By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Hardy vs. Benjamin: This was easily the best match of the night, and really the best match of the week on free t.v. I enjoyed their match last week, and this one was even better. Jeff Hardy and Shelton Benjamin really worked hard to put on a good match. I liked the early feeling out period at the start. Benjamin showed good aggression throughout, and it was nice to hear the announcers commenting on it. These are two very talented workers who were given a good amount of time to put on a very enjoyable match. Unfortunately, due to the current storylines and WWE’s desire to keep both guys strong, the match ended in a disqualification, just like last week. That brought the quality of the match down. I understand wanting to protect Hardy, but why not have a little distraction from Montel Vontavious Porter lead to a pin fall for Benjamin? That makes Hardy want revenge even more on MVP, makes the fans want to pay to see Hardy get that revenge, and keeps the United States Champion strong by getting a win (albeit a tainted one) against a star the caliber of Hardy. That makes so much more sense. That wouldn’t be a clean win, but it would at least be a pin fall victory.

MVP’s Promo: MVP ruined the great opening match, but he certainly delivered in his promo later in the show. This was a very good promo. It was well written and well delivered. He did a good job of recapping his points about Jeff Hardy, and driving them home. He showed very good intensity. He reminded us that he has really developed into a very good all around professional wrestler. His talking ability is great, and it was good to see that featured so well. This is an example of a promo that should be shown to young wrestlers who need to learn how to cut an effective heel promo in a short amount of time, without resorting to screaming.

Festus vs. Kozlov: Last week, WWE had a nice tease of this match when Vladimir Kozlov faced Jesse. I wasn’t surprised that they went to this match this week, but I was a bit surprised that it had a finish. As soon as it went to the outside I was expecting a double count out, with the bell ringing to put Festus into his comatose state. I think that would have been better, but I did enjoy the match. It wasn’t very long, but it was the most we’ve seen Kozlov have to sell in a match yet, and he was solid. I’ve heard that he is really bad at selling, but he didn’t look too bad here. It was fun to see Festus get the better of him for most of the match. The ending came out of nowhere and was pretty good. Kozlov is getting that head butt over as a legit finisher, and I like it (especially as a defensive move to turn a disadvantage into a win in the blink of an eye) much better than his reverse DDT that he had been using. I still think booking it my way to set up a rematch would have been better, but I liked the match.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Irrelevant Segments: With SummerSlam only two days away, I was expecting more in terms of hype. It isn’t that the hype was necessarily bad. Some of it (like Hardy vs. MVP) was very good. But, there just seemed to be so many irrelevant segments on the show. It often felt more like the first Smackdown after a PPV, not the last one before a PPV. We got a rather meaningless Divas tag match. There were two new wrestlers making a debut, both losing. Scotty Goldman got to talk and show a personality, but then he lost to Brian Kendrick. Ryan Bradick made his debut, only to get squashed by the Big Show. Neither of those segments did anything for the PPV, and did very little for anyone involved (other than Kendrick - Show doesn’t gain anything by squashes at this point in his Hall of Fame career). What happened to Umaga’s feud with Big Show? There were multiple scenes with Vickie Guerrero and Victoria which did advance a storyline, but didn’t focus on the PPV. The focus should have been Undertaker vs. Edge, but it wasn’t. They did hype some of Raw’s involvement with the PPV, but that just took away from Smackdown. There was very little original content on Smackdown that felt important this week.

End of the Show: I enjoyed some of Edge’s early antics with Vickie in the wheel chair this week, and I loved his crazed delivery at the end of last week’s Smackdown. However, I did not enjoy the end of this week’s show. Edge was fine, but not nearly as good as last week. He is playing the character well, but what did it accomplish? Nobody likes Vickie, so nobody cares what Edge does to her. This didn’t make me want to see Hell in a Cell any more than I did already. I didn’t understand the point of him forcing Vickie to apologize to Undertaker. In the end, the scene just went on for too long. There was no build. There was no climax to the scene. Unlike last week, where we saw Edge turn and twist and build to his insane ramblings to Vickie (which worked so well), this week his character was flat. He didn’t peak. He leveled out the entire time, so it wasn’t as interesting to watch. This is the Main Event of SummerSlam and I care about it less now than I did two weeks ago when Mick Foley gave his great promo, or last week when Edge gave his great performance. That is not a good thing.

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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