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Hits & Misses
3/23 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Sting, Paige vs. Nikki, Cena - Rusev, Ladder Match Hype, Heyman's Promo, Title Tug-O-War

Mar 25, 2015 - 3:30:29 PM
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By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: The final Raw before WrestleMania got off to a good start with the opening segment involving Sting, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. I was a bit confused when Sting talked and didn't sound anything like he did in the video a few weeks ago. Sting isn't good at giving long promos, but he was good in this short one to start off the show. I like that he said he wasn't fighting for WCW. The WWE vs. WCW vibe that Triple H has put into this feud was a mistake. Sting put the focus on wanting to take down Triple H for the way he has abused his power which was smart. Stephanie was good in her part as well. Unfortunately, she mirrored her husband and put the focus back on WWE beating WCW which who cares about at this point? But, it was still a strong segment ending with the teased fight with Triple H ultimately doing the heel thing in backing down.

Orton vs. Rollins & J&J Security: This was a good little match to hype Randy Orton vs. Seth Rollins at WM. WWE put a major focus on this feud the last two weeks, so I was okay with it having a smaller role in the go home show. It was a nice tease for Orton getting his hands on Rollins. It was smart to not have them get involved physically in this match and just having Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury in the match the whole time. If Orton hadn't actually beaten the crap out of Rollins a few weeks ago, this would have been better. But, it was still just good enough to get a Hit.

Paige vs. Nikki Bella: This was a good Divas Title match. It was nice to see the match go nearly 11 minutes. I wish we could get an 11-minute match without a commercial, but that's just a pipe dream (yes, I know if you watch live with the app you can watch the whole thing). WWE has done a nice job of building to the Divas tag match at WM. Teasing tension between AJ Lee and Paige makes sense and fits in perfectly with the Bellas's character. I'm glad that A.J.'s involvement was saved for the end as it came at the end of a good match.

Snoop Dogg, Curtis Axel, Hulk Hogan: I never thought I would have a Hit with that title. As a general rule, I'm not a big fan of these types of segments which do little to advance storylines or hype PPVs (especially the biggest of the year in less than a week). But, I was entertained by Snoop Dogg's interaction with Curtis Axel. Hulk Hogan's interruption was a nice surprise. It does hint at the fact that Hogan will be at WM, though nothing is official. It did sell that "anything can happen" vibe of WWE in general. It was fun, even if it didn't feel important.

Rusev - Cena: Last week, John Cena gave his impassioned pro USA promo last week, which he underscored this week in his short pre-taped interview. That allowed WWE to focus more on the physicality between him and Rusev. That physicality was quite memorable with Rusev destroying Cena. That puts doubt into the minds of the fans that Cena can get the job done at WM. It also makes the feud more personal and gives Cena a reason to get revenge on Rusev on Sunday and makes his fans really want to see that happen. Rusev has done a great job of getting heat on himself. I am intrigued to see and hear what the crowd response will be at Levis Stadium for these two.

Wyatt Promo: I have not been a fan of the build towards Bray Wyatt vs. The Undertaker. It did at least feature this good promo from Raw. Sometimes Wyatt can be too cryptic in his mic work. Some of that can be good, but too much of it makes me stop caring about whatever he is talking about. I don't care about this feud. After last year, I don't care about seeing Undertaker wrestle. I have said that Wyatt gains nothing from beating Undertaker after The Streak ended. At least this puts the match into the context that Wyatt is trying to take Undertaker's spot in WWE as the new face of fear. The promo was well written and well delivered. I liked how he mocked Taker's pose at the end. I wish we had more from Undertaker at this point, but oh well.

Heyman's Promo: Paul Heyman is wonderful. That's not exactly a news flash. I loved how his promo started with him saying "yak, yak, yak, yak." Heyman is a master at crafting a speech in the way that he uses repetition and other rhetorical devices to construct his promos. Here it was the parallel construction with can and can't and will and won't. He seemed to cross the line when he talked about Roman Reigns going into Brock Lesnar's house and taking his wife and eating his food and watching his tv and what not. Lesnar's look that he gave Heyman was classic at that point. He seemed legitimately pissed at what Heyman was saying. But, when Heyman reversed it and had Lesnar doing those same things to Reigns, Lesnar was back to his smiling cocky self. Heyman was great as was Lesnar reacting to it as usual. It is too bad that what followed was so bad.

RAW MISSES

Unimportant Moments: I had trouble coming up with a title for this particular Miss. On the go home show before WM, I felt there were too many moments that didn't feel important enough in the context of this show. That doesn't mean that they were all bad moments. A tag match with four of the seven Intercontinental Championship ladder match participants didn't feel important. It was decent, but having it end with Dean Ambrose dancing with R-Truth made it feel inconsequential. The Miz and Damian Mizdow interview of Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell was amusing. But, what did it do to sell WM? One way to hype the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal was to have last year's winner Cesaro part of a huge match at this year's WM and you can say "look at what winning did for Cesaro." But, WWE didn't do that. So, to hype the battle royal they just have a ten man tag match with half the wrestlers in it go six minutes. It didn't feel important and didn't make me want to see the battle royal. I said above the Hogan, Dogg, Axel segment was fun, but didn't feel important despite the involvement of a major star and a major WWE legend. We got more filler with the bad product placement Burger King scene between Tyson Kidd and Natalya. It could have been worse, but it was out of place on this Raw. There was too much of this filler, unimportant, uninspired content on the final Raw before WM.

Tag Title Situation: The Tag Team Championship situation heading into WM continues to be a Miss. At least The Usos will be in the actual match on the WM pre-show which was in question last week. But, it is still a bad situation. The Usos were in some great Tag Team Title matches in 2014, mostly involving The Wyatt Family. If they had been handled in a better way, and if the tag team division in general had been built up and protected over the past six months, a tag title match could have been a major draw at WM, not relegated to the pre-show slot involving teams like Los Matadores and The New Day whom none of the fans care about. This rematch from Smackdown wasn't good. It didn't make me care about any of the teams involved. I think I forgot about the fact that The Usos were doing guest commentary as they didn't add anything to the presentation and didn't say much after the match started. It is just disappointing.

Ladder Climbing: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler was good, but it felt inconsequential. They need to find a way to make these WM preview matches feel important and they just don't. I'm not giving it a Hit because it felt like a consolation prize for these two having to be part of the IC Title ladder match and not an important singles match. Some fans wanted to see these two face at WM, but we got a short uninspired version of it as the defacto Raw main event. And watching Bryan take the loss once again is just a reminder how WWE feels about the man who should be in the WM main event. Even if it is typical WWE booking where the winner at the PPV is booked to lose on Raw the week before, it is still disappointing to see how far Bryan has fallen since returning.

Moving on to what happened after that match, it was a mess. It was typical for a multi wrestler ladder match. They get a ladder out and fight on it for no apparent reason. It was a bad reminder of the constant IC Title belt stealing that has been going on since Fastlane. Why are these guys trying to climb the ladder? Just to steal the belt again? My wife hasn't watched much Raw since Fastlane so she had missed this storyline. She watched all of Raw this week to get ready for WM and she was like "don't they realize that the title isn't actually on the line?" And they all ended up knocking each other out in a very short amount of time. That didn't make me want to see more. This didn't do anything for me.

Title Tug-O-War: After that great promo from Paul Heyman, it was a shame to see how WWE ended the final go home Raw before WM. When Roman Reigns came out, I was curious as to what he had to say. We were promised last week a face to face confrontation this week, and that's what we got. Unfortunately, that face to face confrontation turned into a childish tug-o-war over the WWE World Title belt that was way too cheesy and reminiscent of seven other wrestlers stealing the IC Title belt. Not that Reigns is very good on the mic, but it is crazy to me that the top "babyface" wrestler heading into the WM main event didn't talk on this show. And if Vince McMahon is worried that Reigns couldn't deliver in that situation, then why is he in that situation at all? And even if you don't want him to talk, can't you come up with something better than that? And the tug-o-war ended so anticlimactically. The show ended and it was like, wait, that's it? That's how it is going to end? It felt like the director accidentally hit the wrong button to end the show, because that couldn't have possibly been the plan!

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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8/24 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Opening Segment, New Day, Dudleys return, Stewart, Sting
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