By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Cena and Make-a-Wish: The cynical part of me wanted to roll my eyes a little bit during this self congratulatory segment, and I am as a general rule very cynical and I don't like when rich people pat themselves on the back too much for the charity work that they do. But, it was still a very nice moment and my less cynical self won out as I'm giving it a Hit. The work that John Cena and the rest of the WWE Superstars do with the Make-a-Wish Foundation is great. This was a very nice moment on the special Make-a-Wish day with Cena granting very special wishes to the three kids. Kudos to Cena and the entire company, not only for the work that they do, but also for doing this in a classy way, and to the fans for not starting a "Cena Sucks" chant in the middle of it. Though it did seem like a mostly pro-Cena crowd to me.

Orton vs. Rhodes: One good thing about the 3 hour Raws is that we seem to be getting some longer matches which is good, though of course, they could have given longer matches on a 2 hour Raw. Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes had a good match. It went 16 minutes and was enjoyable to watch from start to finish. I expected the match to be about 5 minutes without a commercial and for Orton to dominate Rhodes, so it was unexpected to me that the match went as long as it did and that Rhodes got in a very credible near fall after the Cross Rhodes. I do have an issue with the fact that random mid Raw matches should not feature a wrestler kicking out of another wrestler's finisher. That should be saved for a big match at a big stage like a PPV or at the very least a heavily hyped Raw main event. I also wish the announcers would have paid more attention to the match and less to making mustache jokes. Tell a story about why this match is happening. What are the ramifications of the match? What would a win mean for Orton? For Rhodes? The announcing should come up to the level of the wrestling.

The Shield Promo: In general, I have liked The Shield's backstage video promos better than their in ring live ones, but they did a good job here. This was probably their best in ring mic work to date as they put themselves over for all of the opponents that they have destroyed in the ring, culminating in The Undertaker last week on Smackdown. I was a bit bewildered by the interruption from 3MB, but I suppose it did follow from a previous storyline so that was fine. It was followed by the strong interruption by Team Hell No to continue their feud with The Shield.

Swagger vs. Ryder: It was good to see WWE giving a strong win to Jack Swagger. Zack Ryder got in some offense, but this was a 3 minute squash that effectively built up Swagger and gave Zeb Colter a chance to show off his mean streak by hitting Ryder afterwards.

Cena & Team Hell No vs. The Shield: I wasn't a fan of how this match came to be (more later), but this was a good main event. I liked how it told a few different stories. The first was about John Cena's ankle. How injured is it? Will he be able to wrestle with it? Will either Daniel Bryan or Kane tag out to him after he tweaked his ankle early in the match? The other was about Kane wanting revenge on The Shield for what they did to Undertaker on Smackdown last week. We saw that play out early on when Cena had to step in and keep Kane from getting disqualified and then later on when he wanted to put Dean Ambrose through the announce table which cost him at that moment. The match had good wrestling action. I really want to see Bryan in a singles match against Seth Rollins. There was some interference from Rollins and another ankle tweaking on Cena, but I liked the fact that Roman Reigns pinned Cena after a big spear. That made him look very strong. The ending with Ryback coming out to reveal that he wasn't really gone from the building was a bit anti-climactic, but the main event was very good.

RAW MISSES

Langston vs. Colter vs. Rodriguez: This match may not have landed on the Miss side if it had happened at a different part of the show, or had felt more important. But, I wasn't a fan of starting Raw off with a comedy match. If we are supposed to take match stipulations at Extreme Rules seriously, then why have the stipulation for the World Title triple threat match determined in a comedy match? It also didn't feel important enough to start off the show.

Twin Magic Reversal: This is a minor thing, but I would like to see consistency in the rules of WWE. As John Bradshaw Layfield said, there is no instance replay in WWE. So, why did the referee reverse the decision just because Cameron told him that Nikki and Brie Bella switched places? That was just stupid.

Dominos: I have never been a fan of this type of product placement in WWE, particularly some of the work they did with Subway in the past. But, this was just ridiculous with Jerry Lawler ordering a pizza and then tracking it for awhile and then having it get delivered to the fans. Again, it isn't a huge deal, but it was annoying and more filler that I don't need to see which is more reason why 3 hours is just too much.

Champion vs. Champion: Two Smackdowns ago, the United States Champion Kofi Kingston had a "very special" Champion vs. Champion match against the Intercontinental Champion Wade Barrett. I gave it a Miss and talked about how stupid it was to try and act like a Champion vs. Champion match was special when they happen so often. Here were are, a week and a half later and we see another one on Raw, between Kingston and the World Champion Dolph Ziggler. The match itself was good, which isn't surprising given how good their matches have been. But, we've seen it so many times. It wasn't special at all and it seems like Ziggler should be winning non-Title matches without having that much help from AJ and Big E Langston, but that did help to protect the US Champion. So, while I did like the in ring work from Kingston and Ziggler, the match shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Tug Of War: You can add Tug Of War to the list of segments that I never need to see in WWE again like arm wrestling contests and dance offs (more later). It was giving me bad flashbacks to the late 90s when WWE tried to get Mark Henry over by showing his tests of strengths. It seems like he should be so far beyond this type of segment given where he has come and how good he has been over the last few years to have him want to prove that he is indeed the strongest man in the world. And the announcers were again terrible here. How did Michael Cole go from thinking it was going to be a bull rope match like JBL used to have to being an expert on Tug Of War able to quote stats, rules and history?

Cena / Ryback / Team Hell No / Shield Saga: I don't really know how hurt John Cena's ankle is, but it seemed like the only reason why WWE was changing the announced main event of Cena & Ryback vs. The Shield was because Cena couldn't wrestle. Then he ended up in the main event in the end instead of Ryback. I get what WWE was doing with Ryback, but to me a better approach is to set the main event and hype it and build to it throughout the show instead of changing it multiple times. And who is running this show? Cena was cleared to wrestle and wanted to wrestle. How did Ryback have the authority to take Cena out of the match? When Cena was replaced by Team Hell No, how did Ryback have the authority to refuse to team with them? Shouldn't there be consequences to him refusing to wrestle? He doesn't have Big Show's iron clad contract does he? And if Cena was cleared to wrestle, why wouldn't Vickie and Brad Maddox want him to team with Team Hell No? And if they didn't want him to wrestle, how did he have the authority to put himself back in the match?

Cesaro Loses Again: Of course, Antonio Cesaro should lose to Alberto Del Rio at this point, but Cesaro is losing way too often recently, so again this match probably should not have taken place. The match itself was solid with a strong ending, but Del Rio needed a squash win over a lower card opponent like Swagger got more than this. I do like the longer matches, but want to see them done in the right context. Cesaro has been treated like a jobber lately, so it didn't elevate Del Rio when it took him over 13 minutes to get the win. And now, WWE expects us to tune into Main Event to see two losers in Kingston vs. Cesaro for a meaningless Title.

Dance Off: As I said earlier, there are some types of segments that I never want to see on Raw or Smackdown and Dance Offs are definitely on the list. After all of the interaction that Fandango has had recently with Chris Jericho, having him in a Dance Contest against The Great Khali was a step backwards for him. These are the types of segments that he was in when he first debuted a few months ago and he should have already moved past them. And the joke that Khali has trouble speaking English is not funny. This was a total waste of time and was not entertaining 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 Travis Beaven (c) PWTorch.com]

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