By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Kane's Opening Promo: My Smackdown Hits & Misses from last week started the same way as this week, because Smackdown started the same way, with another strong promo from Kane. This time, he revealed that he has found out the identity of The Undertaker's assailant to be Rey Mysterio. In addition to what Kane claims Undertaker said as he momentarily came back to consciousness, his reasons for why Mysterio would attack Undertaker made some sense. Also, I liked the fact that Kane said what we were all thinking, that Mysterio could not have acted alone if he is truly guilty. Kane gave a good performance on the mic. Like last week, I could have done without the overly produced moments like when we saw images of Undertaker and heard his voice saying "Rey Mysterio." But, it was still an effective moment and it continued to build a personal issue between Kane and Mysterio (at least in Kane's mind) heading into their World Title match at SummerSlam.

Christian vs. McIntyre: Drew McIntyre has definitely shown improvement in the ring the last few months. This was not as good as his match against Kofi Kingston on a recent Smackdown (the best singles match in McIntyre's young WWE career as far as I'm concerned), but it was still quite good. McIntyre did a good job of focusing on Christian's shoulder, and Christian did a very nice job of selling that injury. The spot during the commercial with McIntyre doing a shoulder breaker onto the steps was brutal. One moment that stood out was when McIntyre came off the second rope and was kicked in the face by Christian. That is a spot that so many wrestlers (Triple H comes to mind) just lazily jump off the ropes where they look like they aren't even attempting a move. They are just setting up the reversal by their opponent, without making it look like they actually have a specific offensive attack in mind. However, McIntyre came off looking like he was going to attempt a big foot stomp to Christian's head. This is just a little thing, but McIntyre looked better than many other wrestlers in the same spot. The rest of the match was good as it built nicely to Christian pulling off the victory despite the arm injury.

Kingston Snaps: Last week I gave Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler a Miss. It was too slow at times and I wasn't thrilled with the cheesy interference from Vickie Guerrero. This week, the match was better and I wasn't bothered by Guerrero's interference as it was a slap in the face that made Kingston snap as opposed to how weakly she grabbed his leg last week. So, the match was better, but what made it particularly memorable was how Kingston snapped after being slapped. He gave a good performance as he showed a ton of intensity and anger. This was a nice step in this feud over the Intercontinental Championship.

Swagger "vs" Mysterio: I put the vs in quotation marks as it wasn't really a match, but a fight. It was very well done. Jack Swagger backed up his claims from earlier in the show when he promised to take Mysterio out of the arena, throw him down some stairs and ultimately throw him into the water. Now, he didn't come through on all of his promises, but he did come close. The fight was very physical and memorable. There were a few cheesy spots (I could have done without the car having to stop to let them by as they fought towards the water), but over all it was an effective way to end the show. I liked that Mysterio came out of it looking stronger than Swagger. He continued to sell the ankle injury, but it looked like it has healed some which was good. Kane's attack from behind was predictable. I had a bit of a problem with it as Kane had given this impassioned promo threatening to do incredible damage to Mysterio (maybe even killing him?), and then he simply threw him in some shallow water. It worked with Swagger as Swagger is a goofier character. It made sense that he would want to do that to Mysterio. But, it seemed beneath Kane after the earlier threats. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either. It did bring down the ending just a tad. On a slightly different topic, if Swagger is going to get a match at SummerSlam (which he deserves), WWE needs to set up something for him and get him away from the Kane vs. Mysterio situation soon.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

None: There were some moments on Smackdown that weren't good. But, nothing was really bad enough to get a Miss. This was top to bottom a good show.

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.

[Kane phot credit Mike Lano (c) PWTorch.com]

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