By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: Raw got off to a good start this week with the opening segment featuring Triple H addressing the Brock Lesnar situation. Triple H gave a good promo about how Lesnar really didn't bring legitimacy back to WWE and how he always quits when things get hard. That was an interesting route to take. Paul Heyman was good in his rebuttal, presenting The Game with a lawsuit on behalf of Lesnar for breaking his oral contract. I didn't like the line about bringing a fighter into an entertainment company. That type of line doesn't belong on WWE tv. But, other than that it was a nice segment featuring good performances from Triple H and Heyman, especially when Triple H put his hands on Heyman. It is gearing up for something big down the line. I like the slow approach to build to an eventual (presumably) match between Triple H and Lesnar. It is a contrast to everything else on the show where we are expected to care about matches with very little time to build towards them. I think it is telling that in the same amount of time, WWE has created more intrigue for a match that isn't on the books yet, than for any match that is actually happening on the PPV.

That was it for the Hits on this show. Not everything that followed was bad, but none of it was Hit worthy. C.M. Punk & Santino Marella vs. Cody Rhodes & Daniel Bryan was okay. Marella's humor was funny, but out of place here. Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho was good, but had the predictable finish and is too big of a potential PPV match up to be thrown on tv for free with such little hype. It was fine, and I am pretty much used to WWE doing that, but it still wasn't quite a Hit. I would like to get excited over a possible Sheamus vs. Orton match down the line, but they are giving that away too quickly on Smackdown (though presumably Daniel Bryan and Alberto Del Rio will get involved). Everything after that opening was bad or ok at best.

RAW MISSES

John Laurinaitis Show: I said multiple times in the run-up to WrestleMania that I was worried that whoever gained control of both Raw and Smackdown would have too much of a role on WWE tv going forward, and that was clearly the case this week on Raw. John Laurinaitis was all over this show. He had a "cameo" appearance at the beginning, but what was worse was that two of the major selling points for sticking around to watch the rest of the show involved the general manager. They were telling us to keep watching to see Laurinaitis force The Big Show to apologize, and then keep watching after that to see his big confrontation with John Cena. He has been feuding off and on with CM Punk forever, and has this big PPV match against Cena coming up, then has been feuding with Show over the last week and a half. Meanwhile, what are you doing to get wrestlers over? And it wasn't just the segments that he appeared in. He was also featured in multiple recap videos throughout the show.

Show vs. Kane: This was an ugly match with an even uglier finish. Kane should never attempt to chokeslam Big Show again. Not that I wanted to see the focus on this particular match, but it seemed like as much time was spent showing Laurinaitis ringside than was spent on the match itself. Certainly the announcers talked more about him and Show than the match itself, which is disappointing. Despite the poor quality of the match, I still want to see matches held up as being important and this one wasn't.

Laurinaitis Fires Big Show: This may lead to something big for Show down the line like turning heel and joining Laurinaitis at the PPV, but this was painful to watch. It went on too long. It really dragged. I got bored with it and wanted it to end. Plus it was more of the focus on the GM and not the wrestlers.

Cena - Laurinaitis: Does John Cena understand that performances like this is why so many adult male fans have hated him over the years? I really want to know. The whole "loser, loser, loooooser" Jim Carrey bit was terrible. This is going to be the PPV main event, and he is selling it by acting like a fourth grader on the play ground? Give me a break. I'm a 49ers fan, so I don't really care about the Steel Curtain that much. It is just a cheap pop. That's fine for some wrestlers, but the top star of the company should be above it at this point. Then came the fax from the board of directors saying that Laurinaitis can't have a special referee, or anyone in his corner for the match, and that if anyone interferes, they will be fired (thus Big Show's possible interference since he is already fired), and that if he loses, he will be fired. This just further muddies the waters of who is really in charge. Laurinaitis is in charge, but Eve suddenly has the power to make matches too. Triple H can over rule Laurinaitis' contract negotiations, and now the board is getting involved in a specific match. I understand that Cena didn't want Laurinaitis fired, but the lack of consistency for him not being fired after doing way worse things than Triple H did last year makes no sense. I don't care about any of this storyline and I don't care about this PPV at all.

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 art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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