WWE RAW HITS & MISSES (4/6): Did Punk’s rebuttal of McAfee nonsense land? Is IShowSpeed’s outsider celebrity role working? Was the Contact Signing segment effective?

C.M. Punk – HIT: WWE creative seemingly is trying to make something good out of a bad situation that company executives put them in with what happened on Smackdown with Pat McAfee getting involved in the Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton feud. C.M. Punk looked good as the voice of the fans complaining about McAfee and the high ticket prices. Of course, it also had a bit of that “have your cake and eat it too” vibe. Punk was very good in his delivery covering a number of topics, including the differences between him and Roman Reigns while taking shots at TKO and The Rock. It was too meta, but that’s the situation that we’re in at this point. It didn’t focus enough on the WrestleMania main event, but there is still one Raw to go with Reigns to do a final build for their match next week.

IShowSpeed – HIT: IShowSpeed is doing a nice job acting with what he’s being asked to do. He comes across as someone who is trying to do the right thing, but keeps accidentally messing up, while finding himself in over his head. I can question the story. I can question why WWE wants all their WM celebrities to be heels other than Jelly Roll. I can say I’d rather just see a Tag Team Title match, but at least this is getting LA Knight on the WM card too. And Speed is fun in the role, messing up and being adopted by the Vision to their side, even though he doesn’t really want to be with them. The Danhausen bit was fun too.

Rollins – Gunther – HIT: This is a minor Hit for WWE trying to connect the dots as to why Gunther attacked Seth Rollins last week. Rollins seemed to have the same theory as I did last week, which is that Gunther had made a previous deal with Paul Heyman. However, that was untrue as we’d find out later that Heyman didn’t know anything about why Gunther had helped him out last week. The physicality worked fine as a tease for their match which should be very good. The tease at the end for some future happening between Gunther and Heyman was intriguing. But, this didn’t put enough heat between Gunther and Rollins.

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Penta/Lee/Evans vs. Los Americanos – HIT: This was easily the highlight of the night from an in ring standpoint. It was fun to watch from start to finish. I wish there had been something on the line, like El Grande Americano gets into the Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match at WM if his team had won. Why not add a little stipulation like that? Otherwise, I had no complaints about this match featuring six very talented wrestlers, even if some of them have dippy characters. I also liked how Rey Mysterio appeared after the match to announce that he had been added to that IC Ladder match. I’m looking forward to that match quite a bit.

Sky / Asuka Situation – MISS: This Miss can turn into a Hit if the long presumed match between Iyo Sky and Asuka ends up happening at WM. There were rumors that WWE might end up doing 6 women’s matches at WM which would be awesome. As of now, there are only 4. I thought for sure there would be at least 5 with Sky vs. Asuka (with Kairi Sane involved). They can still add it since there is one fewer match right now for Sunday night. The video with Asuka talking about Sky and challenging her was very well done, but Sky is back playing subservient partner to Rhea Ripley, part of Ripley’s Title match against Jade Cargill. Their tag match was fine, but Sky deserves to have a focus on her own program.

Vaquer – Morgan – HIT: Stephanie Vaquer also had a strong pre-taped video similar to Asuka’s where she was able to talk in her own language in a much more natural way than when she’s speaking English live. This was a good way for her to verbally come back at Liv Morgan after Morgan’s verbal and physical attack last week when Roxanne Perez returned from injury to help her Judgment Day partner. Later in the show, as Morgan was talking to Perez about the Finn Balor situation, Vaquer had a great surprise attack on Morgan. The way she knocked her into Perez and then threw her into the screen was great. This program is heating up nicely heading into WM.

Contract Signing – HIT: I will never be a fan of contract signings as a concept, but they can be good. The build towards Brock Lesnar vs. Oba Femi has easily been the best of the builds to any match at WM. The physicality here was strong. For once, Femi didn’t get the better of Lesnar, although Lesnar didn’t get the better of Femi either. It was more of a stalemate. It was physical and intense. It will be interesting to see what direction the match itself goes in.

Overall Show – MISS: This might seem strange considering how many Hits with only one specific Miss, but this show overall left me a bit cold. While I liked Punk’s promo, it also reminded me too much of the horribly stupid situation from Smackdown. They also showed replays of that along with Rhodes’s reaction, which wasn’t good. There were too many video replays on this show. Some of the other Hits are just marginal. There were only 4 matches which isn’t enough. Only one of them was good, and it had no stakes. The others were fine, not bad enough to get a Miss, but the wrestling action on a wrestling show needs to be better and more plentiful than this. Lyra Valkyria was horribly late in “tripping” Lash Legend on the superplex attempt. There were timing issues in other matches as well. The sit down interview with A.J. Lee that turned into a back and forth with Becky Lynch was okay. But, it didn’t add anything to their match. It felt like a rerun, which isn’t great with one more week to go. While the attack by Dom on Balor before the non-match against J.D. McDonagh was fine, Balor’s later announcement of the return of his Demon persona felt underwhelming. This wasn’t a terrible show. There were things to like for sure. But, overall it still didn’t quite rise to the occasion for what was needed this close to WM at a time when the product is cold. They needed at least a triple, but they only got an infield single.

(Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com’s WWE Raw Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw each week. Email him at jmezz_torch@yahoo.com. Follow him on BlueSky @jonmezzera.bsky.social.)