James Caldwell, Torch Assistant Editor (6.0)

This is a tough show to rate because WWE created more questions than they answered on the show. Part of that, I fear, is from short-term booking, winging it, booking on the fly, and making it up as they go along. The end of the show left plenty of questions that may be too much for viewers to handle to where they'll tune out. Or, it's intriguing enough to keep viewers interested to see how all of this becomes resolved.

The key to resolving the questions is giving viewers reason to care about the NXT Rookies one way or another. Was their apology sincere or part of a game? It wasn't clear. Was the audience supposed to cheer or boo the Rookies after they KO'ed Vince McMahon, whose character is murky right now, but traditionally heel? And will the storyline unfold where the "anonymous GM" tricked McMahon into hiring him/her, only to turn the tables on McMahon to execute some sort of "hidden agenda" plan against McMahon? And will Cena now align with McMahon despite McMahon orchestrating the attacks on him just because they have common enemies now? There are almost too many questions and WWE needs to start sorting this out on next week's Raw.

Evan Bourne vs. Chris Jericho was yet another outstanding match. They have great chemistry working together and Jericho is very good about setting up those comebacks for Bourne. It feels just like the Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio program last year when Jericho was able to work with a smaller, athletic wrestler to "work big" as the heel.

Overall, the show gets a thumbs up for delivering a fast-moving, news-worthy episode. Too many questions and another non-clean (although expected on this show) main event match dragged it down to a mild thumbs up with some concern on where the follow-up is going.

Tony Donofrio, PWTorch.com Contributor (8.0)

As bad as the Fatal Four Way PPV was, WWE rebounded with Raw about as well as it could have. This edition was about as close to a classic pro wrestling show that you will see nowadays from WWE, at least on the Raw side of things. A show of hands: did anyone miss the guest host? I didn't think so! This was a meat and potatoes edition of Raw and it was pretty damn good. There were no silly skits, no guest host crap, just WWE getting down to business.

The NXT angle was furthered more and I was glad to see that Vince McMahon is not the man behind the group. It seemed that way for about 30 seconds and I was ready to almost write off the whole show because of it. I'm glad it didn't go that way. The anonymous GM could be intriguing if it's done right. As great as the rebound was done for this Raw, we've seen this fish before. Every time that it seems like WWE gets its head back on straight, someone drops the ball somewhere. For instance, the guest host concept returns next week. I hope that won't deter WWE from doing next week from what it did this week with Raw.

Moving along, is there any potential feud that could be better, from an in-ring standpoint, than Chris Jericho and Evan Bourne right now? If this is done right, we could see a great series of matches. Jericho has done it recently with the likes of Shawn Michaels and Rey Mysterio. Now, for him to help elevate Bourne would be great. I was legitimately worried for a while during Raw that it was Jericho's last night with the company based on recent behind the scenes reports. However, I'm glad that I was fooled and look forward to this angle going forward.

As for the rest of Raw, I was happy to see The Miz brought into the main event fold and hope he sticks, for at least awhile. Miz and Randy Orton is a fresh feud that we've never seen before and it could be a lot of fun. It should be interesting to see how Miz is incorporated with the Edge-Orton feud from this point on. Sticking with main eventers, Sheamus gets better all the time (I know I've said that before). Even his limited mic work on Raw was really good. I do find it funny that Sheamus is the only main eventer that the NXT 7 still haven't really gotten too. That might be something to keep an eye on from this point forward. Finally, I like the Ted DiBiase and Maryse pairing. They have good chemistry already and Ted made me laugh twice last night with his drug store protection comment and having "better things to do." Hopefully for Ted, that was scripted. I'd hate to see him go the way of Bryan Danielson if it wasn't.

Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (6.5)

First of all, this show gets a passing grade simply for the fact that there was no guest host to bog down the proceedings. Secondly, this "anonymous" guest host is good because I fear it's the closest we'll get to not having any authority figures at all, which to me, would be a step in the right direction. Even though the anonymous GM thing seems quite last-minute, and I'm pretty sure they don't have any idea where they're going with it for now.

I was really, really worried that Chris Jericho was going to job to Evan Bourne and be forced into retirement. With the news swirling that the company isn't exactly happy with his new TV show project, I wouldn't have been surprised if he lost here. The NXT angle took another twist; like Lost, the twists are fine, but they're going to have to start explaining the questions that keep mounting each week. We understand what they're here for, but why attack McMahon? And was McMahon taking credit for the group? In what fashion?

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