By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Finlay vs. Morrison: This was a solid match. I’m not thrilled with the direction WWE seems to be going with this feud (more later), but Finlay and John Morrison had a fun match. Morrison showed his great athleticism with some nice moves. Finlay pulled off some of his signature unorthodox offense. It worked well. I liked the ending with Finlay actually being distracted by the presence of Hornswoggle at ring side. That is something new and different for these two, and new and different is usually good. It was far from great, but at 5 minutes was longer than most WWE matches these days, and was fun to watch.

MVP vs. Punk: This was the best match of the night. It wasn’t great, and was slow in the first half, but it picked up nicely in the second half. It also told a story as Montel Vontavious Porter worked early on CM Punk’s previously injured ribs, then moved onto his newly injured shoulder and arm. It was nice to see a match go that long on WWE t.v. I would have liked to see a quicker pace at times, but I also like the ring psychology. I really enjoyed the match as Punk made his comeback using his feet. The announcers did a good job of selling Punk’s shoulder injury causing him to rely on his kicks. The build towards the end of the match was very strong, but the ending wasn’t great. However, I understand the desire to do that type of ending, as MVP needed a win, but Punk couldn’t afford another clean loss.

Koslov’s Interview: I’m not sure why I am giving this a Hit. I guess I found it slightly amusing, particularly when Vladimir Koslov said “thank you” at the end. I also prefer him speaking in his native tongue than having to sit through him trying to speak English like when we first saw him on t.v. over a year ago (“I love double double E”). And, since he had an interview, he didn’t wrestle which was good. I appreciate a week off from his standard squash match. Plus, Eve Torres hinted at stronger competition, which will be nice to see instead. But I also admit to being generous with this Hit.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Opening Segment: There is nothing like starting Smackdown off with a hot segment like a contract signing! Woohoo! When Smackdown started with the lights out, I made some comment about Vickie Guerrero coming out. When my wife asked me how I knew that Vickie would start the show, I said, “because she always starts the show.” This whole deal was stupid. Contract signings are always lame. This one didn’t make any sense. Batista had his lawyer look at the contract, but that did no good as Vickie added two amendments (I don’t think that’s the right term for a contract, shouldn’t it be addenda? I could be wrong, not that it really matters) to the contract. She told Batista one of them, he signed it, then she told him the other. I don’t think the second amendment ( or addendum) would be legally binding, but I’m no lawyer. The point is that it was stupid, and it set up the great match of Batista vs. The Great Khali. I can’t imagine too many people watching that who were actually looking forward to the rest of the show.

“Last Friday”: Before Finlay vs. Morrison, they showed a clip from last Friday of Finlay and Hornswoggle challenging Miz & Morrison for a Tag Team Championship match. I have two problems with this. The first is that that clip wasn’t from last Friday. Last Friday Miz & Morrison were having fun at Hornswoggle’s expense. They stole his hat. Finlay came into the picture and put a stop to it. That was the interaction between them last Friday. Why not just say that the video was from earlier tonight. That would make more sense, and wouldn’t insult our intelligence, since we remember what actually happened last Friday. My other problem is that I don’t want to see Finlay & Hornswoggle challenge for the Tag Titles, because I don’t want to see them as Champions. I am worried about the path that they are going down, and where it may lead. Can’t WWE find a real tag team to challenge Miz & Morrison?

MVP Follow Up: Last week, I was intrigued by the fact that MVP watched the entire show from a luxury box. I was very curious to see where WWE was going with his character. This week, I was very disappointed with the answer. Apparently, there was no interesting reason for why he was watching last week. But after watching the show, he now wants a new contract. They kept him out of action last week, just so that he could demand more money this week. I groaned out loud at that. That takes away my lone Hit from last week’s bad show. With the complicated talk in the opening segment about contracts, and MVP bitching about his contract, there was too much talk of contracts on this show. Does any wrestling fan find contract discussion to be entertaining? Has there ever been a killer program built around a wrestling contract? Is Smackdown trying to be the first to pull it off?

Money Mania Recap: At the risk of sounding as repetitive as WWE, I didn’t enjoy these segments live on Monday, I didn’t enjoy seeing them replayed on ECW, and I didn’t enjoy seeing them replayed on Smackdown.

Main Event: This was just an ugly ugly match. Of course, that was to be expected. I know that Khali serves a purpose on the show, but that doesn’t mean I want to see him wrestle. He is so terrible. I guess Batista looked strong for taking a huge beating from the giant, and kicking out of his finishing move, but so what? Nobody thought Batista was going to get banished from WWE right after they pulled this with Undertaker. There was no drama in the match. It was boring and a waste of time. At least it is finally clear that Batista is facing Edge at Night of Champions which should be a good 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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