By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

ECW HITS

Bourne's Return: It was good to see Evan Bourne back after 5 months. Matt Striker did a good job describing the ankle injury and what it meant to come back from it. Bourne looked good vs. Jamie Noble. I would love to see the match go longer, but the length makes sense in his his return to remind the audience of his moves and to give him a strong win right away. They seem to be setting up Bourne vs. Tyson Kidd, which has potential. I'd rather see Bourne take on Jack Swagger for the ECW Title at WrestleMania, but that won't happen if they are planning a feud with Kidd. Plus, I still like my idea about the legends picking Bourne to represent them against Chris Jericho (see my Raw Hits & Misses). Either way, it is good to see him back.

The Dirt Sheet: This was a fun segment to end the show. I loved it when The Miz called Brie Bella "twin A". That was great. The colon humor from Miz and John Morrison is a bit childish, but I still found much of it to be pretty funny. I also enjoyed when Primo and Carlito showed up to change The Dirt Sheet into Primo's Cabana (slap), I mean Carlito's Cabana. The jokes about Primo stealing things from Carlito (his catchphrase multiple times, his back stabber finisher last week, and now this) are amusing. As much as many of us would love to see good established deep tag team rosters on both Raw and Smackdown, it isn't going to happen. Having a few on each show is the reality. In that reality, it makes sense to have one set of Tag Team Champions to defend their unified Title on each show. The idea would work better if the brand split was actually in existence, as only the Tag Champs should appear on multiple shows. I am happy to see the Colons vs. Miz & Morrison at WrestleMania.

ECW MISSES

Use of Swagger: I'm not sure which was worse, the fact that Jack Swagger wasn't even on last week, or the way that they used him this week. That was one of the shortest promos I can remember from a Champion who wasn't interrupted. He basically said he wasn't on last week, but he is on this week so the fans can see him. That was it? He didn't wrestle on Raw, so he was brought to the tv taping just for that? I don't get it. I was so hopeful when he came out that he was going to mention being upset about not yet having a WrestleMania match booked. I thought he might make an open challenge or something. I thought a challenger might interrupt him. I thought they might do something with him. But, no, no and no.

Show's Focus: I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it was good to see ECW have a focus for once. On the other hand, the focus was a bit silly as Finlay searched the building for Hornswoggle. The show opened with the little guy going missing while Finlay talked to Teddy Long, then Finlay searched for him and found him throwing food on Katie Lea Burchill. Then, there was a scene where Katie Lea and her brother Paul complained to Long about it, so he made a match. Then came the "main event" match between the two. That is a good amount of time spent setting up (four different back stage scenes) the match which is good. But as I said, the whole thing was silly. And the match didn't even go on last and only lasted three minutes. So basically, all of this set up led to Finlay squashing Burchill. I hope this is a step in a good direction for having more of a focus each week, but the execution of that focus needs to be better.

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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