WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 4/3: What worked and didn’t work in final Raw before WrestleMania 34 including Lesnar-Reigns, Rousey-Stephanie, Cena-Undertaker

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: The go home Raw before WrestleMania was a pretty good episode which started off well with this face off between Stephanie McMahon & Triple H vs. Ronda Rousey & Kurt Angle. Rousey is still finding herself on the mic. Her work in the video package from two weeks ago was stronger than this live performance. She was ok. It seems like she always is shaky at times during her performance, but has a few good moments. That was the case here. Stephanie, Triple H and Angle all played their parts well and helped to elevate the segment. The fans certainly were behind her (in fact, this was a great crowd if you are WWE as they seemed to react to everything the way WWE hoped). The physicality at the end made sense in the way that Triple H and Stephanie got the better of their opponents by attacking them from behind. That makes the fans want to see Rousey and Angle get their revenge.

Bayley vs. Deville: This was a good match between Bayley and Sonya Deville. It went 10 minutes and featured good wrestling action. Deville continues to improve in the ring. I’m impressed with her. Bayley is so good and she helped to elevate Deville. I particularly liked this match considering that it was just a set up for the post-match angle with the Absolution beat down and the save from Sasha Banks. That worked well to make the fans think that Banks was going to make up with Bayley, only to have her reveal that the only reason she saved Bayley was to get a thank you from her. The story has been bad, but I at least appreciate the fact that Banks was clearly the heel here and Bayley the babyface.

Balor vs. Rollins: There was nothing at stake in this match, but Seth Rollins and Finn Balor put in a great effort. This was a 22 minute match on a show that was understandably heavy on videos and interviews to hype WM. It was great to see such a long match on this show. It made me want to see more. The announcers did a nice job of selling the idea that as great as this match was, it will be even better on Sunday with the Intercontinental Championship on the line and The Miz also involved. I was not a fan of Miz on guest commentary during this match (more later), but the match itself was great.

John Cena: As I feared last week, we got more of the same from John Cena this week in terms of calling out The Undertaker to try to get him to agree to a match at WM. However, I enjoyed much of what he said. I give him credit for addressing the elephant in the room in terms of the fact that he had plenty of other possible WM matches that he could have been in, but he wanted Undertaker. I’m not buying what he was selling, but I appreciate the effort to talk about how he hadn’t earned certain spots, and that he didn’t want to take a spot away from someone who had. It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing. The fans were once again following along with him. It was also good how he hyped the entire WM card in terms of calling himself a fan and all that he was looking forward to seeing at the biggest show of the year. But in the end, we still didn’t get Undertaker which was a big disappointment (more later).

Jax Interview: This was a good, simple, straightforward interview to finally give Nia Jax a chance to react to what Alexa Bliss has said about her and done to her over the past few weeks. She was emotional, without being overly emotional. It was well scripted and well performed. I’m not sure we needed the tease of physicality that came later in the show, but that worked fine. I don’t understand what Asuka was doing in that tag match. That didn’t make much sense to me, but it worked out ok.

Closing Segment: Roman Reigns was a total ass to Kurt Angle earlier in the show. That line about Angle’s Olympic medal was out of line and way too harsh coming from someone who is supposed to be a babyface. That was bad, but the backstage scene with Paul Heyman and Angle was great. Those two encounters set up the final segment with Heyman and Brock Lesnar coming out to talk about the Universal Title match at WM with a group of wrestlers standing on the ramp to keep Reigns from attacking Lesnar. Heyman was great as you’d expect. He put over Reigns while also promising the spoiler that Lesnar would retain the Universal Championship. Reigns was good coming out to convince the wrestlers to let him pass to get his hands on Lesnar. The fight at that point worked to show that Reigns can hang physically with Lesnar who had gotten the better of him the last two weeks, but also showed that Lesnar can take what Reigns dishes out. Overall, WWE did a very nice job of hyping WM throughout the show.

RAW MISSES

The Miz: I would love to see a new Miz. I thought after he came back from being on hiatus filming his latest direct to DVD movie that he should come back with a slightly different character and a babyface run. They could tell the story of how becoming a father changed him. However, this is not the time to do that story right before WM when he is facing two very popular babyfaces in a triple threat match. He came across as far too likable doing guest commentary for Rollins vs. Balor. Even with Michael Cole at times trying to push his buttons and get more of a heel reaction from him, he was level headed, respectful of his opponents and logical in his counter arguments about things like how the 3 weeks off from in ring action will effect him on Sunday. I thought maybe afterwards we’d get some type of attack from The Miz-tourage where he could say something like “well, fatherhood hasn’t changed me that much.” But, we got nothing. I was left finding it hard to boo him.

Brain Strowman: This was lame. It wasn’t funny. Corey Graves was way too over the top in acting like he didn’t realize that it was Braun Strowman the entire time. I’m ok with having Strowman’s partner remain a mystery until WM. In fact, I’m more than ok with it. It makes sense. But, there had to be better ways of carrying on the mystery than this failed attempt at humor. His back stage encounter with Kurt Hawkins was fun and eliminated one of the wrestlers that some fans had thought would be a possible partner for him.

Graves: I have to give him a Miss. He has become so obnoxious lately, that he is hurting both Raw and Smackdown. He comes across like he is just looking for things to yell about. He is looking for reasons to jump down Cole and Jonathan Coachmen’s throat. He yelled at Coach for saying that God works in mysterious ways in regards to the early birth of Miz’s daughter. Why? It is like he found something that worked for him in a weird way with his constant ridicule of Booker T who often, although not always, deserved it. And he’s always done it with Byron Saxton on Smackdown. And now he is trying to recreate that with Coach who doesn’t deserve it nearly as often as the other two. I know he is popular with a lot of fans, and I have been a fan of his in the past. But right now, he is doing a bad job.

No Undertaker: On certain things like a mystery partner for Strowman, or possibly Daniel Bryan too, not knowing something going into WM can be fun. Not knowing if a match is going to happen at all isn’t as fun. I found this to be disappointing in stretching out a mystery too long. There are some possibilities that WWE can go with on Sunday. Perhaps at some point with Cena in the front row, the lights go out and Undertaker comes out (or appears via magic in the ring) and calls Cena into the ring for an impromptu match, or even just a fight of some type. I could also see Cena getting in the ring for one last plea to Taker (maybe even after the main event). At that point Taker finally comes out. Maybe it will work out, so this Miss might go away in the long run, but for now I am just more annoyed than anything else.

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.

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