By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

RAW HITS

Opening Segment: Raw got off to a good start with The Authority coming out to talk about the main even for Raw as well as the double main event for Hell in a Cell. They hyped those matches. They continued to tease tension between Randy Orton and Seth Rollins. And most importantly, Triple H added the stipulation that Orton vs. John Cena at the PPV will be a #1 contender match for Brock Lesnar's WWE World Championship. It was good to actually hear Lesnar's name mentioned. Now I wish he had said when that Title match will be. It will be terrible to just have it some time off in the future and keep it waiting until The Royal Rumble. Hopefully it will be at Survivor Series, but time will tell (and hopefully it will be Orton winning and not Cena again).

Miz & Mizdow: The opening six-man tag match was solid, but not quite Hit-worthy, but I do continue to enjoy the dynamic between The Miz and his stunt double Damian Mizdow. This had a nice twist with Miz having Mizdow take his place in the match to do guest commentary to give him a huge opportunity. I am enjoying Mizdow's performances each week, but I do worry about him becoming too popular with the fans and having WWE rush into a babyface turn. I did like how Miz took credit for Mizdow's win in the tag match.

Orton - Cena - Heyman: There were parts of this segment that I did not like. You may even say that there are parts that I hated. But, there was enough good here to give it a minor Hit. Orton was very good here for the most part. I liked his trip down memory lane to talk about how his feud with Cena is over a decade old. Of course that just reminds us that these two have faced way too often. I also could have done without all the talk about The Royals. Orton started it in the opening segment which meant he had to respond to the chants during this segment. It was too much local heat considering their nation wide (and international) audience. For instance, I'm a huge San Francisco Giants fan, so I was cheering for the heel Orton here and against the babyface Cena. But, at least Orton's performance was very good. While the scripting was good at times and not at others, he was very intense and delivered his lines well throughout. Cena was not as good. He interjected lame humor with the old man "in my days" humor which didn't match Orton's intensity. Ultimately this would not have made the Hit column if Paul Heyman hadn't interrupted. I loved his promo talking about how Brock Lesnar was the true star of the class of 2002, not Orton or Cena. I enjoyed how he addressed both of Lesnar's potential challengers. The physicality at the end worked well also.

Mick Foley: While I was not a fan of what Dean Ambrose did with the mannequin to start the segment (more later), the interruption by Mick Foley helped to save it. The last time that I feel Foley really did great work was his last night in WWE before going to TNA several years ago. That isn't to say that he has always been bad since then, but even when he's been good he hasn't come up to that level. What he did that night was talk to Edge about a Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker. Foley was great that night in talking about what Edge had to do to beat Taker in the Cell. Now he didn't reach that level of greatness here, but he was very good in talking to Ambrose and Rollins about their Hell in a Cell match on Sunday and what it will mean to their careers going forward. His appearance was a nice surprise. Unlike The Rock, this actually had to do with a current storyline. It didn't leave fans disappointed that The Rock wasn't going to wrestle, but it should make fans want to see a PPV match more than they did before. This was Foley's best performance since he left TNA.

RAW MISSES

Champions Losing: Once again, WWE continues to book their Champions to lose. United States Champion Sheamus was pinned by Mizdow in the opening six man tag match. Then Divas Champion AJ lost a non-title match to Alicia Fox in a decent match. Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler had a pretty good match against Cesaro. I didn't give it a Hit as it was too short considering how much of it was on a commercial, but I loved that European Uppercut from Cesaro for a bit of a surprise finish (not that he won, but that he won with that move). But, again we have a Champion losing a non-title match. I have written multiple times that I would like to see WWE do away with all non-title matches. Part of the privilege of being a Champion should be that you don't have to wrestle as often. Make fans pay to see Champions wrestle, either through Network subscriptions, PPV buys, or house show tickets. Make it a special occasion when the Champion wrestles. Have them on for promos, or for an occasional title match on Raw or Smackdown. It would force WWE to be more creative in writing storylines for challengers when they have to earn a title shot in some way other than just beating the Champion in a non-title match. And more importantly to this Miss, it would keep the Champions strong. The Champions should be the best wrestlers in the company. So, why do they always lose? Why should I think Sheamus or Ziggler is a strong Champion when I see them lose so often?

Rusev - Big Show: I had a lot of problems with how WWE tried to hype the PPV match between Rusev and The Big Show. Rusev vs. Big E was ok, but what happened afterwards was bad on multiple levels. I love Lana's work, but her post-match promo was totally uninspired. I like hearing some of Rusev's voice now, and while I like his tough talk about crushing people, the line this week about ripping out Big Show's heart and devouring it was a bit over the top. But, that doesn't bother me too much. After Big Show ruined their Russian flag gimmick with the US flag instead, we got that horrible bit with the fake US soldier getting in the ring. I hated that. I think it is a big mistake to have a pretend fan jumping into the ring. It could encourage other fans to do the same. The announcers barely mentioned that the fan shouldn't have been there in the first place. They should not have shown replays of it as they never would have done that if the situation was real, so in trying to get a "shoot" moment they didn't even treat it as they would have if it was a real shoot moment. I find it offensive to basically use a fake army soldier to sell PPVs. Buy our PPV or our network because we support our troops! I don't know how other people felt, but I found it disrespectful to the military. Big Show's crying over it afterwards didn't make me want to root for him. It obviously worked to get a strong reaction in the arena, but it doesn't take much to get a wrestling crowd to chant "USA! USA! USA!" I give WWE credit for trying to hype this PPV match, but I didn't like how they went about it at all.

Stephanie Wins an Award: Isn't Stephanie McMahon the character supposed to be a heel and hated by the WWE Universe? Stephanie McMahon the person might be worthy of an Eisenhower fellowship and being honored by Colin Powell, but I don't think WWE Authority member, the evil Stephanie McMahon character would be. WWE needs to do a better job of having a distinction between characters and actors. I've talked about this in the past with Twitter accounts. I know others have talked about it a lot in terms of a heel supporting organizations like Be a Star, when they are supposed to be a bully. WWE doesn't handle these things well. One of the issues with heel authority figures is that fans shouldn't want to give The Authority their $9.99 a month when they are assholes. And if you want to be a heel, then be a heel and don't brag about winning an important honor like this.

Ambrose and the Mannequin: This was really bad. I liked Dean Ambrose's encounter backstage with John Cena talking about scouting Kane by watching his new movie. I liked that little scene. But I hated this. Ambrose with a fake Seth Rollins mannequin was so lame. The jokes fell flat. The segment didn't seem to connect with the live audience. It didn't connect with me. The series of body part puns were not funny. I am a fan of Ambrose and think he can do so much better than the material that he's been given lately with this bit, or the hot dog cart from a few weeks ago.

Main Event: Despite some issues with this main event, I originally had it as a minor Hit. But, as I listed those issues with it, I realized that it had to be a Miss. My first issue is that I don't understand street fight tag matches. There are no disqualifications, yet they have to tag in and out? Shouldn't they all just be fighting the entire time in a street fight? I get the idea that only the legal wrestler can get the pin on the other legal wrester, but why would you not just jump into the ring to save your partner if you can't be disqualified? Moving on from that, WWE gave away too much here of Ambrose vs. Rollins and Cena vs. Orton, in a hardcore environment that they should have saved for Hell in a Cell. They even had the Cell lower down and we got to see action such as Ambrose knocking Rollins off the apron into the Cell that should have been saved for the PPV. And as the Cell was lowering, the story in that moment was that Ambrose might be locked out of the cage and he just made it back in before the Cell completely lowered, yet the announcers didn't mention it until after the fact when it was too late. They should have been pointing out that Ambrose needed to recover to get back into the ringside area before the Cell came down. That drama went totally away because of the failure of the announcers. 
This is when I realized that the main event should be a Miss. I was going to give it a Hit, because there was a lot of good wrestling action here. I did enjoy the hectic nature of the match despite my reservations about giving away too much. I liked seeing Orton get the win with the strong RKO on Ambrose. I was also intrigued by Rollins' curb stomp onto Orton after the match. So, there were things to like here, but not enough in the end.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at his NEW email address - jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.

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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