By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor

TORCH RAW TV POLL: Who was the MVP of the 4/27 WWE Raw? In our weekly Torch poll to pick the MVP of each week's WWE Raw, U.S. champion MVP came out on top with a resounding 37 percent of total votes last night.

In a dead heat for second place were The Miz and Randy Orton, followed by John Cena as the only other wrestler to score significant votes for fourth place. Poor Big Show only picked up one percent of the vote.

MVP represented fresh blood on last night's show. He held his own on the mic with Randy Orton, then wrestled a nice match against Randy Orton before dropping off the face of the earth - as Greg Parks put it in our post-game Raw audio show - when Shane McMahon blasted Orton with Kendo stick shots.

I wouldn't have picked MVP as the MVP of the show (I get the feeling this is going to become a weekly issue in these Poll analysis columns avoiding the constant repeating of "MVP" for one reason or another), but he certainly gave Raw viewers something new to sink their teeth into with Triple H and John Cena off the show.

My MVP pick isn't Randy Orton, either. Orton made sure everyone in the state of Connecticut knew he's the new WWE champion with that slow, slow walk to the ring and center-ring pose, which worked great for his heel character, but I didn't think he was the best performer on the show.

I'm going with The Miz as my MVP of Raw. Granted, the first-half of his eight-minute promo was slow and the crowd sat on their collective hands, but I saw great poise from MVP as he built to the main point of his promo.

Some wrestlers would have panicked if the crowd wasn't responding to a promo, but Miz stuck to his guns and kept building up his promo before going for the jugular with the "Cena's movies don't stay in theaters long enough to see him" line.

Miz clearly established him as a cocky heel, which was slightly different than Matt Hardy's whiny heel. (Yes, subtly is the name of the game.) His final "fake wiping of the tears" toward a ringside fan off-camera - obviously a John Cena fan - was a great final touch on his promo.

John Cena coming out on stage at the end of the show also helped elevate Miz. It showed Cena was afraid of Miz by not answering Miz's challenge 30 minutes earlier. Perhaps Cena's "out" is that he arrived at the building late from the hospital, but Miz was indirectly elevated by Cena facing off against Big Show after ignoring Miz.

In the poll results below, I include the Top Five. I'm slightly concerned about Torch readership if Goldust was given the nod for fifth place. No crowd reaction. Quick squash to Matt Hardy. Perhaps it was just the nostalgia of seeing Goldust on TV that piqued the interest of Torch readers. Or, perhaps Santino(a) Marella whetted readers's appetites for cross-dressing males.

Poll Results as of 5:30 p.m. CST on Monday
Top Five Picks
(1) MVP ... 37%
(2) Randy Orton ... 17%
(3) The Miz ... 17%
(4) John Cena ... 6%
(5) Goldust ... 3% (with most total votes out of a large collection of 3-percenters)

Torch readers write back! How do you see the voting? Have additional thoughts on the poll results? Send in your feedback to pwtorch@gmail.com

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