By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: After last week's incredibly long and terrible opening segment, it was nice to see Raw get off to good start for a change this week. Everyone involved, Dusty Rhodes, Randy Orton and Cody Rhodes, played their parts well. They were all strong on the mic. It was nice to see another WWE legend at the helm of Raw instead of a celebrity just plugging their latest project (although Rhodes would do some plugging later). The opening set up the main event for the show and likely hooked viewers into wanting to stick around for more.

Jericho vs. MVP: Montel Vontavious Porter's talents have been largely wasted on Raw. He had a "feud" with Jack Swagger that didn't go anywhere. But, it was nice to see him in a meaningful singles match on Raw that went nearly 9 minutes. I would have liked to see more of his match with Chris Jericho. Last month, WWE did a good job in building towards Cryme Tyme vs. Jeri-Show. They haven't been as good so far in building towards the Tag Champs' defense against MVP & Mark Henry, but this match was good in and of itself, and a good way to hype the eventual PPV tag match. I liked how it started with the chain wrestling. There were plenty of counters and nice near falls. I expected MVP to get the win and it was a nice surprise to see Jericho pick up the clean victory instead. Throw in the solid big man match with Show vs. Henry later on, and you got a good follow up to the shaky start to this feud last week.

Fatal 4 Way US Title Match: I am reluctant to give this a Hit, as I am getting tired of seeing Kofi Kingston defend his US Title in these types of matches. Sure, he faced Carlito one on one a few weeks back, but other than that, it seems like every Title defense is a triple threat, fatal four way, or Scramble match, etc. However, all four of these guys delivered a fun match so it gets a Hit. It was formulaic as Kingston hit a huge dive onto the other three right before the break, but was in a submission hold by Jack Swagger right afterwards. However, that dive was fantastic, and the leg lock Swagger had on him looked impressive too. There was a lot of energy in the match. There were multiple cool moves and sequences. All four were intense and sold the importance of winning the Title. The ending sequence was well done too.

Cena's Promo: After moving on from the lame Twitter and Facebook references and his decent talk about being the special guest referee for Rhodes vs. Orton, John Cena delivered a good serious intense promo about Breaking Point. I liked how he kept repeating "I will not quit." It got the fans involved. It reminded us about the stipulation and reinforced Cena's toughness. It was short, he didn't ramble, and he delivered the promo well. It should continue to be his rallying cry next week heading into Breaking Point.

End of Raw: This was probably the best raw in recent weeks. It had some major problems, but as I said above, it got off to a good start and as I am saying now, it had a very strong conclusion. It was predictable that it was a setup by Legacy to destroy Cena, but it still worked well. DX came out to a strong reaction from the crowd, only to get beat down also. The crowd was up and down for this show, but they were really hot at this point. It was good to see Legacy stand tall over Cena, Triple H and Shawn Michaels. But, what really sold the ending was Randy Orton's RKO on Dusty Rhodes and Cody Rhodes' great reaction afterwards. It was Orton at his best with mind games on Cody to see where his loyalties really lie. Cody was very good in his role. It left me thinking, "wow, what is going to happen next week on Raw!" which was such a staple of this show once upon a time but has been sorely lacking as of late.

RAW MISSES

Divas Battle Royale: I had a few problems with this. For one, I am sick and tired of every Divas match on Raw involving six wrestlers. For another, the six wrestlers involved aren't allowed time (4 minutes in this case) to showcase their skills. For another, I hate that in Divas Battle Royales that the women don't have to get thrown over the top rope (or even the second rope) to get eliminated. For another, this match was rushed and sloppy. For another, I am sick and tired of the ending to a battle royale where the other wrestlers "forget" about a wrestler who they think has been eliminated, only to have that wrestler reenter and win in the end. They played around with that formula on Raw a few months ago with the Miz trying to get the jump on Cena and Triple H. However, it seems like they do this type of ending to every other battle royale and they need to put a moratorium on that finish for at least two if not three years.

Bull Rope "Match": I don't want to give Chavo Guerrero and Hornswoggle a Miss every week. Last week I was off, but would have actually given it a Hit as I was very hopeful that Evan Bourne's run in meant they were moving to a Guerrero vs. Bourne feud. I was wrong and thus this crap ends up in the Miss column again. It gets more and more ridiculous every week. As long as Bourne stays involved with this, his career will go nowhere fast. He has too much talent to be used this way. It is really disappointing.

Rhodes - DX: I had mixed feelings about this series of backstage scenes between Dusty Rhodes and Degeneration X. It seemed odd that a guest host who had an important role would spend most of Raw watching a WCW DVD with DX. Some of the humor was good, but most was not. The shameless DVD plugs bugged me. It is normal for DX, but it is like they justify how lame the plugs are by admitting that they are cheap plugs and that doesn't work for me. Also, the segments were too insider. I got the references as did most of the Torch readers I would assume. However, most casual fans, particularly the younger demographic that WWE is targeting right now, don't get them. Unless they watch TNA, they don't know who Big Sexy is. They don't remember Mark Mero, aka Johnny B Badd. Shawn Michaels was funny in his cheek twitch as he was becoming agitated by the discussion of the Monday Night War era, but the nuances of who was in control and on top during this era verses that era are lost on most of the fans. I spent more time explaining things like the Shockmaster to my wife who has only been watching wrestling for five years than paying attention to the scenes which were just silly.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and Superstars 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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