By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: What I liked about the opening segment is that John Cena and Dean Ambrose attacked Seth Rollins in their own ways. I also liked how Cena didn't wait very long. Rollins wasn't in the ring for much time talking about last week before Cena hit the ring to attack him. Then, it made sense that Ambrose came through the crowd to attack him. That fit his personality. Yes, it was a bit of a coincidence that in a large arena that Rollins would go through the crowd right by where Ambrose was waiting. I also wasn't that high on the announced main event of Cena & Ambrose vs. Rollins, Kane & Orton, but at least it was a big main event with some star power announced early on to keep fans wanting to watch.

Ziggler & The Usos vs. Cesaro & Dust Brothers: The opening tag match was very fun to watch which is not surprising considering it involved The Usos, Dolph Ziggler, Goldust & Stardust and Cesaro. These six are all very talented in the ring and they all worked well together here to put on a good match. The ending was particularly exciting with the triple super kick from the babyface trio leading to the big splash for the win.

Swagger vs. Kidd: This was a short match, just over 3 minutes, but I liked it for what it was. Jack Swagger needs some squash wins to reestablish himself after his feud against Rusev. Tyson Kidd has talent and I like seeing him back on Raw. The NXT crowd has certainly responded well to him as a heel and enjoy taunting him for being Natie's husband which has a chance to translate to the bigger stage. Kidd played his part well here. This short match was fun and actually served a purpose unlike the vast majority of the crap filler on this show.

The Rock: That was a great surprise appearance by The Rock. You know it is a cool moment when someone standing in the ring doing nothing gets a "Holy Shit!" chant. This was classic Rock with the fans super hyped for everything that he said. He was hilarious as usual. He interjected some much needed life into this dull show. His one liners about Lana and Rusev were very funny. I should say that Lana and Rusev played their parts very well too. Lana in particular was great in her facial reactions to Rock's insults. She was good at the start of the segment in wishing Vladimir Putin a happy birthday. I enjoy her work very much. Rusev is starting to speak English now in his limited mic work and has been solid so far. I find myself wanting to see more from Lana and Rusev and their interaction with Rock was a good rub to them. Just getting to stand in the ring with Rock made Rusev look like a big deal.

RAW MISSES

Kathie Lee & Hoada: What a train wreck. WWE knew that this was a segment that the fans were going to crap all over. The way you know that is that they continued to play Adam Rose's music in the background to drown out the boos from the live fans in Brooklyn. I don't know what the purpose of this segment was supposed to be. Was it supposed to be funny? Was it supposed to get new viewers who are fans of Kathie Lee and Hoada? Was it trying to get some day after publicity? It was so bad on so many levels, I don't want to even think about it any more.

Mark Henry and Bo Dallas: This Miss is not for their match, but for their program. This is one of a number of examples in WWE lately where I'm just not sure how WWE expects me to react to what is happening on my tv. A few weeks ago, Mark Henry lashed out at the fans for encouraging him when injured to wrestle Rusev again. Then after losing a match to Dallas last week, he attacked him in the back like a sore loser. But the only outrage came from JBL, the heel color commentator. Dallas hasn't been nearly as heelish in his actions towards Henry as he was previously in a similar situation towards Jack Swagger. But, I think I'm supposed to boo him. The writing for this angle has been terrible leading to an apathetic crowd who don't want to cheer for Henry, and don't really want to boo Dallas either.

Ambrose - Cena: There were parts of the interchange between Ambrose and Cena that worked, but on the whole it wasn't very good. Part of it was that it felt way too wordy. Cena was saying stuff like Ambrose does this and Ambrose does that and I understand what Ambrose does so Ambrose understands what I do. At that point, I needed to take some aspirin for the headache that was developing. It got to a point where they seemed to have agreed that they don't like each other, but maybe they can coexist in the main event. Then after agreeing that the don't like each other, Cena told Ambrose not to give him a reason to not like him. But, they already said they don't like each other. The performances from Ambrose and Cena were fine, but the scripting of this segment left a lot to be desired. It was all over the place leading to Ambrose walking out to get a hot dog on Coney Island.

Kane with Miz and Mizdow: This is another example of a segment where I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react. Kane is a heel. He is part of The Authority and he likes to beat up and attempt to end the careers of top babyfaces Dean Ambrose and John Cena. The Miz and his stunt double Damian Mizdow are also heels. They act like heels. They have been feuding with babyface Sheamus over the United States Championship. And yet, Kane is constantly sticking it to them. Having a heel authority figure trying to get cheers by sticking it to a heel wrestler makes no sense to me. I was more consistency and clearly defined characters.

Roman Reigns: That was a major bomb. If WWE is still planning on having Reigns as a top future star when he returns from recovering from surgery, they need to do a much better job with him before he returns. His interview/promo via satellite was painful to watch. It was like he was reading off of cue cards, having to pause while the cards were being changed. Those pauses were just odd. The delivery was flat. This did nothing to get me excited to see him return. Even Michael Cole seemed taken aback when it ended.

El Torito vs. The Gator: The Brooklyn crowd said it best with their "This is Stupid!" chant. Even the announcers couldn't hide their disdain for what was happening in the ring. I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is the type of crap filler that you are always going to get on a 3 hour show. This didn't belong on Main Event or Superstars, let alone Raw. I hope WWE takes the crowd response seriously and doesn't just ignore it since it is a New York crowd.

A.J.: Again, how am I supposed to feel about A.J.? I thought she was a babyface, yet she walked out on her partner, Emma. I get that they are trying to play up the fact that she is a loner and doesn't want any friends after what happened with her and Paige, but why can't they present their babyfaces with admirable qualities?

Main Event and Aftermath: This was a poor ending to another poor Raw. The 3-on-1 handicap main event wasn't much of a match. This is the second main event in a row with Kane getting his team disqualified for one big boot which doesn't seem like enough to get a DQ to me. Why is that a DQ, but an illegal wrestler jumping into the ring to break up a pin attempt isn't? Beyond that, this Miss is more for the anti-climactic return of Dean Ambrose. WWE is painting him as Stone Cold Steve Austin Light. I think they were trying to channel some of the zamboni or beer truck Stone Cold magic with Ambrose returning with the hot dog cart, but this was very lame. I wouldn't have minded if he had ran it down to the ringside area and bashed Kane, Orton and Rollins with it. However, the use of ketchup and mustard first was too cheesy and brought Ambrose down a level. Ambrose is cool. That was not cool (and I spit in the face of people who don't want to be cool). Also, despite their attempts to build anticipation for a match between Ambrose and Cena, Triple H's announcement that they would face at Hell in a Cell for the right to face Seth Rollins later in the same show fell flat. A crowd that wanted to invest itself into the product didn't seem to care about that announcement. Stephanie McMahon who is usually good in her performances even felt underwhelming in her final exclamation point that the winner of the match would find himself in hell. Without Brock Lesnar to face at Hell in a Cell (which had a storyline behind it coming out of Night of Champions), Cena has been forced into this feud between Ambrose and Rollins and it isn't working.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at his NEW email address - jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.

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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