WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 1/8: Strowman-Lesnar-Kane, Samoa Joe’s interview, Balor Club vs. Jordan & Seth & Roman, Miz’s Return, Hardy-Wyatt laugh-off

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: The dynamic between Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan continues to be fun. They are all playing their rolls well with the cool Shield members embarrassed by the antics of the ultra uncool Jordan. Their interaction with the Balor Club was strong. It effectively set up the main event to get the fans excited for the rest of the show.

Joe’s Interview: I liked Samoa Joe’s post-match interview where he entered himself in the Royal Rumble match and then directed his attention towards John Cena. A Joe vs. Cena feud or match at WrestleMania would certainly be good. It was a nice way to move him past his loss to Reigns in the Intercontinental Championship match last week. Unfortunately, I see that Joe has hurt his foot and will likely miss a few months putting those plans on hold. That really sucks.

Reigns & Rollins & Jordan vs. Balor Club: I liked calling Finn Balor’s fans the Balor Club. I’m not sure it works as well for a stable of wrestlers. If I was Gallows & Anderson, I wouldn’t want to be in a faction that is named after another wrestler. But, that is a very minor quibble. I like seeing them as a team. WWE did a nice job of showing their history in Japan earlier in the show to help sell the idea that they are a real team going back years, even if they have just started wrestling together in WWE. The main event was mostly an angle more than a match. It was a good angle and the wrestling involved was also fun to watch. This was more about Jordan costing his team the match than about Balor Club, but that makes sense given the stories that they are telling. It worked well. I would have liked to see more of Balor in the match considering that he is the best wrestler in the match. But again, that is a minor complaint for an otherwise strong main event.

RAW MISSES

Hardy – Wyatt: It was smart to give Matt Hardy a squash win in his first match back on Raw since he became Woken. It made some sense to have Bray Wyatt come out afterwards to get in Hardy’s face. However, the maniacal laugh off between them didn’t work for me. Hardy’s laugh is the least interesting thing about his character to me. But, what really didn’t work in this case was the same thing that often happens at the end of a Bray Wyatt surprise appearance. Nothing happened. The screen just went black. What happened at that point? Did one or the other or both simply disappear at that point? Did they slowly back away and leave? That sudden end to the segment was jarring and makes me think that the writers couldn’t come up with an actual ending to the face off.

Miz’s Return: I was not a fan of how WWE presented The Miz upon his return after 6 weeks of being off filming a movie and winning awards. The introduction by Elias was ok. I was hoping for a new direction for Miz. I would have taken a babyface turn. I would have taken him getting rid of the Miz-tourage since they embarrassed him by always losing without him, even if he still stayed heel. I would have taken anything different. Instead, after a tease of something different in the way that he put Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas in their place, we got the same Miz we’ve had all year. He is right back to the same character. He was right back to wanting to win the Intercontinental Championship. I get that it has become his identity at this point, but it felt like a failed opportunity to elevate him past that. He didn’t even declare that he’d be in the Royal Rumble. Miz delivered a good performance, but the part was poorly written. We will see a continuation of his feud with Reigns and Rollins. That doesn’t get me excited.

Enzo Gets Counted Out: These endings with Enzo Amore losing but keeping his Cruiserweight Title have become tedious. Here he got counted out so he lost to Cedric Alexander, but kept the Title. Yawn. It was predictable. You knew that he wasn’t going to lose the Title, but you knew that he can’t win a match clean. I know some people like him. But, I don’t see him having enough value as an entertainer to keep the Cruiserweight Title on him and keep having the same cheesy endings to his matches over and over again.

The Bar Loses to O’Neil & Crews: The Bar are the #1 contenders for the Raw Tag Team Championship. They are facing the Champions at The Royal Rumble. Titus Worldwide are a joke. They are jobbers. The do not deserve a big push right now. They should not have been given a win over Cesaro & Sheamus at this point. The Bar should be protected and kept strong for the next few weeks leading to their Title match. Sacrificing their credibility to give a win to a joke of a tag team makes zero sense to me.

Heyman, Lesnar, Kane, Strowman: I hated this segment. I have a feeling I am in the minority on this, but it was bad from top to bottom. This was not a good promo by Paul Heyman. Is it sacrilegious to say that Heyman cut a bad promo? Oh well. It was bad. I don’t need to hear about marketing and hyping big matches. I don’t need to hear him complain about Brock Lesnar having to defend the Universal Title in a triple threat match again after we heard the same thing last summer. Also, he was talking about the history of hyping the Universal Title as if that Title had a history and hadn’t been introduced two years ago.

Moving on, the post-promo part of the segment was even worse. The attack by Kane and their brawl to the back was ok. I thought Brawn Strowman was supposed to be a babyface at this point, yet he jumped his competitors from behind here. I didn’t like that. The way he initially manhandled both Lesnar and Kane was impressive. However, I hated the grappling hook bit. I keep saying hated. Maybe I’m being naive to how wrestling shows are put together backstage, but is there a legit reason for there to be a grappling hook there? I’m honestly asking if that hook serves a legit purpose in setting up for Raw? I say the same thing about why WWE keeps several folding tables under the ring which don’t appear to serve a real purpose, but that’s kind of grandfathered in at this point. So, I did’t buy why he had a grappling hook to begin with. This wasn’t as unbelievable as when he tipped over the ambulance. But, it still didn’t work for me. Lesnar trying to get Heyman to let him out of the ambulance was silly. I know WWE wanted to do something big to put some interest into a triple threat Title match that isn’t interesting at all. It may have worked for others, but it didn’t work for me. I don’t buy that Lesnar will lose the Title at the PPV. To me, this was a desperation move that failed to work.

Bliss – Jax – Asuka: So did Nia Jax believe Alexa Bliss about those awful things that Asuka supposedly said about her? She seemed to believe her in the way that she attacked Asuka from behind before Asuka’s match. However, she indicated at the end of her encounter with Bliss that she didn’t believe her, because she said that Asuka doesn’t speak English and since Bliss doesn’t speak Japanese, there was no way that Bliss would have actually known what Asuka had said about her. Of course, that whole bit was predicated on the fact that Asuka doesn’t speak English, but we saw her speaking English with The Miz earlier in the show. Maybe she doesn’t speak a lot of English, but she has picked up enough of the language to be able to have simple conversations. If she can say that nobody is ready for her like she often does, then she knows enough English to insult Jax. And there was no talk this week about Asuka getting a Women’s Title match after beating the Champion in a non-Title match last week.

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 1/1: Reigns vs. Joe, The Club reunites, Wyatt vs. Apollo, Cesaro vs. Jordan, Lesnar-Kane, Goldust