By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Rhodes vs. Booker T: I wasn't thrilled with WWE giving this rematch from the PPV away for free with no advanced hype. That makes no sense to me. Why not give satisfying conclusions to feuds to your paying customers? At least the match ended up being a good one. Cody Rhodes and Booker T did work well together and put on a good match. The match went 12 minutes which was the right amount of time (it didn't seem too short, but didn't over stay its welcome or expose Booker's ring rust). As Rhodes was beating down Booker, they did a few nice teases of come backs to get the crowd excited, only to have Rhodes regain control. It told a good story and built to a satisfying conclusion.

Cena - Miz - Truth: This was a good segment as it accomplished multiple goals. It allowed John Cena a chance to address the Kane situation. He also was able to recap some of his and WWE's history in Chicago. The Miz was a nice surprise. I liked how he recapped his year and his feud with Cena and how his win over Cena at WrestleMania was tainted because of the involvement of The Rock. The Miz was very good in the mic. The match wasn't really a match which was fine in this case. Miz continued his good mic work after the match was over. R-Truth's return was fairly well received by the fans. They were a little mixed at first, but seemed to be on his side in the end. The beat down of Miz was well done. It was a good first step in having Truth as a babyface without losing that whacky insane quality that made him entertaining as a heel.

Kane's Promo: I have said it before and I will say it again now. I am not a fan of Kane returning with a mask and wig. It is cheesy. It is ridiculous that the announcers haven't mentioned it. They should be talking about it and questioning why he is once again wearing a mask. But, they don't, because they suck. If he is going to wear a mask, then it almost makes more sense to have him silent like he was for so long in his early WWE career with the mask. But, I believe this same character would work just as well without the mask. The mask adds nothing, and by having him cut a long promo on Cena at the end of the show, you undermine the mystique of the mask. That being said, the promo was very good. I have been curious to see where WWE goes with the angle involving Cena and the boos. I wasn't into it at first, but am starting to come around. I have been very interested in Kane's role, and said last week in my Hits & Misses that I was intrigued by the fact that Kane specifically targeted Cena's "Rise Above the Hate" t-shirt. I was right that there was meaning in that as Kane addressed it this week. He gave a strong promo about Cena, the fans and hate. It makes it seem like this is part of a "turn Cena heel" angle, but time will tell exactly what WWE has in mind which is great. It is a storyline in its infancy and hopefully WWE won't let it grow up too fast. Lets enjoy the journey and see where they are going with Kane and Cena between now and The Royal Rumble and possibly beyond.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I wasn't a big fan of Raw's opening this week. It wasn't bad and there were some good parts to it, but in the end it was a Miss. I'm just not excited to see John Laurinaitis come out to start a show. It puts me in a bad mood. The verbal sparring that took place between him and CM Punk was ok at best. There were some good lines in there, but not enough. I wasn't thrilled with the Gauntlet proposal as they tend to make mid-card heels look bad as one after another loses to a top babyface. That wasn't necessarily the case this week, but I figured it would be. In the end, the gauntlet was solid, and didn't bury three heels like I feared, but it wasn't quite good enough to get a Hit either. Getting back to the opening, I also found it stupid how Laurinaitis has all the power, yet he told Punk that he was left with no choice but to give into Punk's demand for a match with himself if Punk were to successfully run the gauntlet. That made no sense. And I wasn't looking forward to seeing him in the ring either. Then came another totally ignored 1/2/12 video. Why am I supposed to get excited about this mystery if it isn't even presented as a mystery by the announcers? Next week if they say something like "for weeks we've been seeing these mysterious videos and we will find out what they mean tonight!" I might just puke. Then came the abrupt announcement that Rhodes vs. Booker was coming up next which seemed to make a joke out of the notion of hyping a match or giving satisfying conclusions to feuds at an actual PPV.

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

[Torch photo (c) PWTorch.com]

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