By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

MSG Video: I am a fan of WWE history and as a general rule, I enjoy these trips down memory lane. This video focusing on huge moments in Madison Square Garden was very well produced and fun to watch. It was part of the big show feel that this Raw had, with the large crowd, multiple celebrities in attendance, a special appearance by Vince McMahon who has been on Smackdown more than Raw lately, and the huge star-filled main event. I give kudos to WWE for making the show and the venue feel this special.

Piper - McMahon: This is a marginal Hit. I liked this moment from Rowdy Roddy Piper better than his other appearances on the show. He gave a good promo about his history in MSG. I liked how he called out Vince McMahon for one last fight, although it did seem to come out of nowhere. McMahon was good in his part in verbally running down Piper. Piper had the one slip up when he said he had been in 7,000 car accidents and 30 pro matches, but he realized it and corrected himself. Piper's best moment was when he got a little more serious, specifically mentioning how he beat cancer and can beat McMahon too. Obviously, the fight didn't happen on this show, but the seeds were planted for what would be a very ugly match down the line.

Shaemus: Shaemus continues to be built up as a strong and intense and even sadistic competitor. This week when he couldn't get any competition from the locker room, he took out his frustrations on the time keeper in a brutal attack. His knockout kick of Jerry Lawler worked well too. He looked good and is getting a big build at this point. On a side note, it was nice to hear a logical explanation why Matt Striker happened to be in attendance to take over for Lawler.

Kingston's Star Making Moment: At this point in Raw, 4 of the 5 Misses below had happened (the 5th encompassed multiple segments, some of which had occurred). Only 3 of the 5 Hits had happened. It was getting late and the show was looking bad. Then came the really awkward moment when Kofi Kingston's music came way too late as he was supposed to interrupt Randy Orton's attempt to punt Piper in the head. Luckily, what followed was so good and so memorable and such a star making moment for Kingston that I can forgive the bad timing. The brawl between Kingston and Orton was great. I liked how Kingston got the early advantage, but Orton was able to come back on his own. Then, Kingston had the great leaping take down to avoid a punt and continue the brawl. The brawl went back and forth. It was very physical. I loved the ending, how Kingston teased a big leap through Orton on the table only to have the referees put a stop to it. That only got the crowd more excited to see the move a moment later when Kingston shook the refs off and went back to dive onto Orton. It was a great moment.

JeriShow vs. DX vs. Cena & Undertaker: I was worried about this match when Undertaker's entrance occurred right at 11:05 when the show usually ends. I feared that it would turn into a quick brawl after a very short match. Fortunately, the match went 7 minutes. That isn't very long, but I thought it was only going to go 2 or 3 minutes. Plus, those 7 minutes were very fun to watch and I felt the quality of what we saw made for a satisfying finish to Raw. The match was well booked. I liked the rule of having one member of the team in the ring at all times (as opposed to some triple threat tags were only two men are in the ring and they can tag out to anyone). The match had many nice moments, like Undertaker and Triple H teaming to take out Big Show. I liked how Michaels finally got serious when he got in the ring against Undertaker and took off his DX gear. The brief encounter was well done. The match continued on at a good pace with several tags and each wrestler being able to hit their signature moves. The crowd was hot throughout the main event. It built well to Cena getting the win after the FU on Triple H. Undertaker's surprise Tombstone on Cena to end the show was a nice moment also.

RAW MISSES

Opening Piper's Pit: In the end, there was quite a lot to like about Raw, but early on it was looking ugly right from the start with this edition of Piper's Pit. Later on, they showed multiple celebrities at the arena, but at this point it was very odd and random to have Luis Guzman as a guest for no reason. The bit with the Iron Chef / Iron Sheik mix up was an amusing idea, but it just didn't work. It was a mess of a segment that might have worked better later in the show as the audience might be already committed to watching as opposed to just tuning in and possibly quickly tuning out after seeing this. The "Saturday Night Live" opening was bad too.

Miz (promo) vs. MVP: This Miss is both for Miz's pre-match promo, and the match itself. In general, local cheap heat does not bother me much depending on the situation. But, this is a situation where Miz really went after the Yankees and got the New York crowd chanting for the Yankees, not for Miz's opponent or against Miz himself. It seemed to me that Miz was going to go on to say something about LeBron James being from Cleveland like himself and not coming to the Knicks, but after the strong Yankee chant, Miz went another direction which was smart. I hate the Yankees so I found myself rooting for Miz and not Montel Vontavious Porter and his kiss ass Yankees hat. The match was too short at under 4 minutes. I don't mind Miz getting a strong win, but MVP has been built up lately too and looked bad for losing so easy to Miz. This did nothing to hype MVP's involvement in Team Kingston at Survivor Series or Miz captaining his own team.

Melina vs. Fox: A Divas Championship match that lasts less than 2 minutes? Give me a break. If you can't trust the Divas to have even a 5 minute match, especially for a Title, then what's the point of having them wrestle at all? There is talent in the division. I don't get diminishing them to this type of roll. At Survivor Series they will have a traditional elimination tag match that will probably have about eight eliminations and last maybe 4 minutes.

Bourne vs. Swagger: These two have had too many matches since coming to Raw. This one was only 2 minutes as it was joined in progress. This was particularly disappointing because of how little wrestling action we had seen up to that point. Instead of giving us a nice long (or even decent length) match, they joined it in progress and only showed 2 minutes. This did nothing to hype Survivor Series. It made Swagger look strong, but Bourne look weak.

Selling Survivor Series: I'm glad that DX seemed to put their angle with Hornswoggle to bed finally, but it is too late. Once again, they came out to discuss the triple threat match for the WWE Title, but barely mentioned it so that they could move on to more important matters, Hornswoggle's gimmick infringement. Why should I pay to see a PPV match that the wrestlers themselves aren't taking seriously? Later, John Cena gave a bad promo about the match. He did his normal mix of sort of serious with goofy. Did we need a "Ghostbusters" reference? It was more goofy and silly stuff in what could be a much more serious and impactful build to what could be a great match between these three wrestlers. WWE didn't do much to build anticipation for any of the other matches either other than the great fight between Kingston and Orton. The traditional Survivor Series tag matches weren't hyped at all. Speaking of those matches, my brother pointed something out to me that I hadn't thought of, but I should have. Last month at Bragging Rights, we were expected to believe that there was this huge feud and animosity between the Raw and Smackdown rosters. Now one month later, there are multiple tag matches that feature members of Raw and Smackdown on the same team. So what happened to Raw vs. Smackdown? They wanted to fight each other last month for Bragging Rights, but this month they stand together for a match with nothing on the line. It makes no sense.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and Superstars 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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