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RAW HITS

Cyber Sunday Video: Cyber Sunday has the potential to be a special PPV. That being said, it hasn’t delivered in the past (going back to Taboo Tuesday). But the idea of fans voting for certain aspects of each match is a solid one that can be done very well. WWE has the problem of too many PPVs which are too close together. So they don’t have the time to build to the event. Without announcing any matches this week, they at least hyped the event with the nice video of the history of the PPV. It showed some of the choices that fans have been able to make in the past and did a nice job of setting Cyber Sunday apart from traditional PPVs.

Santino Marella: As usual, Santino Marella was very entertaining. They had a nice follow up on his attack on Val Venis last week with a scheduled match this week. Santino got to be a heel by ducking the match and getting Snitsky to replace him. His interaction with Jillian, I mean Lillian Garcia at ringside was fun. His song about “The Condemned” was hilarious when he came out after Lillian’s performance. Santino is a strong reason to tune into Raw each week.

Triple H Beat Down: Umaga’s destruction of Triple H after their debacle of a match (more later) saved the segment. Randy Orton’s involvement was good too, but it was Umaga’s utter destruction of The Game that really stands out. It was good to see him getting back some of his heat. He is the #2 heel on Raw right now (at least in terms of wrestlers as Mr. McMahon is still the top heel). So it is good to see that after being treated like a mid-carder, he was treated as the top heel that he needs to be right now. Triple H did a good job of selling the beat down. It also led to the declaration in the back by McMahon that Triple H still had to shake hands with Orton at the end of the show.

Mr. Kennedy [artist Grant Gould (c) PWTorch]

Kennedy vs. Hardy: This was the best match of the night, one of the best matches we’ve seen on t.v. for quiet a while. I enjoyed the previous matches between Mr. Kennedy and Jeff Hardy, so I wasn’t surprised that they put on a good match. But, this was better than their previous matches. It wasn’t great from top to bottom. It started out a bit sloppy, and Kennedy moved too early to avoid a few of Hardy’s moves (the front flip leg drop and the flying leap to the outside). He was much better at avoiding the Swantan Bomb, but by moving too early the previous times, he made Hardy look bad. The match picked up very nicely after the commercial. The match told a good story of Hardy trying to over come his knee injury to try to hit one of his signature moves, while Kennedy tried to avoid those high risk maneuvers. It had a lot of action, was never dull (even when it was sloppy at the beginning), and got a huge crowd reaction.

Closing Segment: I liked McMahon having the Raw Superstars congratulate Orton on his Title victory. The stage in the ring to elevate Orton even higher than the other wrestlers was a nice touch. Obviously, the big news was the surprise return of Shawn Michaels. I am very happy to report that this was a big surprise. I assumed that if Shawn was ready to return, he would have at the PPV, or with a build up. I wasn’t expecting him to show up on Raw, and I was very happy to see him. He interjects energy and the potential for some very good matches onto a show that has been largely lacking those elements. When Umaga destroyed Triple H, I thought, “Umaga looks strong here, but there is nobody for him to face,” as I assumed Triple H would still be facing Orton. But with Michaels returning to face Orton, WWE can still keep the Triple H vs. Umaga feud going, which was presumably their plan before Cena got injured. All in all, Michaels’ return should help the show and make fans want to tune in next week.

RAW MISSES

Regal, Coach and Hornswoggle: I have enjoyed the interplay between Jonathan Coachman and William Regal. I have also enjoyed the antics of Hornswoggle. But this week I didn’t enjoy either. The nonstop bickering between Coach and Regal got very tired very quick this week, and it was repeated throughout Raw. How many times are we going to see Coach trying to find Hornswoggle? I did like Coach’s failed attempts to kiss McMahon’s ass, but that was too little good in the midst of too much crap. Even Hornswoggle’s appearance wasn’t funny. It was more of the same. They need to do something different with Hornswoggle in order to advance his storyline of being McMahon’s son.

Handicap Match: As good as Triple H looked in selling for Umaga after the match, he looked the exact opposite (i.e. Superman) in his match against Umaga and Randy Orton. He was able to fight off a two on one beating during the match from the top two heels on the show. After some early teases of offense from Triple H which worked well, they settled into a very nice double team which also worked well. Unfortunately, in order to stroke Triple H’s ego, or to give the fans something to cheer for (or both?), WWE felt the need to have Triple H ignore the pain and make a huge come back. It was not realistic, and it hurt the credibility of Umaga and Orton. Triple H won the match via disqualification. He looked like he was about to win via pin fall before Umaga hit him with a chair. It would have been better and more credible if Umaga had gone to the chair much sooner, before Triple H’s comeback and they could have sold it as the heels not caring about a victory, but only wanting to hurt The Game.

Under Card: Other than the Main Event, the rest of the wrestling action was pretty weak this week. The six Divas Tag Match was o.k. at best. There was some nice energy, but also a lot of sloppiness. It certainly did nothing to get me excited about the Women’s division. Val Venis vs. Snitsky was another Snitsky squash which is boring. Val is a good worker and could have had a solid match with Santino, but they went the rout of another boring squash instead. I already discussed the problems with the handicap match. The only other match on the show was London & Kendrick vs. The Highlanders. The problem here is that after about 2 1/2 minutes of action with London & Kendrick doing their usual amazing moves, the match ended rather quickly on a roll up with leverage. The match was too short to amount to anything, and further shows how WWE feels about tag team wrestling. I don’t mind seeing London & Kendrick lose, but to The Highlanders? Give me a break.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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