SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
RAW HITS
Cesaro vs. Jordan: After a decent opening segment (not good enough to get a Hit, not bad enough to get a Miss), Raw got going well with this opening match between Cesaro and Jason Jordan. The match was built around Cesaro working over Jordan’s leg and Jordan having to fight through that pain to ultimately get the win. Seth Rollins and Sheamus played their rolls well at ringside. I wasn’t totally sure about what WWE did with Rollins and Jordan before and right after this match. It wasn’t great. But, I did love what they did with them later when Jordan interrupted Rollins and Roman Reigns to promise they had his back in his Intercontinental Championship match against Samoa Joe. That was a definite Hit.
Young Interviews Joe: Renee Young is a Hall of Fame caliber talent. She really is. Some people think that anyone can just hold a microphone up and let a wrestler talk. I’m pretty sure that’s how Eric Bischoff got his start as an interviewer. But, someone like Young can greatly improve the overall product when conducting interviews. She’s proven that many times over the years when she’s just been an interviewer. Now that her personal life is being brought up on air as she is married to Dean Ambrose, her value is once again being utilized. Samoa Joe was great in this interview about his upcoming match against Reigns and what he did to injure Ambrose two weeks ago. Young’s reaction when Joe brought up Ambrose being a stay at home husband living off his wife’s paycheck was perfect.
Reigns vs. Joe: This is the best match of the year so far. I’m sure I’m not the first to make that joke. I do hope that we won’t be calling it the best match of the year in 12 months, but I said the same thing about John Cena vs. AJ Styles at the Royal Rumble and I don’t think anything passed it in WWE over the last 11 months of 2017. Getting back to this match, Reigns and Joe had a very good IC Title match. It was well booked around the stipulation that Reigns could lose the Title if he got disqualified. The action was hard hitting and intense. Both Reigns and Joe performed well in both giving offense and selling. It went a long time at 25 minutes, but never felt too long. It felt like a justified length given their history and what happened between them and the rest of The Shield recently. I thought Joe might win here to set Reigns off towards a Universal Title shot, but now I’m curious to see where they go with Joe.
The Club: This is a minor Hit based on the hope that this will lead to something good for Finn Balor, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows. Nothing on Raw that I saw with this trio was a Hit. Unless I missed something, we didn’t even know that Balor was looking for a tag team to face Elias & The Miz-tourage. So, there was no suspense or build to him picking Gallows & Anderson. The reveal was ok, but I would rather see a more serious portrayal of this Club than going with the only slightly amusing Nerds line from Gallows. The match was a squash, as it should have been, but that doesn’t really show me yet what WWE’s plans are for the new team. So, this Hit is based on what might be going forward.
RAW MISSES
Wyatt vs. Crews: Apollo Crews isn’t nearly the level he should be to be getting as much offense against Bray Wyatt at this point as he did in this match. Wyatt is being set up as the first opponent of Woken Matt Hardy. He should dominate a wrestler like Crews unless the point is to give Crews a push based on a strong losing effort like this. But, that wasn’t the point here. This match lasted 11 minutes. It should have lasted 5 at the most. At least the post match promo from Hardy was good and Wyatt was good in his reaction to it.
Bliss vs. Asuka: This match shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Asuka should not have had a non-title match against Alexa Bliss. The first time they ever faced each other should have been for the Women’s Title. Asuka should get a Title shot now, but she shouldn’t win the Title yet. This is a mess. The match itself was ok at best. There was a lot of heel stalling tactics which work better at house shows than on tv. Then after the commercial break, we had a long stretch of Bliss doing rest holds like body scissors on Asuka. That wasn’t exactly exciting to watch. So while the match got better towards the end, there wasn’t much to the bulk of it in terms of exciting wrestling action. I liked how Asuka fired up after Bliss slapped her, but even at that point, her comeback wasn’t crisp. There were times when she was waiting for Bliss to try a move so she could duck and then kick her. But, Bliss was slow to act. So, Asuka looked bad for just standing there and not attacking Bliss. She should have just kicked her. This wasn’t good enough.
Goldust the Cruiserweight: WWE failed to deliver the Cruiserweight Title match due to Enzo Amore’a real life illness. Instead of trying to do something good to promote 205 Live, they had Goldust come out as Cedric Alexander’s surprise partner against Drew Gulak and Ariya Daivari. It says something right there how WWE feels about their own Cruiserweight division that they go with an ancient Goldust in that spot instead of trying to highlight anyone in the actual division.
Elias Sings with the Miz-tourage: I know this is supposed to be purposefully bad, but Curtis Axel singing needs to cease being something that happens in WWE tv. That is go away heat. That is change the channel bad. That doesn’t make me want to see them get beat up. I just want to watch something else. And I still don’t understand why Michael Cole is scripted to love Elias’ music. This makes no sense at all. This was terrible.
Closing Segment with Lesnar and Kane: I am not looking forward to Lesnar vs. Kane vs. Strowman at The Royal Rumble. The match doesn’t sound good on paper and the build to it has not been good either. Going back to Paul Heyman complaining about a conspiracy against Brock Lesnar as he has done for the other triple threat and fatal four way that Lesnar has had as Universal Champion didn’t get me excited. This was not Heyman’s best work, although he did a fine job under bad circumstances. The physical encounter between Lesnar and Kane to end the show wasn’t good. It was a weak version of a pull apart brawl. It was a poor ending to the show.
For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell’s views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET’s “Hitlist” section here.
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@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonMezzera.
NOW CHECK OUT THIS ALTERNATE TAKE ON RAW: TOP 3 DEVELOPMENTS – RAW: Jordan-Seth dynamic develops, The Rules for the Women’s Rumble, Reigns’s push continues
The crowd really doesn’t seem to be in to Asuka at most shows.