By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

Punk vs. Swagger: After a lot of crap in the first half of Raw, it was nice to see a good wrestling match for a change. CM Punk and Jack Swagger were given 13+ minutes for their match and they delivered. I thought the added stipulation that John Laurinaitis made before the match was interesting, that if Swagger lost, he and Vickie Guerrero would be banned from ringside during Punk's WWE Title defense against Dolph Ziggler at The Royal Rumble. With Laurinaitis refusing to help The Miz and now making stipulations that might favor Punk, and making Ziggler wrestle John Cena later in the show, WWE was trying hard to make him look like an impartial general manager. Time will tell where they are going with that. As for the match itself, it went back and forth nicely with plenty of good wrestling action. Punk and Swagger are good workers who work well together in the ring. Swagger looked strong here in almost pulling off a victory over the WWE Champion. The ending was bad. It looked like a botched ending by the referee, but I guess that was supposed to happen. I wasn't a fan of that ending, but I liked everything else that led up to it.

Jericho: Another week for Chris Jericho's return, and another week of him not talking, and another week of me enjoying the moment. This week, the celebration with the fans didn't go on as long as it did last week. His music stopped and he got a mic. Just when you thought he was going to talk (unless you were like me and knew he wouldn't), he started fake crying at the emotion of the moment. That was great. It was a new layer to whatever it is that he is doing. Michael Cole had earlier in the show posed the question of whether Jericho was too overwhelmed by emotion to speak last week, and this fed into that perfectly. You still are going to have fans who think he is being sincere, while others catch on that he isn't. Or is he? That is the fun of what he is doing in his return and I can't wait to see what he does different next week.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: Kane came out to start Raw and cut a fairly lengthy promo. It was solid. There are some people who don't think Kane should be talking with the mask, but the problem is that he is wearing the mask at all. I still don't see why he couldn't have come back without the mask and done the same gimmick. So, I don't mind him talking, but this did seem to go on too long and felt familiar in how he talked to the fans about their own lives that they hate. It was fine, but not as good as it could be. The fight between him and John Cena was also just ok. It started out well with what appeared to be more of a tease of physicality than a full brawl, but it quickly turned into that brawl as they fought to the parking lot. Part of my problem here was with the cheesy execution when they first fought into that hallway past bystanders who got in the way. It was meant to show how hectic the fight had gotten, but it took away from it for me. Another problem is that recently we have seen a similar brawl between Randy Orton and Wade Barrett on Smackdown that led to a Falls Count Anywhere match with similar sequences in it, so this felt recycled. The fight outside was ok, but Kane disappearing was cheesy. It set up the mystery of Kane stalking Zack Ryder later in the show, but I wasn't a fan of that angle either.

Sheamus & Marella vs. Barrett & Mahal: I don't understand how WWE is using Sheamus at all. Last week, in my Smackdown Hits & Misses, I was relieved to see that it appeared that Sheamus was moving on from goofiness with Hornswoggle to something more serious with Wade Barrett, while still dealing with Jinder Mahal. But on Raw, he was back to goofiness in teaming with Santino Marella? I hope this is the end of the feud between Sheamus and Mahal as Mahal was squashed in this match and pinned by Santino. If that is the case, then maybe something good will come out of this as WWE can concentrate on Sheamus vs. Barrett and move Mahal on to something else. However, if Mahal is still attacking Sheamus on Smackdown, then how are we supposed to take him seriously after this?

Kane Stalks Ryder: I mentioned earlier that I wasn't a fan of this angle. We've seen this too many times before from Kane and Undertaker. Plus, this one wasn't well done. Ryder is usually entertaining, but he wasn't here. I am not a fan of his relationship with Eve. I also love how the camera man decided to tape Ryder brushing his teeth which worked out well since Kane was seen in the mirror momentarily behind him. Couldn't the camera man have warned Ryder? Couldn't someone who was actually watching the show find him and tell him that Kane was stalking him? Then came the cheesy routine where Ryder saved Eve in the arena, and tried to escape with her in his car which had a flat tire. Ryder needs to take some lessons on changing a flat. Eve was terrible in her performance. The writing was poor. Didn't Cena see what was going on before his match? Couldn't he have come helped change the tire? Or anyone? This was supposed to be suspenseful and serious, and it had what was supposed to be a very serious ending with Kane chokeslamming Ryder off the platform, but it was way too cheesy to be taken seriously. They cut away a few times and then back and each time it didn't seem like Ryder had made any progress on the tire. And when the big chokeslam moment finally came, you could see Ryder's head bouncing up off the padding, exposing the fact that his fall wasn't really very far at all. If that was pre-taped, they should have reshot it. The whole thing didn't work, and since it was the thread that tied the entire episode together, the episode on the whole didn't work either.

Bryan vs. Kingston: WWE had a chance to showcase what makes Daniel Bryan special, but instead of giving him and Kofi Kingston a chance to have a decent length match, they gave them less than 2 minutes. Now, this was a strong win for Bryan which was good. Having a well liked and well established star like Kingston tap out to the LeBell Lock is a good idea. But, why not give them even 5 more minutes to put on a good match? Bryan would still get a strong win, but Kingston would be a bit more protected, and the fans could see more of what Bryan can do in the ring. Plus, seeing good wrestling action is a big reason why I watch wrestling.

Brodus Clay: I was left speechless by the "debut" of Brodus Clay. And not in a good way. Was this why they kept putting off his debut? Did they suddenly decide he needed a goofy gimmick, so they wanted to put some distance between the well done, serious-toned vignettes from October with his actual debut? Clay had a quiet intense charisma to him that helped make him interesting to watch on NXT. This is the complete opposite. I don't know how he can ever be a serious main event player with this gimmick. He looked uncomfortable coming out dancing and lip synching to what I believe was Ernest the Cat Miller's old music. I don't get it.

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

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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