WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 3/4: The Shield reunites, Colin Jost & Michael Che, Heavy Machinery, Triple H promo, Batista selfie video, Rousey heel turn

Opening Segment – HIT: Raw got off to a good start with what turned out to be the start of The Shield reunion saga which would play out over the course of the show. Roman Reigns got another very positive reaction from the crowd. It will be interesting to see how long the good will lasts. I liked how he presented himself. As I suggested last week, he referred to “our yard” not “my yard.” They teased that he was going to try to get himself into the WrestleMania main event, but thankfully they were going in a different direction. Seth Rollins’ response was also good, but I felt that his accepting of trying to reunite with Dean Ambrose came too quickly. Otherwise, this was a good set up for that storyline.

Strowman & Balor & Angle vs. McIntyre & Corbin & Lashley – HIT: This is a marginal Hit for the fact that it had solid wrestling action, a really cool spot with Braun Strowman destroying Lio Rush and taking himself out of the match, and gave the heel trio a big win against two credible opponents and a WWE Hall of Famer before facing The Shield at Fast Lane. The use of Kurt Angle continues to be Miss-worthy. The fact that Lio Rush clearly cheated in front of the referee and the heel team wasn’t disqualified and he wasn’t ejected from ringside was Miss-worthy. The repetitive and formulaic way the match was put together with two long heel beatings before hot tags was Miss-worthy. But as I said, there was just enough good here to get a Hit.

Heavy Machinery – MISS: I don’t really understand Heavy Machinery’s characters. The scene taped in the locker room earlier in the show with the lower card tag teams making fun of them was very bad. Why was it being taped? At least Renee Young questioned that later in the show. Boo hoo, someone hurt my feelings isn’t a great line. I appreciate the fact that they were made to look strong in the gauntlet match, but I would have rather seen this play out over several weeks with them getting squash matches over these teams. Where do they go from here? They already beat most of the tag team roster on Raw. Also, the fans like the B Team and Ryder & Hawkins, so having them playing heels with the Ascension doesn’t make sense.

Natalya vs. Riott – MISS: These two had a big feud last year that culminated in a Tables match at the TLC PPV in December. Going back to the match a few months later is ok, but to have it end in 4 minutes was a let down. Ruby Riott is so skilled and there is so much potential in the Riott Squad that it is disappointing to see how Riott has looked lately. She was squashed by Ronda Rousey at Elimination Chamber. While she looked much better in the rematch the next night, she lost. And she lost again here. And this all ended up as a set up for the Sassy Southern Belle Lacey Evans to come out and do her thing, which is actually nothing. Yawn.

Colin Jost & Michael Che – MISS: Colin Jost and Michael Che performed well in their part in multiple backstage segments of Raw. The problem is that those segments were so poorly written. The best was the first when they were welcomed by Stephanie McMahon. The dynamic between them that Che was a WWE fan who had to protect Jost from himself was established. It went downhill from there. We got silly segments with low card comedy acts Titus O’Neil and No Way Jose. The celebrities were made to look like idiots. I hated when Jost asked Strowman if wrestling was fake. Why go there? That wasn’t needed. They played their parts well, but had bad material to work with and felt totally out of place.

Batista Selfie Video – HIT: Batista came across great in his selfie video on Instagram that WWE showed before Triple H addressed what Batista did to Ric Flair last week. He was calm and collected and funny, but in a heelish manner. It was short and well done.

Triple H Promo – MISS: I didn’t respond well to the insider nature of Triple H talking about Flair and Batista. I appreciate that WWE is setting up Triple H as the babyface and Batista as the heel. That makes the match much more interesting than if the roles were reversed. But that doesn’t mean that we need all the insider talk. We don’t need Triple H breaking the fourth wall and using real names. We don’t need Triple H being so emotionally manipulative by bringing up Ric Flair’s son’s death. That made me uncomfortable. We don’t need him pointing out that Batista was getting cheap bad guy heat. We didn’t need him talking about not playing characters and how this is real. None of that was needed.

Shield Reunion – HIT: This was at least a month’s worth of storytelling crammed into one episode of Raw. But given the circumstances of Reigns just now coming back from his battle with Leukemia, and the fact that Ambrose is about to leave WWE, and Rollins being set to face Brock Lesnar at WM, WWE had to get a Shield reunion at Fast Lane if in was going to happen. Once the decision was made to have them in one last match, it meant telling that story in this one episode. Once it had to happen in this one episode, WWE handled that storyline well. I already talked about how it was set up in the opening segment. There were two scenes in the back with Reigns and Rollins trying to convince Ambrose to rejoin them. Ambrose vs. Elias set up another loss for Ambrose. Ambrose played his part well in walking away through the crowd. McIntyre was great when he led Corbin and Lashley out to confront Rollins and Reigns. The fight that happened was well done leading to Ambrose reluctantly running back to the ring to make the save. The Shield fist bump reunion got a nice pop and was a nice moment. We’ll see on Sunday where they go from here. Is it to set up Ambrose turning on them again at the PPV to face Reigns at WM? Time will tell.

Banks vs. Tamina – MISS: The new Women’s Tag Team Championship has not gotten off to a good start after the good EC match which crowned Bayley & Shasha Banks as the first Champions. Since then, they have had an overly long and poorly delivered promo about winning the Title. Then Bayley was made to look strong which was good, but it came at the expense of making one of her first challengers Nia Jax look weak. This week, their other challenger Tamina was made to look strong, which is good, but it came at the expense of making Banks look weak. WWE has to find a better way of building to these tag matches than trading singles wins. The challengers always win the match on the last show before the PPV. The formula is tired. Having Jax & Tamina win back to back tag team matches to make them look like strong challengers these past two weeks would have been much better.

The Revival vs. Ricochet & Black – MISS: Even though they kept the Tag Team Titles via disqualification, The Revival still lost the match. They have now lost every tv match that they’ve had since winning the Championship. Once Bobby Roode and Chad Gable came out, you knew exactly where this was going. With a short match and a commercial break, there wasn’t even much chance to see the talent in the ring before Roode & Gable got involved.

Women’s Title Saga – MISS: What a convoluted mess the Raw Women’s Title match at WM has been. WWE had a simple task to have the most popular wrestler in the company, Becky Lynch win the Royal Rumble to go on to face the biggest star in the company Ronda Rousey in the main event at WM. But, because the plan a year ago was Charlotte vs. Rousey, and because Vince McMahon is so stubborn, Charlotte still has to be part of the match. From Becky losing to Asuka at the Rumble, to the silly way she got herself into the Rumble match to win it, to how WWE ignored the story they were telling where Charlotte could have complained about Becky being in the match at all, to the story about Becky’s injury, to three different McMahons getting involved, to Becky’s suspension, to her attacking Charlotte and Ronda, to Ronda demanding Becky be added back into the match, to her leaving the Title in the ring last week, to everything that happened this week, this is a big mess. On this Raw we went from Rousey being stripped of the Title and Becky being reinstated to face Charlotte for the vacant Title half way through the show, to Rousey still being Champion and having Becky vs. Charlotte be to see if Becky can get back into the match by the end. If Becky was taken out of the WM main event due to her 60 day suspension, then why is she still out of the match once the suspension was lifted? That made no sense. She couldn’t be in the match because she was suspended. She can be in the match now that she isn’t suspended. So why does she have to earn that match again? Why would Stephanie who is now a babyface continue to let the heel Charlotte in the match she never earned while the babyface Becky have to re-earn a match she already earned? In the end, we will get Becky in the WM main event against Rousey which is what people want, but it will be a Triple Threat which people don’t want.

Rousey Turns Heel – HIT: Despite all the problems with this storyline, Ronda Rousey turning heel was a smart move. The fans were starting to reject her (and in some markets had rejected her entirely). Setting her up as a heel against the babyface Becky makes sense. She showed a killer badass persona in her beating of Becky after she snapped. She was believable in how she turned on the fans for turning on her after she had tried to do everything right. It fit in with her storyline and everything that’s been happening the last few months. I just wish she had snapped on Becky without Charlotte being involved at all.

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 2/25: Roman Reigns return, Ronda-Stephanie, Flair’s Birthday Party, Ambrose vs. McIntyre, Braun vs. Lashley, Bliss