By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Daniel Bryan's Promo: Smackdown got off to a good start with the promo from Daniel Bryan. He is playing his part well right now and the fans have fully turned against him. It doesn't seem likely that WWE was ever going to push him as a top babyface, but maybe they will as a heel. Time will tell, but the fans are really hoping to see him get what is coming to him when he loses the World Title and a big part of that is how well he is portraying his character. I like how he is cocky and acts like a bully. Despite his size, he actually threatens someone like The Big Show. The opening served as hype for the main event World Title match between Bryan and Mark Henry and continued to make the fans want to see Bryan put in his place.

Gabriel vs. Rhodes: I wish this match would have gone longer. It didn't even reach 4 minutes. At that length, it is too short to really build up someone like Justin Gabriel for hanging with the Intercontinental Champion Cody Rhodes. However, it is too long for it to be a squash match for Rhodes. It felt like Rhodes should have had an easier time putting away Gabriel and if he wasn't going to, if you want to make Gabriel look strong, then make the match go 7 minutes and he looks even stronger. That being said, I am still giving it a marginal Hit for the effort of Rhodes and Gabriel as this was a good match while it lasted. Part of why I wanted it to be longer was that I liked what I saw and wanted to see more.

Barrett vs. Sheamus: This is a mini-feud that likely wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the injury to Randy Orton. With Orton set to come back next week (to feud with Barrett) and with the Royal Rumble and then the Elimination Chamber right around the corner, we will likely see more of these two against each other, but not really in terms of a feud. For now, this was a nice tease of what these two could do against each other in a more meaningful match down the line. Sheamus and Wade Barrett had a good tables match against each other. There was some good wrestling action, mixed in with the tables stipulation. They did some clever spots with the tables, like when Sheamus knocked Barrett off the ring apron, but it was too hard as Barrett flew over the table that was set up at ring side. I wasn't a fan of the ending, but a cheap ending was to be expected to keep both guys strong.

Bryan vs. Henry: This was far from a great match, more of a gimmick than an actual match, but it was well done for what it was. It was a way to set up another week of Bryan somehow escaping with his World Title, thus making the fans want to see him lose even more. The wrestling here was ok. But, the storyline of Bryan purposefully getting the lumberjacks to get involved in the match was good. I was not a fan of how last week's World Title match ended, but this one actually made sense. I like the fact that the referee didn't just call the match right away when the lumberjacks got into the ring. Some order was restored for a brief amount of time, before all hell broke loose again. I can accept a non-finish in this case as the referee had lost all control of the match and there was no way to have it continue.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Sin City Smackdown: I am not a fan of the Raw Roulette concept and changing shows and calling it something different is not going to change that. It is ridiculous that Teddy Long would put the stipulation of the World Title match in the hands of a random spin of the wheel. What if Pillow Fight had come up? Why is it that a tag team stipulation only gets picked when it is a tag team match? Why doesn't Tornado match ever come up for a singles match? Chances are it would at some point. What if two American wrestlers had gotten a Flag match? Did they have a flag of every nation represented by the roster just in case? On a side note, have Hunico & Camacho done anything to justify anti-Mexican feelings from the crowd? Have they made negative comments about the USA? Chanting "U-S-A" at a foreign wrestler just for being foreign bothers me a lot, and having a Flag match like this just to have Ted DiBiase waiving America's flag over a Mexican wrestler seems like WWE's way of telling the fans that it is ok to be xenophobic. Back to the Sin City gimmick, the choices are so often just too convenient for my taste. WWE is inserting gimmicks where they don't belong.

Dance Contest: To all those Phunkasaurus Brodus Clay fans out there, let me just say that yes, he is getting over with the fans. They are popping for him when he comes to the ring dancing and doing his gimmick. But, how is he even going to be taken seriously as a wrestler when he is in dance contests like this? This was terrible. It wasn't funny. It was a waste of time that had nothing to do with getting someone over, or advancing a storyline. William Regal's appearance was ridiculously random. Clay's character is that he likes to dance. It is totally one dimensional and there is nowhere for him to go. He got to talk a bit here, but that didn't do anything for him. He even got booed for attacking Regal in the end which was not likely the expected reaction.

Jinder Mahal: I keep begging WWE to put an end to the feud between Mahal and Sheamus. I felt for sure it was over after Sheamus' dominating victory over Mahal on last week's Smackdown. Instead, Mahal cost Sheamus his match against Barrett by distracting him at the end. So, the feud continues. Mahal has looked like a total loser in this feud. It hasn't done anything for him. He has not gotten a rub by working with a former WWE Champion since he has looked so weak every time they wrestle. Even here, when Mahal causes Sheamus to get put through a table, Mahal looks like a chump in the end as Sheamus made a miraculous John Cena style recovery to put Mahal through a table a moment later.

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

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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