By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Dennis Miller: I may be in the minority of those who watched Raw who enjoyed Dennis Miller. What can I say? I don't agree with his politics, but the man makes me laugh. I have always been a fan since his days hosting Weekend Update on SNL. Some of his jokes were not good, but I laughed at quite a few of them. The opening was bad, but he got better as the night proceeded. I laughed at some of his lines about going off script and then when he apologized for his opening and said that nobody told him he could just say "suck it!" to get an applause. I also loved his interaction with Vince McMahon, starting with complaining about McMahon giving him comedy pointers, and his reaction to McMahon saying that some hosts were better than others. Then after suggesting that McMahon name Bret Hart as a guest host, McMahon walked out and Miller comically plugged McMahon's upcoming fictional appearance at a comedy club. On an abysmal episode of Raw, Miller made me laugh and was one of the few entertaining things about the show.

HBK Challenges Undertaker: This was the stand out moment on this show which isn't necessarily saying much as it was very poor. I don't actually want to see Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels again at WrestleMania 26. I would love to see it again at a different event, but I want to see something else from HBK this year. I would love to see him elevate a young talent like a John Morrison (they could go the route of Morrison calling himself Shawn Michaels to Miz's Marty Jannety) or a CM Punk. Give Michaels 20+ minutes with either of them in a well-built match and you could easily have another match of the year candidate. Ok, that tangent is over. Looking past all of that, I love it when Michaels puts DX aside and gets serious. This was a short moment, but like a few weeks back when he faced off against Undertaker in a big tag match and he took off some of the DX gear, it made me think about how great Michaels is when he isn't hamstrung by the DX silliness.

Orton vs. Cena: A bad show had a good ending with the main event. John Cena vs. Randy Orton might be a match that we've seen too many times in 2009, but it was fitting that this rivalry would symbolically end the year as the two wrestled for Superstar of the Year. This was not a great match and was a bit slow at times, but it was good. Cena and Orton work very well together. One thing that added to the quality of the match was the announcing. They did a really nice job of putting this match into context, in terms of this being the "feud of the year," in terms of Cena's proclamation about being undefeated until re-winning the WWE Title earlier in the show, and in terms of Cena's possible injuries from TLC juxtaposed to Orton's momentum from his victory over Kofi Kingston at TLC. They helped Cena and Orton tell a very good story in the ring. I didn't like how Orton took a cheap count out victory over Undertaker, but then didn't try the same tactic after that sick elevated DDT on the floor in the main event. But, that was my only complaint as it was a good match.

RAW MISSES

Roundtable vs. Christian, Kane, Khali: After the bad start to the show, how does WWE try to pick things up after the commercial? With the Ruthless Roundtable? I'm a fan of William Regal and I like some of what the Roundtable has been involved in on ECW, but nobody is watching Tuesday nights. Having ECW wrestlers on was a good idea, but not in this segment where you wanted something to really pick up the audience. Christian got a decent pop, but Kane and The Great Khali? That was too random. I never need to see Khali in the ring. This was short, so it was fairly painless, but it probably didn't make any non-ECW viewers want to tune in this week to give it a try.

Sheamus Follow Up: Sheamus gave a good promo upon winning the Breakout Superstar of the year Slammy. However, there was little else during the show to hype the fact that a rookie just won the WWE Championship. They showed a few stills of Cena going through the table. Cena had his promo about wanting the Title back, but that didn't exactly put a spotlight on the new Champion. Sheamus came out at the end with the belt, but that was it for 3 hours. He should have been a bigger deal on this show.

Fat Jokes: Santino Marella made fun of Vickie Guerrero for being overweight. His joke wasn't funny, and the line that followed stating that she is overweight as a way of explaining the joke wasn't funny either. Then came lines from Matt Striker going along with the Piggie James situation which is ridiculous. I am a fan of Striker's work and I know he is scripted at least in some parts to go along with this, and I know he is a heel. However, he loses credibility as an announcer for blindly going along with this crazy notion of Michelle McCool's taunting Mickie James for being fat. It is so far beyond the realm of reality that James shouldn't even be offended by the remarks. She should just find them really dumb. The fat jokes in general should stop.

Punk vs. Cena: The matches on Raw were ridiculously short all night long. This was the worst to me. Here you have two former Champions, two of the four wrestlers deemed to have had the best years in WWE in 2009, and one of them was able to defeat the other in under 2 minutes. That totally killed CM Punk's credibility. I don't mind him losing clean to Cena, or that he tapped out. I just don't understand the mentality of booking this match to be so short and to have a clean ending at that length. This is a PPV caliber match-up that was under 2 minutes. It boggles my mind.

Batista's Involvement: You knew once Cena defeated CM Punk that Randy Orton was going to defeat Undertaker to advance to the finals of the mini-tournament. However, I felt sure that his win would come from Batista's interference. Instead, Legacy distracted Undertaker allowing Orton to hit an RKO on the outside and get the cheap count out victory (this was another short match, but it was longer than Cena vs. Punk and at least had the interference to explain why it was so short). I don't understand why Batista didn't get involved. It would have been a perfect way for him as the loser to Undertaker in the World Title match at TLC to get back into the Title picture right away (assuming WWE is going that route) by costing him in this match. There is no reason for Batista to get another Title shot as things stand now (other than the lame Teddy Long restart), but Taker could have demanded Batista in a rematch if he had gotten involved here. Instead, his only appearance on the show was in the stupid Kanye West spoof later when he interrupted Maria's Diva of the Year acceptance speech. It was a waste.

DX "vs" JeriShow: This was a bad bait & switch. I'm fine with the focus on Chris Jericho no longer being able to appear on Raw, but with the brand split being much less of a split the last few months (whereas the previous several months had been very good in this regard), it is hard to take it seriously as Jericho's final night on Raw. I also wanted to see a match. I also didn't understand where Big Show disappeared to. I also didn't understand why a bunch of ECW and Smackdown wrestlers would care about kicking Jericho off Raw. If you are on Smackdown and you don't like Jericho, then why would you want him on your show more and not Raw? It makes no sense.

Divas: There are still a few Raws left in 2009, but this would have been the best way to end the year for the Divas as it perfectly encapsulated this year for the women wrestlers on Raw. WWE's plan for the Raw Divas every week goes something like this: Step one, put at least six Divas in the ring in some type of match. Step two, give them less than 3 minutes to wrestle. Step 3, don't ever make any of them stand out too much or look good or have any type of back story or angle to be involved in. Lets put all 14 Divas in the ring in evening gowns, have them wrestle for less than a minute, and have nobody stand out as the one Diva of the year who could stand out was quickly interrupted by Batista.

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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