By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Swagger vs. Undertaker: This match started the second half of Raw after one of the worst first halves in recent memory (or probably ever). Luckily the second half started on a good note with a good match. Jack Swagger did a nice job in his promo issuing the open challenge. His facial reaction to Undertaker's gong was quite good. I'm not sure about this use of Undertaker as his first match since WrestleMania. I'm also not sure about booking Swagger to lose on another Raw since becoming World Champion. However, given that there was so much more to complain about on this show later on, I won't dwell on the negatives here. Instead I will focus on the positives which is that after an hour with only one (decent at best) 3 minute match, it was nice to see a 15 minute match. It was good to see Swagger hold his own against Undertaker and look very credible in the ring. The announcers did a nice job of hyping how well Swagger looked in the ring and how much offense he was able to dish out against the Dead Man. It was a good match.

Triple H, Edge & Mysterio vs. SES & Jericho: The poor Raw at least had a good ending with this fun six man tag. This was a case where WWE needed to just put on a fun match with plenty of star power and give the babyfaces a win to send the fans home happy considering the situation they found themselves in. They succeeded in that. Triple H, Edge and Rey Mysterio all got good reactions from the crowd. CM Punk, Luke Gallows and Chris Jericho played their heel parts well. The match was formulaic with two hot tags, but it worked fine here. I don't know if I should read anything into this match based on the circumstances of how it was put together, but Punk has now taken the pin fall in two straight tag matches which would normally suggest he is winning at the PPV (which I would have assumed anyway).

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: WWE was handed a blow by a crazy volcanic eruption. I understand that. They had to produce a Raw without the vast majority of the roster and had to completely change the final Raw before Extreme Rules without a lot of warning. That was the hand they were dealt which was unfortunate for them. However, that does not excuse putting on such a bad show. I firmly believe that even under these circumstances they could have done better than this. They could have done better than the Triple H comedy routine. His jokes were not funny. I don't know how long it lasted, but the opening segment seemed to go on forever. The ending was actually quite good with Punk and Gallows trying to shave Triple H's hair only to have Mysterio make the save. He even got to cut a bit of Punk's hair in the process which was a nice tease for their PPV match. However, getting to that point took too long and was filled with bad humor and an uninspired verbal exchange between Triple H and Punk.

Via Satellites: I like the idea of having some of the Raw wrestlers appear via satellite on this show. But, the execution was pretty lame. Instead of anything really intriguing, you got John Cena, Randy Orton and Sheamus making very brief statements about their matches at the PPV. Again, WWE was hampered by the situation, but they could have done better. Instead of just having Cena apologize for not being there and cutting a short and rudimentary promo about his match against Batista, why not have Batista jump him and show them brawling off? The announcers could make a big deal about the fact that there is so much animosity between them that a delay in Ireland can't even keep them from fighting. Orton's promo was boring and didn't accomplish the goal of wanting to see him defeat Swagger to become World Champion. Sheamus' message to Triple H was lame. He beat up a stage hand and it was over before it even got started. Again, this seemed like a wasted opportunity. I have to believe something better could have been done with these appearances to hype the three big PPV matches.

MacGruber: If I were a lawyer presenting a case to a judge that the Raw guest host concept had run its course and needed to be shut down, I would edit together all the scenes from this week's show featuring MacGruber as exhibit A. Was there anything funny about any of it? After Vladimir Kozlov's painful promo and Jerry Lawler's random task of reading his statement, MacGruber and some woman came out. What proceeded wasn't funny. I've never found the MacGruber sketches on SNL to be funny. I can't imagine sitting through an entire movie with this lame premise. I hated sitting through what I did on Raw. I know it is all supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but shouldn't a bigger deal have been made over the fact that he blew up R-Truth? It was just so stupid. Then we had another in a long proud line of WWE pee-your-pants jokes. It has been awhile, but never would have been too short a time between them. The whole scene with MacGruber, Triple H and then Kane suggesting that he had peed his pants and more was terrible. Is this WWE creative or some SNL writers coming up with this crap? Now, I will admit that his backstage scene with Chris Jericho was slightly amusing. It actually started with the funniest moment of the night as Jericho talked strategy with the Straight Edge Society and CM Punk had his hair in a towel after the partial shaving by Mysterio. Jericho was quite good in fooling MacGruber with bad advice for his upcoming match against Kozlov. It was still not funny enough to justify being on the show at all. I realize that I am going on an on about this and I haven't even gotten to the worst part with MacGruber vs. Kozlov and the appearance by Khalgruber. I don't want to talk about it any more. It sucked big time.

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