WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (1/22): Seth Rollins injury update, Cody Rhodes-CM Punk exchange, McIntyre vs. Priest, Gable vs. Ivar, New Day’s new intensity

Opening Segment – HIT: There was a lot of speculation about Seth Rollins’ health after his knee injury during last week’s main event. This week’s show started with Rollins coming out to address his injury and what it means for WrestleMania. Rollins showed genuine emotion in facing a 3-4 month recovery time. Just when it looked like he might have to give up the World Championship, Gunther came out to interrupt. Gunther was good in his role too. This segment cemented him as a possible Royal Rumble winner. You can’t discount Gunther vs. Rollins. But, it also allowed Rollins to end the segment strong by declaring that he will be back in time to defend the Title at WM.

New Day’s Intensity – HIT: I am enjoying the intensity that Imperium has brought out of New Day. I liked how they jumped Ludwig Kaiser & Giovani Vinci before their match by coming through the crowd. That makes sense given the injuries that Kaiser caused Kofi Kingston and what he tried to do last week to Xavier Woods. The match that followed was strong until the double count out. That isn’t great, but it made sense given the story. The brawl afterwards made up for the lack of an ending. That was very physical and memorable. The seriousness of New Day in their post-brawl interview in the back was good to see. I am also looking forward to Kofi’s Intercontinental Championship against Gunther next week.

Nile vs. Valhala – MISS: I like Ivy Nile. She has talent, but she is still a little green in the ring. I hope she continues to improve. Valhala is ok. But, they certainly didn’t put on a good match together. Thankfully it was short, and the final spot with Nile hitting the bulldog from the top rope was good. But, Valhala’s attempt to cheat with her feet on the rope was one of the worst executed spots that I can remember in WWE in years. Neither of their bodies was positioned correctly for that spot. The referee could clearly see her legs on the ropes, so the whole idea that they were trying to sell that Maxine Dupree was pointing it out to the ref didn’t make sense. That’s a pretty basic spot to screw up so thoroughly.

Gable vs. Ivar – HIT: While I haven’t been a fan of the feud involving Ivar against the entire Alpha Academy, it did culminate (hopefully) with this good match between Ivar and Chad Gable. Gable is so good in the ring. He works very well in these types of matches with much larger opponents. Ivar was good too. It makes sense to give Ivar the win here. As much as I like Gable, he is still a goofy lower card comedy act. Ivar is goofy too, but at least he can move up the card.

Rhodes – Punk – HIT: You can’t count out the possibility that WWE will go with Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk at WrestleMania. You can’t count out the possibility that either of them will win the Rumble, Cody to challenge Roman Reigns, or Punk to challenge Rollins. They could just be setting up Rhodes vs. Punk for down the line at an event like SummerSlam. Who knows? WWE is doing a great job of juggling these moving parts. What about Drew McIntyre? What about Señor Money in the Bank, Damian Priest? What about The Rock? Strong encounters like this one between Rhodes and Punk have been very effective in this way lately. Both of these guys were great on the mic here. I loved how they slowly burned from friends, to opponents who respect each other, to being close to enemies at the end. They went through a lot of history, which worked well. The parallel construction where Punk talked about being more like The American Dream than Cody, with Rhodes claiming to be more like Punk than Punk himself was very good.

Main Event Hype – HIT: WWE did a nice job of hyping McIntyre vs. Priest throughout the show. Early on, they had a good video package on what has led to the match. Both of them were interviewed, giving them a chance to talk about the main event. We got to see what I had hoped to be the only R-Truth involvement in the show when he tried to give Priest his weekly cut of merchandise sales. I liked how Priest handled that situation to keep the interview more serious with the focus on McIntyre.

Main Event – MISS: I can’t give the main event a Hit despite the very good wrestling action and strong in ring performances from both McIntyre and Priest. Until Truth’s involvement at the end of the match, I fully expected this match to be a Hit. I have written the past few weeks about how I get a kick out of Truth and find his antics to be amusing, even if they can bring down The Judgement Day because of how silly he is. This was the worst of that. He wasn’t as funny as usual. His presence totally ruined an otherwise good main event. It just didn’t work this week and strongly took away from the end of the show.

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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OR CHECK THIS OUT AT PROWRESTLING.NET: Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: CM Punk and Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins and Gunther, Drew McIntyre vs. Damian Priest, Becky Lynch and Nia Jax, New Day vs. Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci