WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 11/13: Miz TV, Heyman and Lesnar address Styles, Triple H surprise, Kane vs. Strowman, Angle-Jordan saga

RAW HITS

James vs. Bayley vs. Brooke: This was a good triple threat match to determine the final member of Raw’s women’s team for Survivor Series. The ending wasn’t in doubt. Despite the recent Title opportunities for Mickie James, I never doubted that Bayley was going to win. It was still a good match and the bit with Dana Brooke stupidly attacking Asuka was a nice moment and got Asuka a chance to get in a bit of physicality on a show where she was not booked otherwise.

MizTV: This is a minor Hit for some solid to good performances on the mic from The Miz, Sheamus and Cesaro. It effectively hyped their matches for Survivor Series, but didn’t get me super excited for them. It also hyped their upcoming six man tag match against The Shield. It would have been much better if Roman Reigns hadn’t gotten the viral infection and their reunion had been at the last PPV instead of here. I would have held off on the reunion until the PPV instead of having it in a sort of anti-climactic match on Raw. It made some sense to pay off here against the team that they were supposed to face before instead of The New Day. But, it felt a little cold. This MizTV helped some.

Heyman and Lesnar: Once again, Paul Heyman cut a promo that made me even more excited to see a match. In this case, it was a match that I already had a lot of interest in seeing. So it is impressive that he can make me have even more interest at this point. I have said it many times, but part of what makes Heyman great is the way that he builds up the opponents of Brock Lesnar. He still puts the emphasis on Lesnar winning in the end, but makes it seem like a huge match that we have to see. The highlight of the segment was unplanned when the promo was interrupted by someone proposing and getting a yes in the audience. Lesnar and Heyman’s reactions were priceless and Heyman showed how he is a master of manipulating the audience when he took the thunder back at that point.

The Shield vs. Miz & The Bar: While I was disappointed in how cold this match felt after Reign’s absence the last few weeks, it was still a fun match. It was still nice to see the Hounds of Justice back together in the ring. There was enough offense from the heel trio to keep the match interesting while building to the inevitable ending with The Shield going over strong.

Triple H: I was legitimately surprised when Triple H came out and made himself the fifth member of Team Raw, taking the place of Jason Jordan. As Jordan was painfully trying to act and get Kurt Angle to allow him to stay in the match despite his leg injury (more later), I was trying to think of who on the Raw roster could take his place. Angle wouldn’t reward Bray Wyatt after what he did to his son. Maybe Kane? So, I didn’t see Triple H coming. That was a cool moment. It certainly adds more star power and intrigue to the Survivor Series Raw vs. Smackdown men’s tag match. I still don’t care about Raw vs. Smackdown. I feel that there are going to be a ton of screw jobs in that match on both sides. I fear the Montreal Screw Job anniversary aspect of this. So, I don’t think the match will be satisfying in the end even though there will undoubtedly be some strong if not great wrestling action before the screw jobs come in the end (and there should be some great wrestling with some of the talent in the ring).

Balor & Joe vs. Gallows & Anderson: This was a good tag match to show that despite their differences, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe can work together when they have to. Their dynamic in the match was fun to watch and I particularly liked how Joe walked away right after the match. He was all business during the match, but wasn’t going to play nice afterwards which fit in with his character perfectly.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I don’t like Stephanie McMahon. And I don’t like her in the way that I don’t like an effective heel like The Miz where I want to see him get beat up. I don’t like her in the way that I am happier when she isn’t on the show. For me, Raw had a very strong run after the Superstar Shakeup, through August. That was about a 5 month stretch with mostly good episodes. And Stephanie wasn’t on any of them. I am not interested in the Raw vs. Smackdown theme for Survivor Series, and Stephanie’s recent return hasn’t helped. I didn’t enjoy watching her berate Kurt Angle again during this week’s show opening. The segment got better after The Shield came out, but it wasn’t good enough to save it after Stephanie’s performance.

Angle – Jordan: The acting in this angle continues to be poor. I think Jason Jordan was supposed to come across as being overly whiny. I hope that was the case. His whining voice begging his dad to let him stay as part of Team Raw after his leg injury was grating to listen to. Jordan had a decent match against Bray Wyatt earlier in the show. The angle afterwards with Wyatt attacking his knee worked well to get them to the point where Angle had to replace him in the Survivor Series match. But, this was painful to watch. What really landed it in the Miss column was when Jordan used the ultra WWE speak by slipping in the fact that this is the one time of year when Raw and Smackdown face off against each other. Like he wouldn’t mind being replaced in another big matchup, but this would really be painful for him to miss just because it is the one time of the year that fans get to see Raw vs. Smackdown. That was so overly scripted and unnatural that it made a bad segment terrible. At least Triple H came out to help things out at that point.

Kane vs. Strowman: This match never happened, but that was pretty cheesy. It was not well executed. It would have been better of Strowman had attacked Kane as he was making his way to the ring. That would have made it better, but not good. It still would have felt out of place to have this as the final segment on the go home show before a major PPV. This didn’t do anything to hype Survivor Series. It didn’t make me want to watch the PPV or order the WWE Network. It had a nice visual and surprising ending with Kane being put through the ring by a power slam from Strowman, but that felt totally unbelievable. After the initial pop for the surprise moment, the ridiculousness of the move settled in and I started to think about how unbelievable that was. And it was a cliffhanger that won’t be settled on the next show. I mean, Kane may come back during the Raw vs. Smackdown men’s tag match to help eliminate Strowman. In fact, I’m pretty sure he will. I guess if he comes up through the ring then that will connect to this ending, but that will have to be the final moment since it destroys the mat and that isn’t a good way to end the match, so I don’t think it will happen. Ultimately, this felt out of place and wasn’t believable so I have to give it a Miss.

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