By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Jimmy Wang Yang vs. Jamie Noble: This was a pretty good match. It was nothing special, but it was a solid match with some nice wrestling. Noble and Yang have conflicting styles but they work well together. It was nice that WWE gave them more than the 3 minutes they typically give Cruiserweights on the show, but at 7 minutes, it was still not very long. The problem is that there is a lack of depth in the Cruiserweight Division. Noble has taken out the only other two Cruiserweights the last two weeks (unless I’m forgetting someone - I guess Chavo Guerrero). So why isn’t he the Champion? When are they going to announce how the vacant title is going to be filled? This was a fun match, but I can’t really care about it beyond the enjoyment it brought for those 7 minutes, because it just doesn’t matter in WWE’s philosophy.

MVP & Matt Hardy: This week, Montel Vontavious Porter and Matt Hardy went from being the highlights of Smackdown, to being the only real reason to watch the show. As usual, they were very entertaining in the bickering before their match leading to their push-up contest. Their match against Deuce & Domino was a good tag match, much better than their previous matches. It had nice back and forth action, and two hot tags, the early small one to MVP, and the late big one to Hardy. The ending was very satisfying as MVP cheated to win, which is a bit of a different wrinkle to the ending than we’ve seen thus far from them. Their backstage arguing in front of Vickie Guerrero was good as well. I am intrigued to see where they are going with their match next week against Undertaker & Kane.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Opening Segment: Smackdown got off to a bad start (I seem to be saying that about many wrestling shows these days - doesn’t anyone know how to write a good beginning any more?). The major reason is that WWE cannot do anything to make me care about Batista vs. The Great Khali in any type of match. So when Batista who is average at best on the mic (at least in terms of a solo promo) comes out to talk about Punjabi Prison, I immediately start to tune him out. WWE was smart in finding someone to talk for Khali. But they were very dumb in who they got to be his mouth piece. Having him talk and then having it translated doesn’t save the fans from having to hear him talk. And the translator does not bring any charisma or personality to his job. He adds nothing. Please WWE and TNA, find a way to hook me and make me keep watching, because you didn’t do it this week.

Polumbo and Masters: And if that beginning wasn’t bad enough, it was followed by Chuck Polumbo vs. Ace Steel. That certainly did not pick me up after the start of the show. The match was only a short squash, which would have been o.k. other than the fact that we’ve seen Polumbo defeat jobbers and Kenny Dykstra about four times. So how does this match elevate him any further? What does it set up? Unfortunately, it set up the return of Chris Masters and his feud with Polumbo. I just could not care less about a feud (with the possible exception of Batista vs. Khali). This does not make me want to tune in to Smackdown next week.

Big Daddy V: Nor does the possibility of Big Daddy V coming over from ECW. I don’t know if that is in the works or not, but this is the second week in a row that they have had a video of him on Smackdown for apparently no reason. And even if he is not coming to Smackdown, and they are just trying to hype him in front of a larger audience than ECW gets, I still don’t want to see the videos. I don’t want to see him on the show period (or any show for that matter).

Jesse & Festus: After weeks and weeks (and months) of anticipation, Jesse & Festus finally made their in ring debut on Smackdown. Yawn. Festus looked slow and lumbering (where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, on half the Smackdown roster). His gimmick is that he looks like a lobotomy patient before the match, but when he hears the bell he becomes a wrestler. That is captivating character development. Jesse looked like he was on speed the way he was running around the ring. Neither of them looked to be very good. It was hard to tell because the local jobbers they faced seemed incompetent in the ring. I honestly thought someone was going to get hurt because it didn’t look like any of the four wrestlers knew what they were doing.

Main Event: I am tired of David vs. Goliath. The first time that John Bradshaw Layfield said that “this time, David doesn’t have God or a slingshot,” I thought that it was a very good line. But after hearing him say it so many times as they seem to always be promoting this match-up, I have grown tired of it. I don’t like Rey Mysterio because he is an underdog who always fights against adversity. I am a fan of his because he does some very exciting moves, is a good all around worker, and can have good matches with a variety of opponents. Unfortunately, the one type of opponent that he can’t have a good match against is a giant like Khali (or Mark Henry for that matter). This was not fun to watch, and I like Mysterio because he is usually fun to watch. The interference was predictable and not particularly interesting. Instead of actually giving Finlay a reason to be attacking Mysterio, they just had him attack him again. Why are they fighting? I was intrigued at first a few weeks ago but said that WWE needed to give a storyline to their feud and they haven’t done it.

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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