By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Jericho - Edge: Smackdown got off to a good start this week with Chris Jericho coming to the ring to complain about losing the Royal Rumble match. As usual, Jericho gave a good promo. It was nice to hear him talk about his plan to headline WrestleMania being in place since last year's show. That helps underscore the importance of this one night. His march through the back looking for Teddy Long's office was humorous. His brief verbal exchange with Edge worked well to set up their eventual match and to preview the Cutting Edge for later in the show.

Punk's Celebration: After the strange "match" between Batista and CM Punk, I loved Punk's celebration over his count out win. It was so over the top and fit in perfectly with his character. I am taking a "wait and see" approach to the whole Batista ordeal. I don't like the fact that Batista has spent the last several months talking about how the World Title means everything to him. His obsession with becoming Champion cost him his friendship with Rey Mysterio. He was obsessed with facing Undertaker at The Royal Rumble, and when that didn't work, he became obsessed with winning the Rumble. Now that that didn't work, you'd think he'd be obsessed with winning The Elimination Chamber. Instead, he decided not to even try to qualify. None of that makes any sense. However, I liked how he and Punk performed in this situation. I liked how it seemed that Batista was going to take Luke Gallows out before the match could start, only to have him turn around instead. I'm hoping for some type of explanation as to why he would act this way. I almost made this a Miss, but am giving WWE a short leash to explain things before I judge (which is rare for me).

Cutting Edge: It is good to have Edge back on Smackdown. The show was definitely the best wrestling show in 2009, but it would have been much better if Edge had been around for the entire year. He gave a very good performance during the final segment of Smackdown. I loved his comments after showing what he did to Sheamus on Raw. Then came Jericho interrupting to advance their angle from the start of the show. I wasn't expecting Punk to interrupt next, but it worked well. I'm glad that they stopped with him as I couldn't really see any of the other three babyfaces coming out at that moment (R-Truth rapping to the ring for instance wouldn't have been good at that particular time). It was predictable that Undertaker would appear in the ring to break up the party, but that too worked well. I really liked the ending after Undertaker chokeslammed Punk, how Edge teased the spear, only to signal that he wants the Title. It was a good ending to a decent show.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

"Last Opportunity to Headline WrestleMania": I got really tired of hearing the WWE announcers between Raw and Smackdown talk about the Elimination Chamber matches being the last opportunity for everyone in the company other than Edge to headline WrestleMania. I understand the marketing ploy; to build up the importance of the Chamber matches to sell the Chamber PPV. That makes sense. However, the statement is blatantly false. After the PPV, there will be two Champions (for the two headline matches) and one challenger, Edge. Someone has to face that other Champion and that has yet to be determined. So, there will be one last chance to headline WrestleMania after the event that is being billed as the last chance.

Word Up: I was wondering if WWE would find a way to get Jerry "the King" Lawler onto this show considering that it was from Memphis. They did and it was pretty lame. I really didn't miss the Word Up segments from Cryme Tyme. There was a time last year when they were a weekly feature, but this was the first in a long time. I could have done without it. It wasn't funny. It wasn't entertaining. It was a poor excuse to have Lawler on for no real reason. It just seemed tacked on.

The Wrestling Quality: The wrestling on Smackdown wasn't very good this week. None of the matches were individually poor enough to get a Miss, but they certainly weren't Hit worthy either. Most were solid (like Kane vs. McIntyre vs. Morrison, or Jericho vs. Hardy, or Mysterio vs. Ziggler). Some were too short ot amount to anything (Knox vs. Truth), and some were nonexistent (Punk vs Batista). And some were meant to be more of storyline advancement than an actual enjoyable match (Phoenix & James vs. LayCool). But, none of them were good, which is a shame. I think I just expected more out of some of the potential matches. Mysterio vs. Ziggler should have been better than that. It was fine, I just wanted it to be better.

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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