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Hits & Misses
HITS & MISSES - 3/30 WWE Raw: Lesnar and Heyman, Bryan vs. Ziggler, Cena vs. Ambrose, Saxton Fills In, Main Event tag match, more

Apr 3, 2015 - 5:49:11 PM
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By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: What a hot start to the first Raw after WrestleMania. Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar were as good as possible in talking about what happened at the end of WM with Seth Rollins cashing in Money in the Bank. Nobody cuts a promo like Heyman and nobody stands next to someone cutting a promo like Lesnar. And nobody sells being an extremely pissed off monster like Lesnar either. This set up the obvious bait-and-switch WWE Title match for later in the show, but it was so well done (including Stephanie McMahon's role) that I was looking forward to seeing what would happen when Rollins ultimately backed out of the match.

Bryan vs. Ziggler: It is not surprising that Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler would put on a good Intercontinental Championship match and they did. I like that Wade Barrett was on commentary to explain why he wasn't getting the first Title shot against the new Champion. I greatly enjoyed Bryan and Ziggler's battle of headbutts on the top of the ladder at WM, so it was cool to see it brought back here. I would have loved to see a longer match, but this was very good while it lasted with a strong ending. Sheamus' return and heel turn was expected. I hope that they have a good explanation for it moving forward and don't just ignore the fact that he was injured by The Authority when he was going to be part of Team Cena at Survivor Series.

WM Stills: WWE does a good job of playing up the importance of WM both before and after the event. One way they did it was with the multiple stills that they showed from WM throughout Raw. This is an easy and nice way to lift up some of the high lights of the biggest show of the year. They also had the newspaper headlines that they showed later and then the nice video package of the entire WM weekend to show what a major experience WM has become over the past several years.

Eight-Man Tag: Kalisto was clearly the star of this match (along with the fans for doing the New....Day Sucks! chants). I have been impressed with him in NXT so I was happy to see him getting a main roster call up. I hope he and Sin Cara can give some life to the tag team division which has not been very good lately. The match was fun and was a nice way to introduce this new team. It is smart to have NXT wrestlers debut in front of this type of crowd who are more likely to be familiar with NXT as they did with Neville as well, though not call him Adrian? Why can't guys have two names any more?

Lesnar Destroys Everyone: As I said, it was obviously a bait-and-switch situation where we weren't actually going to see the WWE Title match. That can create heat on WWE, but in this case the heat seemed to be all on Seth Rollins so it was a successful segment. Just like in the opening segment, Lesnar was great in his body language coming out for the match. Rollins was great in transferring that heat to himself by complaining about jet lag and how his foot was sore after curb stomping Lesnar and Roman Reigns the night before. WWE gave the fans such a memorable moment afterward with Lesnar destroying everyone that the fans were forgiving of not getting the promised Title match. This was so well done and intense and physical. You believed how angry Lesnar was. You believed how hurt everyone around him was after the destruction that he caused. This was a good way to set up the fact that Lesnar still does have a contractually obligated rematch, but it won't be for a long time as he has been indefinitely suspended. The fans will cheer for him when he comes back, but it will be interesting to see how he is presented by the announcers after these actions.

Cena vs. Ambrose: WWE went strong on the reverse psychology of talking about how it was going to be Rusev accepting John Cena's open challenge for a United States Title match that you knew it wasn't going to be him. I didn't expect it to be Dean Ambrose, but I'm glad it was as he and Cena put on a very good US Title match. The match went 14 minutes and was fun to watch. There were a few sloppy moments. I think Ambrose could have done a better job of covering for the one botched move in the corner on the turnbuckle, but that's really my only complaint about this match. It had convincing near falls and good action throughout. I'm curious to see where WWE goes with Ambrose moving forward.

RAW MISSES

Lesnar Destruction Aftermath: Having a situation like this with all three announcers being injured was certainly a big deal and was treated like a terrible situation. It was memorable. But, they could have handled the situation better. It was ridiculous that they never had anyone move the table or tip it back over. Having Byron Saxton and later Jerry Lawler have to stand up behind the table was cheesy. Seriously, just move the table out of the way and grab a chair or two. Also, Saxton is terrible. He is terrible in a smaller role each week on Smackdown, so having to be the play-by-play guy on Raw meant he was terrible in a larger role. It was fine to have him have sort of a deer in the headlight type reaction initially to being put into this situation after what Lesnar had done. But he had two hours to get his head in the game and I have a feeling that he would have been just as bad in other situations. He made me miss Michael Cole and to quote Jim from "The Office," "congratulations Universe, you win." It is also a sign that WWE needs to pull Cole off of Smackdown and actually train a new play-by-play guy to back him up on a major show (as in not Main Event, Superstars or even NXT). Someone else needs to be getting that experience and actually become a good announcer so that if Cole is gone for a storyline reason like this, or a real reason like an illness or whatever, that they have someone at least competent to fill in. It really did take away from the rest of the show.

Main Event: This was a good Raw, but the first half was definitely better than the second half. The show had a rather boring ending with the six man tag match. The announcers had to play dumb in not anticipating that Roman Reigns would partner with Randy Orton and Ryback to take on Rollins, Big Show and Kane. I mean everyone watching knew he would come out as their partner, so why do the announcers have to be that dumb as to actually think it will be a handicap match? Reigns was still booed heavily. I'm not sure if it is just the WM weekend fans, but I have a feeling that the boos are going to continue moving forward. He may have won some fans over with fighting back after the beating he took from Lesnar, but it also turned off fans who saw it as him being too much like Super Cena. Getting back to this match, it was kind of boring. Big Show and Kane aren't exciting to watch. Neither is Reigns. Orton and Ryback are also slower more methodical in their styles. So, Rollins was the only really dynamic wrestler in this match. The match wasn't that bad, but I can't blame the fans for going into business for themselves. They waited until the last match to get all of their chants and waves in. And as it turns out they waited for a somewhat dull match and they got it here.

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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