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Hits & Misses
2/20 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Cena - Eve, Triple H - Undertaker, Jericho Needs Help to Win

Feb 21, 2012 - 12:31:49 PM
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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

RAW HITS

None: I thought this was not a good episode of Raw. The closest thing to a Hit was John Cena's promo on The Rock, which was well delivered and had some good lines, including Cena's vow to defeat The Rock at WrestleMania, but again it just continued to tear down himself (lady parts and bad movies - which Rock will do more of next week) and Rock in terms of abandoning WWE. You want to sell hatred between them, but I'm not sure this is the way to go. It wasn't bad. It wasn't a Miss, but it wasn't a Hit either. Also, the main event battle royal was the best of the in ring work on this week, which isn't saying much. It was solid, but not good enough to get a Hit, and the ending was poor (more later).

RAW MISSES

Eve - Cena: This was not a good start to Raw. I hate it when WWE treats the audience like fools for showing a heel revealing an evil plot totally oblivious to the camera in their face. Eve was shocked when she saw John Cena was standing behind her while she was talking to the Bellas about her plan to use Zack Ryder and now Cena to further her career, but even if Cena wasn't there, he would have seen her on the tv (at least in the universe of reality, not necessarily the universe of WWE). That was bad, as was Eve's acting throughout. The opening segment of the first Raw after a PPV should connect strongly to that PPV and start moving towards the next, in this case WM. This soap opera angle failed to do that. Cena couldn't even bother to sell the effects of his ambulance match against Kane the night before (as opposed to Kofi Kingston and R-Truth who did a nice job of selling the effects of the Elimination Chamber during their tag match). There were some funny lines here and there from Cena to Eve, and I was impressed that Cena was able to get a "Hoeski" chant going, but on the whole the acting was poor and this failed to get me excited for the rest of the show or anything else for that matter.
HenryMark_150_2.jpg

Henry Loses: WWE needs to be rebuilding Mark Henry more headed into what hopefully will be a meaningful WM match. After the injuries and what has happened to him lately, he should be protected. I understand wanting Sheamus to look very strong going into WM. That makes sense. But, they have several weeks to do that and they don't have to feed him someone like Henry to accomplish that goal. The match itself was too short to amount to much, but was enjoyable while it lasted.

Raw vs. Smackdown: I never cared about building an entire PPV around a Raw vs. Smackdown feud and so far, I'm not caring about this feud either. I really don't want to see John Laurinaitis on both Raw and Smackdown. I don't want to see one authority figure running both shows. I don't want to see the brands merged, though I suppose they pretty much are already at least as far as Raw goes with the super shows. But, I haven't been a fan of that as it has totally destroyed Raw's lower card when they can't get air time on Raw since that time has been going to Smackdown Superstars over the past several months. I'm afraid of the same thing happening on Smackdown if the brands merge and you get more and more Raw Superstars on Smackdown. How do you create new stars without developing those guys on prime time WWE tv (Superstars and NXT do not count and anyone who says otherwise is a fool)? I don't want to see that much Laurinaitis on my tv, but I don't want to see anyone as GM of both shows. I don't like where this is headed. It seems like some sort of big tag match is in the works between Laurinaitis' camp and Long's at WM and I'm not looking forward to that.

Undertaker - Triple H: There were parts of this that I liked very much, but on the whole the segment left me feeling cold. I don't like a feud in which one man admits that he is uncertain about himself, while strongly insinuating that the other is a coward. Undertaker says he really wants this match, but he admits to being uncertain. Triple H has also seemed uncertain in refusing the challenge and apparently hiding behind his role as COO. That isn't the great set up for a big final blow off match. On a bit of an aside, the fans really pissed me off chanting "what?" at Undertaker early on. They were really into the segment at the end, but were doing that lame-ass unoriginal BS for quite awhile at the start. Part of that was the slow methodical pace of Undertaker's delivery, but still. He of all people deserves to never get the "what?" chants. Back to the segment, I didn't like last week when Triple H talked about this being the end of an era in how he put down the rest of the roster as being inferior to him and Undertaker. That theme continued this week, so I wasn't a fan of that. And, after all the posturing from Triple H, after all his big talk about not wanting this match for business reasons, I didn't buy him accepting the match just because Undertaker said that Triple H knows he can't beat him since Shawn Michaels couldn't either and deep down inside, Triple H knows he isn't as good as Michaels. It was a good line to be sure, but that was what made Triple H accept and I didn't buy it. I am intrigued by the Hell in a Cell stipulation as it makes the most sense, and the segment had a very strong ending, but I did not like how they got there.

Jericho Needs Rhodes to Win: I understand that it might have been realistic for Chris Jericho to need Cody Rhodes' help from the outside to eliminate The Big Show to win the 10 man battle royal to become #1 contender for the WWE Title. And I understand that Jericho is a heel and some people think heels should never win clean. But, that is BS. I know that WWE has 5 weeks to build up Jericho, but since speaking for the first time after his awesome silent return to WWE over multiple weeks, Jericho has looked way too ordinary. He stood out when he didn't talk. Then he talked and nothing happened. He didn't win The Royal Rumble. He looked ordinary in a pitiful debate last week. He didn't win the Elimination Chamber. Now, he has to compete with nine other losers (seriously, taking the ten guys who lost and giving them a chance to headline WM in a WWE Title match makes no sense to me) to get that shot, and he can't even win it without the help from an already eliminated wrestler? He doesn't look like a strong challenger right now. Also, WWE is setting up Rhodes vs. Show and if Shaq gets involved it will likely be teaming with Show to face Rhodes and maybe Wade Barrett (if healthy). That certainly seems where they are headed now, which is fine, but I was hoping for Rhodes vs. Goldust myself and am very hopeful that the Intercontinental Championship will be defended at WM.

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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