By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

NXT HITS

Season (Hopefully) Shorter Than Expected: The only positive that I'm taking out of this show is that with three rookies being eliminated this week, the competition looks likely to be shorter than previously expected. If that means putting us out of our misery sooner than later, then I am all for it. If NXT comes back for a second season, WWE needs to do some major retooling to fix the problems.

NXT MISSES

Entire Show: I debated even having a Hits & Misses for this week's show as there really wasn't anything positive about it. Even the Hit above was really a Miss if you think about it. I shouldn't be hoping the show comes to an end. There is so much wrong with the show, it is hard to come up with a list of Misses for this particular episode. For one thing, Michael Tarver was clearly set up as the first rookie to be eliminated, yet he has more personality than most of the other rookies. He isn't very good in the ring, but I agree with what he said in his post-elimination interview that you can't help but notice him. Also, he was eliminated for saying he should be the first to be eliminated. But, did anyone else listen to what he said last week? He didn't say he should go home because he is the weakest rookie, or that he didn't deserve to be there. He said he should go home to protect the other rookies from him. That is actually a strong statement that if he is still around, the others will be in danger. "WWE management" seemed to ignore that. If he was scripted to say that last week, then the writers are terrible. If the rookies aren't being scripted, then why are they being expected to cut unscripted promos and interviews which WWE Superstars never have to do.

As for Daniel Bryan, why have him win his first match on Raw (which I speculated was just to give him credibility to not be the first eliminated on NXT), only to turn around and eliminate him the next day? Again, was he scripted the previous week to say that he should be the first eliminated? I can't really complain about him not being on the show, as I am tired of watching him lose. He hasn't been given a chance to show what he can do on NXT, and he probably wouldn't even if he were sticking around. So, he might as well be eliminated. I can't really get excited about his interview later when he renamed himself Brian Danielson as I'm not convinced that was scripted. He might have just been saying that to stick it to WWE for changing his name in the first place. Maybe a reboot with this real name is coming. I might be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I'm not convinced WWE has any clue what they are doing and I'm not convinced that any of these rookie interviews are scripted or that they have anything positive in mind for Danielson.

The matches were short, but ok while they lasted. There have been worse NXT matches, but they weren't good. I don't understand having Skip Sheffield win his match, only to have him be the one eliminated at the end of the show. Of the remaining six wrestlers during the show, Darren Young has been the second most impressive (with the best over all record) after Wade Barrett, yet he was fifth in the rankings. That made no sense. Speaking of Barrett, didn't he win a competition several weeks ago to get his own theme music? Yet, this week he is still using Chris Jericho's. That calls into question the entire point of the competitions that we have had to sit through the last several weeks. The competitions don't really matter, and if Sheffield can win and still be eliminated, then the matches don't seem to matter much either. So what does?

When it comes to the voting, they used to tout the four criteria the pros would use to evaluate the rookies. Then during the first week of eliminations, they never mentioned that criteria. They have still never explained how the pros poll works. They used to make a big deal about how a pro can't vote for or against his rookie, but they haven't mentioned that lately and they never really explained what that means. If WWE doesn't care enough to make the rules clear and to give the rookies a better chance to succeed and to make the matches and competitions seem consequential (not to mention entertaining to watch), then why should I care about this 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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