By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: There were some problems with the Raw opening, but on the whole it was a good way to start what would turn out to be a very good episode. I loved John Laurinaitis' lap around the ringside, shaking hands with fans as well as employees. He did a nice job at first of trying to sound confident while touting the job he has done and sucking up to Triple H. WWE really gave away a lot on this show, but it did make storyline sense of Laurinaitis trying to put on the best show possible to save his job. He did not give a great performance here. He made mistakes and wasn't as good as has been getting in recent weeks. However, the announcers actually did a nice job covering for those mistakes by saying he is nervous about possibly being fired. I enjoyed the mic work from CM Punk and then Daniel Bryan. It was nice to see Bryan in a high profile position on Raw. I loved when he said that Punk wasn't much of a challenge. Sheamus was also good in starting the speculation as to which Title he will challenge for at WrestleMania. The segment did go on a bit long, but was still a good start to the show and effectively hyped several big things for later on to keep fans watching.

Orton vs. Ziggler: This match was a clear signal that Dolph Ziggler is going back to the mid-card, but that was to be expected after The Royal Rumble. He isn't going to be a player in a top match for WrestleMania so this does make sense. Randy Orton needed a strong win going into his big match against Wade Barrett on Smackdown which WWE did a very nice job of hyping on Raw. The match itself was what you would expect it to be. We've seen these two wrestle before and I have always enjoyed it. They work well together and they did that here to put on a good match. It went over 11 minutes and was fun to watch. It went back and forth nicely and never dragged. Despite taking the loss, at least Ziggler looked strong throughout the match and got some nice nearfalls on Orton.

Barrett Interview: I really liked what they did with Josh Mathews interviewing Barrett during Orton vs. Ziggler. It was something totally new and different. It was a good alternative to simply having someone do guest commentary. Barrett was very good in his role. He had some really nice lines in there. It was interesting how it was just a question here and there as opposed to having him talk the entire time. I like seeing WWE play around with new techniques. I hope they do more experimentation in the upcoming weeks. It won't always be a Hit like this, but at least the effort would be there.

Punk vs. Bryan: Am I forgetting something, or was this Daniel Bryan's best WWE match to date? This was what Bryan needed, a long match against a skilled opponent, where he actually gets to show WWE fans what makes him so special as a wrestler, where he ultimately gets a win. Sure, it was a tainted win, but he celebrated it like he should have given his character. Everything about this match worked. It was a great match. Bryan and Punk got a good amount of time (for tv) to showcase what they can do together in the ring. This was better than any match at the PPV. I loved the submission work from Bryan as it really looked like it hurt Punk. There were some very painful looking holds and strikes as well. When Michael Cole noted how even the match had been, he was right. It really did go back and forth throughout with neither guy keeping control for very long. It had mat wrestling, submissions, hard strikes, and high flying moves with top rope elbows and drop kicks. The interference from Chris Jericho was predictable, but well done to hint at his WrestleMania match against Punk, and it also gave Bryan the DQ win.

Cena - Kane: This was a good way to follow-up on what happened at the Rumble. I liked how Kane brought the storyline back to where it needed to be, with John Cena needing to embrace the hate, not just to beat himself, but to beat The Rock at WM. The fight was pretty brutal as Cena dominated Kane in a very physical manner. The only part that I didn't like was after Cena hit Kane in the head with a mic and then said into it something about having a party tonight. That was a cheesy and totally unnecessary moment in an otherwise good segment for Cena looking more intense and focused than we've seen from him in a long time.

Closing Segment: I had some issues with the way Raw ended, but in the end, like the opening segment, I have to give it a Hit. I laughed at some of the interplay between Laurinaitis and Triple H, but not all of it. There were some good parts to it, but it dragged a bit towards what seemed like the inevitable conclusion. I did like how Triple H admitted to letting personal issues get in his way of running Raw, so that he had to go. That was a nice way of showing why he (and Vince McMahon before him) had to be fired and why Laurinaitis does too. That was also the perfect set up for Undertaker to come out to challenge Triple H. Since Triple H said he had put all his personal issues behind him so that he could run Raw again, I expected Undertaker to say that he still has one personal issue to deal with. I thought he would talk and that by having them be silent, WWE tried a little too hard to emulate what they did so perfectly last year when Triple H challenged Undertaker at WM. It was still very effective and there is time to connect the dots with a promo from Undertaker especially considering that Triple H basically blew him off after the challenge.

RAW MISSES

None: While I didn't love everything about this show, nothing stood out as being bad enough to get a Miss. It was very enjoyable from start to finish. I had a few issues here and there, but some of those were parts of segments that were Hits. I could have done without the vegan talk from Bryan and I'm still not a fan of the Funkasaurus gimmick for Brodus Clay, but nothing was really bad this week.

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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