By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

NXT HITS

Riley vs. Kaval: This was one of the best matches in NXT history. It is a testament to the talent of both Alex Riley and Kaval that they could put on such a good match that the fans bought into in their first televised WWE match. I think the audience was in part responding to the good work Miz has done even though he was absent. They are already linking Miz and Riley and transferring some of Miz's heat onto his rookie. Riley also delivered well in the ring. Many of us have seen plenty of Kaval in the ring (under different names) to know that he has a ton of talent. That was on display here and the fans picked up on it. They worked well together and put on a good match. Riley is being presented as the anti-Daniel Bryan. He gets along with Miz, he has the "it" factor, and he has won a match. Unfortunately, Bryan is no longer around to play into the juxtaposition that WWE clearly wanted to have. I hope that WWE doesn't present Kaval as Bryan v.2 in losing every match despite having a good showing. Been there, done that. I also have to add that LayCool was very good doing guest commentary and I want to see where WWE is going with them and Kaval.

Post-Match Evaluations: This is a marginal Hit. I thought this was an interesting addition to NXT when they debuted it last week. There is a lot of potential for having the pros give their instant feed back upon seeing a match. Now, the results were mixed which is why I am only giving this a marginal Hit. Michelle McCool was ok in putting over Kaval despite his loss. John Morrison was not good in his evaluation of Riley looking confident and Kaval having good kicks (was that scripted? If so, the writers should be fired. If not, Morrison needs to work on his improv skills). I loved Zack Ryder's comment when he refused to talk about any rookie other than his own, and asked for the phone number of the new ring announce girl. That was hilarious.

Cody Rhodes: So far, Rhodes is the best thing about NXT Season 2. I loved his mic work last week, and again this week. His post-match evaluation was the best of the night as he took Lucky Cannon to task for not being more upset about losing. I loved how he put over winning matches better than anyone ever did in Season 1. There was talk on an episode of the Torch Livecast last week about what The Miz needs to do to really be elevated to main event status. Well, one thing he could do to be taken more seriously is instead of talking about wrestlers needing to be entertaining (like he did on last week's NXT) and about how he himself is entertaining, he could talk about beating someone up and winning a match like Rhodes did this week. This also effectively set up a hook for next week's show with Rhodes vs. Cannon.

NXT MISSES

Opening Segment: While I enjoyed the second episode of Season 2 better than the first, it did not get off to a very good start. One of the reasons I didn't like last week's episode was the show ending beat down of the rookies at the hands of their pros. I am just not a fan of hazing and seeing the pros (who I think we were supposed to side with seeing as how the NXT Season 1 Rebels are heels and this was a reaction against what they did) beat up the rookies like that didn't make me want to side with them. The fans in attendance this week seemed to be of a similar mood considering they booed when Montel Vontavious Porter asked the rookies to move on from what happened last week. They wanted to see the rookies stand up for themselves, as did I. Everything Wade Barrett said on Raw in justifying their actions was right. They were treated like crap. They were forced to compete in ridiculous contests. They were eliminated (at least two of them) when WWE management changed the rules. The problem here is that WWE is blind to what wrestling fans want to see on this show. It was the heels like Barrett and Michael Tarver who refused to participate in the stupid challenges. But, I liked those heels since they represented my p.o.v. of the show. I wanted to see the rookies stand up for themselves this week after what happened last week, but was disappointed that they took it like the little boys that they are.

The Announcers: I found Michael Cole and Josh Mathews to be particularly annoying this week. Why did Cole laugh when Lucky Cannon was introduced? I like that Mathews asked the same question, but Cole doesn't know what he's doing. As much as I liked LayCool's involvement, they did unfortunately allow for more of the over-the-top bickering from Cole and Mathews. One of the worst parts of having a guest commentator is that one of the regular announcers (in this case Mathews as the babyface to LayCool's heel) has to be confrontational. At the very beginning of the match, as LayCool were talking up Kaval, Alex Riley hit literally one single move, a shoulder block, on Kaval and Mathews asked LayCool about their rookie being "dominated" by Riley. It was a shoulder block! I could go on, but I will be content with these two examples, one from each announcer, as to the poor announcing that would continue throughout the show.

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