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SMACKDOWN HITS

McMahon and Long: This is a Marginal Hit as I wasn't thrilled with everything involving Vince McMahon and Teddy Long, but the good did outweigh the bad. I liked the mere fact that McMahon made a rare appearance on Smackdown. I don't want to see McMahon on any show too often (and I really hope he appoints a non-McMahon GM for Raw soon). But, having him on Smackdown every once in awhile is good to show that the brand is important. However, it has been very good lately and I don't want to see him on every week dominating the show. I didn't like the opening very much. It was ok, but not particularly good. What was better were the scenes in the back throughout the show as the two sort of inspected the troops, paying visits to Rey Mysterio, CM Punk, and Jeff Hardy. The whole probation thing is kind of strange, but this played into the fact that McMahon is clearly back as a heel. The idea of Long having to prove himself has some potential.

Truth vs. Benjamin: This was a good match and it was nice to see an under card match like this given 11 minutes. R-Truth and Shelton Benjamin had a bit of a feud awhile back, but I don't recall enjoying their matches this much. They worked hard and out on a good match. I liked the promo from Benjamin before hand, just giving some context to the match and making it a bit personal. It doesn't take much to make the fans want to see a babyface like Truth take out a heel like Benjamin, and his pre-match promo did the trick. On a side note, while I don't love it, I like the flying / flipping forearm from Truth as a finisher more than the ax-kick. Has anyone since Tito Santana used a flying forearm for a finisher?

McCool & Fox vs. Melina & Kim: This was a nice women's tag match. WWE has done a good job of building the Michelle McCool vs. Melina feud for the Women's Title. They have been going heavy on making Melina look vulnerable. The match was 5 minutes which is 2 minutes more than they were giving the Divas a few weeks ago, so that is an improvement (although more needs to be done). It was interesting that it was Gail Kim, not the Champion who got the hot tag. Hopefully, WWE will notice how good she was in her brief time in the match. She is a clear stand out. She is very talented and showed off those talents with some high flying and innovative offense. I am really hoping that they put a focus on her soon.

Morrison vs. Punk: Add CM Punk to the list of top Smackdown wrestlers who have had good recent matches with John Morrison. This was just a great match. They worked so well together. Everything clicked. There were so many counters and cool sequences. They played around with some of their typical spots and were able to do them in different and fresh ways. I loved the sequence when Punk tried to sunset flip Morrison out of the ring, only to have Morrison counter with a kick, only to have Punk recover and trip Morrison off the apron. That was just one example of some of the top quality work. There were some very convincing near falls at the end. The finishing sequence was superb with the roll ups one after another until Morrison got the surprise win. I also loved Punk's GTS on Morrison after the match and his great shocked and disappointed reaction to what he had just done.

Rage in the Cage: I have never been a big fan of tag team Steel Cage matches. I don't like the stipulation where one teammate can escape the cage to win. It is no disqualification, so there should have been more cheating. I guess you have to have tags to keep the legal man, but why not just come in the ring and help your partner more often? You can't get disqualified. I would have rather had this be all four in the ring at one time. That being said, under the rules, the wrestlers performed well. This was a 20 minute tag match that was formulaic, but they used the cage well. Mysterio is amazing. Some of the things he did, like catching onto the cage wall and climbing like Spider Man (possible WrestleMania 26 outfit?) were phenomenal. I like how they didn't do much climbing and tried to go for more pins. The climbing to escape could have become tedious, but it didn't. Punk did a good job of calling the match right now the middle. The ending sequence with Hardy getting mad at Punk for a slow count and then letting himself get distracted was well done. But, I will reiterate what I have said in a previous column, that Hardy can't whine too much. It made him look bad to complain about a slow count in this match.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Word Up: There was a time when I said that WWE needed to put The Dirt Sheet on ECW every week instead of just having it on wwe.com. I don't feel the same way about Word Up. I like Cryme Tyme well enough and in general these types of segments can be good for getting wresters mic time and allowing them to show off their character. However, I think are all familiar with Cryme Tyme by this point. There were a few amusing moments during the segment, but not many. It gives underutilized wrestlers like Jesse a chance to get on tv every now and again, but I'm not sure this appearance will do anything for him. I don't particularly want to see this turn into a weekly segment on Smackdown. But if it does, and the rest of the show is as good as it was this week, then I won't mind at all.

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

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

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