WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 4/10: Cody Rhodes hits with promo, Mysterio angle misses, more

Mysterios – MISS: After 20 years, I should be used to the fact that WWE won’t ever let Rey Mysterio talk for more than a minute before being interrupted. Dominik was not good in his interruption. Part of the problem was that he messed up his lines with some awkward phrasing a few times. That can happen, but he’s been much better on the mic lately than he was here. Part of the problem was the scripting. Some of it sounded so fake. Perhaps trying to get in all those lines made it hard for Dominik to get the words right. He said something like “Bad Bunny has made a lot of good music, but it was music to his ears when he was thrown through the announce table.” Nobody talks like that. It wasn’t a good or smooth way to start the show.

Mysterio vs. Balor – HIT: Luckily the show got better from there with the opening match between Rey Mysterio and Finn Balor. It isn’t surprising that these two would have a good match against each other given their talent. It went 14 minutes and featured good wrestling action throughout. Of course, it was going to end with Dominik costing his dad, this time with the chain shot which worked in that it was what he tried to do at WrestleMania, but was thwarted by Bad Bunny.

Stratus & Lynch vs. Rodriguez & Morgan – HIT: This is a marginal Hit. There was enough good in the match to outweigh the sloppier moments. Trish Stratus is definitely better in the ring at this point than Lita, so she was an upgrade. They were perhaps overly ambitious with some of the attempted double team moves which took too long to set up and took away from the quality of the match. It is interesting that Trish turned after the match. She clearly was trying to win, but turned after losing. I wonder if she was just using Becky to try to be in the spotlight taking Lita’s place as the Tag Team Champion, but once that Title went away, she didn’t need Becky any more?

Lashley vs. Reed – HIT: I’m not a fan of the double count out, but in this case it does make some sense. You can’t have Bobby Lashley or Bronson Reed lose in their first match. Of course, the argument could be made that you don’t have the match until you can have a winner. They could have built to a match at Backlash without having them face here first. But, once the decision was made, this was the way to go. I enjoyed the match while it lasted, and it hooked the crowd well who were disappointed by the ending, but then got excited again during the post-match brawl. Fans should be hyped to see the rematch at the PLE.

Cody Rhodes – HIT: Cody Rhodes was very good here in addressing his loss to Roman Reigns at WM and the attack from Brock Lesnar the next night on Raw. HIs performance was strong. I like the idea that he blames himself for not being ready for what Reigns was capable of, but it is ok to use the word “cheated.” It is ok to say what happened with Solo Sikoa. I liked the rest of the promo better than that initial part. The ending was particularly strong when he talked about how Lesnar has viewed so many major stars including The Rock, John Cena and some of his UFC opponents as victims. But he said, he will not be a victim. It was a good come back after the beating last week.

The Usos vs. Alpha Academy – HIT: The Usos needed a win after last week. It was possible that they could lose to Alpha Academy here to further Reigns’ disappointment in them, so the outcome wasn’t totally predictable. But, this was the right way to go and it came at the end of a good match.

Sky vs. Michin vs. Niven – HIT: This was a pretty good triple threat match for Iyo Sky to win and become the #1 contender for Bianca Bel Air’s Raw Women’s Title. The story with Bayley originally being in the match, but then giving Sky here spot was interesting. Clearly, Dakota Kai was much more excited about Sky’s win than Bayley. This is the first step in the breakup of Damage CTRL. Considering how good all three of these women are, but how bad the faction has been, a breakup is definitely needed. Hopefully, a strong story can be told leading to Sky in particular (she was definitely over with this crowd) getting a solo babyface push.

Sikoa vs. Owens – HIT: WWE did a nice job building up to this main event throughout Raw with interviews with Paul Heyman and Kevin Owens, plus a video of what happened with the attack on Owens’ leg on Smackdown. Owens and Sikoa had a good match that played well into that leg injury. Owens sold the injury nicely throughout. But, he was able to fight through the pain and almost pull off a victory if it hadn’t been for the cheating of the Usos. WWE also did a nice job of making it clear that Sami Zayn and Matt Riddle were not on Raw due to the travel issues that effected many members of the roster. That was a real life situation, so it was believable that they might not be there at all. When they showed up to make the save afterwards it was a nice surprise. I wonder when they actually arrived? Overall, WWE did a good job of dealing with the missing roster members and some last minute necessary rewrites (as opposed to the unnecessary rewrites on that terrible episode last week).

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: Vince McMahon signed a new contract with WWE at the end of March