By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: I enjoyed this segment with Seth Rollins showing appreciation to Kane and J&J Security for reuniting with him in the United Authority (please, stop calling it that) last week in their beat down of Brock Lesnar. Rollins is great. I love how he wants help to defeat Lesnar, but refuses to admit it. The gifts were great. The reactions to those gifts were also great. I have to admit to having a guilty desire to see horribly cheesy videos of Kane's Hawaiian vacation. The segment did go on too long. It did start to drag, despite the enthusiasm shown by Joey Mercury and Jamie Noble. But all in all, it was a good start to the show.

Paige vs. Fox: It was nice to see Paige back this week after being away last week. This is still a bad storyline. The use of the Divas has been so bad. But, I give credit to Paige and Alicia Fox for putting on a good match. I wish Paige had put a little more leverage onto Fox's shoulders on her roll through for the pin as it looked too light to me where Fox could easily get a shoulder up. But, that was a minor complaint. And I have to actually commend Byron Saxton (I never though I'd type that!). If the Bellas are heels and Paige is a babyface, then there needs to be heat on the Bellas and by extension on Fox for joining them. But the babyface play-by-play announcer Michael Cole was defending Fox's choice to join with them because of the success that it has brought her. But, Saxton questioned the decision and said that Fox doesn't believe in herself; she believes in the Bellas. With Cole and JBL defending Fox, Saxton at least questioned her. He should have gone further to say that Fox will never be the Divas Champion as long as she's subservient to Nikki Bella. But, at least he stood up against a heel and actually served a purpose on the broadcast team.

Cena vs. Owens: This was clearly the highlight of Raw. It seems like whatever John Cena and Kevin Owens are involved in ends up being the highlight each week. Cena and Cesaro had a very good match. Owens was also very good doing guest commentary during it. I have enjoyed him in similar spots on NXT and it was good to see him doing that kind of work on Raw. I was confused as whether this was supposed to turn Cesaro heel in getting an endorsement of sorts from Owens, so I was very happy to see Owens beat Cesaro up at the end. He should stay babyface for awhile. I wouldn't mind seeing a Cesaro vs. Owens in a prolonged feud. As for the match itself, Cena and Cesaro worked very well together. There were some very impressive feats of strength. It went back and forth nicely and I like Cesaro incorporating the Sharpshooter into his repertoire as an homage to his injured partner Tyson Kidd. I hope this helps to launch Cesaro up the card as a top babyface, but I doubt WWE does much to capitalize on it.

Sheamus vs. Neville: This was another good match on this show. It wasn't great, but it was good with a nice tease that Neville might hit the Red Arrow, only to have Sheamus turn things around to hit the Brogue Kick for the win. As Mr. Money in the Bank, Sheamus needs to be kept strong, so giving him the win was the right thing to do. However, Neville still needs to continue to be built up. He shouldn't just be the high flying guy who hits some exciting moves before taking the loss. So while I did enjoy the match, a different opponent for Sheamus would have been better.

RAW MISSES

Ryback's Delayed Suplex: I have enjoyed Ryback's performance as the Intercontinental Champion, but I haven't enjoyed as much of the actual storyline with The Miz and The Big Show. I wasn't a fan of Ryback vs. Miz. The big reason that I didn't like the match was the overly long delayed suplex from Ryback. It is of course a throwback to other power house wrestlers of the past. It is physically impressive and is meant to get over how strong Ryback is. However, this one lasted so long that it took me out of the moment. Ok, Miz might be dizzy from the blood flowing to his brain from being upside down. But to me, it is totally unbelievable that he would basically stay static that entire time. Wouldn't he try to thrash around and fight his way out of it, especially when it lasted so long? It was unrealistic. I know that there are plenty of other examples of this in pro wrestling, but this one stood out to me as particularly egregious.

Ziggler & Lana: Oh man, this was a terrible segment. Dolph Ziggler and Lana have zero chemistry together. This was painful to watch. The crowd rejected it with well deserved "What?!" chants. Lana was really good at being Rusev's heel anti-America manager. That doesn't mean she'd be good at any other role. WWE has had a terrible track record the last several years of having a popular heel turn babyface and then not knowing what to do with them. This is just the latest example of that. Nobody looks good coming out of this. Rusev has gone from one of the top heels on the rise in WWE in a strong feud against John Cena, to being a pathetic secondary character. I'm not convinced that anything would be better if he hadn't gotten injured. This isn't working for any of them, and WWE needs to hit the reset button now.

Swagger vs. Barrett: I'm not sure what this match really accomplished. We have hardly seen Jack Swagger on Raw or Smackdown lately. So, this seemed very random to me. We haven't seen or heard from Zeb Coulter in a very long time, so it was also random that JBL was talking about him. That raises questions as to where he is (is his leg still hurt?). The King gimmick isn't working for Wade / Bad News Barrett. This match was dominated by Swagger until Barrett hit the Bull Hammer Elbow for the win. But, why give Swagger any offense at all? This is where jobbers are needed. Have a jobber take a beating from Barrett for 2 minutes and take the squash loss. I guess we are supposed to be impressed with Barrett for getting the win with one move, but it didn't work for me.

Long Beating of Ambrose and Reigns: Was it just me, or was that the longest post-match beating in Raw history? Maybe WWE history? I said that the opening segment was good despite it going on too long. I can't say the same about the closing segment. It was just too long. It was not good. The main event tag team no disqualification match was ok. I don't like tag team no DQ matches in general, because they defy logic. If there are no DQs, then why do the wrestlers still tag in and out? Why would you watch your partner take a long beating when you can come in and save him without the possibility of getting disqualified? There was some good wrestling action in the match and the interference from Bray Wyatt made sense and gave Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose an out for taking the loss. But, this was a very heel heavy show and having it begin and end with The Authority standing tall didn't make for a fun show. And the two beatings were way too prolonged. I started to doze off. And neither Reigns nor Ambrose is going to be in a program with Rollins as he is feuding with Brock Lesnar. Reigns is going to want revenge on Wyatt, so he won't be getting revenge on Rollins, and Ambrose will probably be relegated to getting revenge on Kane, and that won't make for a good match. So, this failed to get me excited for the product moving forward.

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.

Act now and become my 11th Twitter follower @JonMezzera (pretty clever handle right?). Just be aware that I don't live tweet Raw, I don't tweet much about wrestling, and I don't tweet much at all. But, it would be nice to say I have more than 10 followers!

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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