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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: Raw wasn’t as good as last week. It wasn’t bad, but not good. It started off well, but not as well as last week, which is understandable considering last week’s great start. This is a marginal Hit as I liked the opening, but didn’t love it. Vickie Guerrero starting the show was a nice surprise. She did well to get her normal level of heel heat. CM Punk was good in his interaction with Vickie. John Bradshaw Layfield was good when he came out to challenge Punk. The segment started to go downhill with John Cena’s lame poopy humor. It picked up nicely with Batista’s appearance and his taunting of Vickie. JBL was great in his protest of it becoming a triple threat match, then ultimately giving in. The segment once again went down when Kane came out. For one thing, the segment was already too long, and his appearance made it that much longer. For another, JBL, Cena and Batista all made sense in their involvement. Kane did not. I thought it was a mistake to add him to the match. In the end, I understood why they would have Kane in the Main Event, but in the moment his presence felt forced. It was an up and down segment that was too long, but the ups outweighed the downs.

Hints at Chaos: WWE did a nice job during the show of hinting at there being general chaos on Raw. In addition to the “inmates running the asylum” feel to the show, two instances occurred to help give the show the feeling of being out of control. During Todd Grisham’s interview with CM Punk, a light fixture fell to the floor and had to be quickly cleaned up by the crew. Later, when Batista was shown warming up for the Main Event, a fan ran into the shot and was chased away by security. I don’t know where this is going, but that is part of the fun. I liked the chaotic feel to the show and look forward to seeing what happens next week.

Michaels and Jericho: This was another good segment involving Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho. I like that Michael’s was just going to accept the challenge and leave. It shows he is more concerned with kicking Jericho’s ass than talking about it. Jericho’s interruption was good. He has been great on the mic. It was an interesting verbal exchange. I loved how Michaels was able to see through everything that Jericho has said lately and boil down this frustrations to the simple fact that no matter what Jericho accomplishes in his career, he will never be Shawn Michaels. That recalls their feud from a few years ago. A longer history video, with some back story of how Jericho idolized Michaels and patterned his early career off of him would be a nice addition to this feud. Even without it, Michaels’ final line of the segment was perfect.

Main Event: This was a solid Main Event. It went 13 minutes, but with two commercials we only saw half of it. But, what we saw was good. There was nonstop action. They went to the traditional series of finishers and pin attempt break ups earlier than usual in this match. Often that series of moves leads directly to the finish. This time, they went to it early and the match continued. That was a nice break from the fatal four way formula. After the second commercial the match was at its best, as the chaos of the middle minutes was over, and the wrestlers had a few minutes to tell more of a story. The end worked well as JBL and Cena fought on the outside to further advance their feud. Batista was the right man to get the win. It wasn’t great and it suffered from two interruptions, but it was good enough to get a marginal Hit.

Kane’s Turn: This is another marginal Hit. In fact, the whole show had a marginal Hit feel to it. In the first segment, four babyfaces stood in the ring with one heel. Obviously something had to be done, and Kane turning heel was the right move. I’m not crazy about the way the turn happened, but it was fine. The whole “Is he dead or alive?” thing seemed to come out of left field. It feels like a retread of old Kane gimmicks and storylines, but there is at least a little intrigue to know what he is talking about. It was smart of WWE to have him beat up Jerry Lawler in the end. They had to know that the crowd would pop for him beating up Michael Cole, so Lawler getting the beating in the end worked. I also question the timing. Making Kane a heel was important, but was it important enough to upstage Batista becoming #1 contender for the World Heavyweight Championship? Again, it was just a marginal Hit.

RAW MISSES

Replays: This is not the first time I have given replays on Raw a Miss, and I doubt it will be the last. I am fine with showing a replay of what happened last week at the start of the show. That makes sense. But, why does that same exact video have to be shown a second time later in the same show? What are we, idiots? Did we forget what happened last week? Well, maybe. Plus, there were fans who didn’t see the show. Again, the first replay works. But, I feel my intelligence is being questioned when they replay the replay. Throw in all the usual instant replays, and replays of what happened before the commercial (which are fine in small doses), a long but good replay of the Michaels vs. Jericho feud, and you get too many videos recapping what has happened. Take away the repeated video of last week, and I take away this Miss.

Mysterio vs. Santino: I am giving this match a Miss for a few reasons. For one, after the great segment between these two last week, this was a major let down. Rey Mysterio’s first match on Raw, especially coming off of an injury, should have been a bigger deal and should have been announced a week in advance. Instead it was thrown out against the man who he seemed to be building a feud with. Santino Marella looked weak for losing in a quick match to Mysterio. Santino is comedic gold, but we are never going to take him seriously as a wrestler if this is how he is treated. Plus, the match itself was off a little. Mysterio seemed to have some ring rust, which is understandable. I would have had him face a jobber in his first match after some more interaction with Santino. Santino could do guest commentary. They could have built up the match for a few more weeks with Mysterio having more time to shake off the ring rust and work with Santino at house shows to develop better chemistry before showcasing the match on t.v.

Cena, James and Kelly: The backstage scene with John Cena, Mickie James and Kelly Kelly was terrible. First of all, where has the relationship between Cena and James been? It has been weeks since the last time they were shown together, and this seemed forced. Is James really attracted to a man with such a childish poopy sense of humor? I was frustrated with the fact that Kelly is now a member of the Raw roster. How is that possible? Didn’t we just have a draft two weeks ago? What does it say about WWE creative when they had a chance to logically move her two weeks ago, but instead moved her with no explanation this week? Do they really have no clue what is going to happen in two weeks? That is unbelievable. I am never going to take a draft seriously since WWE doesn’t take the roster divisions seriously. Plus, Kelly is now apparently playing the old Maria character. I liked that character better for Maria, but do we really need to see it with Kelly? Cena’s “God bless America” line at the end was really bad too.

Limo Destruction: This was lame on so many levels. It wasn’t entertaining and the crowd didn’t pop for Cena and Cryme Tyme’s destruction of JBL’s limo. Maybe long time fans like me are jaded having seen Steve Austin destroy cars multiple times in the attitude era with a much higher entertainment value. It is hard to beat his destruction of Vince McMahon’s convertible with a cement truck. Cena is certainly no Austin. With a new roster of wrestlers to continue to introduce to the fans, we didn’t need this much Cena and JBL on the show. Plus, it just wasn’t funny. I can’t believe Cena actually spray painted “poopy” on the limo. This did nothing to make me want to see the eventual Cena vs. JBL match that is obviously in the works.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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