By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

The Shield - Team Hell No / Orton: This Hit is for what WWE did with these six wrestlers in multiple segments during the show. They once again did a nice job early on of playing up the fact that The Shield is united while Randy Orton, Daniel Bryan and Kane are not. Kane vs. Dean Ambrose was a solid match. My only issue with it was something the announcers said during the match. Michael Cole said something to the effect that the other wrestlers are put off by Ambrose in the back because he is a little off. This bothered me as I don't like the idea of any member of The Shield interacting in a casual way with other members of the WWE locker room. That just seems to go against the grain of them being on their own, coming through the crowd instead of the entrance ramp, and attacking anyone and everyone on the roster. I don't want to hear anyone saying "I ran into Seth Rollins in catering earlier." Other than that, the match was fine and set up Orton and Bryan to make the save for Kane and show at least some unity, though it was certainly an uneasy unity. The backstage segment with those three and then Vickie Guerrero was pretty good and followed up nicely on where they've been going. I like the fact that Vickie would give Bryan and Orton a Tag Team Championship match since they did beat the Tag Team Champs on Smackdown. And I laughed when Kane hugged Vickie.

Orton vs. Reigns: All of that led up to Orton taking on Roman Reigns. These two had a good match. I was a bit surprised to see it go nearly 12 minutes. I thought it would be half that length, so it was a pleasant surprise that it went longer and they delivered a good match. Daniel Bryan played his part well as the reluctant cheerleader in Orton's corner. The announcers did a nice job of talking about how he didn't really look like he wanted to be there. The match went back and forth and built nicely to Seth Rollins getting involved which led to Bryan making the save as the match was ruled a no contest. That lack of a finish worked well in this instance.

Bryan vs. Rollins: That match led to this one, which was a match that many of us have been looking forward to for awhile. Bryan and Rollins got over 15 minutes for their match and they definitely delivered. I enjoyed this match immensely from start to finish. It had the great strikes from Bryan along with the "Yes!" chants from the crowd that we've come to expect in his matches. He continues to shine in the ring. Rollins performed very well too. I loved seeing him use Bryan's surf board against him, only to have Bryan reverse the hold and get Rollins in the surfboard which he really locked in. That was a great sequence. They did a nice job playing into the idea that Bryan might lose confidence as the match progressed as he was not able to put Rollins away. How would his inferiority complex play into the end of the match? They worked very well together and put on a very good match. The ending with Orton keeping Reigns from interfering allowing Bryan to get the inside cradle win was strong, as was Orton and Bryan's teamwork in fighting off The Shield afterwards.

Kaitlyn's Admirer: I am giving this a Hit even though I had some issues with it. I like the fact that the reveal of Big E Langston as Kaitlyn's secret admirer made sense. It was a big joke on Kaitlyn by Langston and AJ. That explains (though the announcers didn't point this out) how her admirer seemed to know so much about her, because it was her former best friend. I'm glad that this isn't leading to a love story for Kaitlyn. This fits in well with the long feud between them and leads to Kaitlyn wanting to get revenge while AJ is trying to win the Divas Title. AJ was very strong in her role, but Kaitlyn was really bad. Langston was actually good in his role as well, but Kaitlyn was really bad. Did I mention that Kaitlyn was really bad?

Sheamus: This was a small moment on the show, but I liked seeing a serious Sheamus addressing Damian Sandow after Sandow's win over R-Truth (by the way, I'm not a fan of Sandow's new finisher, The Silencer. What happened to the Terminus?). After what Sandow did to Sheamus on Smackdown, it was a relief to see Sheamus serious and threatening and not joking like he often has done in the past.

Cena - Ryback: This is a minor Hit. I like Ryback's new gig coming out in the ambulance. It will be interesting to see if it continues past Payback, but obviously it will only continue if he wins the WWE Title. There was some good mic work in this segment between Ryback and John Cena, though there was some clunky exchanges as well. It reinforced the idea that Ryback is upset about being screwed so often out of a chance to win the WWE Title and that he blames Cena for a lot of what has happened to him over the last 8 months. Cena had a good comeback about Ryback whining and complaining too often. Cena went a little over the top at times almost seeming a bit desperate to get the fans hyped by using words like ass and bitch. I did appreciate the fact that Cena tried to attack Ryback and the lumberjacks were actually effective in the end of keeping them separated. I expected them to easily pull apart from the lumberjacks numerous times to brawl, but WWE showed restraint in that which was good.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I chuckled some when Triple H restarted his match against Curtis Axel a second time as a 60 minute Iron Man Match. That was funny. The rest of this didn't interest me much. I'm just not interested in the McMahon family saga. Having this power play start the show pointed to the fact that it was likely to be a McMahon heavy Raw which I was not looking forward to. WWE has done such a poor job over the last few years of defining the power roles in the company, whether it be from various McMahons or from the on air authority figures like Vickie Guerrero and Booker T. This fed into that where Vince McMahon can order a match to end, but Triple H has the authority (according to the announcers) to overrule that decision, but Vince has the authority to overrule the overrule. Power plays and family struggles from non-wrestlers or part time wrestlers don't interest me as a professional wrestling fan.

McMahons: As I feared, Raw did go on to be pretty heavy with the McMahon family. It is good to see that Stephanie McMahon has been taking acting lessons in the last few years when she hasn't been on tv very much. Just terrible. Of course, they would replay those long segments multiple times during the show. I didn't like seeing them once; I certainly didn't need to see them again and again. After her scene with her husband, Stephanie then had a scene with her father. Which gave them one more thing to replay later in the show. Joy. We then got a scene returning to what they were doing last year with Vince bullying Vickie (who they reminded everyone is fat with her hogging the hamburger from Brad Maddox) and telling her how to do her job. Why have Vickie at all if Vince is just going to really run the show? Then, the final payoff was a hug it out scene with Stephanie tricking both to come to her office. This was strange. I'm not sure what the purpose of it was supposed to be. Was it supposed to be funny how Vince and Triple H changed positions on the match with Curtis Axel? If so, it wasn't. A lot of tv time was given to this saga, and none of it was good.

Colter - Cole: The bickering between Zeb Colter and Michael Cole during Antonio Cesaro vs. Sin Cara was pretty brutal to listen to. Cole should feel ashamed of not knowing that Puerto Rico is part of America. But to me, the bigger issue is that Coulter was too reasonable. Why not make him totally heel and be totally xenophobic? He should be more extreme in his political views. Saying that he is fine with Cesaro because he came here legally through proper channels as opposed to someone sneaking across the border illegally sounds like a reasonable point of view that many conservatives have. They tried to play up the idea that he is making assumptions about Cara being here illegally, but they didn't do a good enough job with that aspect of it. Coulter needs to be much more extreme in his views to really come across as heelish enough for Cole's indignation against him to seem more warranted at this point.

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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