By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: Raw got off to a good start. I could have done without the cheesy limo shot before cutting to the inside of the limo for the brief exchange between Shawn Michaels and John Bradshaw Layfield. However, that brief bit set up the theme for the night, which was that for Michaels, tonight is his WrestleMania. Then came the nice in ring segment between Stephanie McMahon and Chris Jericho. They had a good verbal exchange. It hyped the return of Vince McMahon next week, and built upon previous encounters between these two. It built nicely to Stephanie eventually firing Jericho. It will be interesting to see where things go from here. I would assume Jericho will appeal the firing to Vince, but we will have to wait and see.

Legacy: Finally, we are getting somewhere. There was a nice scene early on between Cody Rhodes, Sim Snuka and Manu. This set up the notion that Manu & Snuka had backup and that Rhodes still had a choice to make, between them and Randy Orton. It was a fine tease for later in the show. It was good to see Ted DiBiase return, as in my opinion he has been the most impressive of any of these 2nd generation stars. It was predictable that he and Rhodes would help Orton against Snuka and Manu. That being said, the beating was well done. The backstage scene later was o.k. I like that WWE attempted to justify how DiBiase would help Orton and why Orton would welcome him into the group when he tried to end his career a few months ago, but it wasn't a good explanation. That brings this Hit down a bit. I did like the notion of bringing up how all three are in the Royal Rumble and what the ramifications of that will be. I suspect Orton to win the Rumble and face Cena at WrestleMania. Throw in Michaels vs. JBL, Edge vs. Triple H, Jeff Hardy vs. Christian (although I would love the Hardys vs. Edge & Christian), plus John Morrison winning Money in the Bank over the likes of Rey Mysterio, Kofi Kingston, CM Punk, The Miz, MVP and Mr. Kennedy and you got a pretty good WrestleMania 25 line up. To get back to Legacy, in the end the group is the three people it should have been from the start.

Michaels vs. Cena: This was better than their 55 minute epic match from Raw in 2007. This was a great match, an instant Match of the Year candidate. I don't recall a match on free t.v. in 2008 being this good. John Cena showed more intensity in the opening moments of this match than he does sometimes in an entire match. I have to be honest and say there were a few sloppy spots, like when Michaels avoided a dive from Cena from the top turnbuckle and reversed it into a cross face. The long bear hug wasn't great either. Those are minor complaints in what was an otherwise excellent match. The match went back and forth. It had drama and great wrestling action with plenty of counters and reversals and near falls. They both kicked out of each other's finishing moves. They hinted at doing those finishers multiple other times too. They had a good use of multiple submission holds as well. The match built very nicely to the great ending as JBL provided just a split second distraction to Cena allowing Michaels to hit a second Super Kick and get the win. JBL was great at ring side all match long, especially in his subtle way of moving the rope closer to Michaels when Cena had him in the STF(not U).

Hyping Next Week's Raw: This is the second straight week that I am giving WWE a Hit for hyping the following week's Raw. The hype started right away with the reminder that Vince McMahon makes his return next week. As I mentioned above, even the fans anticipating what Jericho will do is a subtle form of hype. Later, we found out that William Regal will once again be defending the Intercontinental Championship vs. CM Punk, this time in a no DQ match next week. I don't like the way that WWE is building one IC Title match on the back of another disappointingly short one, but at least they are announcing a big match for next week. They also announced that Rey Mysterio will finally get a chance at revenge when he takes on Mike Knox.

RAW MISSES

Was That Candice Michelle?: It honestly took me a moment to recognize that the Diva talking to the mystery person off camera (CM Punk) was Candice Michelle. Her look has changed so much. She didn't look good. Her role has been greatly diminished the last few months. I haven't been impressed with her since she returned from her injury, and it looks like I'm not the only one. WWE made her look like a fool the way that Punk brushed her off.

Another Quick IC Title Match: After my Miss last week for the Intercontinental Title match, I got a comment that I didn't understand that WWE is building to a big payoff match between CM Punk and William Regal. That seems to be the case. However, my Miss last week wasn't the fact that the IC Title match ended in a disqualification. The Miss was for the fact that the DQ itself was weak (Regal just grabbed on to the referee for a few seconds, which didn't seem enough to warrant a DQ) and more importantly, that the DQ occurred so quickly in the match. How about letting the match go even 6 or 7 minutes, instead of just 2 before going to the ending? Give the fans a better taste of what a longer match between Regal and Punk would be like so that they want to see more of it. Last week left a bad taste in my mouth. So did this week. Again, I don't care about the match ending with Punk getting DQ'd, although it was similarly cheesy. But, why do it in 2 minutes? They want me to tune in next week for the no DQ match, but they have given me zero reason to believe that even that will be a long enough match to invest it.

McMahon Videos: I liked the fact that WWE did so much to hype next week's Raw, however, I could have done without the three videos on Vince McMahon. McMahon is an icon in WWE. We all know what he has done and what he is like as a character. We are very familiar with him. It hasn't been that long since he's been on. I doubt there are any fans watching who needed a reminder of who he is. These videos were not necessary and didn't add to the quality of the broadcast. They seemed like filler.

Impact Feel: For much of Raw, the show had an Impact feel. By that I mean that it felt rushed and too crammed with content, until the final 20 plus minutes of the show were taken up by the great main event. There were so many short bits throughout the show. Replays, McMahon videos, the Steve Austin Hall of Fame Video, brief backstage scenes with random wrestlers all added up to the show having a hectic feel to it. Other than the main event, none of the matches were long. But, how could they be when that time had to go to more McMahon hype? Mysterio vs. Miz was good, but only lasted 3 minutes. Then came the fun part when Mysterio finally got in some offense on Mike Knox. Instead of making the match go a little longer and letting Mysterio's revenge sink in, WWE cut to the needless silly scene between Michelle and Punk. What was the point of that? That's the type of thing TNA does on a regular basis. That is just one of many examples.

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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