WWE RAW HITS & MISSES 3/11: Becky Lynch, Garza vs. Mysterio, Flair vs. Ripley, McIntyre vs. Rowan, Kabuki Warriors vs. Natalya & Morgan, Styles challenges Undertaker, MVP vs. Edge & Orton

Becky Lynch – HIT: The post-Elimination Chamber Raw got off to a good start with Becky Lynch cutting a promo about Shayna Baszler winning the EC the night before to become her opponent at WrestleMania. The video package on Baszler’s dominance in the Chamber was well done to cut out the long pauses and just show how devastating Baszler was in eliminating all five of her opponents. Lynch was very strong on the mic here in putting Baszler over as her biggest challenge for her Women’s Championship, while also talking about how she can beat her. She got in some good lines. It was all pretty straightforward and well done. My only issue is how they are going with “the cage fighter” for Baszler’s monicker. That stinks.

Garza vs. Mysterio – HIT: Raw continued nicely with the opening match between Angel Garza and Rey Mysterio. We have seen so many matches involving these two, Andrade and Humberto Carillo. It is starting to get old seeing various matches with those four wrestlers. But, the matches are still good like this one was. The endgame has to be at WM, presumably in a fatal four way for the United States Championship (perhaps in the ladder match that many of us are anticipating).

Flair – Ripley – HIT: The video of Rhea Ripley in the Tampa stadium from last week’s NXT was very good, so it was a smart idea to play it on Raw in front of the larger tv audience. Charlotte Flair then cut a promo which was solid, but not great. Ripley interrupted, and while I liked that Charlotte wouldn’t let her talk, the Raw vs. NXT aspect of this feud isn’t working. So Charlotte interrupting because this is Raw, not NXT fell flat. The punch to Charlotte’s jaw from Ripley was a strong end to the segment.

McIntyre vs. Rowan – HIT: I have never been a fan of Erick Rowan, going back to the days of the Wyatt Family. So, I don’t care that WWE spent months building him up and trying to build intrigue over what is in his stupid cage. The robot spider was stupid, but at least we finally got an answer last week. I was glad to see him get squashed by Drew McIntyre here (I started typing that with Rowan in mind, but realized as I did that the same applies to the spider). Now can we forget about the mystery cage?

Kabuki Warriors vs. Natalya & Morgan – MISS: This Miss includes the pre-match promo from The Kabuki Warriors which was really grating. I get that they are heels and are supposed to be obnoxious. And I enjoy their act in small doses, but here it went on far too long with them screeching in Japanese and laughing annoyingly. I had a big problem with Natalya and Liv Morgan being in this match at after what happened to them at EC. They should have sold the beating that Baszler gave them for a week. That undid the good that had been done earlier in the show with the video package. The focus of the match shifted to the Riott Squad feud which didn’t work well. I understand why Morgan wants to beat up Ruby Riott, but Riott’s reason for turning on Morgan has never been perfectly clear despite the interview she gave about it a few weeks ago, and Sarah Logan’s part in the whole thing isn’t defined. I’m not sure why Morgan wants to beat her up too. Morgan didn’t look like a strong babyface for abandoning her teammate in this match. The wrestling action was fine in this match, and it was good to Asuka and Kairi Sane actually get a win for a change, but there were too many other problems with this match.

A.J. Styles Challenges The Undertaker – MISS: A.J. Styles gave a good performance in challenging The Undertaker for a match at WM, but the scripting was the problem. In fact, that scripting has been problematic for a few weeks. I guess WWE needed to do something to have Undertaker want to face Styles at WM considering he has dominated Styles in their first two encounters in Saudi Arabia and then at the EC. So, they went with Styles making it personal by calling him old and broken down, and bringing out his personal life with the comments about his wife Michelle McCool. It felt too “insider” for me. It didn’t make me want to see Undertaker get revenge on Styles. It didn’t ring true calling him broken down when the broken down Undertaker has physically dominated Styles so far. I was disappointed that the challenge was for a singles match considering Aleister Black’s potential involvement in a handicap match agains the OC. Maybe something happens at the contract signing next week and they do end up going in that direction, but Styles’ final line about the nail in the coffin seems to be suggesting a casket match which I don’t care so much about.

MVP, Edge, Orton – HIT: I was not expecting to give this segment a Hit since I was disappointed initially about MVP’s involvement in the Edge and Randy Orton angle. Of course, we’ve seen people like Matt Hardy and Kevin Owens involved, so why not MVP too? MVP served as a surrogate to Orton for Edge to take out some of his frustrations. MVP played his part well. It was good that Edge came out, grabbed the mic and demanded Orton come to the ring. He wasn’t going to play along with MVP trying to get him to talk to him. The physicality was strong. Edge sent a clear message to Orton with the one man conchairto onto MVP. WWE had built anticipation throughout the show for Edge showing up, so the fans were going to be hyped for him finally being there. They teased him getting his hands on Orton without delivering so that should make fans want to see that even more to build anticipation for a WM match. And while we should hear Edge give a strong promo soon, it wouldn’t have made sense given what Orton did to his wife last week for Edge to simply come out and cut that promo this week.

Lesnar – McIntyre Video – HIT: This was a short, but very good video package focusing on the Brock Lesnar vs. Drew McIntyre WWE Championship match at WM. It reinforced the fact that Lesnar has beaten so many huge stars over the years, while pointing to McIntyre as someone who can actually physically challenge Lesnar. It isn’t brain surgery.

The Messiah Complex vs. Street Profits & Viking Raiders – MISS: I skipped the Seth Rollins vs. Aleister Black match as it was a good match while it lasted, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I didn’t like how Black disappeared after The Messiah Complex beat him up before The Viking Raiders and The Street Profits came out for the save to set up an 8 man tag. There was some good wrestling in the main event which lasted 24 minutes. I don’t want to complain about getting so much wrestling in the final stretch of Raw, but there were too many problems with this. It was the typical WWE tag team formula, with a prolonged beating of a babyface by the heal team followed by a hot tag multiplied by four. The formula hurt the match with multiple stretches like this instead of more of a back and forth flow. And why would WWE cut to a break right after one of those hot tags? That took away any momentum as a viewer that the match gained after Montez Ford got that tag. He is the most exciting of the babyfaces in the match, so cutting away from his flurry of offense was disappointing. After the match, the heels were able to fend off the attack from Kevin Owens to stand tall which worked well, but we need to get the actual match announcement for WM soon.

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 Jon on Twitter @JonMezzera.