By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Kane and The Shield: This was s short, but good backstage scene with Kane confronting The Shield and trying to motivate them to exercise their demons against The Rhodes Brothers in order to prove that they can still be an asset. I liked seeing Seth Rollins take the lead on the mic here, questioning Kane's true motivation. Roman Reigns got in the parting shot to Kane that The Shield will take out any demon that gets in their way. This was well done and showed The Shield is currently on the same page.

Heyman: Paul Heyman gave another great promo when he interrupted The Undertaker. I loved his history lesson on how difficult it is to have a winning streak at WrestleMania, bringing up Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Triple H, Steve Austin and John Cena. The longest streak any of them could obtain was 4 wins. That really puts The Streak into perspective (though didn't Edge win something like his first 8 or 9 WM matches?). Heyman was great in his delivery of this well written promo to put over the streak and Undertaker, while also upholding Brock Lesnar as the man who will conquer The Streak this year.

The Shield vs. The Rhodes Bros: These two teams have had a number of good matches against each other and this was no different. It has been disappointing that Cody Rhodes and Goldust have been treated so poorly after losing the Tag Team Titles to The New Age Outlaws in January. So, it was good to see them at least in a nice long match here. This continued to tell the story of The Shied being back on the same page while also allowing Rollins to shine in the ring getting the pin fall on Rhodes after being the focus of their backstage encounter with Kane earlier in the show. I'm still not sure where WWE is going with The Shield at this point. Michael Cole was actually defending Dean Ambrose here in terms of both what happened at The Elimination Chamber and in terms of his lack of US Title defenses. That was a bit odd.

Occupy Raw: This could have been a Hit just from the spectacle of it. It felt new and different. The announcers did a nice job of talking about how this attempt to occupy Raw by Daniel Bryan and members of his Yes! Movement was unprecedented in the 20 (or 30) year history of Raw. It got Bryan where he needed to be going into WrestleMania, with a big time match against Triple H and the possibility of being added to the WWE Title match. That gives fans hope for something big at WM and keeps the Batista vs. Randy Orton main event from looking as bad as it does. All of that was enough to give this a Hit, but The Authority turned in great performances here. I am not a fan of the gimmick. I would like to see the heel authority figure go away for at least five years if not longer. I don't understand having heels pushing business like the WWE Network. But, if you are going to do it, at least give performances like Stephanie McMahon and Triple H gave during this segment. Stephanie in particular was at her best here, maybe ever. I don't recall her ever being this good. There was intensity, there was humor, there was great crowd participation. It was everything it needed to be.

Sheamus vs. Christian: I was not expecting to give this match a Hit. We've just seen this match too many times in the last few weeks, plus I was having bad flashbacks to a similar gimmick match last year between Dolph Ziggler and Damian Sandow. But, Sheamus and Christian once again delivered a good match. The gimmicky weapons weren't nearly as bad as Ziggler vs. Sandow, though I still would take fewer jokes from the announcers during a match like this. The fight was physical and intense. I am assuming this is the final match between these two since Christian didn't do anything to get heat back afterwards as opposed to after their other matches like last week on Raw. And, the Brogue Kick through the drum was a pretty cool move to end the match.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: It was cool to see Hulk Hogan and John Cena in the ring together and I did like the promo from Bray Wyatt after he interrupted, but I was still ultimately let down by the opening segment. The biggest issue is that WWE hyped that Hulk Hogan was going to be on to make a big WrestleMania announcement and that announcement turned out to be a lame 30 man battle royal. That announcement fell flat. I don't really care if it is in honor of Andre The Giant. It just isn't special in any way to me and doesn't seem WM worthy. This is a lame way to get everyone on the roster a WM pay day. I didn't believe for one second that John Cena actually wanted to be part of the battle royal. As I said, I did like Wyatt's interruption. His line about being a god was strong. However, I didn't like Cena singing "Margaritaville" to Wyatt. It set up Cena vs. Erick Rowan which I didn't care about either. So, it was a Miss of an opening segment.

Divas Situation: AJ Lee keeps losing non-title matches and looking very week as the Divas Champion. She just lost in a tag match to Natalya last week setting up Natalya's Title shot at Main Event. Here, in another tag match, AJ lost to Nikki Bella. That should set up Nikki to get a future Title shot. We've seen her lose to Cameron in non-title situations lately too. And she had been feuding with Naomi before Naomi got hurt. I suspect she will be back soon and in the title picture. The problem is that WWE books the Divas like they have ADD. They don't allow any one program to stick or develop over time. One Diva gets a non-title victory over AJ, then loses the next week in their Title opportunity, and then another Diva is inserted in the same position. At this point, I'm assuming we are heading for a multi-Diva Title match at WM which won't be any good instead of building up to a meaningful singles Title match which depending on the opponent could actually be a good WM match.

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.

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