WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 8/19: Seth & Strowman vs. Anderson & Gallows, King’s Court ended with The Fiend, Reigns vs. Ziggler, Booker T interview, Becky Lynch-Sasha Banks, 24/7, Rey retirement tease, Revival & Orton

Reigns vs. Ziggler – HIT: This Hit is for both the match itself and the lead up to it. Roman Reigns set the tone right away with the intense way that he came out to the ring. This was a different Roman Reigns and he connected with the audience. Dolph Ziggler got a huge amount of heat with his mic work before the match. It comes across to me as legit heat, not go away heat. He is doing a good job with his character. Then we got a good 12 minute match. Nobody thought that Ziggler had a chance to beat Reigns, but they still did a very good job with some credible near falls towards the end of the match. The Superman Punch spot was well done with Reigns spinning Ziggler around after a blocked super kick. Ziggler countering a spear attempt into a famouser was also a really good spot. It led to Reigns getting the crowd pleasing spear for the win in the end.

Becky Lynch Promo / Sasha Banks Interview – HIT: Becky Lynch came across like the alpha in this promo. She is the Champion. She wants her challengers at their best. She took credit for Sasha Banks’ return last week. She was intense. She was serious. You couldn’t take your eyes off her as she delivered her words. This made me want to see her defend her Women’s Title against Banks even more than I did before. The follow up interview we got later in the show from Banks was also good. She is a natural heel and she came across well here. I loved how she assumed Michael Cole was asking her about her hair. Then of course, in true heel fashion she refused to actually answer the question. But, we do need to get that answer eventually.

King’s Court – HIT: WWE did a nice job of actually explaining why Jerry “the King” Lawler was on Raw and would have a King’s Court than they did last month when he was on Smackdown to randomly interview Trish Stratus. He was there to replace Corey Graves who is on vacation and he was going to interview Banks about what she did last week. This made sense and gave a logical reason for him to be in the ring. Also, this was part of the preview of the King of the Ring tournament, so having The King give his input made sense too. The best part of this is when the tease of The Fiend started, Lawler recognized it and left. He played his part perfectly, getting out of the ring to try to escape an attack from Bray Wyatt. Wyatt was still able to attack him, thus adding him to the list of WWE Legends that he has taken out. I wish the fans hadn’t chanted “wowie zowie at that point.”

Ricochet & Miz vs. Corbin & McIntyre – HIT: The good beginning of Raw continued with this tag match which previewed the two first round KOTR matches that will happen on next week’s show. This wasn’t a great match, but it was good enough to get a Hit. On the negative side, it reminded me that I was very happy watching the last few Raws without Baron Corbin. I suspect he beats the Miz next week, but loses in the second round. Hopefully he doesn’t win.

Booker T – HIT: This was another good use of a WWE Hall of Famer. Booker T was able to both comment on the situation with The Fiend attacking legends like Jerry Lawler and the importance of the KOTR tournament on his own career. It was short, and sweet and added some credibility to the tournament.

OC vs. Rollins/Strowman Storyline – MISS: This was rushed. This is potentially a great storyline involving The OC, Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman. It got off to a good start at the end of Raw last week. I thought it would lead to a 6 man tag this week with a United States Title match for Strowman vs. AJ Styles down the line. Instead, WWE went right to the US Title match this week which felt too soon. It worked fine to give a short match with Gallows & Anderson coming in and causing a disqualification. That led to Rollins making the save to repay Strowman for saving him last week. That should have been the end of this week’s part of the story. Instead, we got more scenes with Rollins and Strowman leading to the Tag Team Championship match. It was too much in one episode. The Tag Title match should have been saved for next week to build anticipation for that show. At the same time, they are teasing that Strowman wants the Universal Title which is fine, but at times was forced. I fear that they are going to rush to that match too quickly. And while the main event match was a Hit (more later), Gallows & Anderson hadn’t been the Tag Team Champs long enough to re-establish themselves as a top team. The OC hasn’t been around long enough and built up well enough to seem like a great faction without that gold.

Cesaro vs. Joe – HIT: The first of the KOTR matches on Raw this week was good. It was interesting in that it was a heel vs. heel matchup with Cesaro taking on Samoa Joe. I assume Joe will have a good run in the tournament so him winning was predictable, but that didn’t take away from the enjoyment of the match. I would have liked to see the match go longer than 10 minutes, but that wasn’t too bad. Cesaro showed great fire in starting the match out hot. The way he wrestled showed how important getting the win was to him to advance in the tournament which just helps to sell the tournament itself. This was well done.

24/7 Segment – MISS: While I’m not a fan of the 24/7 title, I do recognize that it can feature some pretty good humor. That wasn’t the case here. This segment with R-Truth pretending to be a sound technician for Elias wasn’t funny. It didn’t work well. Truth looked stupid for not just hitting Elias in the head with the guitar to begin with. Why does every 24/7 title “match” have to end on a roll up?

Rey Mysterio – HIT: This was a good follow up to what happened last week with Rey Mysterio losing twice in a row to Andrade. Mysterio has never been very good on the mic, but he performed well here in teasing that he would retire and hang up his mask. Dominic wasn’t nearly as good, but it is at least intriguing to see where they go with the storyline. They were doing something with the two of them and Samoa Joe awhile back, but that got interrupted, due to Mysterio’s injury. WWE obviously has a plan with Rey and his son, so now they are going back to it in an altered way. Time will tell if it ends up being as good as it can be.

The Revival & Orton – HIT: I like the pairing of The Revival and Randy Orton. They just go together very well. The RKO out of Nowhere with Orton on Big E was a great spot. The problem is that that spot is over with the fans and gets a babyface pop. So, Orton has to work to get the heel heat back after getting that favorable initial crowd response. He did that here in the vicious way that he forced Kofi Kingston to watch as the Revival potentially shattered Xavier Woods’ leg. This continues to build to Kingston vs. Orton in a rematch for the WWE Title and The Revival vs. The New Day for the Smackdown Tag Team Championship.

Cross & Bliss – MISS: Alexa Bliss & Nikki Cross vs. Mandy Rose & Sonya Deville was solid. The issue is that WWE doesn’t know what they want to do with their Women’s Tag Team Champions. Are they babyfaces or heels? They were taking on an established heel team here. But, that heel team got the hot tag in this match which is a spot that normally goes to the babyface team. The announcers talk about them like they are babyfaces in the way they have forged an unlikely friendship and become a great team in a short amount of time. But, they cheat. Cross kicked Rose from the outside of the ring. She wasn’t legal. That’s cheating. At the end of the match, she drove Rose on the ring apron into the ring post. Rose hadn’t cheated. She hadn’t tried to get involved. That is a 100% heel move. But, there was no outcry from the announcers, all three of whom are babyface announcers this week with Graves not there. They had nothing but praise for Cross & Bliss. If they are supposed to be heels, stop undercutting their ability to get heat. If they are supposed to be babyfaces, stop having them use heel tactics. If you don’t know what you want them to be, stop being wishy washy and pick a lane.

Alexander vs. Zayn – MISS: When WWE released the brackets for the first round of the KOTR tournament, I was really looking forward to 6 of the 8 matches. This was one of those 6, but I was disappointed in how short it was. It only went 3 minutes. Cedric Alexander and Sami Zayn are way too talented in the ring to only get 3 minutes for their match. This should have gone at least 10 minutes. Showcase your wrestlers. They are great in the ring. That’s what fans want to see. They have 3 hours to fill. If they weren’t so bent on cramming multiple weeks of storytelling into one week with Rollins and Strowman, maybe they would have had more time. I can understand a 3 minute match for a one night tournament where a wrestler has to have four matches. But, that wasn’t the case here.

Banks and Natalya – MISS: WWE continued to make a mistake by involving Jim Neidhart’s death into this storyline. It wasn’t needed last week. They could have gotten the same type of heat on Banks without her interrupting Natalya’s speech about the anniversary of her father’s death. It comes across as exploitative. There is a reason why Natalya wasn’t getting much sympathy from the fans despite being injured last week. The idea that Banks would attack her at that point made sense, but having her tell Natalya that she is going to kill her and send her to hell to say hi to her dad was terrible on so many levels.

Gallows & Anderson vs. Rollins & Strowman – HIT: As I said above, I would not have had this match this week and I question taking the Tag Titles off The OC so soon. But, it was a very good main event. Gallows & Anderson did a nice job of isolating Rollins for much of the match. Strowman being taken out at ringside after distraction from Styles worked well to stack the deck. Rollins did a good job with this comeback leading to the eventual hot tag to Strowman who cleaned house. The ending sequence was particularly good. The OC have established that they will purposefully get themselves DQd in order to keep their Titles. They played into that perfectly here as Styles came into the ring clearly to cause a DQ, only to have Rollins stop him with a huge Stomp, allowing Strowman to get the win after a powerslam on Karl Anderson.

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.

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