By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SUPERSTARS HITS

The Concept: The biggest Hit for Superstars right now is the concept. I hope the show stays with this format. Give us three solid to good (I'd take very good, but we'll see) matches a week, without long video recaps. Each brand can have one match to further a feud or to help establish mid card guys and newer wrestlers. Superstars this week advanced the Hardy brothers feud, featured the finals in the ECW Elimination Chase, and furthered the top Raw feud as well. As I said in my ECW Hits & Misses, having the finals of the Chase on Superstars instead of next week's ECW gives Christian and Jack Swagger a chance to have one show to hype their Backlash Title match before the PPV, that they wouldn't have had otherwise. It was a solid debut, and hopefully WWE won't start tweaking the format.

Hardy vs. Undertaker: This was a good 10 minute match. The copout ending wasn't great, but it was predictable and didn't hurt the overall quality of the match too much. Matt Hardy looked good in hanging with The Undertaker for as long as he did, and for not getting pinned. He looked like a coward heel for running away, and that got more heat on him which worked. I'm not sure the match had to be two segments just to end in a count out and a Jeff Hardy run in, but given that it was the first match in the show's history (not counting the earlier incarnations of the "Superstars" show) it was probably a good idea to start with a longer match.

Rhodes vs. McMahon: I can complain about Shane McMahon looking way too strong against an up and coming wrestler linked to the top heel on Raw like Cody Rhodes (in fact, I will), but the actual quality of the main event was good. It wasn't great, but it was a good 12 minute match. Shane is a good athlete. He can have good matches. Rhodes looked strong as well. The match featured some nice quality wrestling action, and was a good tease for the Backlash main event. The announcers did a very good job of underscoring the fact that if Shane loses his cool at the PPV the way he did in this match, and gets his team disqualified, then Triple H will lose the WWE Title. It is clearly the way WWE wants the fans to think that the Title is in jeopardy and this match fit well into the hype.

SUPERSTARS MISSES

Short Time for Christian vs. Finlay: After two weeks of build up on ECW, including two fairly long two-segment matches, I was disappointed that the one shorter match on the card was Christian vs. Finlay. McMahon vs. Rhodes certainly could have been cut in half, kept to one segment, and still served its purpose. After some back and forth action for 5 minutes or so, Shane could have lost his cool and gotten disqualified the same way. That wouldn't have taken away from the hype for Backlash, and it would have allowed the ECW #1 contender match to go more like 10 or 11 minutes which would have been nice. The match was going well while it lasted.

Super Shane: As I said above, I can and will complain about Shane being booked too strong. He isn't a full time wrestler. Chances are, he won't be in the ring much, if at all for quite awhile after Backlash. Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase are part of the future of this company. They have a chance to be a good tag team, or to be good singles stars. Shane looks good every two years when he wrestles a series of matches like this, but then disappears again. Yes, the match was good, but at what cost to Rhodes' credibility?

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and Superstars 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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