WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 2/11: Terrible episode of Raw starts off with everyone looking bad, KO bowls a gutter ball, Ambrose-EC3 rematch, Six-Man Marathon, Elias-LHP

Opening Segment – MISS: Lets just get this out of the way up front: This was a terrible episode of Raw. Even if Charlotte hadn’t been added to the WrestleMania main event in the end, this was a terrible episode of Raw. Becky Lynch has been made to look terrible the last few weeks. She should have just seen the freaking doctor last week. This week’s Raw started off with Stephanie McMahon and Triple H apologizing to Becky for what happened last week and asking her to apologize to them. Becky refused and was told she had to by the end of the show or she would lose her Women’s Title match against Ronda Rousey at WM. This did set up the theme for the show and provided a hook to keep watching. However, that was a bad theme. Nobody looked good here. It made Becky look stupid for saying that nobody would take her match away from her and then not apologizing.

Triple Threat Tag Match – MISS: This was a Miss largely for the stupid concept of the match. The team that gets pinned or submits has to enter the Elimination Chamber first. But, there was no prize for the team that does the pinning or submitting. So, there was no reason to want to be in the match due to the stupid triple threat tag format where one team is out of the match at all times. Corey Graves had barely gotten the words out of his mouth praising Bayley & Sasha Banks for staying out of the match so that they can’t lose, when Bayley tagged herself in. Why? I guess the idea is that as the babyface team, they want the win even if it means they can’t avoid the loss. But given the announcing, they came across as stupid. And they lost. And the attempt to tease tension by having Banks taken out of the match just felt forced to me. They want to tease that they might not be on the same page heading into the PPV, but with all of their history, it is like you have to either break them up for good, or stop teasing this kind of tension.

Elias – Lucha House Party – MISS: I understand why a wrestler would interrupt Elias when he starts to play the guitar (I don’t understand why the babyface announcers get mad when he doesn’t sing, but that’s a different issue). I don’t understand why the director of Raw would cut away from him twice to show something backstage or to show a video package. There have been far too many instances lately when something totally unrelated to what’s happening in the ring is cut to randomly while someone is standing in the ring waiting for a match or to cut a promo. Once we finally got to the actual segment with Elias being interrupted by Lucha House Party, did anyone even care any more? This felt like a segment that wouldn’t happen if Raw were 2 hours. This really dragged. It was meaningless filler. I will say that the only positive that came out of this is that Jeff Jarrett and the Roadie weren’t part of it.

McIntyre, Corbin, Lashley vs. Balor, Angle, Strowman – MISS: This was another example of an overly long segment that stretched over multiple segments in a way that wouldn’t happen if they didn’t have 3 hours to fill. I mean, it wasn’t like a bad match, but it wouldn’t end. It started out as a singles match that was very short, and then was turned into a six man tag match, and then that match ended with a foot on the rope, but then a second referee came out (because you know, bad referee decisions are always overturned when a second referee comes out to point out the mistake to the original ref) and the match gets re-started, and then goes on for like 15 more minutes. There was plenty of good wrestling action throughout the match. But there were also stretches of time where Kurt Angle and Braun Strowman were selling at ringside while Finn Balor was getting triple teamed in the ring which were stretched out far too long. It was unbelievable that they would still be out of commission when he was trying to make a tag. The match did have a strong ending, but if this had just been a six man tag from the start and had only been 20 minutes (instead of 30 on top of the singles match), it would have likely been a Hit.

Kevin Owens – MISS: If I trusted WWE to have Kevin Owens returning from his long injury as a babyface, then I might feel different about this video where he certainly came across as a babyface. I mean, who would boo a man going bowling with his family? But, the first issue is this weird thing that Owens brought up about now knowing which show he’ll be on when he returns. Why? He was on Raw before. Why would he be on Smackdown now? That doesn’t make sense. Second, wasn’t it Bobby Lashley who hurt him in the first place? Shouldn’t he want to be still on Raw where he can get his revenge on Lashley? That should have been part of this video.

Seth Rollins – HIT: So after two hours of crap, and a few decent moments (not Hits for sure, but not Misses either like Ruby Riott vs. Nikki Cross for example), we finally got to the first Hit of the show. Seth Rollins gave a good promo about his match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. He talked about his great year in 2018 and connected it to what happened the night after the Royal Rumble when Lesnar beat the crap out of him with 6 F5s. He told his story and connected with the fans in a very strong way. Paul Heyman then interrupted and while his act has worn thin, this was a good performance which was kept short. What made this stand out was the way that Rollins responded to Heyman’s spoiler with a spoiler of his own. That was a strong statement and you could tell by the look on Heyman’s face that he was concerned with Rollins’ come back. The Dean Ambrose bit at the end was just odd. I don’t even know what we’re supposed to think about that.

Ambrose vs. ECIII – MISS: I don’t know what WWE is doing with ECIII either. I am not a fan of his work. I don’t have this issue where I see him as being wasted like I have at times with other NXT call ups. But putting aside my personal opinion of ECIII, WWE should do a better job of introducing any new talent when they are called up from NXT. We know nothing about his character. We don’t know what his name means. We haven’t gotten a real introduction to his in ring work since he’s only been in two short matches so far where he hasn’t gotten a lot of offense, even when he won the first match. Both matches ended on roll ups. What is his finishing move? What does his voice sound like? Why did they have him beat Ambrose last week only to have him lose this week?

Tag Title Match – HIT: A lot of credit has to be given to Bobby Roode, Chad Gable, Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder for winning over this disinterested crowd by the end of their match. This Tag Team Championship match was not well promoted at all. It was an afterthought. It came in the third hour when the fans are starting to get tired. It wasn’t built up to so the fans weren’t looking forward to it. Roode & Gable were cold as the Tag Team Champs coming into this match. The Revival were cold as the challengers. They had everything going against them, but they performed very well here. This was a very good match. Both teams pulled out some new and really cool looking double team moves. The fans were buying into the near falls as the match built toward the end. The saves were well timed and well executed. The ending was cool with the Revival winning the Tag Team Titles. I wish that the win had come under better circumstances.

Charlotte – MISS: Duh. I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t already been said. I told a fan behind me at TLC in San Jose that we were seeing the WrestleMania main event when Ronda pushed Becky and Charlotte off the ladder. The triple threat match felt inevitable. I said after the Rumble that there was no way it was booked the way that it was if they weren’t going to make it a triple threat match. Most fans knew that this was going to happen, but didn’t want it to happen. Some fans had convinced themselves that WWE would leave it as a singles match out of sheer optimism, but you had to know this would happen. That doesn’t mean that I’m happy about it. The plan is to add Becky back to the match at some point to make the fans happy to see her in the match so that they will forget about being upset about having it be a triple threat. Otherwise, they would have just used the Rumble booking to add Charlotte without taking Becky out first. I get that thinking, but I don’t think it will work. This also continued the theme of making Becky look bad. They could have gotten to this point without having her look so bad. It also didn’t make The Authority look very good either considering Vince McMahon came out and overturned what they had just said. Vince has to be the alpha in the situation and bigfoot everyone. It seems like the plan a year ago was to have Charlotte vs. Rousey at WM in the main event, but Becky got hot and became a bigger star than Charlotte, and Vince wasn’t happy about it and refused to change his plans. It is so tone deaf to say that the fans are the new authority at the end of 2018 and to do this to the fans in early 2019. I have seen some fans say things like “well, Charlotte does deserve it, but…” and I’m like “no, Charlotte doesn’t deserve it.” If she deserved it, she would have been the hottest act in the company over the past several months, not Becky Lynch.

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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