friday’s episode of Smackdown when former NXT Champion Karrion Kross returned with Scarlett in the main event.

Some of Triple H’s most favored talents like Keith Lee, Adam Cole, and Malakai/Aleister Black are currently under contract with AEW, so it would be a while before we’d see them on WWE television again. But others like Tegan Nox for example could be very much on their way back. We’ll see what transpires tonight and over these next few weeks.