It's a sad time to be a supposedly heroic babyface on the WWE roster right now.

Not just because mostly heels won at Summerslam last Sunday, but because the follow-up on two episodes of Raw has been downright sad.

Whether it's John Cena's character over-compensating for the loss to Brock Lesnar instead of re-endearing himself to the audience or Brie Bella sadly and unsympathetically crying as she exits the ring each week or Roman Reigns being one-dimensional, there isn't much for the audience to root for.

The problem is compounded by the absence of the two strongest babyfaces on the roster this year - Daniel Bryan and Dean Ambrose. Bryan built a very strong connection to the audience, while Ambrose brings a fresh, new, vibrant, "real" energy to the show. That main event of Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins from last week was nowhere to be found this week on Raw.

Whereas it took Roman Reigns's character about three months to really care about The Shield breaking up - and only because Ambrose was off TV this week - Ambrose has been unrelenting in his pursuit of justice.

That flows into the announce team seemingly not caring when clear injustices are present that need to be corrected and addressed by strong babyfaces. But, lead announcers Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler lose interest from time to time or are so overwhelmed by the massive amount of information to robotically relay that heels cheating or JBL's arguments go unchecked and everyone moves on to the next segment.

The result over time has been the presentation of either lame babyfaces or heels getting away with unjustice that no one seems to mind. At the forefront is The Authority's unchecked power with only Ambrose and Bryan standing up to the group. Remove Ambrose and Bryan and no one seems to care about The Authority. It's just part of the show. Yeah, maybe they'll get their comeuppance eventually, but will anyone care by then?

Even Cole seemingly gave up on pointing out Authority's abuse of power when Kane & Seth Rollins were able to book themselves in a handicap match against Roman Reigns. But, on the exact same show, there was the mysterious hand of The Authority booking a fair main event of Cena & Mark Henry & Big Show vs. The Wyatts. Why wouldn't The Authority book a 20-on-3 handicap match to make sure Cena doesn't even make it to Night of Champions? Wasn't the whole point of the last three months post-Bryan to prevent Cena from becoming WWE champ and then forcing him to drop the title?

The booking is a complete mess. And, the babyfaces are suffering. Not only due to the booking, but also because of the heel side of the ledger. Jack Swagger was somewhat booed for attacking Bo Dallas. It points to some fans kind of liking Bo Dallas's act, especially with Bo's discernible heel traits minimized in recent weeks. There's nothing to truly dislike about Bo right now.

Another example is Bray Wyatt having the cool "Insert City, we're here" line, the fancy ring entrance, and the join-in, sing-along theme song. Suddenly, WWE pulled the ring entrance this week and the crowd disengaged from the main event, which was supposed to focus on John Cena's quest for redemption at Night of Champions. Instead, as our live correspondent Brandon noted "if the crowd seemed quiet during main event, it was because they were upset the Wyatts didn't have an entrance."

This issue has been building for months, and now the booking is starting to crumble post-Summerslam. WWE needs Ambrose back in a hurry, and they need some good news on Bryan's injury situation. Otherwise, it's going to be over-compensating Cena and one-dimensional Reigns at the top of the roster for the foreseeable future.

Babyface Roster Break Down

- John Cena: The issues with Cena's character have been documented for years, but WWE had a chance to hit the reset button post-Summerslam. However, instead of having Cena struggle and wrestle and fight to get back to being John Cena over a four-week journey to Summerslam, WWE went straight to Week 4 with Cena defiantly dominating and not going through an internal struggle of redemption to endear him to the audience.

- Roman Reigns: How about a personality piece on Reigns? What is he passionate about? What does he stand for besides adapting and evaluating situations before Superman-punching people? Does he really care about The Shield breaking up, or was he just tired of listening to Seth Rollins's funeral speech? As Wade Keller talked about on his Raw Hotline, WWE needs to open up the character and let people in.

- Brie Bella: Is a comeback coming for Brie? Or, will she cry every week while Nikki tears her down? The audience needs to see some hope.

- Jack Swagger: Miscast in a babyface role, will Swagger ever get one over Rusev, or sell the ribs for the rest of the year? There has to be some hope beyond "well, he didn't tap out" this week. JBL tearing down Swagger - even if he's way over the top - is starting to sound convincing at this point.

- Big Show & Mark Henry: Henry delivered one of the better promos of the year last week on Rusev, but there was no follow-up. So, it's back to Show & Henry as the World's Largest Tag Team doing house show-level tag work. Fine, but uninspiring.

- Sheamus: Sheamus is the U.S. champion. That's not a good thing. A future title match against Cesaro could be good, but, if Cesaro busts out the crowd-pleasing Big Swing during the match, it takes the spotlight off Sheamus, who needs to be protected with his character in "uncool" territory at the moment.

- Dolph Ziggler: Ziggler is new Intercontinental champion. That's not a good thing. And, his new forced catchphrase on the way to the ring: "You did this!" is a little too cute. Where's something real and tangible with Ziggler after winning the title from Miz? It didn't help that his first night as champion was retaining the title via count-out loss.

- The Usos: The Usos are tag champs. That was a good thing when they were having great matches with the Wyatts, but now they're in a new program with Goldust & Cody Rhodes, who the audience really doesn't want to dislike. As one of the few babyface acts to really get over this year, The Usos need strong heel opponents to work with, not fan-favorite Rhodes Bros.

- Big E. & Kofi Kingston: With the Xavier Woods stable apparently scrapped, Big E. has disappeared from Raw TV and Kofi lost in two minutes to Bo Dallas.

- Chris Jericho: On the way out the door after Night of Champions, so he can only be a temporary factor.

It reads like a sad, depressing list at the moment, especially when the strength is on the heel side with Brock Lesnar and the unchecked Authority getting in a long beat down cutting off the babyface comeback. But, surely there has to be some hope? WWE over-compensated with Cena this week, but they get Ambrose back soon. Right now, that's really the main hope for the comeback until WWE addresses glaring booking problems that have been developing for months, adds some depth to future top star Roman Reigns, and establishes clear heels for babyfaces to play off.

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