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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Memorial Day Messages: WWE always does a good job of honoring our troops on Memorial Day. The opening video was well done. I particularly liked the two videos later in the show of the troops sending messages to their families (and a few wrestlers too). They were a nice touch in addition to the traditional opening video. Once again, WWE proves that it can be classy, when it wants to be.

McMahon Tease: Vince McMahon was in a jovial mood this week. He had a good opening promo, teasing the notion of showing appreciation to the fans. This worked, as it was a good tease of a big announcement. After all, McMahon said that he was going to do something that had never been done on t.v. before. Also, it set up that he was looking for suggestions from the wrestlers themselves for ways to thank the fans. This led to a series of backstage scenes with various wrestlers pitching ideas to McMahon. The ideas were Hit & Miss, but at least it gave a unifying theme to Raw, and built anticipation to stick around for the end of the show.

Opening Face Off: This is a marginal Hit. I groaned when I heard there was going to be a “Face Off” between Randy Orton and Triple H. Why was Todd Grisham there? He asked one question. This would have been better if either guy had come out, demanding his opponent join him. But, both Orton and Triple H were very good here. It was a good back and forth promo that worked to sell their big match at One Night Stand. They did a good job brining up history. Orton’s comments about Shawn Michaels were very interesting, possibly planting a seed? We shall see. Some of Triple H’s lines seemed a bit too scripted and unnatural (the fish in the sea metaphor), but for the most part it was a well-written and very well delivered Face Off.

Phoenix on Commentary: Beth Phoenix did a good job on guest commentary during Melina vs. Jillian Hall. She was pretty amusing, showing more personality that we’ve seen from her, at the beginning thanking Hall for the terrible singing endorsement. The match itself was fine, but Phoenix added to it with her comments, particularly her statement that Maria cried for hours after what she did to her last week, and when she demanded that Jerry Lawler name any Diva in WWE history who could make her give up. In a very short amount of time, WWE has done a good job of building this feud and their I Quit match at the PPV.

Elevating Birchill: With William Regal suspended for 60 days, someone had to be elevated to take his place. I wouldn’t have had Paul Birchill high on my list of possibilities, but I am intrigued enough by the choice to give it a Hit. With the draft lottery coming up in a month, who knows how long this elevation will last, but I am curious to see where they go with Birchill. He hasn’t shown much yet, but he hasn’t had much opportunity either. He delivered well in his short promo about Regal. Maybe this experiment will fail, but at least WWE is giving someone on the undercard a chance to be elevated, which is a start.

Y2J vs. HBK: Put these two in a ring and a good match is bound to happen. While this wasn’t a PPV quality match, it was a good t.v. Main Event. It had good back and forth action, and an interesting finish. I like that they messed around with Shawn Michaels’ traditional come back move sequence. Chris Jericho was able to interrupt it a few times, making the match less formulaic than it would have been otherwise. Changing things up like that really adds to the quality of the match. They also did a good job of teasing the Super Kick a few times during the match. The ending was strong as Jericho refused to let Michaels out of the Walls of Jericho, leading to a double count out. This is the type of double count out that works, although WWE seems to be using that finish way too often as of late. I was also highly intrigued by what happened after the match. The beating and the tease of a chair shot was very well done. This storyline (along with the Batista elements on Smackdown) has been the best thing going in WWE since WrestleMania. Each week they find a new way to hook the audience more and more, and this week was no different.

RAW MISSES

Another Short Tag Title Match: Holly & Rhodes vs. London & Kendrick was the second World Tag Team Championship match in a row on Raw that has been about 4 minutes. It is ridiculous. I suppose with very little build up to the match, and the match just serving the purpose of having the Tag Champs in the ring for the introduction of Ted DiBiase Jr., then it makes sense to have it be short. I would be fine if it hadn’t been a title match. They barely mentioned that London & Kendrick had a non-title victory on Heat last week. Why not mention that (show a clip maybe?) and say that they were getting another non-title match this week, and if they win they get a title shot next week? Then give Holly & Rhodes the strong victory leading to DiBiase’s introduction. The match was good while it lasted, and the DiBiase introduction was solid, but all title matches should be treated as a bigger deal, and given more than 4 minutes.

Y2J vs. HBK Hype: While they delivered a good match, WWE didn’t capitalize on the draw of the match very well at all. It was announced fairly early in the show, but not at the beginning. It did not get announced multiple times throughout the show. Other than the first announcement, there was the brief scene with Michaels and McMahon in the back, but that focused more on McMahon’s announcement than on Michaels vs. Jericho. This is a big PPV caliber match, and WWE didn’t treat it that way. They should have done a better job throughout Raw of hyping the match.

McMahon’s Announcement: WWE really built anticipation for McMahon’s big announcement. Unfortunately, the announcement sucked. O.k., we can get excited about a draft lottery (or not, depending on your point of view), but the whole giving away money thing was so lame. I can hear a lot of fans saying, “I stuck around for that?” Even if this contest is a good idea, it could have been be announced in a different way. To build the whole Raw around it is ridiculous. Is this going to make viewers tune in each week? Maybe. But, it certainly won’t get anyone to pay $40 for a PPV on Sunday. It was a very disappointing ending to the show.

Impact Feel: Last week, in my Impact Hits & Misses article, I complained that it was the most hectic two-hour Impact yet. Unfortunately, WWE seemed to be channeling TNA with this week’s Raw. It was much more crowded and hectic than usual. My notes were much longer than for a typical Raw. There were multiple back stage scenes with McMahon that were all short and added to the hectic feel. There were many video packages throughout Raw, maybe a few too many. This is partly due to having too much going on with a PPV so soon after the last one, so they don’t have enough time to build to the matches. That means in addition to having the good Face Off between Orton and Triple H, they had to show a video of their feud as well. They are building to the PPV at the same time as trying to get some main stream press with Jimmy Kimmell, so we get Cousin Sal’s training video on the last Raw before a PPV (the video was amusing though). Plus, the three Memorial Day videos which were good, but also added to the hectic feel. I really do think this is in large part due to the need to cram as much hype for a PPV into two weeks, at the same time as trying to do many non-PPV related angles (like the cash giveaway) which is a sign that they have too many PPVs in the first place.

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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