By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Orton & Legacy vs. Kingston, Henry & Bourne: After a really bad start to Raw (more later) things finally got going in a good direction with this six-man tag. It went over 10 minutes and featured good wrestling action. Mark Henry's role was kept limited which helped the in ring product. Evan Bourne looked good and it was nice to see him have a moment with a visual pin on Cody Rhodes after the shooting star press. The action was particularly good at the end after Kofi Kingston got the hot tag leading to his win. He needed the win after losing to Randy Orton at TLC so it was good to see him pick it up here.

Cena vs. Swagger: After that six-man tag, there was so more crap, then came this match between John Cena and Jack Swagger. It was a good match. It is too bad that Swagger has fallen so low since coming to Raw as this match suffered a bit because of Swagger's position on the card. Nobody could expect Swagger to hang with Cena. The fact that he did and looked so strong in the match was great. It would have been better if Swagger had been stronger on Raw the last few months (or even featured the last few weeks). But, this Hit is for the quality of the match itself in the moment which was quite good. The ending sequence was great as Cena missed his guillotine leg drop, only to have Swagger miss his running spring board splash, leading to Cena locking in the STF for the tap out victory.

RAW MISSES

Johnny Damon: Damon has put his name along side the likes of Jeremy Piven and Al Sharpton as being among the worst Raw guest hosts. I have nothing against Damon, but his performance was really bad. He is an athlete, not an actor or other type of entertainer, and it showed. He was bad. That isn't to say that he had a lot to work with as this was a poorly written show. The only good thing that he was involved it was when he asked Vince McMahon if it was true that Bret Hart is going to guest host Raw and calling him a jerk when he left.

Tiger Woods Random Parody: What was that all about? We (we=torch writers and WWE fans in general) often complain about the dated jokes and references used on WWE programing (for instance most of Abraham Washington's material on ECW). So I guess it is good that WWE is trying to do something contemporary. However, this just reminds me of that horrible skit from a few years ago with Donald Trump vs. Rosie O'Donnell. It's like the WWE writers HAD to do a Tiger Woods skit since it is such a big news story (just like the Trump - O'Donnell feud). But, this is what they come up with? It was so random and stupid. Put that together with Damon's rough opening, and it was a bad start to the show. It got even worse as they reappeared later in the show.

Little People's Court: I don't know where to start. "Worst episode ever" comes to mind. I will admit to a slight giggle at the "reveal" that there is a whole world under the ring. That was the only slightly amusing part of this entire two segment ordeal. I couldn't believe how long the first part of the video was. It just kept going and going. It was offensive to little people. It was not funny or entertaining in any other way. And it was way too long. The second video was just as bad, particularly Shawn Michaels' over acting in talking about what Hornswoggle would actually have to do to get into DX. I could go on and on in picking apart bits and pieces of this crap, but it isn't worth my time. And, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they showed a long video recapping the "highlights" of the entire ordeal.

Use of Sheamus: I don't understand the way WWE is booking Sheamus as the WWE Champion. Granted, it has only been two weeks, but I don't understand those two weeks. They haven't put him in the spotlight nearly enough. This week, the first mention of the WWE Champion came in the second hour of Raw. That is too late. Later, he got a strong win over a well-established and popular wrestler, Montel Vontavious Porter. That made him look strong. However, if you truly want the fans to take him seriously as the WWE Champion you have to focus on him more than this. Hopefully things will change next week as he will be in the main even rematch against Cena.

End of Raw: I guess it is fitting that such a bad episode of Raw would have such a bad ending. I did like the bit between Big Show and Jericho Claus. It was highly predictable and I can't imagine anyone being surprised that it was Chris Jericho, but it was amusing. Then came the Hornswoggle and "little DX army" bit that was bad. Then came DX to the rescue and their finally allowing Hornswoggle to be DX's mascot. I didn't like how Michaels had to promise to feed, clean and take him for walks. I've never understood why Hornswoggle is presented as always being dirty and not knowing how to talk. It was one thing when they really played up the fact that he was a leprechaun (which had its own faults), but once he was revealed to be Finlay's son, they should have let him at least wash his face and talk every once in a while. Again, I could go on and on, but I will just say that this was terrible.

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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