WWE RAW HITS & MISSEES (1/15): Drew-Seth exchange, Imperium-New Day, Ripley-Lynch exchange, Women’s tag matches, Seth vs. Jinder, Ivar-Tozawa

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Opening Segment – HIT: WWE is doing a nice job of creating different possibilities for the winner of the men’s Royal Rumble. Cody Rhodes who started off this week’s Raw is the most likely winner. But, you get a segment like this and you can’t help but think about Drew McIntyre who interrupted Cody as a potential winner too. CM Punk is also in the conversation. I doubt The Rock will be in it, but there are fans who think he will show up as a surprise entrant to win. Strong verbal encounters like this one between Rhodes and McIntyre are working well to build the anticipation. Both Rhodes and McIntyre were good here in this back and forth. They effectively built on their history going way back to their early time in WWE and their time away from WWE, all the way to their return and where they each are now in their career.

Judgement Day vs. DIY – HIT: This was a good tag match with Dominic Mysterio & JD McDonagh taking on Johnny Gargano & Tomasso Ciampa. The smaller than usual crowd was certainly into DIY in a way that other recent crowds haven’t been. It was good to see them in a long match like this where they show what made them so special in NXT as a team all those years ago. Mysterio and McDonagh also performed very well in this match. WWE is doing a nice job of building to DIY vs. Balor & Priest for an eventual Tag Team Championship match.

Gunther, Kaiser, Woods – HIT: It was good to see Gunther back after his recent paternity leave. I don’t think he will win the Rumble, but after his performance last year, he at least is a credible threat to win, so it was good to hear him declare for the match. This was a good way to follow up on the brutal beating that Ludwig Kaiser gave Kofi Kingston last week. I liked how Gunther endorsed what Kaiser did to Kofi. This led to Xavier Woods’ return to challenge Kaiser. I was happy to see Woods acting in an intense and serious manner instead of his usual goofy self. The match that followed was good and the disqualification ending made sense. The brawl after was good too, with Woods escaping the attempted kick into the stairs which did so much damage to his New Day teammate last week.

Ivar vs. Tozawa – MISS: I’m just not into this Alpha Academy vs. Ivar feud. Giving the joke wrestler Akira Tozawa a win over Ivar is a mistake. I don’t care how much revenge Ivar gets after the match, he still lost a 2 minute match to someone who doesn’t win matches. And if Tozawa is going to end up squashed by Ivar in the end, how much did he gain in the win?

Ripley – Lynch – HIT: There aren’t as many strong possibilities among the women as the men for potential Royal Rumble winners. I see two, Becky Lynch and Bayley. Am I forgetting one? Either way, Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch seems like a certainty for WrestleMania. WWE needs to do something about Ripley. She is so over with the fans, but still a part of the heel Judgement Day. I’d like to see her break away from the group and be a babyface. A face vs. face match against Lynch can work. Their encounter here was very intriguing. It already felt like a big match, but now it feels like a huge one.

Priest & Balor vs. Miz & Truth – HIT: I have mixed feelings about R-Truth’s and The Judgment Day. I have to admit to finding Truth amusing more often than not. I got a kick out of him giving Damian Priest a big wad of cash from the t-shirt sales which changed Priest’s mind about letting him continue to pretend to be part of the faction. We got more of that at the start of this match when Truth gave Finn Balor his cut. I like that Truth didn’t have any money for McDonagh. We got more of the antics here similar to last week with Truth getting confused about whether he should be working with his actual partner The Miz or his opponents. I wasn’t as interested in that. I still think that Judgment Day could mean more without Truth. But, you can’t argue with the merchandise sales or the crowd reactions.

Women’s Tag Matches – HIT: Neither of the two women’s tag matches were that good this week. They were solid. They weren’t Misses. Green & Niven vs. Hartwell & LeRae had a bit of a botched ending, but was good otherwise. But, it was too short to amount to much. Baszler & Stark vs. Natalya & Nox was better. It went longer and had a strong ending with Shayna Baszler forcing Natalya to tap out. What I appreciate is that WWE seems to be trying to build a women’s tag division. There are some strong teams on Smackdown, and on Raw they are building a few possible challengers for Carter & Chance’s Tag Titles. I suspect we will get LeRae & Hartwell vs. Baszler & Stark next week.

Rollins vs. Mahal – MISS: I hope that Seth Rollins is ok. If he has to take off some time and recover by WM, I would be ok with that. Roman Reigns never defends his Title, so if Rollins doesn’t defend at the Rumble or Elimination Chamber that will be ok. It will be very bad if he has to miss several months. It will be particularly bad due to the fact that the injury took place in this stupid, never should have happened match. This was not a good match. Jinder Mahal is not a good wrestler, and even Rollins couldn’t carry him to a good match. It was overbooked with the constant interference from Indus Sher, and then Damian Priest and Drew McIntyre getting involved. They didn’t even execute the interference well when Sanga couldn’t correctly put Mahal’s foot on the rope. At least WWE didn’t go crazy and respond to all the social media buzz (thanks a lot Tony Khan) and do something very stupid. At least Rollins won.

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.

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