-- WWE Smackdown Reax 5/18

Steve in Pompano Beach, Fla. (4.5): Best: Sheamus vs. Orton. Worst: commentary. This week's Smackdown largely felt like filler and, much like Raw, did next to nothing in the way of convincing people to order Over the Limit. Granted, it wasn't plagued with Laurinaitis being in practically every scene, but the show drag at times... Truth/Kofi vs. Titus/Young ended just as it was getting good. Damien Sandow...um...yeah, I don't care. An extensive vocabulary and ring gear inspired by Rick Martel's "The Model" phase doesn't strike me as being able to maintain fan interest. With Rhodes vs. Santino, there could've been a million OTHER good reasons to base their match on. Instead, a Twitter war. Ugh. C.M. Punk and Daniel Bryan looked all right in their respective matches, but considering their PPV match has gotten next to no hype, I'm not expecting a classic when they square off Sunday. Sheamus and Orton's match was actually pretty decent - they went longer than five minutes! - but where were Jericho and Del Rio? They couldn't plan ahead to show one or both men watching the match (even dubbed in) to make it seem like they were hoping Orton would soften up Sheamus? No sense, man. I'll be skipping Over The Limit.

-- TNA Impact Wrestling Reax 5/17

Richard H. of Wilmington, Ohio: Thursday's Impact actually had an impact. There were five solid matches, even with a Wild Card Battle Royal holding its own. All of the matches actually meant something (including a shot at being in a World Title match next week) and Joe and Angle showed why they should be main-eventing more often. There was even a teaser for an Austin Aries-A.J. Styles teaser, if TNA is smart-enough to book it. All four men who won qualifying matches are capable of giving Roode something to work with next week and sell the show on the basis of a World Title match. Although WWE apparently feels that advertising a World Title match a week ahead of time is not necessary, Impact is doing it right - so far. The worst part of the show was the backstage stuff, but it wasn't bad enough to detract that much from the show. All in all, a very entertaining show.

Joe Ward of Raleigh, N.C. (8.0): Best: Joe vs. Angle. Worst: Anderson vs. Hardy (only because I'm tired of Anderson). I watched both Raw and Impact this week, and Impact was far more entertaining to me. For the most part, Thursday's show was a wrestling show, with heavy emphasis on everyone wanting a shot at the Heavyweight Champ. Simple, but effective. No convoluted power-struggles or evil authority figures, just a focused attempt on knocking off the champ. I'll even forgive the Daniels/Kaz-A.J. storyline because it's not being over-done and actually took an interesting turn Thursday night... Bully Ray continues to excel and has title run written all over him, Bobby Roode gets better as the Champ every week, and, most importantly, TNA appears to have figured out how to use Hogan. By minimizing his on-screen time, it makes him more effective and lets the real stars do their thing. Also, the quality of matches is improving with the few extra minutes the stars are getting. The other thing I like is it seems like TNA is finding the proper balance between former WWE stars and "homegrown" TNA talent. For the first time, they seem like "equals."

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