By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

ECW HITS

The Miz vs. Primo: This was the longest singles match I recall seeing The Miz in. He may have had longer ones in the past, but at 12 minutes, I don't think he's had one longer on WWE tv. It was also one of his best matches. He deserves credit for his in ring work as part of the best tag team in the business right now, which is easy to overlook considering how good his partner is and how great they are as a team on the mic. Primo continues to show that he is very good in the ring as well. They worked hard and put on a good high energy match. At one point I was worried because it looked like Miz had dropped Primo on his head, but he seemed fine. Also, John Morrison and Carlito added to the fun with their guest commentary. They both got in very funny lines, the best being when Morrison talked about Miz's haircut being aerodynamic.

Bourne Returns Next Week: I am very excited to see that Evan Bourne will be returning from his injury next week. It is too bad that he wasn't back in time to be in a Money in the Bank qualifier. With Christian in MIB, and with Finlay already having faced Jack Swagger for the ECW Championship at No Way Out (snooze), and with Tommy Dreamer not likely to get a Title shot so soon in his "become Champ or retire" storyline, who is left to face the Champ? Might they put Bourne vs. Swagger for the Title at WrestleMania? I wouldn't mind seeing that.

Battle Royale: The battle royale got off to a very quick start with lightning fast eliminations. Nobody cared about the early part of it, as they were waiting for the fat to get trimmed. This Hit is really for the action once it came back from commercial when it was down to Christian, Chavo Guerrero, William Regal, R-Truth and Tommy Dreamer. Although Christian was the most likely winner, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that one of the others could win (as opposed to if Ricky Ortiz or Dolph Ziggler were still around). They were smart with their eliminations, taking out the least likely, Truth, then the next least likely, Dreamer. With a possible rematch against Swagger in the back of my mind, I at least considered the possibility that they would put Regal, or Chavo in MIB. The final few moments of the match were strong, particularly the end as Christian and Chavo battled on the apron. Christian in MIB should be fun. He was in the first, and has been in many ladder matches, but it has been awhile in WWE.

ECW MISSES

Again, the Videos: Although there weren't as many videos as last week, there were still five (as opposed to six) which is still too many. The Dirt Sheet before Miz vs. Primo was fine. It was short and fit in with the context of the upcoming match. But, we had seen it on Smackdown already. The "12 Rounds" videos was a replay from the night before. I know I should just accept that WWE is going to hype John Cena's movie every chance they get, but they do take away from the show. The Evan Bourne video made perfect sense, but the two that followed didn't. The first was the Raw Rebound. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, or mp3 player, they don't need to show Raw footage (especially this long of a video) on ECW when everyone watching watched Raw. It doesn't make me want to tune in to Raw next week. It doesn't make me want to order the PPV any more than I did while watching Raw live. Then came the WrestleMania 9 video. If they are going to chronicle a past WrestleMania, at least show one they haven't done before, and try to show one other than for my least favorite WrestleMania ever. At the very least take away the Raw Rebound and give more than 2 minutes to DJ Gabriel vs. Tyson Kidd. Clearly they want Kidd to get a push over Gabriel right now, which makes sense. But, that doesn't mean the match has to only be 2 minutes. Even a 5 minute match would be better and could easily happen without some of those videos.

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 Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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