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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: This special 3 hour Raw got off to a good start with Ric Flair. Unfortunately, Flair doesn’t actually have that many WrestleMania matches under his belt (and it was doubtful that WWE would bring back Randy Savage), so just talking from Naitch. But that was fine, as Flair delivered a very good promo to Shawn Michaels. He said what I’ve been waiting to hear him say for a while, that he doesn’t want to hang on to his career, he wants to still be The Man. I liked what he had to say about pity and sympathy. He was definitely on his game, and Michaels was too. He brought up his WrestleMania past, cutting a good promo about not being able to control what he does at the biggest PPV of the year. After agreeing to steal the show with Flair, he also got in a good plug for Smackdown on Friday night. His line about Edge and his Edge guys was hilarious. Then, Randy Orton came out to announce his two big matches for Raw. I was glad to hear that he hadn’t just booked Triple H vs. John Cena. The matches he announced weren’t the matches I would have gone with, but I was pleased enough. Every thing in the opening segment worked. Not only was it entertaining, but it set up two big matches for Raw, hyped a major WrestleMania match, and hyped the Smackdown Main Event as well.

Mayweather-Big Show Videos: There were three good videos on Floyd Mayweather and the Big Show. The first was similar to one from Smackdown last week, showing various boxing experts talking about the match. The second was a look at the Big Show and highlighted him destroying various opponents over the years. The third showed Mayweather in his mansion, counting his money and showing off his possessions. If you look at Mayweather as a heel, this was a perfect video package of him showing his shallow character and his ego in saying that WWE will soon be MME. Unfortunately, WWE hasn’t seemed to want him to be a heel. I liked these videos as they are good hype for WrestleMania. But, they would be more effective if Mayweather were the heel, which may finally be the direction they are going.

Hardy vs. Jericho: I questioned why this match was happening this week, but it seems now to be clear. I enjoyed their match two weeks ago, and I enjoyed this one just as much. The action seemed more intense this week, which makes sense given their interaction on the Highlight Reel last week. The match had very good back and forth action and many nice near falls. The crowd seemed fairly split as Chris Jericho got more cheers this week than last. Jeff Hardy looked good hitting some of his high impact offense. The spot on the outside when he smashed into the announce table was great. It was hard hitting from start to finish and I certainly won’t complain about seeing more from these two. I had a bad feeling with Hardy lost. I had seen that he wasn’t at Raw house shows over the weekend, and when he lost the Intercontinental Championship, I was worried that he had been suspended. Now I see that he has for 60 days, which is very disappointing. It will be interesting to see, based on WWE’s flimsy suspension rules, whether he still takes part in Money in the Bank.

Weigh In: This was the best Big Show - Mayweather appearance since No Way Out. It seems like WWE is finally trying to make Mayweather the heel, which is what he should be. The Big Show was very good in his promo, introducing his posse. Mayweather isn’t great on the mic, but he played his part well, particularly flinging money at Big Show’s feet. He is a natural heel and it was good to see WWE playing into that here. It wasn’t a total switch, as Big Show’s attack on Mayweather isn’t exactly a babyface move. But, it was a great moment. It was a nice follow up on what Big Show did last week, and it gives a highlight of Mayweather involved in wrestling action. The arm injury adds an interesting dynamic to the match, but I am still not totally sold that WWE is making Mayweather a heel. He almost has to win at WrestleMania, and in a David vs. Goliath situation, the part of David is usually played by a babyface.

Main Event: Michaels vs. Cena was not nearly as good as either of their great matches last year, but it was still a good t.v. Main Event. It suffered from a slow pace, but it still featured some very good mat wrestling. It had good psychology as Michaels worked on Cena’s knee, which worked in the context of the match itself and as part of the larger Michaels vs. Flair picture. Obviously these two are capable of a much better match, but it worked for what it was, a set up to the Randy Orton interference.

RAW MISSES

Use of Kennedy: I am not sure how I feel about Finlay snapping the way that the did. It fits in with his character and his storyline so it make sense. It also served as a good visual of what he is capable of doing in his Belfast Brawl vs. John Bradshaw Layfield at WrestleMania. My reservations stem from the fact that WWE is not doing a good job of having sympathy for Finlay. He isn’t being booked like a babyface, but neither is JBL, which can hurt the match. So, I have mixed feeling about what Finlay did. However, I have no mixed feelings about who he did it to. WWE had been doing a good job building Mr. Kennedy until last week when he lost clean to John Cena. This week he was Finlay’s whipping boy. Neither has much of a WrestleMania repertoire to get opponents from, so it makes sense to have them face each other. But, this made Kennedy look bad. I would have liked to see at least some of a match before Finlay snapped.

Triple H vs. Kane: This was disappointing. With all respect to Kane, if I had to pick one of Triple H’s former WrestleMania opponents to soften him up, I would have picked The Undertaker. Even given Kane’s involvement, the match was still disappointing. The announcers did a good job during the video package of their WrestleMania 15 match of putting over Kane as a great choice for Orton. Then he lost fairly easily in 6 minutes. I thought that this match as the simi-Main Event would go longer than that. It wasn’t particularly good while it lasted, but it wasn’t bad either. It ultimately suffered from being too short, and from Kane not actually posing any threat to the Game.

WrestleMania Rewind: I was so intrigued by the concept of WrestleMania Rewind, but the execution of the great concept was severely lacking. For one thing, not all the matches were WrestleMania rematches as was promised. I know that WWE wanted Hardy to drop the IC Title, but that meant his match didn’t fit the theme. Melina vs. Maria was a WrestleMania “prematch” as they called it. Two of the matches weren’t from past WrestleManias, so WWE failed to live up to the expectations of the fans based on how they hyped this special Raw. Can someone explain to me why this show was 3 hours? Much of that time was filler. WWE could easily have trimmed an hour of that show to make it a normal Raw and the quality would have been much better. Let’s look at the matches that happened. Undertaker’s impressive winning streak at WrestleMania has includes as many duds (vs. Jimmy Snuka, King Kong Bundy, Big Bossman) as great matches (vs. Triple H, Kane, Batista). His casket match vs. Mark Henry falls somewhere in between, but nobody was looking forward to seeing it again. Kennedy vs. Finlay was a lame match-up as both were just in Money in the Bank last year, and it wasn’t even a match. Hardy vs. Jericho was a very good match, but not from WrestleMania. The Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik vs. Mike Rotundo & Barry Windham fiasco was a joke. What was the point of it? You can count that pointless segment among many that should have been cut to make it a 2 hour show. I already listed Triple H vs. Kane as a Miss. Melina vs. Maria was mercifully kept short, but again not from WrestleMania. Edge vs. Punk was short and decent, but seemed mostly a waste of time. It also was barely in the parameters of the theme. Cena vs. Michaels was solid, but not great. The show on the whole had so much filler, and with so many great WrestleMania matches to chose from, it is a shame that WWE picked the ones they did.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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

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