By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

I've been away the last week and a half on vacation. Since returning Sunday night, I've watched 8+ hours of WWE on DVR to catch up with what I missed while I was away, and now I've watched this week's Raw where we pick up with my return to the Hits & Misses.

RAW HITS

Snoop Dogg: Snoop Dogg did a good job as the guest host for Raw this week. We know from past instances that he is a legit WWE fan and it showed. He was good introducing the show and setting up the three big matches of Triple H vs. John Cena, Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase and Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho. There was one scene with Snoop that I didn't like (more later), but it wasn't really his fault. I did like how he came to Hornswoggle's rescue later (although I can't believe his feud with Chavo Guerrero is still going!). It was fun to watch him dance around the ring and then take out Chavo with a spear/tackle. He actually looked good in hitting the move.

Opening Segment: In addition to Snoop's good work at the start of the show, the opening segment continued nicely with DX coming out to introduce Team Raw and diss team Smackdown. It wasn't all good, but the good outweighed the bad. I laughed at the Snoop Dogg talk from Michaels. It was some nice self deprecating humor. I could have definitely done without the Katie Vick reference. Normally I would say that it was not a good idea to have them verbally dismiss two of their opponents in the big tag match, but I have to agree with them. At this point in their careers, Drew McIntyre and Eric Escobar are nobodies. There are plenty of WWE fans who probably don't know who they are. I don't understand putting them in this match at all. I'm all for giving new wrestlers a push, but you have to lay the ground work and having two guys who have a total of about four matches between them as two of your top Superstars, really makes your roster look weak. Moving on, Michaels' introduction of the rest of Ream Raw was good as was the mic work from Cody Rhodes and Big Show. With such a seemingly large gap in quality of teams, WWE needed to do something to make Team Raw appear vulnerable and having this dissension worked.

Ted DiBiase: DiBiase did a very good job in acting before and during his match against Randy Orton. His facial expressions beforehand were spot on as he was clearly conflicted and didn't know quite what to do. He also did a good job as the match proceeded of showing more and more anger at what Orton was forcing him to do until his final snapping point when he shoved Orton to the mat. Some of his shaking was a bit over done, but on the whole he performed very well. His calming himself after realizing what he had done was also well performed, leading to him letting Orton hit the RKO for the win. Orton's performance was very good too, but I wanted to particularly uphold DiBiase in this case.

Captain Lou Video: This was a nice video package honoring the memory of Captain Lou Albano. Nicely done WWE. It is too bad that so many current WWE fans are so new to this business and don't really have any idea about who Albano was.

Triple H vs. Cena: I seriously doubt that this was John Cena's last match on Raw, but if it was, it was a great way to go out. I was a little surprised that this was only the fourth singles match between these two. Michael Cole got in that little tid bit. Of course he also said that this could be a WrestleMania main event while forgetting about the fact that it was already. Enough about that, as this was a great match. It went 20 minutes and was fun to watch from start to finish. I enjoyed the early feeling out process and the teases of the Pedigree and the AA. There were several great exchanges like when Cena avoided a second chop block from The Game and attempted the STF. There was mat wrestling, brawling, counters, and near falls. They each kicked out of each other's finishers. It really felt like a PPV main event match (minus the commercials of course). And, the crowd was hot throughout the match. The announcers did a good job of selling the fact that after Triple H finally got the pin on Cena that the match would be less than half over at the PPV.

RAW MISSES

10 Man Tag: The problem with this 7 on 7 Raw vs. Smackdown PPV tag match is that it is ridiculous to have a tag with that many people (particularly with huge stars like Triple H, Michaels and Jericho) be a one fall finish. WWE even gave an example of that in this match where five Raw wrestlers had a chance to win a spot on Team Raw's roster, by defeating one of the existing team members. You had a 10 man match that only went about 3 minutes before a pinfall. What if Dolph Ziggler gets a quick three count roll up victory over Cody Rhodes in the first 3 minutes at Bragging Rights? Obviously that's not going to happen, but it could and that wouldn't really settle the question of which show is better. The reason I'm giving this match a Miss is that it underscores the problems with the main concept of one of the top reasons for ordering the PPV.

Bad Snoop Scene: As I mentioned above, while I liked Snoop's performance, there was one scene with him that I wasn't thrilled with. It wasn't his fault and he performed fine, but the scene with him and Hornswoggle and Chavo Guerrero and Jillian Hall and the other Divas and the marijuana fake out was pretty bad. It was another in a long line of similar scenes that many of the guest hosts have had to act in. It is old already. Even Santino Marella wasn't funny here. It just didn't work.

End of Raw: Raw was good this week, but it did not have a strong ending. I was upset at the bait and switch of promising Michaels vs. Jericho and not delivering. WWE sort of backed up what DX said earlier in the night with the nondescript entrance for Ziggler, McIntyre and Escobar. The mic work was ok, but nothing particularly good. It was stupid to have Vickie Guerrero randomly on as supposedly a Team Smackdown representative trying to have some sort of authority in this situation. That made no sense. Even the show ending brawl felt flat.

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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