WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (7/3): Baszler addresses turning on Rousey, Ripley defends against Natalya, Lesnar-Cody brawl, Dominik vs. Seth Rollins

Opening Segment – HIT: The post-Money in the Bank Raw got off to a hot start with Cody Rhodes coming out to interrupt Seth Rollins, only to be interrupted himself by Brock Lesnar. There wasn’t a lot of talking here, but plenty of intrigue. It hinted at a future match between Rhodes and Rollins while getting back to the Rhodes vs. Lesnar feud which will presumably culminate at SummerSlam. The physicality worked well to let Cody stand tall.

Second Opening Segment – HIT: After that aborted attempt at a promo from Rollins, the second segment of the show featured Rollins also getting interrupted by Judgement Day sans Finn Balor. This also worked well. It cemented Damian Priest as Señior Money in the Bank, while teasing that he could cash in on Rollins. It also set up the main event of Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio. It also hinted at the problems that would come later with Balor missing from this segment. Everyone played their parts well and Dom Dom is still getting great heat.

Nakamura vs. Priest – HIT: This was a good match. Historically, WWE has not done a good job of building up their MITB winners and making them seem like legit World Title contenders. So, it was good to see Priest winning his first match after winning the MITB briefcase. Shinsuke Nakamura seems to be putting in a little more effort in his matches the last few months. But, what happened to his feud with Ricochet and Bronson Reed?

Rousey – Baszler – MISS: Shayna Baszler turning on Ronda Rousey at MITB seemed to be the least popular part of the PLE. It certainly came out of nowhere. WWE tried to make sense of it, with Baszler telling Rousey that she had ruined professional wrestling. She talked about how it wasn’t fair that she had to pay her dues to get there, but Rousey hadn’t. It was all ok in terms of the delivery and even the scripting. I think they wanted Baszler to be cheered and Rousey to be booed, so if that was the case it certainly worked. But, Baszler should be a heel going forward, so making her a temporary face doesn’t seem like a good idea. It was also pretty generic. And it didn’t address the big problems from the angle at the PLE particularly the abruptness of the turn. Why did she team with Rousey in the first place? Why did she work with her throughout the match before turning on her?

Tag Team Turmoil – MISS: This was a mess for so many reasons. WWE refuses to build up tag teams in the women’s division to have one earn a title match. I’m not a fan of these types of turmoil or gauntlet matches, but they can be done well. Unfortunately, most of them are done poorly like this where there are far too many falls in such a short amount of time. This went 12 minutes which is the length of a single match. But, this was four matches in 12 minutes. They also had two teams who were thrown together for the first time. Why would those teams even be in the running to earn a title shot in this match? They never had a match together before! I am a fan of Chelsea Green & Sonya Deville as a team, but they have been losers. Here, they ran the gauntlet quickly beating all these other teams. Well, if you are a team that loses to the losers, what does that make you? I get that WWE wouldn’t want to book this the same as they did for the male tag teams on Smackdown recently where Pretty Deadly “stole” the win in the end. Instead you get the heel team running the gauntlet, making the final team (the only other real team in this match) Kayden Carter & Katana Chance look bad by losing at the end. It was bad from top to bottom. I guess they tried to advance some angles like the Nikki Cross / Candace LeRae story, but who cares? The crowd was rightfully dead for this crap.

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Lynch, Stratus, Stark – HIT: This was a good segment to further advance the feud between Becky Lynch and Trish Stratus. It led to the announcement of Lynch vs. Zoey Stark for next week which should be a good match.

Ripley vs. Natalya – HIT: WWE did a poor job of building to this match. Natalya got a Title match against Rhea Ripley a few months ago and she was destroyed. Then for no reason, she was getting another match against Ripley a few weeks ago which never happened since Ripley jumped her before the match. So why does she get a Title shot? Why would we think she would be competitive against Ripley here? She was. It was a good match. I will give it a Hit, because they worked hard and put on a good match in a vacuum. I just wish that WWE had done more to build up Natalya with a series of wins before we got to this point.

Main Event – HIT: The match between Rollins and Dominik was fine. It was ultimately a set up for Priest to have Rollins in a vulnerable position to potentially cash in MITB. He did seem to hesitate a little, teasing a potential babyface run. It was Dominik who encouraged him to get in the ring at that point. But then Balor finally showed up to attack Rollins which ruined the chance for Priest to cash in. Balor could claim that he was trying to further soften up Rollins for the cash in, but I’m not sure that’s the direction they are going in. Either way, this continues the rift in Judgement Day while putting over the eventual MITB cash in. But, what is next for Rollins and the World Title?

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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ALSO CHECK OUT JASON POWELL’S RAW HITLIST OVER AT PROWRESTLING.NET: Seth Rollins vs. Dominik Mysterio in a non-title match, Rhea Ripley vs. Natalya, Cody Rhodes and Brock Lesnar brawl

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