By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

I attended Raw live in Oakland California, and I have yet to watch the television broadcast. Therefore, my Hits & Misses article this week is based solely on the live experience.

RAW HITS

Melina Attacks Phoenix: Mickie James vs. Beth Phoenix was decent, but like just about every match on the card, it was too short. It was good to see the Women’s Champ pick up a victory, but Phoenix was hurt with the clean loss. At least the post-match angle with Melina attacking Phoenix worked well. It was a nice way to advance the story, and Melina has shown great fire the past few weeks. Given the outcome of the match, I would have rather seen Melina attack Phoenix during the match, costing her the win. But, at least they kept this feud going.

Highlight Reel: The true highlight of the night was clearly Chris Jericho’s Highlight Reel. Jericho worked the audience brilliantly here. He got a great babyface reaction when he came to the ring. By the end, he got the biggest heel reaction of the night. Part of that was obviously for throwing Shawn Michaels through the obscenely expensive Jeritron 6000, but even before that he had the fans in the palm of his hand. He was great in getting the fans to cheer for Michaels, even starting an “H-B-K” chant. The head crashing through the screen spot was by far the greatest moment of the night. I don’t know how it came across on t.v., but live you could really see the glass explode and it seemed to fly very far. I am a little surprised that they went to a full fledged heel turn for Jericho so soon, but given the injury to Randy Orton, it makes sense, and it certainly made for a great segment.

Jillian Hall: Jillian Hall singing got one of the biggest boos of the night. In fact, her singing was so bad and the boos were so loud, many fans couldn’t even make out what she was singing. I am giving her a Hit largely for inducing such a great amount of heel heat. There wasn’t a lot of heel heat on the show. Also, when Vince McMahon put a stop to her singing she was hilarious in asking him if she had won the singing competition.

RAW MISSES

Million Dollar Mania: I’m trying to guess whether this came off worse live or on t.v. It is hard to say. Part of the problem is that it seemed like McMahon did not know how to dial a phone. I guess billionaires have people to dial for them. The various difficulties in dialing really made the crowd grow restless. It was very hard to understand McMahon. We probably only caught about 75% of what he said throughout the night for some reason. But, we could hear the people on the phone so we did hear them give the correct password. These segments were so boring to watch. They tried a few times to liven them up, like with Charlie Haas making out with Mae Young and having Cryme Tyme hoping to win the money themselves, but they failed to actually liven them up. There were very few backstage segments this week, as they were replaced by McMahon’s calls. I would be fine with fewer talking segments if it leads to more in ring action, but that was not the case here. I would rather see wrestlers interact backstage and advance storylines than see McMahon calling people to give away money.

No Words from Kennedy/Santino: I admit to giving this a Miss largely because of my own desire to get to hear from these two live, but at the same time I know I would be upset about it (at least for Santino Marella) if I were watching at home. I was very disappointed that Mr. Kennedy didn’t get any mic time. I didn’t get to hear him do his “Kennedy... Kennedy” bit live which sucks. And, I would have much rather heard Santino talk than to watch him wrestle, particularly in that poor match against Cryme Tyme.

Umaga Teams with Snitsky: Are you kidding me? While watching last week’s bad Smackdown, I kept saying that it was good that we were going to see Raw, so we wouldn’t have to see the likes of The Great Khali and Vladimir Koslov. I forgot about Snitsky. Of course, he hasn’t been on in a while so he is easy to forget. The Tag Division is in painful need of an overhaul. Clearly, WWE wanted a heel team to beat Cody Rhodes & Hardcore Holly, but after Carlito & Santino, there isn’t one. So, they had to stick these two together which made no sense. Umaga actually got a babyface reaction from the crowd. Maybe we were just happy to see him in the ring at the end instead of Snitsky. This situation got even worse after the show went off the air as we had to see them team again for the dark match. Hopefully Ted DiBiase Jr. will resurrect this division, but it is doubtful.

Main Event: We were very excited to see at the beginning of the show that the Main Event would be Jeff Hardy vs. Triple H. Unfortunately, the match did not live up to the billing. I know that Triple H is the WWE Champion and has to be kept strong going into the PPV to face John Cena. But, watching him dominate Hardy was not fun. It was very one sided. Yes, Hardy got in some early offense, but after that he hardly had any. Triple H cut off multiple comeback attempts. He easily side stepped a Whisper in the Wind attempt. He no sold a few clotheslines. This was face vs. face, but one of the faces looked pretty weak compared to the other. I know Hardy won and got the final word over Triple H and Cena, but the match itself wasn’t fun to watch, which was very disappointing.

Match Quality: Over all, the matches were not very good. They were mostly short and none of them were Hit worthy. Kennedy vs. Burchill was a possible PPV match, until Kennedy easily beat Burchill in a short match. James vs. Phoenix was also a possible PPV match, that was a bit sloppy and even shorter. Cena vs. JBL went the longest and it was nice to see it commercial free in the arena, but it wasn’t exactly exciting. It was slow and plodding. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Umaga & Snitsky vs. Rhodes & Holly was another very short match for the Tag Team Champions. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, and Umaga looked really strong, but the length of these matches was really getting ridiculous at that point. Cryme Tyme vs. Santino & Carlito was also short and sloppy. JTG’s dance on the ring apron before dumping Carlito was amusing, but other than that, the match wasn’t particularly good. I already complained about the Main Event. With the lackluster matches, the very boring Million Dollar Mania, and the disappointing lack of mic time for Kennedy and Santino, this was not a great Raw to watch live. Throw in the fact that the show was advertised as a double Raw taping (which it wasn’t), and many fans did not go home happy.

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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