By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

ECW HITS

Contract Signing: I am not a fan of contract signings because of the inconsistency of when they have contracts for matches and when they don't. I doubt that Natalya and Hornswoggle signed a contract before their match. Is it just for Title matches? Anyway, that is my general complaint, but they can be pulled off well and that was the case here. I liked the silent Christian. He is great on the mic, but sometimes not saying anything can be just as good. He played his part very well as did Jack Swagger as he got a little miffed at the fact that Christian wasn't saying anything. Swagger's promo was strong. Christian's was too after he broke his silence. It was a good promo exchange which led to a good fight as Swagger drove Christian through the table. If given a good amount of time, these two certainly could steal the show in a straight up one-on-one wrestling match with no gimmick attached.

ECW MISSES

Finlay, Hornswoggle, Natalya, Kidd: I am happy to see Hornswoggle and Finlay split up in the draft as I am really tired of Finlay's current gimmick and hope that he can do something better without Hornswoggle. Hornswoggle might be used on Raw in a better manner also. But, the whole thing with him saying goodbye and finally talking (seriously, why can't he talk in a normal way?) didn't work for me. It was cheesy. Natalya should be playing up her place as a member of the Hart family, but she sort of spit in the face of that legacy by saying that her Uncle Bret lied and using his line on Tyson Kidd. Natalya vs. Hornswoggle was silly. I don't particularly look forward to the tag match on Superstars, although a Finlay vs. Kidd feud has some potential I suppose.

Return of the Raw Rebound: Last week was a great episode of ECW and there was no Raw Rebound. Coincidence? This week was a pretty weak episode of ECW and there was a Raw Rebound. Coincidence? I'm just saying, I can't imagine any fan watching ECW last week thinking, "this episode is great and all what with an outstanding opening match and a really good main event, but the one thing missing was a video recap of Raw which I watched last night."

Bourne vs. Burchill: Recently, I have been complaining about WWE having too many short matches, like CM Punk vs. Kane from Raw this week. Maybe I need to rethink things a bit. It was interesting to see a mid card match get 10 minutes and be commercial free. I certainly would take that in many instances, but this was not one of them. The match got off to a good start. It was fun to watch Paul Burchill throw Evan Bourne around a little and show off some of his offense. The end was very good as well as Bourne made his comeback and got to show off his high flying innovative style which has made him so popular so soon. But, the middle really dragged. The first of Burchill's long rest holds was a modified Dragon Sleeper that looked pretty good. But, then he did a second rest hold shortly thereafter cutting off an attempted comeback by Bourne. Then, he did another. There were three long rest holds taking up too much time and the crowd got really restless. This is a case where having a commercial break in the middle where at least the fans at home don't have to watch so much of the redundancy would have been fine. Better yet, this is a case where a 6 minute match would have been better than a 10 minute one. Take the first few minutes that were good and the last few that were very good, and bridge them with a shorter amount of time and you have a much better product.

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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