James Caldwell, Torch Assistant Editor (6.5)

This was a decent episode of Superstars, but the lack of clean finishes to the top two singles matches on the show dragged down my overall show rating. Superstars is a nice, warm, inviting hour of TV to see clean finishes to competitive wrestling matches. I was fine with the non-finish to Goldust vs. Regal because it set up the key players on the ECW brand to get some face time, including Rising Star Yoshi Tatsu. Also, there's potential for a nice feud between Goldust and Regal that could make for good TV on Tuesday nights. Wouldn't be surprised to see a #1 contender match between Goldy and Lord Steven booked for this week's ECW.

Matt Hardy vs. Kane in a non-finish was curious booking looking at the overall picture of the show. I know we're talking about the D-Level show of the week, so it's not the end of the world. Specifically looking at Hardy, though, it's not a ringing endorsement for WWE not to give him a clean win over Kane. I mean, it's Kane. Not going to challenge for a World Title anytime soon. Now, in the kayfabe sense of this, Kane is on a roll after a PPV victory over Great Khali and destroying Khali's knee on Smackdown. For casual fans who are just looking at the storylines, Kane seems like he's doing well on WWE TV.

In a "WWE has control over who looks good and who doesn't" sense of this, I'm curious why WWE doesn't have that much stock in Hardy right now to give him a clean win over Kane. I doubt this is the start of a regular program on Smackdown to where Hardy and Kane are going to work some matches and WWE didn't want to book a clean finish in the first match of the series, but then again, Kane does not have a feud after Khali was written off storylines. I could think of lesser feuds for Hardy, but this has potential to elevate Hardy on the way to the main event scene after Kane was built up via taking out the Khali monster. The main event scene is kind of crowded on Smackdown, so it would make sense to give Hardy something to do against a credible, veteran, recognizable heel until WWE decides whether Hardy is a permanent mid-carder or worth a look in the main event picture.

Jon Mezzera, PWTorch.com Contributor (5.0)

This episode of Superstars was the very definition of a 5.0 show. It was solid, but not particularly good. None of the matches were that good, but they were all fine. Goldust vs. William Regal and the aftermath with Christian, Tommy Dreamer and Yoshi Tatsu coming to save Goldust from the Ruthless Roundtable was the best part of the show. I wouldn't mind seeing a little faction warfare on Tuesday nights. I can also see a slow build towards a classic Survivor Series elimination match with these four babyfaces, plus Hurricane against the Roundtable, plus Zack Ryder and Paul Burchill.

My biggest problem with the show was how unbalanced it was with too much Smackdown content. Three of the five wrestling segments featured Smackdown matches. There was a Smackdown Rebound instead of a Raw Rebound. Normally I would be all in favor of that, but last week's Smackdown was so bad with the non-explanation from Teddy Long and the horrible scene where he was kidnapped by Undertaker in his limo that I didn't need to sit through it again. Throw in the Superstar weekly video on Smackdown wrestler Batista and you got too much of Smackdown and not enough Raw or ECW.

Greg Parks, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.0)

The opening contest of Primo vs. Masters was surprisingly solid. Every move was very crisp and good-looking. Regal vs. Goldust was fine and the non-finish made sense. If this was a few months ago, they wouldn't have had a problem jobbing Goldust here, but it looks like they're protecting him a bit now that he's really getting over. Oh, and the best part of the match was Matt Striker saying Goldust was "arguably" the tallest wrestler on the ECW roster. Really? If only there were some way to measure to settle that argument.

The Divas tag match was a bit above my expectations. Nothing particularly wrong with it, but the Divas division on Smackdown doesn't seem very inspired at this point. Matt vs. Kane never seemed to get out of first gear and with the non-finish, that wasn't too surprising. Two DQ's in one one-hour show does seem a bit much.

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