WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 6/25: Bayley Snaps, Ziggler vs. Rollins IC Title main event, Reigns-Lashley, Hardy vs. Axel, Kurt Angle, Bliss’s loss

RAW HITS

Bayley Snaps: This was a bad episode of Raw. Even this Hit for Bayley snapping on Sasha Banks after their six person tag match (Michael Cole’s term, not mine), was surrounded by crap. I’m giving this a Hit because of the huge pop that it created, arguably the biggest pop of the night and the biggest pop that Bayley has received on the main roster. Last week I said that I was hoping for a heel turn for Bayley with her joining The Riott Squad. We didn’t get that here and I think we were supposed to view her attack on Banks as a heel turn, but she was treated like a babyface hero. The beating was very well done. It was certainly memorable. But, the reasoning behind this match and the whole follow up with Bayley having to go into counseling were terrible (more later).

Ziggler vs. Rollins: Thank God for Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler for having such a great main event Intercontinental Championship. Otherwise, this was one of the worst Raws I can remember. That was a great match that went nearly 30 minutes and had the crowd hot from start to finish. It was a reminder of how good Ziggler can be in the ring despite all the problems that he has in the character department. Rollins continues to add to his Best WWE Wrestler of the Year candidacy. Nobody in WWE is having a better year in the ring than Rollins. The match did have the disqualification ending with Drew McIntyre returning to the ring to save Ziggler’s IC Title. I was happy to hear the announcers actually get upset at McIntyre for ruining the match and costing Rollins. The save by Roman Reigns made some sense, although I was hoping for Dean Ambrose (but I don’t think he’s supposed to be back for awhile still).

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I hated this opening segment. Reigns came across like such an ass for interrupting Kurt Angle and then how he talked down to Bobby Lashley. Lashley came across a little better, but his performance on the mic wasn’t good enough. It was a little better than last week, but not enough. I keep hearing about how much he improved on the mic while on Impact, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I find it hard to root for either of them after this segment. It also made Angle look weak for the way he had to cancel the #1 contender match at Extreme Rules and how he kowtows to Constable Corbin, allowing him to make an impromptu match. His explanation of why the match was cancelled didn’t make any sense either. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing another match with Reigns and Lashley teaming up against The Revival. It was the start of this weird theme of mixed matched tag teams which didn’t work. The match that followed was fine, but not good enough to get a Hit.

Hardy vs. Axel: I don’t understand why a match between half of the Tag Team Champions vs. half of the #1 contenders would end in about a minute on a fluke slip like that. This whole feud between The Deleters of Worlds and The B-Team has just been odd from the start. I’m not into it at all. This match certainly didn’t make me want to watch their eventual Title match more than I did before, which wasn’t much to begin with.

Kurt Angle: I already talked about how weak Angle looked in the opening segment. He was also booked to look like an idiot throughout the show. He didn’t have a good reason for forcing Bayley and Sasha Banks to team together. What does their value to Raw have to do with teaming up with each other? That makes ZERO sense. Forcing Lashley and Reigns to team together didn’t either. Then he made this bizarre match with Kevin Owens teaming up with Braun Strowman against Finn Balor and Baron Corbin. Why would he do that to Balor? I didn’t like how that followed up on Strowman and Balor teaming up against each other last week. The match itself had some good parts to it, but the booking was so backwards that it was hard to really get into the match to give it a Hit. And then Angle gave this ridiculous order to Bayley to go into counseling. What the hell? He doesn’t punish The Riott Squad for destroying property. He doesn’t force Strowman into anger management despite what he does every week, or punish him for destroying another wrestler’s rental car. But, he forces Bayley into counseling for beating up someone who she’s been at odds with for months? This is terrible writing.

Bliss Loses: Typically, WWE finds a way to make their Money in the Bank winners look weak before they eventually cash in and win a World Championship. This time, they make Bliss look strong by cashing in right away and winning the Title before she could be defined down the way so many others have been in the past. So how did they follow up on that? Have her lose one week later to Natalya. Bliss is being set up for Title defenses against Nia Jax and then Ronda Rousey. She should not be losing at all. She should be kept strong. Her promo with Mickie James was solid before the match, but it wasn’t good enough to get a Hit. What really took it out of the Hit column was the way that Bliss said that everything she did at MITB was legal which is what Rousey doesn’t understand. But, it wasn’t legal. She illegally interrupted a match and caused a disqualification. That wasn’t legal. Yes, cashing in the briefcase at that point was legal, but attacking a wrestler during her match which causes a DQ finish is not legal. That’s why it causes a DQ finish. And nobody is pointing that out. Michael Cole HAS to say this at some point. He HAS to say “yes, it was legal to cash in after the match, but it was not legal to interrupt the match the way she did.” And she’s the heel. They should be getting heat on her. The announcing is pathetic at this point.

Bad Booking: I’ve already talked about several bad booking decisions on this show like the strange team ups, having Bliss lose, and the continuation of the Bayley-Banks feud in counseling. There were also things that just didn’t quite make the Miss column, but weren’t good like having the Authors of Pain running away from the joke team of Titus Worldwide, the weird way that Jinder Mahal reacted to The Riott Squad, and the way that Strowman punished Owens for being a great teammate by destroying his rental car. Coach said that Owens brought it on himself and Graves asked “how?” Coach didn’t have an answer for that, because of how poor this storytelling was. I don’t like the way they are handling Brock Lesnar as the Universal Champion. It actually makes me wish they had let him walk after WrestleMania and just put the title on Reigns at that point. And I never thought I would say that.

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 6/18: Rousey suspension, Rollins vs. Ziggler, Kevin Owens, Lashley-Reigns, Bayley-Banks saga