By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Reigns vs. Orton & Kane: This was a solid match to which I will give a marginal Hit. The match was well scripted to give Roman Reigns the win over Kane without hurting Kane or Randy Orton too much since Orton left Kane. This continues to build towards a singles match between Reigns and Orton, presumably at SummerSlam. After a lot of talking to start the show, it was good to see a 12+ minute match. But as others have said, Roman Reigns has to start actually doing some wrestling moves. I know you can counter and say that John Cena doesn't do a lot of moves either, but Reigns punches, kicks, clotheslines, and does a spear. He also does a samoan drop. Everything he does like the SuperMan punch and the dropkick on the outside to the opponent on the inside are cool looking and he usually executes them well. His move set worked in tag matches with The Shield where you had Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins doing a lot more and then he could come in and hit those signature spots and get pops. I don't think that will translate well to being a top singles star.

Stephanie McMahon: I am not a fan of The Authority. I am tired of the heel authority figures in general. But, I do continue to enjoy Stephanie McMahon's performances. She and Brie Bella were both good in their roles during their confrontation at the ring side area. I had a feeling that that might lead to Stephanie getting arrested and was glad when it did. She played her part to perfection when she was confronted by the police and was eventually handcuffed and taken out of the arena. I am looking forward to seeing her show back up next week to address the situation and to confront Triple H for staying at Raw and not coming down to the jail right away (since they won't have had a chance to talk about it off camera over the next week).

Paige Destroys AJ: AJ vs. Paige would have been better at Battle Ground if WWE had gone all the way with a heel turn for Paige after losing the Divas Championship. Instead, they went with the watered down "frenemy" angle. Paige works better as a heel. She never really connected with the fans as a babyface. AJ certainly has the ability to be very popular with the fans. So, it was good to see Paige going 100% heel here while building sympathy for the babyface AJ. The beat down was very well executed by Paige and AJ sold well for it.

Cesaro vs. Ambrose: I enjoyed the main event match between Cesaro and Dean Ambrose. That spot where Ambrose dove over the top rope only to be hit by that huge European uppercut from Cesaro was awesome. Ambrose and Cesaro worked very well together to put on a good match. I assumed that they were going to have Cesaro get disqualified when he was continuing to kick Ambrose in the corner, so that Ambrose would get the win while protecting Cesaro. WWE turned the tables on that expected outcome when Ambrose turned the tables on Cesaro and ended up getting himself disqualified. In general, I'm not a fan of a babyface doing that, but it works for Ambrose's lunatic fringe character.

Paul Heyman: We all knew that Paul Heyman's Plan C was going to be Brock Lesnar. But, it worked despite being predictable. The reason it worked was the great mic work to end Raw from Heyman. Heyman was brilliant in the way that he weaved Lesnar's conquering of The Streak with him conquering the legend of John Cena. It was well written and very well delivered. This was a great first step in the build to the SummerSlam main event. It will be interesting to see how Cena responds next week on Raw.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I was not a big fan of this Raw and my dislike of it started out pretty much from the start with Triple H coming out to talk about who he would name as the #1 contender to the WWE World Championship to face John Cena at SummerSlam. It was a lot of talking and none of that talking was very good. Triple H's snarky comments about complaining and tweeting were out of place. If they are upset about the complaints from fans about Battle Ground or the product in general, scripting Triple H to make fun of the complainers isn't a good way to handle it. The interruptions from Randy Orton and then Kane were not good. Neither was the interruption from Roman Reigns. At least the heel Orton had a good argument that he had never gotten a singles rematch after losing the Title at WrestleMania. At least the heel Kane had an argument that he had been held back in his attempts to win the Title since he was supposed to protect Orton. The babyface Reigns' argument was that the fans want to see it. He didn't say he was deserving. He didn't say that he had earned it. That was weak.

Dallas vs. Sandow: I don't understand having Bo Dallas facing a heel. Yes he is funny, but he can be a funny heel. He can be entertaining and still get booed. Why have him running over El Torito one week to get boos, but then facing Damian Sandow to get cheers the next? It does him a disservice to not be consistent with his character. And it continues to be a waste of Sandow's talent to have him get cheap local heat that doesn't register with the rest of the viewing audience.

The Highlight Reel: This is a marginal Miss. I liked some of Bray Wyatt's promo as he took over The Highlight Reel from the injured Chris Jericho. The pre-segment beat down of Jericho by The Wyatt Family in the locker room was well done. Part of my problem is that Wyatt basically said that he didn't care that he had lost to Jericho the night before. He made it seem like his PPV match was inconsequential. But, if the wrestlers don't actually care about their matches, then why should I? He also used a cliche about digging two graves when you go out for revenge as a line that Sister Abigail always told him. I didn't realize that she spoke in cliches. That's just disappointing because of how good and original sounding his promos tend to be. It had some good moments, but on the whole I was let down by this promo and considering their match wasn't very good, I'm not really looking forward to more from these two.

Ziggler vs. Miz: There was actually quite a lot to like in this match between Dolph Ziggler and the new Intercontinental Champion The Miz. I like the work Miz is doing now. But, the protect-your-face-at-all-costs gimmick isn't really a long term gimmick to me. The match itself was pretty good, but I am giving it a Miss for two reasons. The first is how annoying it was hearing the wrestlers calling their spots. I know it is nothing new since WWE started broadcasting in HD a few years ago, but this is the worst that I've ever noticed it. It was very distracting to me. This is something that WWE really needs to address in multiple ways to put an end to it. More importantly, the second issue is that it is totally ridiculous (though unfortunately totally predictable) that WWE would have their new IC Champion lose his first match after winning the Title. They need to come up with ways to build challengers without having them just beat the Champions in non-title matches. The champs should be better than this, even a heel like Miz.

Cesaro Dumps Heyman: This was so anti-climactic. After breaking away from Zeb Colter and Jack Swagger the night after WrestleMania to join with Paul Heyman, I assumed that one day there would be a babyface turn for Cesaro when he finally dumped Heyman. So, I was very disappointed how he just sort of mentioned to Triple H that he had made a business decision to no longer be a Paul Heyman guy. This seems like a major lost opportunity to me. Why can't Heyman manage Brock Lesnar and Cesaro at the same time? I don't get this at all.

Flo Rida: I have nothing against Flo Rida. I'm not a fan of his kind of music, but that isn't the point. I just don't want to see musical performances during wrestling. I guess they need to find ways to fill 3 hour Raws, but I wish they would have found a way of doing so that actually benefited a wrestler on the show.

Angry Black Men Faction: Ok, so I guess I don't know that WWE is going in the direction of an angry black men faction with Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods, but that certainly seems to be the case. Before Woods' appearance, I was already thinking about how stupid it is that WWE was teaming Kingston and E together when the only thing that they appear to have in common is the color of their skin. And then afterwards, to have Woods randomly on talking about how they need to start taking what they want and not asking for it and whatever else he was saying just came across as lazy writing. I'm ok with them giving Woods something to do, but this came out of nowhere and was very random. Now I'm white. So, I can't speak to how a black person would respond to this, but I certainly am worried about the direction WWE appears to be going here.

Goldust & Stardust: Am I the only one who is already tired of this Stardust gimmick? Am I the only one who wants to change the channel whenever I see Stardust and Goldust start these bizarre scenes? They are becoming headache inducing to me. I enjoyed the team of Goldust and Cody Rhodes. But, their chemistry was based in part by the contrast in their characters. Now, they are just too similar. And too screechy and annoying.

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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