By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

I have to start by saying that I don't often watch Raw live. I seldom have lately, but with the three-hour format I know I will only watch it on the DVR. I find it insulting to expect fans to sit through a three-hour show live with so much filler. With three hours, I can save so much time just by fast forwarding through the commercials, let alone the filler. I can tell that I will now be doing even more fast forwarding considering the amount of filler, like the Touts that I care nothing about, and the relentless replays (it seems like even a higher percentage of air time is devoted to replays with three hours as opposed to two). I can't imagine anyone with a DVR who actually watches it live. Even when the show is good, there is so much to skip through and get done quicker that I have to assume this will drive more and more fans to DVR viewing as time goes on.

RAW HITS

Bryan vs. Sheamus: After disappointing segments, a bad match and a ton of filler, WWE finally got something of quality on the air with the match between Daniel Bryan and Sheamus. While the choices for the match stipulation were a joke (more later), the match itself delivered as Bryan and Sheamus put on a very good physical brawl style match. It was fun to watch from start to finish. I don't always think of brawl when I think of Bryan (as opposed to Sheamus), but he fit in perfectly in this type of match. It was good to see WWE give these two 14 minutes for their match and they certainly delivered.

Christian & Jericho vs. Ziggler & The Miz: As the show continued on in a poor manner, we finally got some more quality with a second good match, this one a tag match with Christian teaming with Chris Jericho to take on Dolph Ziggler and The Miz. There is obviously a lot of talent in the ring during this match. It made me think fondly back to the days of the Christian and Jericho team before they ultimately split up leading to a very good match at WrestleMania 20. This was a simple way to tease some action between Jericho and Ziggler without giving away too much before they eventually wrestle at SummerSlam (which should be a great match). After last week, the babyface duo needed the win here, so that was the right move, but the heels retained their heat with the post match attack.

RAW MISSES

Opening Segment: I wasn't a fan of how Raw started this week. We have a top babyface in John Cena whom half the fans boo. We have an upper-mid to upper card heel in Daniel Bryan whom half the fans cheer. The fans are so determined to cheer and boo whomever they want despite the storylines (they cheer and boo the performer not the character any more), that it is hard to have top acts who get strong cheers or strong boos. I thought WWE had a chance to really turn C.M. Punk heel and not make him this sort of tweener character whom some fans cheer while others boo. Instead, they had him in the opening segment acting in a reasonable manner. Everything he said was true. He wasn't even as snarky in his delivery as he was as a full fledged babyface. The Big Show is one of the full heels that the fans don't cheer for, so what does that say about Punk going after him verbally the way he did? Maybe I'm being too old fashioned in my thinking about how today's wrestling works, but I would rather see well defined characters and I don't think Punk fit into that in his first promo after appearing to turn last week. I also didn't like what we saw from A.J. The fans have gotten behind her because of her character, so why change that character now that she is the general manager? This didn't seem like the same girl we've grown to love over the last few months. I loved last week how she had sneakers on under her wedding dress. A simple thing like that despite wearing a suit would have been a nice touch. I also wasn't interested in seeing Cena vs. Show so the main event left me cold, too.

Santino vs. Del Rio: As the new #1 contender, Alberto Del Rio should be only having squash matches before getting his World Title shot. However, the United States Champion (even Santino Marella) shouldn't be squashed. So, this match probably shouldn't have taken place at all. Del Rio took longer to defeat Santino on Raw than Antonio Cesaro took to beat him on Smackdown. I also wasn't thrilled with Del Rio getting his shot at SummerSlam as I was hoping for something better for Sheamus at that PPV.

Stipulation Choices: I was worried about lame stipulation choices like this from the minute that WWE announced awhile back that they were having more fan interaction each week on Raw. I had bad flashbacks to Taboo Tuesday and Cyber Sunday. So, we the WWE Universe get the pleasure of choosing the match stipulation for Bryan vs. Sheamus. Our choices are No Holds Barred, Falls Count Anywhere, or a Street Fight. Can someone explain to me the difference between No Holds Barred where you can do anything and not get disqualified, and a Street Fight, where you can do anything and not get disqualified? They are the same exact thing. At least you get something different with Falls Count Anywhere, but why give us three choices when two are exactly the same and one is very similar?

A.J. Commits Bryan: I'm not sure how A.J. had the power to force Daniel Bryan to have a psychiatric evaluation. While I did enjoy some of Bryan's performance (particularly when he punted Lil' Jimmy), the whole thing felt more like a waste of time than anything else. The scenes between Bryan and the psychiatrist were cheesy. It felt way too overly scripted for my taste. I like my humor more natural and not so forced like this was. I did chuckle a few times, but on the whole it just took up too much time and wasn't that good.

Triple Threat Announcement: Not that this wasn't predictable, but I was still disappointed that the WWE Title match at Summerslam will be a triple threat match. They are taking away what could be a great match and going to the played out triple threat formula and adding The Big Show into the mix. I don't want to see that at all. Show vs. Cena was a solid main event (not good enough to get a Hit as multiple sleeper holds and a slow pace brought it down), and Punk was entertaining on commentary, though still not sounding like a 100 percent heel. To confound things more, he was upset at the heel Big Show afterwards, and not the babyface Cena. So, there was some things to like with the end of Raw before the announcement, and some things to dislike. However, I really disliked the announcement itself. I'm not sold on Brock Lesnar vs. Triple H which has had a terrible build. I'm not excited about Sheamus vs. Del Rio. Some of the under card has a chance to be good (like Ziggler vs. Jericho and a possible rematch of Christian vs. Miz). There are still some pretty big stars with nothing yet set up like Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton. But, they need to do something really good to get me excited for this PPV especially after this disappointing WWE Title match announcement.

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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