By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

This was one of those shows that was really just in the middle for most of it. There were very few moments on the show that stood out as being good enough to get a Hit, or bad enough to get a Miss. The opening segment with the Fatal 4 Way competitors was okay. It was solid and had some strong mic work, but wasn't quite good enough to get a Hit. I wasn't thrilled with Layla vs. Tiffany, but until WWE addresses the lack of depth on the Divas side of things on the Smackdown roster, this is what we are going to get. LayCool is at least fun. I didn't need to sit through the NXT angle again, but I understand it given how important the angle (presumably) will be on Raw going forward. That did take up a ton of time on this week's show. Another long segment was the scene between Drew McIntyre, Teddy Long and Kofi Kingston. Like the first segment, this one was solid and had some good mic work, but it failed to really get me excited to see Kingston vs. McIntyre again. It was just ok. The same can be said for Big Show vs. CM Punk in the main event. It was just okay. But, there were a few things to lift up and one to complain about.

SMACKDOWN HITS

Swagger vs. Mysterio: I had a few problems with this match. For one thing, the first ever meeting between these two should have been a bigger deal than this. It was not hyped in advance at all and could have been a big PPV match. My other problem is that the match was only 15 minutes long, yet it had two commercial breaks. I'm always thrilled to see 15 minute matches for free, but why have two commercials (I could understand it if it went another 4-5 minutes)? Part of the disappointment over that is due to the fact that I enjoyed what I saw. We got to see about 9 minutes of the match and it was very good. I would love to see more of it in the future. Jack Swagger and Rey Mysterio worked very well together. The match really built nicely to Mysterio getting the win over the World Champion.

Christian vs. Ziggler: This was another good match, but much shorter at only about 8 minutes. This was the continuation of the Christian vs. Dolph Ziggler / Vickie Guerrero feud and it was nice to see the feud progress without the involvement of Hornswoggle. This was a good match. I particularly want to talk about the ending, as Christian won with his signature spring board sunset flip. This is one of those moves that is designed to make the crowd expect a three count without ever delivering. The problem with those types of moves is that the crowd quickly becomes desensitized to the possibility of a pinfall, as they are educated by WWE that pinfalls never happen on anything but a finisher or a quick roll up. That is why it is so important to have wrestlers win matches like this from time to time. Now, every time Christian attempts this move, the nearfall will mean more since the fans will actual believe Christian might win. Hopefully the announcers will play into it in future matches, "this is how Christian beat Ziggler a few weeks ago!"

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Kane Dominates: I have no problem with Kane getting a push. I have no problem with turning the real life injury of the Undertaker into an angle for a mystery to set up Kane as his brother's avenger. The problem is that WWE is asking us to pay to see a PPV mostly based on two Fatal 4-Way matches, one from Raw and one from Smackdown featuring Swagger, Big Show, Mysterio and CM Punk. They have been positioned as the top four stars on Smackown right now and we should see them as the World Champion and his top three challengers. We should believe that these are the best Smackdown has and want to see them wrestle to see which one really is the best. But, how can we really buy into them being the best when Kane is being booked to dominate all four of them? Only Kane looked like Championship material coming out of this show, and he isn't in a match (at least not yet) on the PPV.

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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