WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 1/28: Rousey-Becky, Elias-Jeff Jarrett and Road Dogg, Strowman vs. McIntyre, Lesnar-Rollins angle, Mojo Rawley, Angle-Corbin, Seth and Triple H, Jax, Balor-Lashley

Opening Segment – HIT: Raw got off to a very good start with Seth Rollins coming out to talk about winning The Royal Rumble the night before. He gave a great promo to kick things off and set up the idea that he hasn’t decided which Champion to challenge at WrestleMania. Triple H was also good in setting up the idea that Rollins needed to make a decision by the end of the show. That gave a hook for the rest of the show. When Dean Ambrose came out, I was worried that he would try to challenge him for the Title shot at WM, so I was relieved when it was just a match. This also set up Rollins vs. Ambrose for after the first commercial break.

Rollins vs. Ambrose – HIT: That was a good match. It was fairly one sided, but in light of the news that Ambrose is going to be leaving WWE in April, it makes more sense. It did make sense either way for Rollins to get a strong win to continue his momentum coming out of the Rumble. This put his feud against Ambrose behind him and allowed him to move on.

Jax Fighting Men – MISS: I was not a fan of Nia Jax’s involvement in the men’s Royal Rumble for a number of reasons. I don’t like the idea of women and men fighting each other. That was one of the reasons I stopped watching Lucha Underground. I’m not comfortable watching it. Having her beat up a heel like Ambrose didn’t make much sense to me, since she’s also a heel. Once I heard about Ambrose leaving WWE, I thought that they did this only as a punishment to him for not re-signing which is petty. I just don’t like where they may be going with this. Jax’s match teaming with Tamina against Alexa Bliss & Mickie James was solid. It wasn’t a Miss, but not quite a Hit either. It was hurt by the heel vs. heel dynamic.

Angle vs. Corbin – MISS: Kurt Angle shouldn’t be wrestling any more. I don’t have any interest in seeing it. When he does, it should be special. It should be a big deal. It shouldn’t just happen on a random episode of Raw like this. His feud with Baron Corbin goes back months, so it should have been on a PPV. But once I saw the match, I was relieved it wasn’t on a PPV. It was only 4 minutes and Angle lost. The announcers were very heavy with the talk about this being the end of his career that it does seem like the set up of a retirement angle. It makes me think of Ric Flair’s retirement angle and what the original idea for that story was if I remember correctly. The idea was that after a losing streak like Angle has been on, Flair would say that the next time he lost, he would retire. That changed into Vince McMahon proclaiming that Flair would have to retire the next time he lost. But, WWE could easily go to that other story for Angle now. I guess if this leads to an actual storyline that leads to a retirement match at WM, then it will be better and make more sense. But, I still won’t want to see Angle in the ring so much.

Balor – Lashley – HIT: Finn Balor gave a good promo talking about holding his head high despite losing to Brock Lesnar in the Universal Title match the night before. Lio Rush and Bobby Lashley coming out to interrupt worked well to give both men a new opponent. Lashley vs. Balor for the Intercontinental Championship has a lot of potential to be a good feud for both men. The beating at the end put more heat on Lashley. But, it was very similar to what would happen at the end of the show between Lesnar and Rollins.

Elias, Jarrett, Dogg – MISS: The experiment with Elias as a babyface was a failure. He was never able to really pivot his character from the popular heel into a babyface. So, I’m ok with them going back to him being a heel so soon. Having him turn on a retired wrestler like Jeff Jarrett doesn’t make a lot of sense. Sure, it got a good reaction, but where does it leave? Yes, the fans chanted “holy shit” at seeing Jarrett and his old roadie Road Dogg together, but to what end? Are we going to see an Elias vs. Jarrett match, or Elias vs. Road Dogg? Those would be really crappy matches. So, I’m not really looking forward to seeing where they go with Elias.

Mojo Rawley – HIT: I’m giving this a Hit in the hope that it actually is the start of something good for Mojo Rawley. He does have talent and he performed this promo talking to himself in the mirror well. But, I don’t have a lot of faith that WWE will stick with any type of push for him at this point.

Ronda Rousey – MISS: WWE and Ronda Rousey should have been prepared for this reaction from this crowd. To me, this felt like a night after Mania type crowd, and with Becky Lynch’s popularity, they should have anticipated this reaction and prepared Rousey for it. Instead, she came across like a deer in the headlights when she was faced with boos and “Becky” chants. She didn’t know what to do and even acknowledged that the fans had caused her to stumble over her words. This is the same reaction she’s going to get at WM and in certain crowds especially when she’s interacting directly with Becky. So hopefully, WWE works with Rousey to get her to be able to handle it better, because she failed here. She seemed like she was about to turn things around when talking about Becky. I thought she was going to win the crowd over a little bit by making some strong statement like “speaking of Becky, I hope she picks me, because I want to face the best and right now she’s the best.” But, after starting to talk about it she faltered again and was totally lost. She never actually got to the point where she made her open challenge, but WWE had to send Bayley out early to save the segment.

The match that followed with Bayley challenging Rousey for the Women’s Title wasn’t good. It was solid. I won’t give it a Miss, but it wasn’t a Hit either. Rousey was just off in that match. Part of it was that she was selling both a leg and an arm injury which means she almost had to be sloppy on purpose to sell those injuries. It made storyline sense, but it didn’t make for a pleasing looking match. They had some good spots. Bayley looked strong. It wasn’t bad. But, considering how good Rousey vs. Banks was the night before, I was expecting a very good match here.

The Man – HIT: There was a clear winner and a clear loser in the night between Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey. Lynch came across as the top star in the company. She was great in proclaiming that she is going to face Rousey for the Raw Women’s Title at WM. She showed here why the fans have been hugely behind her. The fans didn’t seem to care that she had tapped out to Asuka the night before. I will say that after being so rattled by the fans and after having a disappointing match against Bayley, I do give Rousey credit for ending the segment very well. She did stumble a bit early on in her response. But overall, that response was good. She stepped up and ended on a much stronger note. Her final statement was great and redeemed herself quite a bit after her poor performance earlier. It made me want to watch them fight even more than I did before. That’s the WrestleMania main event right there.

Strowman vs. McIntyre – MISS: WWE wants to push Baron Corbin and I understand that he gets a strong heel reaction. But, I honestly believe that it is mostly go away heat. He isn’t good at anything he does. His matches aren’t good. His mic work isn’t strong. So, I don’t want to see him in multiple segments on the same show. So, I didn’t want to see him get involved in this match between Braun Strowman and Drew McIntyre. The match itself was fine until Corbin got involved and caused a disqualification. I am getting sick and tired of WWE booking matches where they can’t have either wrestler lose. There have been too many of these types of endings to get out of having one wrestler lose clean, including Strowman’s match against Balor last week. Plus, McIntyre should be a top star. I’m hoping that he gets a win over John Cena at WM. To me, he is brought down by having him associated with Corbin. And ultimately, if he is going to get that match against Cena at WM, and become the top heel on Raw as he should be, he needs to be kept strong and needs to win his feud against Strowman. But, I don’t think WWE will do that.

Lesnar – Rollins – MISS: The closing segment started off well with Paul Heyman addressing Seth Rollins’ choice for a WM opponent and making a case for Rollins to pick Daniel Bryan. But, we never actually got that choice from Rollins. He presumably chose Lesnar, but I would have liked to have had Rollins actually say it. And Rollins got the crap beat out of him. They are starting out the build by making Rollins look like David to Lesnar’s Goliath, right after doing the same storyline with Balor and Lesnar. I would have liked to see Rollins get the better of Lesnar here. There are a few months to have Lesnar get the heat back and look dominating like he did here. This would have been a good time to have Rollins stand tall and actually make that declaration that he will challenge Lesnar for the Universal Title at WM.

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.

CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 1/21: Heyman and Lesnar, Rousey interview, Rolllins vs. McIntyre, Roode & Gable vs. Revival, Balor vs. Strowman