By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: A rather bad Raw did get off to a good start with The Authority, minus Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, in the ring to address the great night that they had at WrestleMania. There was a nice video package of their various victories at WM followed by Seth Rollins addressing the fans. I loved how Joey Mercury was shaking his head at the fans for chanting "You Sold Out!" at Rollins. Rollins was very good on the mic. Randy Orton was also strong in his interruption. He is doing a nice job right now of connecting with the fans and coming across like the man who truly deserves to be the #1 contender to Rollins' WWE World Championship. This allowed Kane to set up the triple threat main event and the idea that Orton, Roman Reigns and Ryback would all have singles matches before that.

Kane - Rollins Backstage: This wasn't a great segment. The Brad Maddox appearance was way too random. And I'm not sure that tension among The Authority is a great way to go at this point. And I don't want to see another turn from Kane. But, I did enjoy the interplay between Kane and Rollins. It was set up in the opening segment and continued here. They both played their parts well. Plus, I was just happy that this segment didn't end with someone stinking up Kane's executive bathroom.

Rollins vs. Neville: I'm not sure that having a new wrestler lose his second match on the main roster is a great way to introduce someone like Neville. However, having him have such a strong showing against the WWE World Champion did work to help him over. He got a good reaction from the crowd and hopefully he will continue to get strong reactions going forward. The match itself was good. It was fun to watch. Neville got in a good amount of offense to look credible before taking the loss. Of course, he was distracted by J&J Security which was mostly ignored by the announcers which is a shame (more on the terrible announcing later). I wonder if John Bradshaw Layfield got reprimanded for calling him Adrian Neville twice during the match. Neville is not a good stand alone name. Adrian Neville sounds better and I don't understand Vince McMahon's aversion to having someone have a full name, especially after it had been established in NXT (Cesaro, Rusev, Big E). Unfortunately, this was the high point of the show and it was all bad from that point.

RAW MISSES

The Announcers: I am glad that Michael Cole wasn't on Raw this week. When they announced on Smackdown that he would be on despite the beating he took from Brock Lesnar, I cringed. It made no sense that he would be able to come back one week later. So, it was good that WWE changed course and held him off this week. The problem is that they only had Byron Saxton to fill in for him. I don't think Cole needs to worry about job security. Saxton is not the answer to having an alternative play-by-play announcer to Cole. And the dynamic between him, Booker T and JBL was not good. Booker and JBL didn't help. The chemistry was off. Their roles are not well defined with Booker and JBL often agreeing with each other even though one of them is supposed to be a heel and the other a face (I think). None of them showed anger towards J&J Security for getting involved in Rollins vs. Neville. I am fine with WWE turning New Day heel. It is the way to go. But, the announcers have to help tell that story. So when Kofi Kingston cheats to try to help Xavier Woods get the win in the tag match against The Lucha Dragons, it would have been nice if the announcers had actually called attention to it. This was such a departure for Kingston's character, but they ignored it. The babyface on the announce team (if there is one) should have been upset about it and then gloated when they still lost. But, these guys are incompetent at their job. I will have more to say about them in other Misses too.

Cena vs. Stardust: This was a poor match. It was boring to start. It did get somewhat better as it proceeded, but not good enough. My issues with this match are mostly with how it was booked, not as much with the execution of it. I would not have Cena use the STF without getting a tap out unless it is a big PPV match. He should not be using it on an opponent like Stardust if Stardust isn't going to tap out. Nobody will buy that Rusev might tap out to it if Stardust didn't. I would not build up Cena as being tough by having him kick out of these lower card wrestlers' finishers. I get that they want us to think that Cena might lose, but nobody thought that Stardust had a legit chance. I like these open challenges from Cena, but he should not take their finishers. It kills the finisher in a match on Raw. I would be fine with more of a squash in this instance. My one complaint about execution is that this new spring board stunner move from Cena that he debuted at WM looks terrible. It seems to go against the laws of physics. I give Cena credit for adding something new at this point, but he is trying too hard to come up with something totally new, not just new for himself. This just wasn't a good match.

Bellas vs. Paige & Naomi: This was also not a good match. I like Naomi and think she has talent in the ring, but this match went downhill very quickly and stayed there after she got the tag from Paige. WWE is going for her vs. Nikki Bella for the Divas Championship. I hope that this was not a sign of things to come in that match as this was bad. It was sloppy. Naomi who is very athletic often looked uncoordinated here. Nikki wasn't as good as she usually is either. The way Brie sort of cost her getting kicked by Paige wasn't well executed or well planned to begin with. The announcers didn't do a good job of calling it either (another example of their poor job). I am going to chalk it up to Naomi and the Bellas just having an off night. I don't think this is indicative of their skill.

Harper vs. Ryback: By not featuring Daniel Bryan, Dolph Ziggler or Dean Ambrose, WWE had more trouble than usual filling 3 hours of Raw. I understand from a storyline stand point why these guys weren't on, but it hurt the quality of the show. Wade Barrett wasn't on either. Neither was Rusev. In order to fill that time, we got two matches each from Reigns, Orton and in this case Ryback. I never need to see multiple matches in one night from Reigns or Ryback. My big issue here is that Luke Harper is too good to be jobbed out to anyone in under 3 minutes. They seem to be building towards him facing Dean Ambrose in a big grudge match after what he did to Ambrose at WM and again on last week's Smackdown. If that's the case, then why have him lose so quickly here?

Big Show vs. Reigns: I was assuming that WWE was setting up for this match at Extreme Rules. After what ultimately happened during the main event, that seems to still be a strong possibility. But, I'm not looking forward to it. I don't like the new formula for a Roman Reigns match where he takes a long beating, then makes a super-man comeback before just hitting a series of super-man punches and a spear. He seems to be doing fewer moves than he used to do which doesn't seem possible. This match went 10 minutes and really dragged. I don't need to see more of it even with an extreme stipulation at the next PPV.

Kane and the Divas: This was a nails on the chalkboard type annoying segment. The Divas came across as screechy. WWE has been doing a good job of starting to build towards Naomi vs. Nikki apart from the poor quality of this week's tag match. They are at least telling a story and have a chance to capitalize on Naomi's recent victories over Natalya on Smackdown and over Nikki in two recent Raw tag matches. But, this segment sets up all these Divas who are not deserving of a Title opportunity since they haven't won a wrestling match in months as much of a chance to get that Title shot as Naomi or Paige. And Divas battle royals are the worst where they can be eliminated by rolling under the bottom rope which is ridiculous and offensive to the women wrestlers for suggesting that they aren't athletic enough to be thrown over the top rope.

Sheamus vs. Henry: This was another match where the wrestlers were a little off. I like what Sheamus is doing in this new bully character, so it made sense for him to back down from Mark Henry. The match itself was short and kept Sheamus strong, but as a heel and a bully who picks on people smaller than him, it seems like he should have to cheat against someone larger than himself. My bigger issue is that in a match that was under 3 minutes, there were three times when Sheamus and Henry seemed to be on different pages. When Henry was on the apron, he was about to throw an elbow at Sheamus who was away from him. Henry had to stand there with his arm cocked and ready to fire in an awkward moment when he realized that Sheamus wasn't right behind him. As Henry was getting back in the ring, Sheamus hit him with a series of knee lifts. He was backing away to hit another when Henry fell into the ring. Sheamus thought he was supposed to do one more knee lift, but Henry thought he was done. Then, as Henry was getting up, Sheamus ran off the ropes to hit a move, only to realize that Henry wasn't in a good position, so he had to stop and run off a different set of ropes. This match wasn't going to be a Hit, but it didn't need to be a Miss. These two should have solid matches against each other, but the fact that they weren't on the same page really stood out especially in such a short match.

Bray Wyatt: Wasn't this basically the same promo that Bray Wyatt cut to start off the hints that he would challenge The Undertaker at WM? After making that match such a big deal with beating Undertaker to become the new face of fear in WWE, shouldn't the loss to Taker on the grandest stage of them all actually have a major effect on Wyatt? So, why was he ignoring it? I know we are supposed to be intrigued and want to know who he is directing his promo towards. But, I can't care because they haven't followed up on his last similar challenge. If they didn't follow up on that, then they won't follow up on this, so I shouldn't get excited about it before it even gets started.

Miz vs. Mizdow: Greg Parks and I talked on this past weekend's Moonlighting audio show about this feud. Greg asked me if they could stretch their first match out to Extreme Rules and I said that they could since they had already stretched it out for so long. Instead, they went to it right away in a very anti-climactic manner on Raw. They have been building to it for months, and this is how they present it? It was presented like an after thought. Saxton said that it was a match that nobody expected to ever see, other than everyone who had been expecting it since like November. Again, he is terrible even though I'm sure that was a line that was fed to him. The match was a let down. It went under 5 minutes. The announcers again did a poor job here. Miz cheated to win and they questioned why Damian Mizdow broke away from Miz after losing. But, a babyface announcer should point out that Miz cheated and how Mizdow deserved the win. Booker is agreeing with JBL. Where is the voice of reason?

Ryback vs. Orton vs. Reigns: WWE did a lot to hype this main event #1 contenders match throughout Raw. It was presented as a huge opportunity for Ryback, Reigns and Orton. But, it barely lasted longer than Miz vs. Mizdow which was way too short itself. We had already seen too enough of these guys in their matches earlier in the show and didn't need to see more. After such a long show and a very bad second half, I wanted the show to be over, so I guess I shouldn't complain about the match being short. It just didn't feel like a big enough deal to me. And it wasn't good. Why does Orton stop Ryback from hitting Reings with an early Shell Shock? It was slow, plodding and rudimentary on all levels. The Authority getting involved was yet one more chance for the announcers to show some indignation on behalf of the babyfaces, but they failed again. The right man won the match, but the booking with all the interference didn't make his win seem strong. Basically, he won because he was able to ignore The Authority better than the other two. To me, that is not a good way to present him as a strong WWE World Title contender.

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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