By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

I am doing something different for my Raw Hits & Misses this week. Since this show was all about the formation of Team Authority and Team Cena, I am going to focus on those parts of the show. Instead of listing the Hits and then the Misses, I am going to review the show in order. For each segment that involved The Authority and John Cena putting their teams together, I will say whether it was a Hit or a Miss and why. Hopefully you enjoy this change up from my normal format, but presumably it will be back to normal next week.

Jack Swagger's Inclusion - Miss: Jack Swagger has hardly been on Raw or Smackdown since his feud with Rusev ended a few months ago. So, his inclusion on Team Cena felt way too random. It was clearly just a set up to have The Authority take out a member of Team Cena which is exactly what happened. I get that WWE needed someone to fill this role and it couldn't be someone big enough to actually be on the team, but it still felt totally anti-climactic during the opening segment when Cena announced Swagger as part of the team.

Mark Henry's Inclusion - Miss: This was predictable and under other circumstances I would say that it makes perfect sense to have Mark Henry on Team Authority. However, Henry hasn't exactly been a big winner lately. If I was John Cena, I would simply counter by putting Bo Dallas on my team since he has defeated Henry about 6 times recently. This is part of the problem with WWE's lack of long-term booking. They have made Henry look weak over and over again, yet we are supposed to feel he is this dominating add to Team Authority.

Ryback's Journey - Hit: I had mixed feelings about what WWE did with Ryback this week, but on the whole it was good. I like the fact that both Cena and The Authority were courting Ryback. The end of the first segment was good with Ryback saying that while he didn't fear The Authority, they pay his checks, so he sided with them. This was followed up by some good back stage scenes throughout the show with other members of the team talking to Ryback, showing why he might get tired of them in the end. The scene with Seth Rollins was particularly good. I loved how Rollins told Ryback that he didn't have to listen to Kane, but he should listen to him instead. Later, the entire team with Triple H and Stephanie had a good scene with the others grumbling about Ryback behind his back, only to have him walk in on them. Triple H and Stephanie got them all on the same page at that point, but it was further hints that Ryback would not be happy long term as part of the team. This all built to Ryback getting angry and turning on them in the end (more later).

Rollins vs. Swagger - Hit: This was a good match. While I questioned Swagger's role, the way that WWE handled the match and the attack afterwards taking Swagger out of commission was well done. I enjoyed the match as it built towards Swagger being distracted by Noble & Mercury which allowed Rollins to take advantage by throwing Swagger into the ring post. That led to the Curb Stomp for the finish. The attack afterwards with them throwing the doctor away to do more damage to Swagger worked well to have a believable reason why he would be out of action past Survivor Series. If he was already being checked on by the doctor when they beat him up more and did another Curb Stomp, it makes sense that he might have a severe concussion at this point.

Stephanie and Lana - Miss: I did not like the interaction between Stephanie McMahon and Lana twice during the show as Stephanie was trying to get Rusev to commit to Team Authority. There were parts that were good, however in the end it felt like another example of The Authority undermining a heel. By twice interrupting Lana's attempt to talk politics, Stephanie basically undermined her entire gimmick. It is remindful of the times when Triple H has emasculated the heels on the roster. WWE has spent months building up Rusev and Lana as a political act, and it took Stephanie just a few seconds to say that none of that actually matters as politics don't matter, only The Authority does.

Sheamus vs. Rusev - Miss: This was not a good match. It had some good moments, but not enough to overcome its shortcomings. It was too long and dragged. Rusev has grown on me as a performer. I have enjoyed his matches more than I expected too. However, I am not sure he is ready to have a 15 minute match yet. It was slow and sloppy at times. Sheamus had trouble applying the Cloverleaf as both he and Rusev appeared to be way too sweaty at that point. Some of Sheamus' other offense did not look crisp to me. The ending made sense from a storyline standpoint with Jamie Noble causing a delay so that Sheamus was counted out, however the execution was poor. The referee stopped his 10 count after Rusev rolled into the ring to check on him which allowed Noble to jump on Sheamus behind the ref's back. Normally, when a count is broken like that, the ref starts over. Instead, he counted 10 and the match was over. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that WWE is too inconsistent with how the refs apply the rules and counts like this. I'm sure we've seen refs break counts in similar situations in the past.

Ziggler Stays on the Team - Hit: Ever since Dolph Ziggler looked way too concerned about having to wrestle Kane on Raw a few weeks ago, WWE has done a much better job with his character since then standing up to The Authority. I liked the short scene in the dressing room where Cena gave Ziggler an out to walk away from his team, only to have Ziggler stay strong and fully commit to taking down The Authority at Survivor Series.

Big Show - Miss: This Miss is for the fact that WWE went too far in ignoring The Big Show until his "surprise" appearance saving Ziggler from Henry after their match. The Big Show announced last week that he would volunteer to be on Team Cena. I know that happened, yet nobody on Raw seemed to know that happened. Cena didn't seem to know about it during the opening segment when he listed Swagger and Ziggler as the only two who had stepped up to join his team. Big Show did too! The announcers never mentioned it. It was insulting to my intelligence that WWE would just ignore an entire promo from Big Show last week.

Ryback vs. Cena (and post-match brawl) - Hit: The match between Ryback and Cena was pretty good. It wasn't great. It had some off spots and some slow parts, but on the whole it was a borderline Hit. I particularly liked how they continued to tease tension between Kane and Ryback during the match and how that built to Kane's anger getting the better of him and attacking Cena causing a disqualification. This was another non-finish to a Raw main event which was disappointing, but to be expected. I like how Seth Rollins as team captain was trying to play peace maker between Kane and Ryback. The brawl that followed was solid. I didn't like how Sheamus and Big Show came out separately. Shouldn't they have been watching the show together and then charged the ring together? I also questioned where Dolph Ziggler was. Now, there was an answer to that question which was good, but the announcers never asked it. If wrestling was real (and it should always be booked as if it were), one of the announcers would have questioned why Ziggler had not come out to help his team at the end of the show. All the viewers were asking it, so why weren't the announcers? So, I did have some issues with the brawl, which is why it is just a minor Hit.

Luke Harper - Hit: Time will tell how Luke Harper fares as part of Team Authority, but I am intrigued and hopeful that this works. I was highly scoffed at several months ago when I suggested that long terms, Harper might end up being a bigger star than Bray Wyatt. Now, I didn't say that it would happen, but said that it was a possibility based on Harper's size, look, charisma, wrestling skills and the fact that WWE had shown some faith in allowing him to talk much more than Erick Rowan. So, it will be interesting to see how his joining Team Authority helps boost his career. He will be in a PPV main event with Bray Wyatt on the undercard. I was happy that the final scene of Raw answered the unasked (by the announcers) question of what happened to Dolph Ziggler? The journey of the formation of Team Authority seemed to be finished here, while still leaving one open spot (presumably for Ryback, but maybe not?) on Team Cena which leaves a hook for next week to see if Cena can complete his team.

In addition to the Team Authority vs. Team Cena theme of the show, I have to address the high amount of replay videos on Raw this week. I know that this is often a problem, but to me it seemed like way more replay videos than normal. There was a long one to start Raw about what happened to Randy Orton last week, a replay of the opening segment, a replay of The Peep Show with Dean Ambrose from Smackdown, a scene of The Authority watching Vince McMahon's announcement from last week's Raw, a second replay of the opening segment, a replay of Ziggler vs. Kane from Smackdown, a replay from Smackdown of the injured soldier walking with his new body suit, a Smackdown video of Adam Rose becoming upset at the bunny, another replay of McMahon's announcement, another replay of Ambrose on The Peep Show, then a third replay of Ryback picking Team Authority from the opening segment. I appreciate WWE showing more of Smackdown on Raw, but do we need to see the same video twice? Do we need to see the same video of McMahon twice? Do we need to see Ryback hitting Cena with a spinebuster four times in one show? I get that WWE is trying to show fans what they missed if they aren't watching all 3 hours, but it just got ridiculous this week.

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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