WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 12/4: Reigns vs. Jordan, Wyatt-Hardy, Paige vs. Banks, Rollins & Reigns vs. The Bar, Use of Balor

RAW HITS

Reigns vs. Jordan: Despite the fact that I got the feeling the fans were disappointed in getting this match (more later), the match ended up being very good. Jason Jordan is a good wrestler. So is Roman Reigns. They had a very long match here at 21 minutes. It may have been too long, but it never dragged. The announcers, particularly Booker T with his constant flip flopping on Jordan, took away from my enjoyment of the match. But, Jordan and Reigns aren’t to be blamed as they worked hard and put on a long entertaining match. Unfortunately, the aftermath with Joe getting involved was a mess, much like the opening segment.

Paige vs. Banks: I was surprised a little when we got this match between Paige and Sasha Banks. And I was surprised when the expected finish with the rest of Absolution (still not a good name) getting involved came so late, after 15 minutes of good wrestling action. I’m not surprised that these two would have a good 15 minute match. They are both very good workers. They showed it here. I want to see more of them in the ring. I’m very happy that Paige is healthy and still with WWE after all the craziness over the past year. I hope she stays physically and mentally healthy as she is so talented and I really want to see more of her in the ring with Banks, Bayley, Alexa Bliss and Asuka, plus down the line with some of the women on Smackdown.

Gulak vs. Alexander vs. Ali vs. Nese: I enjoyed last week’s Cruiserweight match more than this week’s, but this week’s was also good. I expected one of the Zo-Train members to win, so the outcome was more predictable than last week’s, but it was still enjoyable to watch. All four put in good performances. I liked how Drew Gulak tried to get Tony Nese to adhere to his No Fly Zone rules. There was good athletic wrestling action, plus moments like that which told the story. Gulak getting the win in the end worked well. However, the post-match bit with Gulak starting a PowerPoint presentation that never happened was awkwardly timed.

Rollins & Reigns vs. The Bar: This was a good Tag Team Championship main event. I figured that after The Shield scene in the back earlier in the show that Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose would fail in their attempt at regaining the Tag Team Titles. So, the outcome was predicable to me. However, the action was strong throughout. These are four good to great workers who also work well together as two teams which have good chemistry in the ring against each other. I am looking forward to seeing The Shield vs. The Bar & Samoa Joe in the near future.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: There were some good things about the opening segment, so I will call this a minor Miss. It was too long and too big of a mess. There were too many moving parts with Kurt Angle, Jason Jordan, Roman Reigns, and Samoa Joe all having their own intentions and wanting this and that. It was jumbled. I did like some of the performances, particularly Jordan’s. His exchange with Reigns was solid. But it let the fans down. They wanted to see Reigns vs. Joe, but got Reigns vs. Jordon instead. In the end it was too much of a jumbled mess despite some of the positives.

Use of Balor: I was hoping that Finn Balor would be built up as a legit challenger for Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship. Unfortunately, despite being super over with the fans, WWE seems to not be high on him at this point. He’s not being used well. He isn’t presented as special. He isn’t getting any type of push. When he’s just in a forgettable meaningless match against Bo Dallas, then you know there is nothing for him on the horizon. It is disappointing.

Hardy – Wyatt: I purposefully didn’t title this Miss “Woken Matt Hardy” as I am intrigued to see where WWE goes with their version of the Broken Matt Hardy character and I liked his performance. I am coming at it as an outsider. I stopped watching Impact years ago. But, I read a lot about it and heard a lot of opinions on it. It was obviously a popular and successful angle on Impact and other places. But, I don’t trust Vince McMahon to understand it, or get behind something that wasn’t his creation. While I liked the Woken character and what Hardy said and he got a good reaction, I didn’t like the overall presentation with his video cutting back and forth with Bray Wyatt’s. Maybe I’m over thinking this, but it seemed that despite going crazy, Hardy was able to steal a video of Wyatt cutting a promo, then he shot his own video responding to what Wyatt was saying, then he edited them together, and then somehow got it back to WWE’s production truck and convinced them to play it. I really just didn’t like that back and forth presentation.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET’s “Hitlist” section here.

Powell’s WWE Raw Hit List: Raw and Smackdown trade idea, Sheamus and Cesaro vs. Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose for the Raw Tag Titles, Roman Reigns vs. Jason Jordan for the IC Title, Paige vs. Sasha Banks

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. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.

NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S COLUMN: WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 11/27: Rollins vs. Cesaro, Rollins post-match interview, Absolution, Reigns vs. Elias, Fatal Four-Way, Wyatt-Hardy