WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 8/22: Riddle and Rollins hit with brawl, Stratus miss, more

WWE RAW HITS AND MISSES

Riddle – Rollins Brawl – HIT: Raw started off hot with the brawl between Riddle and Seth Rollins. WWE continues to do a nice job of building towards their match at Clash at the Castle. It has been physical and intense and I am definitely looking forward to the match. It is good to shake things up by doing things like this to start the show from time to time. But, they did something similar with The Miz and Logan Paul a few weeks ago. So, they really shouldn’t do another surprise brawl like this to start off Raw (or Smackdown) for several months. They can find other ways to occasionally shake up the format.

Stratus/Belair/Bayley/Kai-en-Sky – MISS: After the brawl, Trish Stratus came out for a special appearance in her home town of Toronto. I appreciate trying to play to the live fans, but this wasn’t a great use of Stratus. It was never really clear why she was there other than to be interrupted by Bayley and her crew. The mic work was just ok throughout. The segment often felt overly scripted. Stratus just happened to know that Asuka & Alexa Bliss were standing by to come out to help her and Bianca Belair. This wasn’t good.

Kai-en-Sky vs. Asuka & Bliss – HIT: The match that followed was pretty good to give Kai-en-Sky a win to advance to the finals of the Women’s Championship tournament. I like that it was a clean win for the heels, but they did it in a slightly sneaky way to protect Asuka & Bliss. These are both two new teams, and I’m not sure I would pair either of them together. I’m not seeing a lot of chemistry on either team. Bliss was certainly the weak point here. She has to stop doing that double knee drop with the summersault. It looks terrible. The match was a bit longer than it needed to be. But it was still good enough to get a marginal Hit despite some issues.

Ziggler vs. Balor – HIT: Other than the very awkward ending, this was a good match between Dolph Ziggler and Finn Balor. The interview with Ziggler which was interrupted by Balor worked well to set up the match. They are telling a story with Ziggler on a losing streak. Where will it go? These are two very good wrestlers who had a good match. Unfortunately, the ending was bad with Ziggler setting up a super kick only to be attacked from the outside by Rhea Ripley. That would be ok, but the positioning and timing on the spot was so off, that it made Ziggler look stupid for standing there so long and not seeing the punch coming.

Gable vs. Owens – HIT: This was a great match between Chad Gable and Kevin Owens. I’m intrigued by what Gable said beforehand about Alpha Academy possibly expanding. Owens playing babyface in his home country was interesting. But what happens going forward? They are setting something up with him and Sami Zayn and The Bloodline. This was the best match of the show which featured some pretty good matches. These two are great workers and they worked very well together here. My only criticism is that Gable shouldn’t be doing a top rope flying head butt. That move isn’t needed in wrestling today.

Bayley vs. Aliyah – MISS: While most of the wrestling on this show was good, this was the exception. It was nice to see Bayley in a match for the first time in over a year. She did look healthy and ready to go which is good. But, Aliyah was not a good opponent for her. She hasn’t stepped up her in ring game since being called up from NXT several months ago. Her presence on Raw was not explained. They tried to get her a home town pop by announcing that she was from Toronto but it didn’t work. The announcers failed to mention that Bayley was mocking Trish Stratus by doing her pose and starting to steal her moves. That was a Miss from the announcers who should be helping Bayley tell that story.

Miz & Ciampa vs. Styles & Lashley – HIT: This is another marginal Hit. Raw has been better since Triple H took over. Last week’s episode was very good. But this week’s was a step back. While still an overall good show, there were some Misses and multiple marginal Hits like this where the wrestling quality was high and the match was good until the lame ending. Things are becoming clearer with what they are doing with Dexter Lumis, but they don’t seem to have anything good for Bobby Lashley and the United States Title at this point.

Lumis Kidnaps Miz – MISS: While I gave the match a hit, I have to give the lame ending a Miss. The match ended in a disqualification when Lumis showed up and kidnapped Miz. Once again, the announcers failed to mention something obvious. Lumis had sent someone to attack AJ Styles as a diversion to occupy security so that he could attack Miz. When the announcers kept asking “where is security?” as Lumis was dragging Miz away, the answer was clear that they were still dealing with the mystery man who tried to attack Styles. Maybe they don’t want it to be obviously a plan by Lumis. But, the announcers looked bad for not saying what most fans watching at home are thinking.

Johnny Wrestling – HIT: Johnny Gargano was one of the names who had come up as a likely target for Triple H now that he is head of talent relations. He hadn’t signed with anyone after his contract expired with NXT 9 months ago. It was great to see him back and now on Raw. He adds depth and immediately sets up several potential fresh match ups. He did a nice job with his promo about being back. The fans live were thrilled to see him. However, WWE needs to do a better job of introducing him to the larger audience since he was mostly just on NXT in the past. The same goes for his history as the leader of The Way with Austin Theory. Having Theory interrupt him made perfect sense, but hopefully going forward we get a strong video package of their history in NXT, because there were likely more casual fans scratching their heads at their interaction here. Gargano vs. Theory certainly has potential to be a great match. But, they both seem to need wins with Theory needing to be protected as Mr. Money in the Bank and Gargano just now returning and basically debuting on Raw.

Priest vs. Edge – HIT: WWE hasn’t presented strong third hours the last few weeks, where they have put their biggest match at the end of the second hour. That was not the case this week with the real main event being the actual main event as Damian Priest took on Edge. They did a nice job the last few weeks of building to this match, Edge’s first in Toronto in a decade. They effectively built to it throughout this show too. Edge and Priest delivered a strong main event. It isn’t a great match, but certainly a good one. Edge got the win, to get some revenge, but the rest of Judgement Day attacked him afterwards to get some heat back. Beth Phoenix coming to her husband’s aid was predictable, but worked well to set her up to be part of a mixed tag in the near future. But, what will the match be? A regular mixed tag, or will Edge & Beth have another teammate (Rey Mysterio?) for a six person tag?

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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