By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

ECW HITS

Benjamin vs. Archer: This is going to be the week of marginal Hits for ECW. While only one thing stood out as a Miss this week (more later), and while there were some moments that were just ok (like The Abraham Washington Show), there were three matches that were all good, but not that good. So, they are all marginal Hits starting with Shelton Benjamin vs. Vance Archer. Benjamin looked particularly good in this match with his aggressive style early on and some of his high flying spots. Archer looked solid in the ring. He just isn't anything special. What took the match down a peg was the botched ending. Clearly, Archer was supposed to get the win by countering Benjamin's roll up and grabbing the ropes for leverage. They blew that spot and had to go with a different type of leverage pin right away. It was awkward, but it was still a good match until that point.

Tatsu vs. Barreta: I enjoyed this match while it lasted, but it only lasted 4 minutes. That short of a time for a match involving members of feuding tag teams was too short which is why this is just a marginal Hit. They've been going back and forth with the feud of Barreta & Croft vs. Tatsu & Goldust for awhile now. Therefore, it would have been nice to see this match go longer. Plus, I was enjoying it. It was quite good while it lasted. Yoshi Tatsu and Trent Barreta were putting on a good show with some fast paced action and some really nice spots. They did a good job.

Christian vs. Ryder: This was similar to the previous match in that it was fun while it lasted, but too short. We've seen Zack Ryder and Christian wrestle before and we know that Ryder gave Christian a lot of trouble in some good matches. Clearly even before the DQ finish, Christian was about to pin Ryder in only 5 minutes. I would have liked to see this match go longer. If you want to build up Ryder, then have him take it to Christian for longer. Give him more momentum by having him do better in the ring against the ECW Champion. I do want to emphasize that this was a Hit worthy match. It was good. Ryder and Christian work very well together in the ring and I would love to see more of a feud between them in the future, but in a longer match. I would have actually been ok with the time if the DQ didn't come right after the Killswitch as you could make a case that Ryder wasn't about to be pinned any way.

ECW MISSES

McMahon's Announcement: We all knew this was coming, and I have no problem in general with putting an end to ECW and moving on to something new. However, this seemed anticlimactic. I would have liked there to be a reason why ECW will no longer be on the air next month. Vince McMahon's statement was rather direct, but it didn't have much weight behind it. The announcers talked about it very briefly right afterwards, but then mostly ignored it for the rest of the show. They immediately cut to Gregory Helms in the ring to interview Ezekiel Jackson and William Regal. Shouldn't they have been wondering if they are losing their jobs? At the end, Josh Mathews made one of those typical WWE announcer statements about the intensity level in ECW never being higher without regard to the fact that ECW won't even exist in a few weeks. Obviously more details will come out during that time, but the announcement should have made a bigger impact right away.

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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