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RAW HITS

Chris Jericho: This was another good week on the mic for the surprising new World Champion, Chris Jericho. His words about Shawn Michaels were right on, and his visual aids of his own welts and bruises really added to the beating from Unforgiven. He was very effective in dismissing his loss to Michaels, and focusing on his own World Title victory. He sold the brutality of his fight with Michaels very well throughout the show. His response to Mike Ademle making matches was very good. His interaction later in the show with Ademle was good as well. It is hard to believe that Jericho is just now winning a World Title again after losing it to Triple H at WrestleMania 18. Of course, he is certainly deserving.

Noble and Layla: I enjoyed Jamie Noble's attempts to hook up with Michelle McCool on Smackdown, and I am enjoying his budding relationship with Layla on Raw. Noble is very funny. He had some great lines this week. Jillian Hall's singing was funny as usual, and I laughed out loud when Noble demanded his $5 back. Layla is playing her part well too. She is doing a good job with her facial reactions to Noble, whether he is hitting on her, getting beat up in the ring, doing well in the ring, or after the match. Having her walk out with William Regal in the end, while still looking back at Noble was a nice touch as well. I look forward to seeing where this goes from here.

CHL: Once again, I enjoyed Charlie Haas' new impersonating persona. He did a good John Bradshaw Layfield, particularly his little dance. JBL's facial reactions to the impersonation were priceless. His anger, eventually leading him to leave the ring and get counted out was good too. This hopefully is a case where a bit of comic relief from Haas will lead somewhere with JBL. I also liked that Michael Cole asked why Haas is doing these imitations. That is something that adds to the gimmick. I still say that we should get that answer eventually, but at least it was good to hear an announcer ask what many fans are asking.

Miz & Morrison vs. Bourne & Mysterio: I still don't like the new talent exchange between Raw and ECW (is the old talent exchange between ECW and Smackdown still in existence?), but this week I can't complain too much as we got to see a very enjoyable tag team match. It isn't surprising. The Miz and John Morrison have become a very good tag team, and Rey Mysterio and Evan Bourne can do amazing things in the ring. There were too many cool spots to list them all, but I will highlight the spot when Mysterio back dropped Bourne over the top rope into a hurricanrana on Morrison on the floor. Miz & Morrison got in some nice double team moves as well. Mysterio looked healthy and in good shape. It is good to see him back looking so goon in the ring. The finishing sequence with some nice near falls, leading to the eventual Shooting Star Press was great. How about moving Paul London to ECW and teaming him up with Bourne on a regular basis? Or, let them wrestle each other.

Hyping Next Week: Raw's opening segment not only set up the Main Event for this week's show, Jericho vs. Batista, but it also set up the huge Main Event for next week, Jericho vs. CM Punk for the World Title in a steel cage match. Now, I'm not sure why the match is happening in a steel cage match. That seems too soon in this feud. The likely answer is that WWE wants to move through this feud quickly and then move Punk onto something else and move someone else into the Title picture. The point though is that it is a good match that should get the fans excited to tune in next week. They also announced that Mysterio would wrestle Kane and hinted at answers as to why Kane attacked Mysterio. That isn't a great match-up, but Mysterio got a great reaction this week, so that should get the fans excited too. I will reiterate something that I wrote about TNA Impact a few weeks back and say that this shouldn't be a Hit. This should be business as usual. But, WWE does a poor job of hyping the following week's show that when they do something like this it seems like a great thing.

RAW MISSES

James vs. Phoenix: This was a very disappointing match. Mickie James and Beth Phoenix are talented workers, but they did not put on a good match. I don't know what the problem was, but they seemed to be a step off and have some major chemistry issues. It was almost like they had never been in the ring together and weren't really sure how the match was booked. It was also a disappointment as it was a big Women's Title match, that came with no build, no hype, and was over in about 4 minutes. Even if they had put on a better match for those 4 minutes it would have been a disappointment. Clearly, WWE wanted to get James out of the way so that Candice Michelle can take on Phoenix next.

Main Events: Mike Ademle said he wanted to put on a good Main Event this week, but he failed. The first part of the match, Jericho vs. Batista was just a few minutes of Batista beating on Jericho. It was interesting that Ademle then put a stop to the match, and admitted to learning on the job. However, I am not looking forward to Raw each week if part of Ademle's gimmick as General Manager is to make odd decisions because he is learning his job. Adding JBL to the match made sense given his interaction with Batista earlier in the night. But, the show went to commercial right away, and there was very little action after the commercial break. It was boring. Jericho got a nice sneaky win in the end, but that didn't make up for a boring match that didn't make much sense to begin with and didn't deliver any quality wrestling action.

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.

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

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