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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Morrison vs. Miz: The final (or is it?) Money in the Bank Qualifier was a good short match between the Tag Team Champions. The Miz has been improving in the ring, and John Morrison has as well. They work well as a team, and they worked well against each other here. It had a good pace, but only went 5 minutes. I would have liked to see more of the match, but I understand, given that they are a team, why WWE wouldn’t want to have the match go longer. The fact that I would have liked to see more of it points to the fact that it was enjoyable while it lasted. Morrison will be a nice addition to Money in the Bank. We’ve seen him in some good ladder matches as part of MNM before, and he should have a chance to deliver some memorable moves in the match. This is a strong field (even without Jeff Hardy) of athletes, but is a little light on possible winners. I doubt any of the three from ECW will win, and I am sure Carlito won’t. That only leaves Chris Jericho, Mr. Kennedy and Montel Vontavious Porter as possible winners, and I doubt it will be Y2J. Will WWE fill Hardy’s spot? It seems unlikely at this point, but I guess we will see.

MVP vs. Batista: Once again, MVP and Batista put together a very good match. The match benefited from being No Holds Barred, which added an extra dimension to the match, keeping it from being redundant. After all, they have faced multiple times, and it is important to keep things fresh. Both wrestlers performed well. They had very good intensity, and the match had good back and forth action. Neither was able to sustain offense for too long, which meant we didn’t get long rest holds or a restless crowd waiting for a comeback. The booking of the gimmick was very well done. Umaga’s interference was predictable (as I predicted last week), but worked given the context of the match. It adds a personal angle to Umaga vs. Batista at WrestleMania, as Umaga cost Batista a chance to win the US Title. I have mixed feelings about the Samoan Spike finishing off Batista. It sort of undercuts the whole hardcore feel to the match, that Batista takes all these chair shots, etc. and is done in by a normal wrestling move. On the other hand, it does help to make the Samoan Spike seem devastating. Anyway, I look forward down the line to another MVP vs. Batista feud, but not for a while.

Main Event: Smackdown featured some good wrestling action this week, capped off by the Steel Cage match. I am glad that WWE explained why Vickie Guerrero allowed Shawn Michaels to be Ric Flair’s partner. I had been asking that question since I saw that he had been officially added to the match. It was good that the announcers addressed the situation. The match was a good intense brawl. With six men in the ring, there was a chance that everything would become too chaotic, but that didn’t happen. With such a prolonged four-on-two beating, it would not have surprised me if the match started to drag, but that didn’t happen either. Flair showed so much fire throughout the entire match that he kept it interesting. Michaels was able to have a few different comebacks which helped keep the crowd into it. Again, the Undertaker interference was predictable but worked. He made a statement to Edge, but Edge still was able to win the match.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Divas Contest: What a terrible way to start off Smackdown. I don’t care about this stupid Divas contest at all. Maria as the hostess added nothing. I miss her former character. Now she is just another generic WWE Diva with nothing going for her but her looks. We’ve seen this same stupid obstacle course on multiple Divas searches before. What is the point of having a race if winning doesn’t mean anything? This is such a waste of time. In fact, I could write more but that would be a waste of my time.

Kane & Noble vs. Palumbo & Khali: This match was also a waste of time. This is evidence that Smackdown doesn’t have enough going on at WrestleMania. They should be filling their 2 hours with good WrestleMania hype. Saying that these four will be in the 24 man Battle Royale isn’t good enough. Why are they teaming? Jamie Noble was great in yelling at Kane to tag him in, but once again, he just takes a beating. Is it too much to hope that Noble wins the Battle Royale at becomes ECW Champion? Probably. Clearly WWE had a lot of time to fill, with the Divas contest, a Raw Rebound, several video packages, and this lame match.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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