By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Punk & Kingston vs. Miz & Morrison: This match started roughly 45 minutes into Raw, and it was about time something good happened. The match got off to a good start with tons of energy from all involved. The sequence before the commercial was great as Kofi Kingston faked a dive onto The Miz and John Morrison on the outside, only to then flip CM Punk onto them instead. They played around with the typical WWE tag match formula, with Kingston getting the hot tag to Punk early in the match, leading to Punk eventually needing to make the hot tag to Kingston later. I don't recall ever seeing the spot when Miz & Morrison tried a Doomsday Device on Punk, only to have Punk escape from Morrison's shoulders and hit Miz with a superplex. That was a really cool spot. After the hot tag, the high energy pace of the match picked up even further with Kingston cleaning house. The ending sequence was really well done. I thought Morrison had the pin after the springboard kick before Punk broke it up. It was nice to see the new Tag Team Champions get the clean win to continue their push.

Batista & Cena vs. Legacy: This was the second very good tag match on the show. The main event featured the second three on two tag match for Legacy in a row, and both have delivered. This one was probably even better than their match last week with Batista & Triple H. There was plenty of good tag team action throughout, but the ending was what really made the match great. The final sequence as Randy Orton shoved Manu into Batista, breaking up his Batista Bomb attempt on Cody Rhodes, and allowing him to hit the RKO on Batista was very well done. This set up the punt to Batista's head. This clearly set up Orton as the top heel on Raw for the time being. It was a good match, with a very memorable ending.

Stephanie's World Title Announcement: I did not enjoy this week's Raw very much, but I do look forward to next week's. Stephanie McMahon has announced an interesting series of matches over the next two weeks to determine the #1 contender for John Cena's World Championship. Next week, there will be four singles matches featuring eight former Champions, and the winners will then face off in an elimination fatal four way the following week. That is a nice way to hype the final two Raws of 2008. The announcers did a nice job later in the show of announcing the actual four matches for next week and hyping the event. It seems a bit predictable that Randy Orton is going to win, but it should be a fun road to that conclusion.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: This was not a great way to start the first Raw after a PPV. While the announcers did talk about some of the big news that came out of Armageddon, they really didn't do much to make it feel like a big event. Then they started with a women's tag team match that didn't feel very special. It was short and two of the four women involved didn't actually get into the match. Then, Kane came out to "save" Kelly Kelly. It was a disturbing moment, the first of many between these two (more later). I guess it set up the series of scenes between them, but it hardly did anything to get me excited about the rest of the show. It failed to transition from the PPV and failed to set the stage for the rest of Raw.

Kane & Kelly: As I mentioned above, the opening segment set the stage for a series of disturbing scenes between Kane and Kelly. Kane seemed sympathetic in the opening. In fact, the fans even booed when Kelly refused his hand. But, the tone quickly changed. He basically kidnapped her at that point. These scenes might be the set up to something good in the future. I like how Kelly was able to trick Kane into beating up the Miz. That was a solid payoff. However, the build to that payoff was just disturbing to watch. They weren't entertaining either.

Sim Snuka: I have never been very impressed with Deuce, although I will admit to finding him more impressive than his former tag team partner Domino. But, I'm still not that impressed. Having him drop the Deuce gimmick and start using his real name is o.k. I suppose, but it begs the question, why has he been using a fake name this whole time? It is a little too convenient that he decides to use his real name on the same night that Cody Rhodes and Manu are there to scout this second generation star. Are they going to scout all second generation stars? If so, I can't wait for them to scout out Goldust. He would be a great fit for Legacy.

JBL - Michaels: I have to think that Armageddon would have been better without this long talking from Shawn Michaels. If they were going to show the entire speech from Michaels on Raw, then why not just have him give it live on Raw, and give the fans who paid to see wrestling action another match? Just a thought. Beyond that, I still am not buying Michaels needing money. Even if he does, I still can't be sympathetic towards him. I guess I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be. Isn't he still pulling in a huge salary? Even if he lost his savings, he will make more money from his 2009 WWE salary than most of us will see in a life time. Boo hoo. He is still being paid by WWE, right? What is he doing for John Bradshaw Layfield? What is JBL getting out of this deal? It is sad that Michaels was involved in the top angle of 2008 and has now moved on to this crap.

Overall Show: While there were two very good two segment tag matches, the rest of the show was pretty bad. In addition to the individual Misses above (one of which encompasses multiple scenes), there were several other moments that weren't good. They might not have been bad enough to get Misses, but they were certainly not Hits. I'm talking about another video for Mr. Kennedy's new movie. I'm talking about Dolph Ziggler vs. Santa Claas. I'm talking about Hacksaw Jim Duggan's sad facial reactions. I'm talking about Glamarella's role being severely reduced. It had a strong ending, and I look forward to next week, but I just didn't enjoy the majority of Raw this week.

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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