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RAW HITS

JBL vs. Y2J: This was a good match. The John Bradshaw Layfield and Chris Jericho feud has been pretty good. I enjoyed their intense brawl at the Royal Rumble and I enjoyed this match. I was surprised by the clean finish, as I expected Umaga’s appearance to happen before the bell rang, not after. I’ve been expecting to see this feud continue until WrestleMania, but maybe not after Jericho got a decisive victory. Then again, they can always build it up again. The match itself wasn’t nearly as intense at their previous match, but it was still very intense. The announcers did a good job of focusing on the feud and how Jericho won’t back down from a challenge. The match had good back and forth action with a solid ending after JBL missed the Clothesline from Hell and Jericho nailed the Codebreaker.

Cena’s Promo: WWE did a good job of hyping Cena vs. Orton at No Way Out. John Cena’s strong victory over Mark Henry was a good way to show that he is 100% after his injury. Randy Orton did a good job on commentary during the match. It was great to see his cocky attitude dissipate after Cena forced Henry to tap out. The real selling point was the strong promo from Cena afterwards. He was intense and serious. He did not try to do any silly humor. That is the type of promo that works for Cena. It was short and to the point. For the first time in a long time, Orton showed some doubt. This was a very good promo as part of good, though not great hype for the PPV.

Kennedy and Flair: WWE also did a very good job of hyping this No Way Out match. Both Mr. Kennedy and Ric Flair were at their best in this confrontation. Flair’s promo was great. I loved his line about being a 16 time World Champion and Kennedy wanting to reach that goal just once. Kennedy was great at the same time as they were so close together we could hear him making comments during Flair’s speech. It is interesting how they are playing up Flair’s knee injury putting him in further jeopardy. Kennedy’s imitation of Flair’s limpy strut was hilarious. Just like with Flair’s angle against MVP on Smackdown, the verbal exchange is likely to be the highlight of the feud. Hopefully the match will deliver, because fans should be looking forward to it after that segment.

Santino Marella: Santino finds himself in his usual spot in the Hit column. I was thrilled when he did guest commentary during the Maria vs. Melina match. He just is so great. I can’t imagine anyone pulling off his lines as well as he does. Whether it is referring to “Mr. Stupid Hefner,” or questioning Melina’s ability to have babies after a gut buster, I laughed multiple times. After the match, his apology was good, as was his history of the Playboy curse. He continues to be a very entertaining character each and every week.

Main Event: What a match! That was a great match, in any context. I would not have minded paying to see that quality of a match as a PPV Main Event. That had to be Jeff Hardy’s best one on one (non-gimmick) match ever. Obviously, working with Shawn Michaels helps elevate the quality, but Hardy’s work should not be overlooked. Michaels was great though. I liked the intensity that he showed in working on Hardy’s back. We haven’t seen that type of intensity from Michaels in a while. The match started with some great chain wrestling, had some nice high impact and high flying moves, and culminated in a great final few minutes of convincing near falls. I thought Hardy was going to tap out to Michaels’ new leg lock submission hold. I wasn’t expecting a clean win, but I was happy to see one. It was great to see Hardy get the clean win over Michaels. That helps him get his momentum back to where it was before losing to Orton at the Royal Rumble. WWE has a great PPV feud waiting to happen between these guys. The fact that we’ve seen it for free and it had a clean ending will hurt the match-up down the line. But, if enough time passes, and if the match is looked back on as a big deal and a big win for Hardy, then WWE will be able to ultimately build up to a huge PPV rematch between the two. I know I wouldn’t mind paying to see more of it.

RAW MISSES

Regal: I was so thrilled late last year when William Regal seemed to be on the verge of turning on Vince McMahon. When he cost Triple H his match against Ric Flair, it was so intriguing. Since then, his character has gone downhill. There were so many possibilities for his character after his interference, but the direction they have gone was the least interesting of those possibilities. Now he is just the biggest McMahon ass kisser in the world and it is getting on my nerves. He was way too over the top in his anger at what Finlay had done to McMahon. His acting was fine, but it was the writing of his character that was the problem. He has so much value as a performer, but he is being wasted in this role.

Huge Matches, Little Hype: There were two huge matches on Raw, Bradshaw vs. Jericho and Hardy vs. Michaels. Neither of them got any hype during Raw. JBL and Y2J have been feuding for a few months now, and this was a big match in that feud, and yet it happened with no fanfare. There was a nice video package and the announcers did their best to put the match in context, but they should have hyped the match better and made it feel more important. They hardly mentioned Hardy vs. Michaels during the show. I know it was announced on WWE t.v. last week, but many WWE fans watch Raw who don’t watch ECW or Smackdown. This match should have been built as a huge deal. It was treated as a huge win for Hardy, but it wasn’t treated as a bid deal before hand. Hardy should have cut a promo about how big an opportunity it was for him. This could have seemed like such a bigger deal that it was, which is a shame considering how great the match was.

‘Roids Commercial: I like it when WWE does PSAs. I like to see them doing the “Don’t Try This At Home” spots that they do from time to time. I have no problem with them doing a PSA encouraging kids to be clean, drug free, and steroid free. But, it just bugs me that the apparent spokesman for this campaign is John Cena, one of the guys on the roster who looks to be using steroids. I’m not saying he is, but after his feats of superhuman strength against Mark Henry last week, after his superhuman return from a major injury, it is very suspicious. I would have loved to see a more natural looking top star (Michaels or Hardy) in that role. Even if Cena is 100% clean (and I honestly hope that he is), he doesn’t look like he is. Whether he is clean or not is not the point. The point is that most young male athletes out there cannot look like Cena without steroids. Cena might be able to do it, but most people can’t. But with hard work, most young athletes can be clean and look like many guys on the roster who aren’t as jacked as Cena, Triple H, or Batista.

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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