By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

MVP and Matt Hardy: Once again, MVP and Matt Hardy proved that they are the MVPs of Smackdown. MVP was brilliant in his performance both during the VIP Lounge and during Hardy vs. Deuce. The VIP Lounge was great and I liked the addition of the red velvet ropes and the bouncer. Their back and forth exchange was very good and I loved some of MVP’s lines about being the captain of the team. The match itself was decent, nothing particularly special or memorable. But, MVP’s antics on the outside of the ring was very entertaining. It is good that they did not go the traditional route of having MVP “accidentally” cost Hardy the match. The fact that he cheated to help Hardy win and tried to celebrate with him after the win was very interesting and enjoyable to watch.

Noble and Hornswoggle: Jamie Noble and Hornswoggle were very entertaining to watch as well. I still wish that the Cruiserweight Division was treated with more respect, but this feud has been very fun. Noble was great in his over the top performance and crazy plan to trap the leprechaun. The fact that he was using Lucky Charms as bait was laugh out loud funny. The entire angle was very predictable, but I still laughed. Hopefully once this storyline is over, Noble will have the Cruiserweight Championship, and will go on to something more meaningful and have some good matches against the other Cruiserweights on the roster. But at least the feud should be fun to watch while it lasts.

Mark Henry and the Druid: After so many years of watching the mysterious antics of The Undertaker and his supernatural powers, I am starting to get tired of them. I thought it was great when he went to the American Badass biker gimmick, and was disappointed when he went back to the classic Deadman persona. That being said, it does give us nice moments and something different than what anybody else is doing. Mark Henry has played his part in this building feud very well. The video packages have been good, and the use of the druids also. WWE has done a very good job of building anticipation for Undertaker’s return at Unforgiven. The little glimpses of him during the videos, and the use of druids to stand in for him has built up a great desire to actually get to see him live in the ring.

Main Event: Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero in an I Quit match was everything that it needed to be. It started out with a very nice promo before the match by Guerrero. The match itself had glimpses of great athleticism by both wrestlers, along with the hardcore use of weapons. This was obviously taped before the news about Chris Benoit’s brain damage came out, but it was still a little hard to watch at times with the multiple chair shots. Now it is true that the majority of those chair shots were not to the head. But, there were enough to the head to make me cringe a little bit in light of all the news from the week. But that doesn’t change the fact that these two went out and had a good Main Event and that Mysterio was able to show some edge in getting revenge on Guerrero. Plus, they needed to put this feud to rest for good to let Mysterio move on to The Great Khali, and put Guerrero out of action for a month or so, and this match accomplished both of those goals.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Push for Palumbo: I am just not a fan of Chuck Palumbo. I wasn’t a fan of his when he first came up in WCW as part of a group of Power Plant grads like Sean O'Hare and Mark Jendrack. I wasn’t impressed with him as he became a Tag Team Champion in WCW or when he came over as part of the sale to WWE. I wasn’t impressed with his early singles push. While there was a lot of entertainment in the Billy & Chuck tag team, I still wasn’t impressed with him in the ring. And I wasn’t impressed after that team broke up and he started smoking cigars and wrestled on Sunday Night Heat a few times before disappearing. So now he’s back after spending time in Japan and what not. And I’m still not impressed. I don’t mind guys getting second or third chances, but this guy has had so many chances in the past and never really delivered other than during a shock value gimmick as part of a gay tag team. So why is he getting a push and allowed to squash a young up and comer who has a good (non-steroid looking) look and great athleticism in Kenny Dykstra? Kenny is young and has a ton of time to recover from losses like this, but he has a much bigger upside than Palumbo.

Khali & Finlay vs. Kane & Batista: This was not a good match, and it really isn’t surprising. Only one of the four is a good worker, and while Kane and Batista can have good matches against the right opponent, when you put them in the ring with Khali, bad things are likely to happen. The match was slow and long. It got very tedious watching Khali apply a nerve hold for several minutes on Kane. I wasn’t impressed with that move when I started watching wrestling in the ‘80s, and nothing has happened to make me more impressed now than I was then. They never picked up the pace and did nothing to justify getting 15 minutes for the match. And Batista was hardly ever in the match at all. Kane was the legal man for the vast majority of the match, and it is a bad sign when Kane is expected to cary the load for a tag team.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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