WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (10/23): Too Much Judgment Day, Super Cody, Aldis visits Raw, Sami vs. Drew, Women’s Five-Way Contract Signing, Logan and Dom, more

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Opening Segment – HIT: Raw got off to a good start with Damian Priest and Finn Balor coming out to talk about The Judgment Day running Raw. The interruption from Cody Rhodes was predictable but worked well. It set up his match against Priest for Crown Jewel. The physicality at the end with Dominik Mysterio, Rhea Ripley, Jey Uso and ultimately J.D.shou McDonagh getting involved was strong. The attack on Cody’s ankle at the end was brutal and set up a number of possibilities with him needing to heal and get revenge. It also continued the story of McDonagh trying to get into the group, but at some point they need to finish that story.

Alpha Academy vs. The New Day – HIT: While I hated the scene on last week’s Raw that set up this match, I did say that I suspected it to be a good match. It was. I don’t like their gimmicks right now, and there would be another terrible backstage scene later in the show (more later), but at least the actual tag match was good.

Lynch vs. Hartwell – HIT: This was a good NXT Women’s Championship match. Becky Lynch has done a nice job as Champion. She can help get other members of the roster some screen time like she’s done with Tegan Nox and now Indi Hartwell. Hartwell held her own and was hopefully elevated by having a strong showing against The Man. Time will tell how WWE does with Hartwell or Nox moving forward.

Aldis On Raw – MISS: I am fine with Raw and Smackdown each having their own authority figures if you are going to actually have a true brand split. It does make sense. But I want all authority figures to be in the background and not have much of a role. I want them both to be basically babyfaces. And I still have ZERO interest in a Raw vs. Smackdown feud. If you are going to do one at Survivor Series again (boo!), at least they are laying the ground work. I give WWE credit for that. But, the start of this tension between Adam Pearce and Nick Aldis hasn’t been good so far. Am I supposed to root for Pearce on Raw, but Aldis on Smackdown? And I still don’t buy the wrestlers caring about some fictitious feud between the two shows.

Women’s Title Contract Signing – MISS: This wasn’t good. I talked about the problem with the five women in this match last week. Those issues were on display here. Who am I supposed to root for? The only two of the women who stood out at all were Nia Jax who was terrible on the mic here, and Ripley, who already is a top star. What did this do for Raquel Rodriguez, Shayna Baszler, or Zoey Stark? They all felt like also-rans.

Paul and Dominik – HIT: Logan Paul continues to to shine whenever he’s on WWE TV. Once he settled into being a full heel and wasn’t trying to still get cheers, he showed how good he is in that role. He’s backed it up in the ring too. When WWE paired him with Dominik here on Raw in talking about his upcoming match against Rey for the United States Title, they really landed on something special. The heat was off the charts. I liked how they played into Paul’s previous feud against Ricochet, bringing Samantha Irvin into the picture. That got Ricochet back involved. A Ricochet vs. Dominik feud certainly has potential. Plus, Paul vs. Mysterio at the PLE should be very good.

Sami vs. McIntyre – HIT: There was some distraction from Rhea Ripley at the end of this match to continue the story that she has potentially recruited Drew McIntyre into Judgment Day. I would rather see a more clean finish in this match between Drew and Sami Zayn. But, it was a very good match and the distraction was minimum. An argument can be made that Drew was distracted first, so maybe she wasn’t out there for him. It gave him an out in his backstage encounter with Seth Rollins later in the show. So, I don’t mind the distraction in this case. Plus I won’t complain about such a good 15 minute match which fits in with multiple storylines.

Tag Team Goofiness – MISS: The official announcement that DIY is back together as a tag team should not have happened in a goofy backstage scene with the losers of Alpha Academy and New Day. This was bad on so many levels. Akira Tozawa can be entertaining, but it feels like he did this silly dance last week and WWE creative has decided that it is comedy gold even though it is very lame. And Johnny Gargano & Tomasso Ciampa should be kept away from these idiots at all costs.

Jey vs. Priest – HIT: Raw had a strong main event with Jey Uso taking on Damian Priest. It wasn’t great and felt a little short at 11 minutes. Plus, it had another distraction finish after Balor seemed to come in way too late for his planned distraction. So, I will call this a marginal Hit. It was good enough to get a Hit, but barely.

Super Cody – MISS: Cody Rhodes is still getting very strong babyface reactions from the fans, but there is some concern that he could be pushed as too much of a Super Cena clone which might turn off some fans. This was a perfect time to not have him on at the end of the show. He should have been unable to come to Jey’s aid at the end because of the ankle injury he suffered at the beginning. Or, if he did fight through the pain to come to help Jey, he shouldn’t have stood tall at the end. That wasn’t believable.

Too Much Judgment Day – MISS: I am a fan of this faction and have liked what WWE has done with them lately. I understand that they have three hours to fill one Raw, so having a faction like this able to take up parts of so many segments does make sense. But, sometimes less is more. They were on this Raw too much. They were part of the opening segment. We had a scene where Ripley was trying to recruit Rollins to join the group. Does anyone actually think Rollins will join? Ripley was in the contract signing segment. We got Dominik with Paul and Ricochet. Of course we also got multiple replays of the opening segment. Ripley had the scene interrupting The Miz complaint to Pearce when she finally signed the contract and then checked in with Dom to see how his chin was doing. She also interrupted Zayn vs. McIntyre. While no Judgement Day members were in the scene, the backstage conversation between McIntyre and Rollins was all about the faction. And of course, they were part of the main event and aftermath. So, it felt like they took up too much tv time this week.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Raw Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow Jon on Twitter/X @JonMezzera.

OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Damian Priest vs. Jey Uso, Drew McIntyre vs. Sami Zayn, Becky Lynch vs. Indi Hartwell for the NXT Women’s Title, Logan Paul and Dominik Mysterio