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DX Gets Serious: I probably should have titled this Hit "DX Finally Gets Serious" as it is about time. It was odd hearing Triple H admit that after six months of making people laugh (I guess some people laughed) that it was time to be serious now. That is so true. The back and forth between Triple H and Shawn Michaels worked because it reinforced the huge importance of the Royal Rumble match. This is how you hype a PPV; you take two of your biggest stars and have them talk about how important the event is, and what they are going to do to win at all costs. Michaels wants the Undertaker and Triple H wants a WWE Title shot. Their friendship and silliness have to be put aside to attain those goals. Their subsequent match against Legacy was solid. It did further tease tension in DX and Legacy for that matter.
MVP - Miz: After last week's disappointing interaction between Montel Vontavious Porter and The Miz, it was good to see things get back on track this week. MVP delivered a strong promo on Miz before Miz came out to interrupt. Miz was good as usual on the mic. The back and forth between them went well for the most part. They fully established MVP as someone the fans can respect while Miz is a jackass. I could have done without the gay jokes from MVP. I didn't mind the talk about Miz in prison, but questioning his friendship with The Big Show was lame. It is offensive and isn't needed at all in this situation. The segment was perfectly fine without the cheap joke. But, I did like the segment well enough to look past that and still give it a Hit.
Dule Hill: Hill did a good job as the guest host. He sort of reminded me of Seth Green a bit in how he was trying to have fun on Raw. His scenes were all pretty good. He wasn't trying to play favorites with the wrestlers. He wasn't booked as a heel or babyface guest host. He was just trying to have a good time. Variety like that is needed to keep the guest host concept interesting (as opposed to how so many of the hosts have been booked as babyfaces trying to stick it to Chris Jericho and Chavo Guerrero). Hill was amusing in setting off the pyro to interrupt Maryse's promo. His scene in the production truck with Carlito was fine too. It reinforced Hill as having fun and not really knowing what he was doing. I enjoyed his interaction with Alicia Fox which even set up John Cena to make a Tecmo Super Bowl reference (throw in his recent reference to Mike Tyson's Punch Out and I'm reliving my childhood. I'm also having bad flashbacks to Christian Okoye running wild on my defense).
McMahon - Cena: This was a very interesting segment for a lot of reasons. Vince McMahon was good in his performance. I liked how he acted tough in saying he would call out Undertaker if he were in the building. His fake out on the fans saying that Bret Hart would never be back in WWE was well done. The first really interesting thing that he said was that Hart is part of the past (very true) and that he is focusing on the present and future (possibly a dig at TNA?). Those could be seen as positives. McMahon as the head of WWE should be focusing on the future, not the past. The next interesting thing was how McMahon actually went into the audience to talk about Hart. I don't recall seeing McMahon do that ever before. It worked well to keep his heel heat. For the life of me, I could not guess who would come out to interrupt McMahon this week and it turned out to be John Cena (it shouldn't have been a surprise considering that Cena almost always appears at the top of the second hour of Raw). The next interesting moment was when Cena acknowledged one of the main criticisms against McMahon's WWE which is the treatment of the wrestlers as commodities and not people. This was almost uncomfortable to listen to as what Cena said rang true, yet it was a scripted moment meant to take the real life heat on McMahon's business practices and transfer it into wrestling heat on McMahon's character. Does Cena actually believe what he said? Either way, it was good in a way to hear someone say it. Cena definitely did deliver a very good performance on the mic in ultimately convincing McMahon to invite Hart back on the show next week. The segment even had the strong ending with McMahon announcing the main event of Cena vs. Sheamus.
Royal Rumble Video: I know this is basically the same video with a few changes and additions that WWE plays every year. But, I enjoy it every year and give it a Hit every year. This year was no different. It does a great job of making the Rumble feel important and special and the stats give it more of a real sports feel.
Sheamus vs. Cena: This was a good main event. Sheamus and Cena performed well in this physical match. Sheamus looked strong as the WWE Champion as he was able to twice avoid Cena's finisher. He punished Cena for much of the match, but Cena got in his signature spots to make the fans happy. Cena got a larger babyface reaction from the crowd than he often gets. I don't like how Cena plays dead for a 9 count then magically jumps up and into the ring to beat the 10 count. We've seen him do that before and it is a bit too cartoonish for my tastes. However, that was my only complaint in the match. It was predictable that Randy Orton would get involved, but his attack on Sheamus at the end worked well. It was also interesting to see Cena standing tall over both the Champion and the challenger for the WWE Title match at the PPV. That was a good way to remind the audience that whoever wins between Sheamus and Orton might have to deal with Cena at WrestleMania. Also, with DX appearing on this week's Smackdown, it was good to keep them off the end of Raw where the focus was on Cena.
RAW MISSES
MVP Squashed: After the good verbal confrontation between Miz and MVP, I was disappointed to see MVP squashed by Big Show again (last week it wasn't a match, but he still knocked MVP out). It is impossible to make every member of a wrestling roster look strong at the same time. I understand that WWE has to make some wrestlers appear stronger and higher on the card than others, and that they wanted to make Show look dominant going into the Royal Rumble. However, WWE is building up MVP as the #1 contender for the US Championship. Big Show's dominance should not come at the expense of MVP at this time.
Divas Matches: If anyone is wondering if I am getting tired of giving short Divas matches on Raw Misses, the answer is "yes!" Part of me feels like it has become a meaningless complaint. The Divas are never going to get longer than 3 minutes (and so often less than that) for their matches on Raw. So, why should I keep pointing it out week in and week out? Well, I guess because it still bothers me. It might be the norm and it might never change. However, that doesn't mean that its right or good. Maryse vs. Eve was going along perfectly fine until it ended in about 2 minutes. Perhaps if they gave them even 5 or 6 minutes the matches wouldn't be very good. But, how are they supposed to improve as performers in 2 minutes of action? The same can be said for Gail Kim vs. Alicia Fox which was even shorter.
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. Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
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