By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

I attended Raw live this week and have not yet watched the actual broadcast. So, this week's Raw Hits & Misses is going to be a bit different. I won't be able to complain about Michael Cole (although I am going to just assume he did a poor job and said "vintage" too many times). This is based on what I liked and what I didn't like while watching live in the arena. It is hard to say if my perception would have been different if I was watching on TV, but I doubt it. I will also throw in a few thoughts on the live show and what might not have been seen on TV.

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: After the NXT taping (which didn't have a lot of crowd heat), WWE started things off right to get the crowd into it with Shawn Michaels who got a huge pop when he came out, but more boos than cheers as he delivered his promo on ending Undertaker's streak. This was a really good promo from Michaels. He definitely seemed to be playing more of the heel role here. I liked how he talked up some of his top moments in his career and equated them to what he plans to do at WrestleMania in terms of feeling like he can do anything. The Undertaker tease worked well as a message from the Dead Man. It was a decent way of including a DVD plug into the show. Pete Rose was poor on the mic, but at least he made Michaels vs. Kane and connected it to his own past in WWE. (I don't know how it came off on tv, but the ring crew had not yet changed the white ropes to red before this segment. They changed them to red during Raw's first commercial break)

Miz vs. Morrison: On the whole, the matches between these former Tag Team Champions have been underwhelming (not bad, but just decent). But, I really enjoyed this match. For Raw, at over 8 minutes it was a good length. Seeing John Morrison hit that moonsault to the outside was incredible. Miz looked good in the match too (there was a small group that tried to start a "you can't wrestle" chant at Miz, but thankfully it quickly went away). I was not expecting a clean win in this match, so I was pleasantly surprised when Morrison hit Starship Pain and picked up the victory.

Bret Hart: This was a good basic promo from Bret Hart summarizing his time back in WWE leading to his match against Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania. The crowd was definitely behind Hart in big way. I am glad he didn't mention the fake broken leg angle which has been the worst part of this storyline. He kept it simple and focused on the crux of the situation: he has had a bad taste in his mouth for 12 years and will finally get rid of it by beating McMahon on Sunday. McMahon's appearance at the end seemed a bit anticlimactic, but it was still a good over all segment.

Kane vs. Michaels: I was disappointed that this wasn't a longer match, but I understand why it wasn't. The wrestling action between Kane and Michaels was good. It was interesting to see Michaels use multiple submission holds as a tease for what he will try to do against Undertaker. (When the lights went out, from where we were sitting we could see Undertaker slipping in and out of the ring, but not Kane.) I really liked how this was booked. A few weeks ago, Undertaker destroyed all four men in a tag match using different potential finishing moves to send a message to Michaels. Here, he used one of those moves, a chokeslam on Michaels, but Michaels sent his own message by kicking out. Then he slipped out of Kane's attempt at one of the other finishers, a Tombstone, and quickly hit the Superkick for the victory. That was a great way to work hype for a PPV match into a Raw match.

Batista: Batista is quite simply doing the best work of his career right now. On tv, I have enjoyed seeing Batista's new pyro-free spot light entrance. However, I never fully appreciated it until seeing it live. It is such a stark contrast to pretty much every one else when you see the entrance set totally dark other than the titan tron as he comes to the ring and during his promo. When John Cena came out, you could see how his colorful entrance juxtaposed to Batista's. On to the promo itself. Batista was great on the mic. I loved when he made fun of Cena's catch phrases. He was hilarious in pointing out fat fans in the audience. He definitely had the most heat on the show. As for Cena's promo, we could not hear the first half as he was speaking very quietly. I honestly have no clue what he said, and the crowd quickly grew restless and started a "you can't wrestle" chant. Cena gave his haters the opportunity to chant and boo him because of his understated tone. I wish I could have heard what he said. As the promo proceeded, he got louder and we could finally hear him. That part of the segment finally got good when Cena started talking about how Batista isn't good at his job or he wouldn't need the security, and would have finished Cena off already. The brawl that followed was well done. On the whole, even with some reservations about Cena's delivery, Batista carried this segment and the show ended with a good final sell for Batista vs. Cena at WM.

RAW MISSES

Kingston vs. Kozlov: I did not like this match for multiple reasons. I don't ever like seeing Vladimir Kozlov. To me this seemed like it served a similar purpose as a Kozlov squash. He dominated the match against Kofi Kingston. He was being reintroduced to the Raw audience, and just like in a squash, he was able to hit most of his signature spots. The only difference was that Kingston won in the end. He hit about two moves and won. That didn't do much for Kozlov that it took only two moves to beat him. Having Kingston dominated for all 2 minutes of this match didn't do much for him a week after being dominated by Batista. Kingston got a good pop from the crowd, but I honestly believe it would have been bigger a month ago. It was boring when Kozlov was in control, and that was the bulk of the match. We didn't see what makes Kingston special in the ring. I have said multiple times in my Hits & Misses that I thought eight wrestlers was pushing it already in Money in the Bank, and I am worried that ten is just going to be too many.

Legacy Promo: The mic work from Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes was actually quite good during their pre-match promo. I even liked a lot of what they had to say about Randy Orton and how they are the future of this business. I am giving it a marginal Miss, because the passive aggressive shots that DiBiase and Rhodes gave to each other were way too little, way too late to make possible tension between them seem realistic. WWE wants us to buy the possibility that they won't be able to work together against Orton at WrestleMania. However, until these three very small statements were made on their last chance to hype the match, there hadn't even been a tease of tension. Some might say that at least WWE made an attempt, but I say that if this is all the attempt you are going to make, why bother?

Divas "Match": I have been complaining for so long about short six diva tag matches on Raw, but this was the worst one yet. It lasted less than a minute! And, in addition to the six divas in the match, there were several others at ringside and none of them mattered in any way shape or form. It was one of the most pointless segments in wrestling history. Why bother having them all come to the ring for that? As my brother asked afterwards, "if you just want them there for eye candy, don't you want them on screen for longer?" There is no Divas match yet set for WrestleMania, and I hope they don't add one at this point. If they aren't going to, why are they even on the final Raw before WM? It makes no sense. (On a side note for those of you who are interested in off camera happenings, during the final two commercial breaks on Raw, Josh Mathews joined Michael Cole at the announce table to tape segments for NXT while Jerry Lawler sat to the side off camera.)

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