Tony Donofrio, PWTorch.com Contributor (7.5)

Other than the Vince McMahon return and the silliness between Ashton Kutcher and Zack Ryder, this was a very strong edition of Raw and had many breaths of fresh air! It was great to see this initial (and hopefully continued) attempt at creating a few new stars. Having Evan Bourne mix it up in the main event, in addition to having him help kick off the show, was a great wrinkle/change of pace. You could see the pure excitement on his face after the main event had concluded and it even looked like John Cena was just as excited for him. I have to admit, I was even grinning ear to ear at his excitement. Now, all we need is someone to tell Michael Cole that Bourne (aka Matt Sydal) was in the same shoes as Daniel Bryan (aka Bryan Danielson) just a few years back.

Which leads me to the Bryan and Cole/Miz feud. Last night's match was nothing to write home about but it gave Bryan a huge win and added some more fuel to an already hot feud. I am very excited to see how these feud has progressed and hope it continues past the NXT finale. Sticking with the push for new stars, I'm also excited to see how far WWE is willing to push The Hart Dynasty and Uso/Snuka feud. I know it's just begun but it has potential to be exciting and hopefully start to put tag team wrestling back on the map in WWE. Trust me, I know it has light years to go to get back to even close to what it was a decade ago...or even five years ago, for that matter. However, this looks like it could be the type of feud that helped spark the tag division in the late 90's when we saw the emergence of the Hardy's and Edge/Christian.

Going back to Vince McMahon, anyone that has watched WWE programming the past 12 years knows that this is just his way back in to re-ignite the feud with Bret Hart. I'm going to go out on a limb (as I stick my tongue in my cheek) and say that most people don't want to see this feud re-ignite after what culminated at WrestleMania. Vince got a nice pop last night because people haven't seen him in two months. However, that won't last and I'm hoping that I'm wrong and that we won't see the re-emergence of the Mr. McMahon character. While I'm on negatives, I was sorely disappointed that Ashton Kutcher wasn't there in person. I know that he's a big WWE fan but that's no excuse. If you're going to have a guest host, he/she/they should be there in person. With that said, I'm still 100% for eliminating the guest host concept altogether. But, I think we all know that's not going to happen.

The rest of the show, without going to in-depth was all pretty good stuff as well. I don't like to see Chris Jericho lose too much (which he has lately) but appreciate what he gives back to the business. However, this loss would have meant much more had it been a US Title match and not just a non-title bout. The mixed tag wasn't bad for what it was. I'm guessing we'll now see some comedy with Santino and Kozlov in the near future. The highlight of that segment for me was seeing William Regal eye up Maryse. To me, that was the funniest bit on the show because of it's subtleness. Overall though, I have no hardcore complaints about this edition of Raw. It was a few tweaks away from being a 9/10...at least for me. It didn't do a ton to promote the Fatal Fourway PPV, but it was a really good stand alone show that could/should be built upon.

Wade Keller, Torch Editor (7.0)

Solid show. We were complaining last year of so much of the same talent being pushed and incestuously feuding with each other over and over. Now at least there's fresh talent getting pushed, including Truth, Bourne, and even Ryder, who got a nice rub from the angle with Ashton. The angle itself was weak, but the lingering effects of Ryder mixing it up with Ashton does him good. It was weak that Ashton didn't appear anywhere but backstage and on the big screen. The elevation of Bourne added some excitement to the main event and athleticism that I think a sizable percentage of Raw viewers value. I've been pushing that for the last few weeks, and it's good to see WWE probably agrees.

It was clever to have Edge beating up Bourne as Raw started. It was a little clunky since it's tough to grasp why Edge was talking in the ring before the show started, and Cole's explanation for Bourne running out there to confront him wasn't totally clear, but again the effect of giving Cena an excuse to pick Bourne to partner with him worked in the end. The Miz-Bourne match was too short, but at least it ended with a leverage pin which is a more believable way to end a match in just two minutes. Cole is entertaining when he gets on a rant about Bryan, but it still seems overall more bad than good for business to have your lead announcer and host heeling on anyone like that. Is it a sign of desperation that Mr. McMahon returns on a holiday edition of Raw, indicating a potential panic that they'll be below 3.0 with this week's rating?

Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (7.0)

I can't help but think that WWE only elevated Zack Ryder and Evan Bourne tonight because they figured it was a throw-away Raw show, with it being Memorial Day and the ratings will likely be lower than usual. Hopefully, I'm wrong. It was nice to see Bourne and Ryder get the spotlight, as I'm a big fan of both. Ryder had to deal with some goofiness in his angle, but he pulled it off as well as one could expect.

R-Truth and Chris Jericho had a nice enough match, but I'm wondering why Jericho is flirting with the U.S. Title. Good sign for the Usos to not being playing the "stereotypical" Samoans, but I wonder how long that'll last until WWE just goes back to what they know with them. Ashton Kutcher did a nice job with what he was given, but if any guest host deserved to be in front of the crowd, it was him.

We suggest these recent related articles...

CALDWELL'S WWE RAW RESULTS 10/5: Complete "virtual-time" coverage of live Raw - Lesnar returns, Cena's Open Challenge, more

CALDWELL'S WWE RAW RESULTS 9/28: Complete "virtual-time" coverage of live Raw - John Cena's Open Challenge, Paul Heyman, Reigns vs. Wyatt main event, MizTV, more

CALDWELL'S WWE RAW RESULTS 9/21: Complete "virtual-time" coverage of live Raw - Night of Champions fall-out, Cena vs. Rollins U.S. Title re-match, Bizzaro Kane, more