WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 3/7: Owens wins with Steve Austin call out, disappointing follow-up to Edge heel turn, more

Alpha Academy vs. RK-Bro vs. Rollins & Owens – HIT: Much of the first hour of Monday Night Raw was taken up by this triple threat Tag Team Championship match, plus the opening segment which set it up, plus some of the follow up. And it was all very good. The mic work from Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins to start the show was good as was the interruption by Chad Gable. WWE has spent a lot of time building up to this match on Monday Night Raw and it paid off as it felt very important. Not only did they put over the importance of the Tag Titles, but also how having those Titles meant a WrestleMania match which is also very important. The wrestling action in this long, nearly 30 minute match was fun to watch from start to finish. I greatly enjoyed it. The celebration of RK-Bro after winning the Tag Titles was great. Orton’s “friend” speech was fun. He legitimately looks like he’s having the most fun of his career. The broken look on both Owens and Rollins was strong, selling the moment. This was indeed the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. The follow up later in the show with both Rollins and Owens worked well too.

Brooke vs. Tamina – MISS: I usually don’t comment on the 24/7 shenanigans and I try to ignore the segments. They certainly aren’t close to Hits. They seem to be getting decent reactions from the love angles with Dana Brooke & Reggie and now Tamina & Tozawa. The issue is that the wrestlers in the 24/7 division aren’t treated like actual wrestlers. The title always changes hands on a roll up. Here, they had an actual match where they could allow Brooke and Tamina to do some wrestling and maybe show Brooke doing some, oh I don’t know, wrestling moves. Instead, they presented a very quick match that ended up with another roll up. There has to be a better way to present these four.

MizTV – MISS: This was terrible. It felt pointless. I guess they knew that The Miz and Logan Paul would be cheered in their hometown Cleveland so they wanted to do something to get them booed, but that boo came at the expense of Jerry “the King” Lawler, not The Mysterios. What was the point of all this? They didn’t do anything to generate heat on the heels. Paul was more of a babyface and didn’t do anything to get heat with the local fans. Miz eventually got boos in his hometown, but so what? He was going to get booed in other cities anyway. It was all just weird and Lawler didn’t add anything to it at all. I thought for sure that he’d get beat up.

Breakker & Ciampa vs. Dirty Dawgs – MISS: The match quality was perfectly fine and Hit worthy. The problem is the use of Bron Breakker. I appreciate WWE trying to do more cross promotion between Monday Night Raw and NXT. But a better way to do it is with more established NXT stars like Tommaso Ciampa appearing on Raw, or Raw wrestlers like Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode appearing on NXT. I would not be using less experienced, not yet ready for prime time talent like Breakker on Raw. He has talent and is quite good given his experience level, but he isn’t ready yet. He has the potential to be a big time player in WWE, but they shouldn’t rush him. They shouldn’t have such a mundane debut for him on the main roster. Save his first appearance for when you are really ready to have him on full time and go all in with his presentation.

Edge – MISS: I was disappointed by the follow up to the show closing heel turn from Edge last week. I said that the follow up was key and that he needed to have some believable explanation for why he snapped on AJ Styles, and it had be more than just wanting to bring out the bulldog in AJ. The presentation and style was great. I loved how Edge entered the ring without music. The mood lighting worked well. His acting was spot on. He was always a great heel. But, his explanation was simply wanting to bring out the bulldog in AJ. It was exactly what I didn’t want it to be. He went on to say that he liked this new version of himself that he allowed to come out last week. But, there was no explanation for why he took the violence so far. I feel this wasn’t the strong follow up that was needed.

Ripley & Morgan vs. Zelina & Carmella – HIT: This is a minor Hit. I appreciate the fact that Rhea Ripley & Liv Morgan at least have some history working together and actually earned a Women’s Tag Title shot at WM, unlike Naomi & Sasha Banks who formed a team and got a Title shot without ever being in a match together. The wrestling action was solid here. I am happy to see Ripley get a WM match. But, I’m not thrilled with the triple threat format. It plays into the fact that everyone somehow gets a match at WM, which undercuts the idea that they are trying to sell with Owens & Rollins (and even Omos on this episode). And Carmella and Queen Zelina shouldn’t be already teasing tension between them still relatively early in their time as a team and as Champs. The only reason they wanted to do that was to sell the relationship between Carmella and Corey Graves to hype a stupid reality show on YouTube. They could have done something else to do that without sacrificing the teamwork between Carmella & Zelina.

Balor vs. Theory – HIT: This match wasn’t going to have a clean finish as they need to keep Austin Theory strong as Vince McMahon’s hand picked wrestler to face Pat McAfee. They need to protect Finn Balor as the new United States Champion. The match was good while it lasted. The finish made sense to put further heat on Damian Priest and make Balor’s fans want to see him get revenge and bring out the Demon at WM even more.

Owens Calls Out Austin – HIT: Owens gave a nice hook for the end of the show when he was interviewed earlier on saying he had a plan to have a WM moment and would reveal it later. He was very good in his promo going through various legendary wrestlers from Texas and giving reasons why he doesn’t want to call them out to be on the KO Show from Dallas. He ultimately landed on “Stone Cold” Steve Austin which was predictable, but still very strong. I am definitely looking forward to seeing whatever they end up doing between them at WM. The other question that has yet to be answered is what is the plan for Seth Rollins at WM.

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.

CATCH-UP: 3/7 WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW RESULTS: Keller’s report on Alpha Academy vs. RK-Bro vs. Seth & KO, Logan Paul, Edge, Jerry Lawler