By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Batista: Batista can be a dominant heel. He should be a bad ass heel like he was on this week's Smackdown. He shouldn't need to cheat to win, or do typical cheap heat heel tactics. It was odd that he was disqualified when the referee didn't give him a five count to break his attack on Finlay, but Batista showed great fire in destroying him. The beating was very well done. I liked how he talked afterwards. Batista has always been at his best on the mic when he keeps things short and to the point and that is what he did here. The emphasis on the other big stars in the Royal Rumble as he kicked Finlay was a nice touch. He also made a statement at the end of the show with his attack on Rey Mysterio.

Punk's Intervention: I am giving this a marginal Hit. It was the best of the three interventions from CM Punk. I have said after the first two that he really needs to do a better job in portraying the cult leader aspects of his character, and he definitely did that here. He struck a much better balance between being a guy who wants people to better themselves, and being a megalomaniac who thinks he is the world's Messiah. The twist of the fan jumping into the ringside area to chase down Punk was something different also. The reason I'm giving this a marginal Hit is that it went on for too long. I can't remember the last time there was a commercial break during an all-talking segment. It was a two-segment talking segment which shouldn't happen. There wasn't much to the segment after the commercial, so something could have been cut to shorten it just enough so that they didn't have to cut to commercial. It wasn't needed. But, I did like the ending with Serena being cradled in Punk's arms.

Jericho & McIntyre vs. Morrison & Truth: It was good to see three mid carders (albeit two of them are in the upper mid card) in Drew McIntyre, John Morrison and R-Truth in a match with a main event caliber wrestler in Chris Jericho. That elevates all three of them in my mind. The match itself was quite good. It started out with some high energy action as Morrison and Truth got the early advantage, but then the heels gained the upper hand and held on for a very long time. It was perhaps a bit too long, but they did some very creative things to keep Morrison isolated from making a tag to Truth. I particularly liked how McIntyre literally ran Morrison over to knock Truth off the apron to prevent a tag. I also loved how Jericho channeled his JeriShow self in telling the announcers to talk about how great his partner is. The match did drag just a bit as the heel isolation lasted a little too long, but things picked up nicely after the hot tag going into the ending sequence which was good, but somewhat rushed. So it had some flaws, but was still a good tag team match.

Long Divas Segment: That was the longest Divas talking segment in a long time, and it worked well. I have not been a fan of the feud between team LayCool and Mickie James as I have not liked the whole Piggie James insults. I wish WWE had come up with something better for Michelle McCool and Layla to make fun of James than her weight (since there is no way any sane person could think she was overweight. At least pick something with some credibility that would actually hit home with James, or make up a back story that she used to battle weight issues in her younger days, something!). If the build up to this moment had been done better, this would have been a great segment. I loved the fact that WWE gave these women this much time to talk and to let this story play out. All four involved were good on the mic. James in particular really got the crowd behind her. I wasn't thrilled with Beth Phoenix's involvement. I have really liked her more tweener character. I don't mind her remaining a heel, but she should not have done it by teaming up with LayCool. But, the rest of the segment was good.

Mysterio - Undertaker: With Undertaker involved in a long term angle with Shawn Michaels, and with the Royal Rumble match being the main selling point for the PPV, it might be understandable for the writers to not put much effort into building to the World Championship match. However, they did a good job with the closing segment. Rey Mysterio was good on the mic in showing that he isn't intimidated by the Undertaker and bringing up their match from a few weeks ago where he was close to victory before Batista's interference. This is simple, but effective booking. Mysterio talked about only winning the World Title once and how he has a strong desire to reach that goal again. Undertaker stands in his way. The match is about the Title. It is a simple Champion vs. challenger match, which works well. Everyone expects Shawn Michaels to win the Rumble to challenge Undertaker at WrestleMania, but I can see WWE going different routes to get to the same match. I would love to see Mysterio get the upset win, but that will only happen if this match takes place after the Royal Rumble match itself (if it happens first, Undertaker has to win to keep the possibility of Michaels winning the Rumble alive. If Taker loses, then Michaels wouldn't have the motivation to win. I can see Michaels winning, and Mysterio upsetting Taker, leading to Michaels trading his WrestleMania match away to keep trying to get his rematch against the Dead Man. I predict that if Undertaker vs. Mysterio is the last match of the card, Mysterio is winning, but if not, then Undertaker is winning).

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Hardy & Khali vs. The Hart Dynasty: This was a very good episode of Smackdown. My only complaint was this match. I hate the team of Matt Hardy and The Great Khali. I hate everything that Khali is involved in. Hardy hasn't had much to do the last few months, but before Jeff Hardy showed up on Impact a few weeks ago, at least he had a feud with Punk going where he could defend his brother and plug his dvd. Now he is teaming with Khali for absolutely no reason. The match was short and pretty pointless. I don't care where they are going with Natalya flirting with Khali (the announcers made it seem like it was unclear if she was actually flirting with him or trying to distract him). I'm fine with filler on a very good show, but this filler was bad in addition to being filler.

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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