By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Kane vs. Hardy: Smackdown started off well this week with the promo from Jeff Hardy and his match against Kane. The promo was a nice follow up to his "eye injury" from the week before. Hardy was strong on the mic and the eye patch was a nice touch. His match with Kane was good. It went 13 minutes and featured good wrestling action. It can be difficult to have a good match between two guys with such a large size difference, but they pulled it off. Hardy had a strong showing and was in control before being distracted by CM Punk, so he looked good despite taking the loss. There was one major obvious edit which did distract from the match some.

Ziggler vs. Morrison: I enjoyed this match. It went 6 minutes and I wouldn't have minded seeing more. It was nice to see a match like this without a commercial. 6 minutes of good wrestling uninterrupted was nice. Dolph Ziggler and John Morrison worked well together. The match had plenty of reversals. Ziggler has looked good in the ring lately, while Morrison has looked great. WWE is clearly behind Ziggler in giving him this win over Morrison, even if he cheated to win. Morrison is over with the fans and has had some big wins, so the loss shouldn't hurt him much. The win helps to elevate Ziggler to the point where he was able to interject himself into the Intercontinental Championship picture at the end of the show. My only question with the ending is having Morrison lose (not a big deal in general) right after challenging the winner of Hardy vs. Punk at Night of Champions.

Jericho vs. Mysterio: Last year at this time, Chris Jericho was in the middle of the feud of the year with Shawn Michaels. I don't know if his feud with Rey Mysterio will be the feud of 2009 or not, but their series of matches have been great. This was no exception. It was a treat to see a 23 minute match on Smackdown. Sure, there were two commercials, but that still left 16 or 17 minutes of action. And that time was very good. It was very fun to watch Mysterio constantly trying to make a come back, only to have Jericho find a way to just stay one step ahead. They did it so many times, playing with the fans' emotions. It was great. Every time you thought Mysterio had finally gotten his momentum back, Jericho would reverse the reversal or counter the counter and regain control. The match had great athleticism and wrestling, and told a story. I wish after being in control for most of the match that Jericho had kicked out at the end and Mysterio would have had to hit one more big move to get the win, but that is a minor complaint. As much as I love these two in the ring together, it is good to see them moving on (at least for now) to Mysterio vs. Ziggler. It will also be interesting to see what they do with the Unified Tag Titles.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Maria's Taste in Men: Maria is always a babyface, yet she always seems to be dating a heel. First it was Santino Marella and now Dolph Ziggler. Is her role just to hang out and date jackasses?

Pretty Ricky Video: This was ridiculously silly and didn't work for me. I can see it working for some people, though. I didn't find it to be very amusing. It was more confusing than anything. R-Truth was introduced to the WWE fans as an ex-con who had paid his debt to society, had a hard up bringing, but was trying to make it in WWE, and that was the truth. Then he gets into his rapping gig, and now is doing this? It doesn't make much sense. He is getting good reactions from the crowd. With the positive reactions and his background, he can be a more serious wrestler. He can have fun, but not be goofy like this.

Hardy, Punk, Khali, Kane: This segment started off very well with the pre-match promo from CM Punk. He delivered a great promo on Jeff Hardy, talking about his eye injury and all of Hardy's problems in the past (drugs, suspensions, etc.). Unfortunately, the segment went downhill from there. Punk vs. The Great Khali was ok, but shouldn't have been booked in the first place. A possible World Title challenger (Morrison) lost this week. The #1 contender (Hardy) lost this week. The Champion (Punk - duh) was in a position to lose to Khali before Kane interrupted and the match was thrown out, or whatever. That is the Champion and two of his top challengers all losing or about to lose their matches in one show. The fact that the match was thrown out was weak. The fact that Punk and Hardy were playing second fiddle to Kane and Khali was even weaker. After that promo, the segment was really bad.

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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