By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Finlay & Hornswoggle: For some reason, after good shows lately, Smackdown decided to end 2007 on a down note with a rather boring and ultimately not very good episode. Finlay and Hornswoggle were two of the few bright spots on the show. Finlay seems to really be having fun with this new persona, and as I have said before, it is good to see him still cheat and not go totally away from his original character. They have fun doing what they do. That fun translates to the audience having fun watching them. The bit with the confetti in the bucket was predictable for anyone who has ever watched the Harlem Globetrotters, and maybe for anyone else too. But, I have to say that I laughed out loud when Hornswoggle knocked the bucket off of Runjin Singh’s head. Even The Great Khali looked amused at the end.

6 Man Tag: There were only two matches on Smackdown that had a chance of being the match of the night, and only one of those delivered. Rey Mysterio, Kane & CM Punk vs. Mark Henry, Big Daddy V & MVP was a good tag team match. It was far from great, and was bogged down by the slow and plodding Henry and V, but it still had some nice action. There was enough talent in Mysterio, Punk, MVP, and even Kane to carry the match to an enjoyable level. The ending sequence was particularly strong. Kane’s chokeslam on Mark Henry was possibly the best chokeslam on a super heavyweight that I have ever seen. Normally, the big guy just looks like he falls down when taking the chokeslam, but Henry really got up in the air to make the move believable. It was much better than the chokeslam he took from Undertaker last week which looked pathetic, especially when it led to a three count.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Opening Segment: Unfortunately, the rest of Smackdown was bad from the start. I like that they are doing something with the Major Brothers, I mean the Edge Heads. They were never going to get over as babyfaces, so turning them heel and teaming them with Edge makes perfect sense. But, why change their names? I couldn’t tell them apart before, but I could at least label them “Major.” Now, I can’t do that. I don’t remember their names, and their mic work reintroducing themselves was painfully bad. Plus, by admitting that they are not really brothers, WWE is drawing attention to the fact that the characters that they present week in and week out are not necessarily who these people really are. Obviously nobody thinks that Edge is Adam Copeland’s real name, but they have to believe in the truth of his character to really buy into him as a performer. When you create doubt in the fans’ minds, you are doing a disservice to the overall product. Edge was good in the opening, but not good enough to save an otherwise boring segment. It just did not get me excited to see the rest of the show.

Promoting Raw over Smackdown: There were two lengthy in ring promos this week, neither of which was actually hyping Smackdown. The first was Ric Flair’s promo about his match in a week and a half against Triple H. In addition to being tired of hearing Flair kiss Triple H’s ass, I was not left with the same enthusiasm and excitement listening to this promo that I was listening to his promo from Monday. It sounded like he had accepted the fate that Triple H was going to beat him on Raw, and that left me with a cold feeling. The second instance was when John Bradshaw Layfield gave his farewell address. JBL was good in his delivery, and he did a fine job of putting over Smackdown as being the A Show. But in the end, he is still leaving to compete in the ring on Raw, and wants to win the WWE Championship on Raw. I have no problem with one show being used to hype the other, but Smackdown needs more help than Raw. Having these two instances where big stars appear on the same Smackdown to hype future appearances on Raw is too one sided. Chris Jericho coming to Smackdown to feud with JBL would have made much more sense. Ric Flair was drafted to Smackdown, but WWE is ignoring that and having all of his matches on Raw. And, there was a World Title match in the Main Event this week on Smackdown, which didn’t get nearly the hype as these two future Raw matches got. Batista didn’t even get any mic time to sell his rematch against Edge.

Noble and McCool’s Date: This is a disappointment for me, as I have been looking forward to the footage from their date all week long. I have really enjoyed Jamie Noble’s work as of late. He has been very entertaining, and I was expecting a very entertaining segment here. Instead what we got was rather lackluster. Noble did get in some great lines, particularly when he lectured the waiter on European History. But for the most part, the segment fell flat. Most of the jokes were not funny. After this, I don’t see where they can go from here. They had their date. Michelle McCool certainly has no reason based on what we saw to give Noble a second chance. I was just very disappointed in what could have been very entertaining.

Main Event: I guess it is good that WWE didn’t do more during the show to hype the Main Event, because then the fans would have felt even more let down. I am sick and tired of the heel authority figure character. Who didn’t see the handicap stipulation coming? When Batista thought he had won the World Title, who didn’t see Vickie Guerrero over turing the decision? We’ve seen this type of thing so many times from Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, The Coach, Paul Heyman, etc. We have seen them all change the rules for a match during (or even after) the match is already over. McMahon would say something like, “oh, I forgot to mention ...” Now we are getting the same thing once again with Guerrero, as I predicted when she first hooked up with Edge. The World Title match itself was short, interrupted by a commercial so we really didn’t see much action at all, and ended in a predictable disqualification. Those factors all helped land it in the Miss column.

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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