WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 11/6: Seth & Dean vs. The Bar, Strowman vs. Miz, Joe vs. Balor, New Day, Jason Jordan, Enzo

RAW HITS

Joe vs. Balor: I would much rather watch Samoa Joe wrestle Finn Balor than wrestle Titus O’Neal or Apollo Crews. I’m guessing I’m not alone in that sentiment. Joe and Balor had a very good match. It wasn’t surprising that it ended in a double count out as neither could afford a loss at this point. It is a bit disappointing, but understandable. The match lasted 15 minutes and was fun to watch from start to finish. They had some very good matches in NXT so they’ve worked well together in the past. It made sense that they would work well together again here. The brawl that followed the match was strong. It gave a good reason to have Kurt Angle come out to name both Joe and Balor to Team Raw for Survivor Series, but it still doesn’t make sense to have these bitter enemies wanting to team up together for some sort of fake brand loyalty. Also, I keep forgetting to say that WWE has to stop calling Balor the “extraordinary man who can do extra ordinary things.” That is so lame. That type of horrible eye rolling moniker can legitimately cause damage to a character, even one as over as Balor.

Jax & Fox vs. Bayley & Banks: This was a good tag match. It had a purpose to it with Bayley and Sasha Banks trying to prove that they belong on the women’s Team Raw at Survivor Series. It isn’t really believable that they wouldn’t be on the team considering there aren’t any other women on the roster now that Emma has been released. I guess Dana Brooke is on Raw too, but still. I want to give WWE credit for trying to make a storyline here of Fox naming her team and make it somewhat of a mystery, but it is so unbelievable that I can’t. However, I can give these four women credit for having a good 14 minute tag match that impressed Alicia Fox enough to name Banks to the team, but not Bayley.

Strowman: This was much better than what they did with Braun Strowman last week. I’m still trying to forget that terrible Raw closing which wasn’t easy considering this week’s show started with a long video recap of it. But, I enjoyed the follow up this week. Strowman came across like a star. He is carrying himself well. The short match against The Miz worked well in continuing to build Strowman as a monster and in showing Miz’s cowardly side. Ultimately, this seemed to move past Miz vs. Strowman which I wasn’t interested in and moving on to Strowman vs. Kane which makes more sense given the storyline coming out of the TLC PPV.

Ambrose & Rollins vs. The Bar: This Hit is for the very good wrestling action that took place in this match before The New Day came out to interrupt. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Cesaro and Sheamus are good to very good workers who were given a long time to shine in this match. They’ve had good tag matches against each other in the past and they did so again here in the Raw main event. I got nervous when The Bar did their double crucifix on Ambrose into the ring barrier. That reminded me of the move that injured Finn Balor last year. Otherwise, I enjoyed the wrestling in this match particularly some of the believable near falls as the match built to what should have been a strong climax before the stupid New Day interruption.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: Raw did not get off to a good start. Overall, Raw had too many video packages that lasted too long. That pattern started right away with the overly long recap of what happened last week involving The Miz, his Miz-Tourage, and Braun Strowman. Miz then came out for MizTV and gave a good performance trying to make me care about his upcoming match against Baron Corbin. But despite the strong performance, the script was weak. It is still a heel vs. heel dynamic. I suspect that Miz will get cheers in the match, but getting cheers for Miz shouldn’t be the goal since after Survivor Series, he will go back to being a heel. Miz then introduced his guest, Kurt Angle who gave a very bad performance. During the interview, Miz showed three video clips from past weeks, one of Stephanie McMahon berating Angle, one of the #UnderSiege attack, and one of Daniel Bryan being beaten up by Kane. It took away any sense of flow that the segment had otherwise. It lasted too long. It wasn’t good.

Jason Jordan: Like many others, I’m hopeful that a heel turn is in the works for Jason Jordan which is why he is being added to Team Raw for Survivor Series. He isn’t coming across well in his matches. He doesn’t connect well with the live crowds. He may be trying too hard. His storyline as Kurt Angle’s long lost son isn’t working. Booker T is right as the heel (I think he’s supposed to be the heel) announcer in pointing out that it makes no sense to add Jordan to Team Raw. Angle knows that Roman Reigns is returning next week. If this were all real and unscripted, he would save that final spot for someone of Reigns’ stature and not give it to his son.

Announcing: The dynamic between Booker and Corey Graves is getting harder and harder to listed to each week. Michael Cole doesn’t help either. I don’t understand the rationale for having Cole love the music of Elias. If Booker is a heel like he comes across in his response to Jordan, then it makes sense for him to love Elias. If Corey Graves is a babyface like he comes across in his response to Jordan, then it makes sense for him to hate Elias. But, why does Cole love Elias? Also, Cole has been way over the top in his “Oh My Gods!” lately. I was happy to see Pete Dunne make his Raw debut, but his music starting did NOT deserve that type of over hype reaction from Cole. Now, I established that Graves is a face and Booker a heel, but later Booker was the babyface in saying that Bayley and Sasha Banks deserved to be on the women’s team, while Graves was heeling on them saying that Bayley hugs too much and Banks tries to steal the spotlight too much. It is like, pick a side and stick with it. It is jarring to listen to too often. They also praised Alicia Fox’s great decision to have Asuka on the team as if any captain wouldn’t pick her. Like Fox sees something in this undefeated super dominant wrestler that nobody else would have seen. What a genius decision! I did appreciate that Booker would point out that Graves is on both Raw and Smackdown. But of course, that underscores how ridiculous the whole Raw vs. Smackdown “feud” come across.

Enzo Amore: I do like the fact that Enzo Amore is now a heel. I don’t like the fact that stupid fans still give him a babyface reaction when he comes out. Fewer things in life have ticked me off more over the past year or so than wrestling fans who actually enjoy Enzo Amore. Now that he is a heel, it is even worse. I get having Enzo cut a long promo to get heat on him to build anticipation for a babyface coming out to shut him up. Unfortunately, that type of heat can easily turn into go away heat, or change the channel heat if his promo goes on too long. And that was the case this week. It was far too long. It didn’t make me want to see him get beat up. It just made me want to see him go away. His match against Dunne was ok and it was good that he lost, but it was too short to amount to much.

New Day: Why would a Raw audio technician play The New Day’s music on Raw? Why didn’t the technician cut their microphones? They don’t work on Raw. They didn’t belong there. WWE wants me to believe that there is this actual feud between these two brands, yet they take away any sense of a brand split when Smackdown wrestlers can just show up on Raw and have several minutes to talk without Raw cutting off their mic. It makes no sense. It is totally unbelievable. It insults my intelligence and deepens my already strong belief that this is a terrible storyline and terrible approach to take for this one month to have this artificial Raw vs. Smackdown feud for Survivor Series. I know it is the one night of the year when Raw and Smackdown Superstars face each other, even though it isn’t (apparently they don’t think of The Royal Rumble), but it is still artificial and I don’t care about it at all. This clearly sets up New Day to face The Shield at the PPV, which is ok I guess.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET’s “Hitlist” section 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 jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 10/30: Samoa Joe returns, Asuka’s dominant win, Braun emerges, Stephanie-Angle, Miz-Hardy, Bryan