By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Opening Segment: This was a good, but not great start to a very good episode of Smackdown. Both Chris Jericho and Edge delivered well on the mic. It sounded like the English fans were a bit mixed with some cheers for Jericho and some boos for Edge. Part of this is just the fact that Jericho is so great, he has fans who will cheer him and hold up "Parasite" and "Hypocrite" signs. Another part is that WWE hasn't done a great job of giving the fans a reason to cheer for Edge other than just the fact that he returned early from an injury and the fans were missing him in general so they popped big time for his Royal Rumble return. This opening didn't do much to further Edge as a babyface, but continued the nice work they have done in building up the Spear as a move fans want to see. Ultimately, the opening segment did a nice job of announcing and building anticipation for the main event World Title match.

James vs. McCool: Wow. WWE put on a one-on-one Divas match, gave them more than 3 minutes (although not much more) and it ended up as a Hit. What a surprise! It is amazing what can happen when you put two of the more talented in ring workers among the Divas in a singles match and give it a little time. You get a good match between Mickie James and Michelle McCool. I would have liked to see the match go longer, but it was good while it lasted. And, it served its purpose of continuing to build LayCool as a cohesive team that keeps McCool the Women's Champion, while also continuing the build towards an eventual match for the Title between McCool and Beth Phoenix.

SES & Young vs. Hart Dynasty & Mysterio: There was a good amount of high quality wrestling action on Smackdown this week. This was a very good six man tag that went 13 minutes. It was random to have The Hart Dynasty in the mix teaming with Rey Mysterio against The Straight Edge Society and Darren Young. However, having them picked by Mysterio as his partners was a good endorsement for them. I just wish the announcers had mentioned the great Superstars match from a few weeks back between Mysterio and Tyson Kidd as source for the respect Mysterio has gained for the young team. That being said, the match itself was very entertaining. It had good wrestling action throughout. Mysterio, Kidd, David Hart Smith, CM Punk, Luke Gallows and even NXT rookie Darren Young were given some time to show what they can do in the ring. It was well booked and well balanced to keep things interesting as neither side had control for too long. The ending with the 6-1-9 around the ring post leading to the running power slam from Smith on Punk for the win was a really nice sequence.

The Miz: I often just mention wrestlers doing guest commentary in the context of a Hit for the match as adding to the over all quality of the match itself. In this case though, I have to give The Miz an individual Hit for his commentary during the above mentioned six man tag. The Miz is awesome. He is one of the top performers on the mic in WWE right now. He understands how to get the fans to hate him very well. But, he does it in a way that is quite entertaining (as opposed for instance to a heel who just gets cheap local heat). He stayed on topic of Bret Hart being forced to declare ShoMiz the greatest tag team of all time, while also commenting on the wrestlers involved in the match. He added to the enjoyment of what was already a very enjoyable match.

Swagger vs. Jericho vs. Edge: The good Smackdown ended with a good main event. The triple threat match between Jack Swagger, Chris Jericho and Edge worked on a number of levels. On one, it was an entertaining match. On another, it continued to build Swagger as the World Champion in the fact that he not only held his own with two huge stars, but was able to get the win in the end. On another, it continued the feud between Jericho and Edge, especially what happened after the match with Jericho's attack on Edge's previously injured ankle. On another, after getting the somewhat cheap win, Swagger was able to look very strong as he went out of the ring to pull Edge back in and give him his gut-wrench powerbomb finisher as a message to Randy Orton. It was a good match that accomplished multiple goals.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

The Sleeper: I have complained about Dolph Ziggler's use of the sleeper as a finisher before and I haven't gotten any feed back on it. I haven't seen much else written about it, so I don't know if I'm in the minority here or not. But, I just don't like it. As I have said before, it reminds me of wrestling from 20 years ago, and in this case (not all cases) that is a bad thing. I know from MMA that the sleeper (or a rear naked choke, or whatever you want to call it) is a legit move that can win a match. The problem is that it is boring to watch and WWE has spent many many years establishing it as a mid-match rest hold. So, I'm just not buying it at this point. The fans can be retrained to think of a sleeper as a finisher and WWE is attempting to do that, but I am resisting. I saw a rerun recently of "Sports Science" in which an MMA fighter (blanking on the name) was put to the test against a python to see who could squeeze a neck harder. The fighter won, and he put the host of the show out in 4 seconds with a sleeper just like Ziggler's. So, for those who argue that the sleeper makes wrestling more "realistic" as a legit MMA finisher, I would say that in MMA, a properly applied sleeper would put an opponent out almost immediately, so WWE's treatment of the move is still not realistic. I would also say that if we wrestling fans want to see WWE matches really resemble MMA fights, then Mysterio has to be fired as I've never any of his moves in any MMA fight.

That was my only big complaint on an otherwise good show. The angle with Drew McIntyre, Matt Hardy and Kane was solid (although the lame DQ finish may have kept it from the Hit column). There were some nice short backstage scenes like the one with Teddy Long and Jack Swagger, or the one with Chris Jericho and Wade Barrett. The continuation of the feud between the former Cryme Tyme partners was also solid.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, NXT, 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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