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The Specialists
4/14 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Title change, Flair tease, Triple H vs. JBL, & more! Apr 16, 2008 - 1:43:17 AM
Chris Jericho coming out to Flair's music: Awesome. For a split second, I got excited, and then realized it was going to be a swerve. I'd assumed it was going to be Batista, but Jericho as the button pusher that he's been for the last few weeks was pretty awesome. The superkick as Jericho was acting like the little brother you wish you never had with his "Huh huh huh huh huh?" bit was great, as was his reaction when Regal settled his complaint later on.
William Regal: He did a nice job presenting himself as a credible challenger, and while you never thought he was going to win, it wasn't completely absurd either. He was fun throughout the show, and it was nice having him help make this not just another Raw. Regal's match with Orton was good as well, and I'd like to see Regal get in the ring a bit more often, if he's up for it.
Mickie James winning the Women's Championship: The Raw women's division hasn't had much to it for a long time, so it was nice to see something happen. Beth Phoenix has been a solid champion, but without just killing women as Awesome Kong has done in TNA, she quickly became just another diva in a lot of ways. This could reenergize the division, and I look forward to seeing this feud continue. I also really enjoyed Mickie's celebration, as it made this feel like a special moment. Hopefully that celebration is where Ashley's involvement ends. Mickie randomly kissing Todd was weird but kind of fun, and I guess we'll see where her character goes from here.
Chris Jericho vs. Umaga: An entertaining match, and we continue to see Jericho acting more and more heelish with things like the foot on the ropes win. Umaga has a fine line to walk, putting on technically sound matches while also maintaining his wild streak, but he pulls it off really well.
London & Kendrick vs. Santino & Carlito: Santino is such a great man that he can make up for Carlito seeming like he just hates every second of being there. London and Kendrick seemed like they'd turned it up speed-wise, and it reminded me a bit of what it's like watching the Dragon's Gate wrestlers, as there were moments where it seemed like I must be watching the show in fast forward (especially when compared with Carlito). Good stuff, and I'm looking forward to what they do with Santino and Carlito challenging for the titles.
Raw Misses
Throwing King of the Ring out there on next week's Raw: It would have been nice for this to get more than one week of build, and it seems to indicate that they didn't know last week that this was going to happen. They also didn't do much to build it up this week. Still, could be a fun tourney, so we'll have to wait and see.
Triple H vs. JBL: It was... acceptable. Kind of. Which I guess isn't really good enough for a main event. This needed a little more JBL mic work, along with perhaps some stalling, to make it fun. As it was, we saw a nothing match with a BS finish. John Cena being completely absent from their overseas show was strange, and the fans chanting for Cena at the end but not having him show up just seemed like a "huh?" moment.
Paul Burchill vs. Jim Duggan: So, they find time to throw out Burchill while they're in his home country, but don't find time to give him any promo time or do anything that really moves his character along? What's up with that? With Burchill as the heel, it also seemed puzzling to have him out on TV beating up the American icon. We sure haven't seen much of Burchill since he was lobbying for the position in the Smackdown versus Raw match, so I'm just puzzled over what the heck they're doing with him.
Mike Roe is PWTorch.com's fill-in guy, providing his point of view on Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact until Hits & Misses Specialist Jon Mezzera gets home and kicks him to the curb for the inevitable walk of shame. He loves to hear from the readers, so e-mail him with your feedback at mikeroe@gmail.com!
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