WWE Raw Hitlist: William Regal, Mr. Kennedy, Chris Jericho, Batista, Jeff Hardy, Umaga, Cousin Sal

WWE Raw Hits

Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga: A high energy opening match that popped the crowd and set the pace for the show. I just spoke to a friend who said he's tired of watching Hardy work Umaga because it feels like they've had a million matches. I get where he's coming from, but the matches have been so spread out that this doesn't feel like a tired feud. For that matter, it's a safe program for WWE in that Hardy isn't involved in the title picture in his first month back, yet he's also not so low on the card that people will lose interest.

Chris Jericho vs. Batista: The highlight of the show. Jericho was involved in the two best matches in two straight shows. He's really on a roll right now. He probably didn't get as much credit as he deserved for his role in the match with Shawn Michaels, but there's no denying how much of a factor he was in the match with Batista. Speaking of Big Dave, he's bounced back nicely following his embarrassing WrestleMania performance. Granted, he's been in the ring with some great workers since then, but he was also very good in the months leading up to WrestleMania in his program with MVP. Okay, make that three good workers. Nevertheless, Batista's developed a reputation as a student of the game and it's good to see that his hard work is paying off.

William Regal vs. Mr. Kennedy: I'm still disappointed by the news regardging Regal's positive test, but I'm going to put that aside for a moment and focus on this match and the angle. I honestly didn't know where they were going with this one. I thought they were going to take the general manager's title off Regal and have him focus on being a wrestler. I also thought it was possible that they were going to move Kennedy back to Smackdown. That intrigue made things interesting. Kennedy was really over with the hot live crowd. The brief meeting between Regal and Teddy Long was also well done.

Overall show: WWE desperately needed to deliver a strong show with so little time to hype One Night Stand and they came through. There were no signs of mid-card wrestlers last night, aside from the brief video that recapped the Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch angle. I suppose you could label Santino Marella a mid-card performer, but he's a star in my book. Either way, WWE focussed on the top performers and the top programs and they set up some intriguing pay-per-view matches and delivered a consistently entertaining episode that had good energy from start to finish.

WWE Raw Misses

Cousin Sal: Who in the hell is this guy? I'm not an avid late night talk show viewer, but I know that I don't care about Jimmy Kimmel's cousin. I'm guessing most people feel like I do. Is he appearing on One Night Stand? If so, I suppose the move makes some sense simply because it will garner WWE some extra publicity for a pay-per-view they have less than two weeks to hype.