By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

NXT HITS

Rookie 6 Man Tag: This rematch was better than the match the remaining rookies had on Raw the night before. It wasn't great, but it was a better showcase in 11 minutes of what some of them can do in the ring than we've seen in most of their previous matches. Of course, with all six in one match, it is hard for too many of them to stand out, but it was still pretty good. I also liked that Kaval got to stand out and got the win. If he is going to stay at or near the top of the rankings, he has to have a win at least every once in a while to make it believable. The crowd definitely seems to be getting behind him. I liked this match better than any from last week.

Miz vs. Morrison: I could complain that this match took focus away from the NXT rookies as I have in the past. However, when I complained about it in the past, it was because the entire show had zero focus on the rookies. This week's show mostly focused on the rookies, with a rookie challenge to start things off, the rookie tag match mentioned above, and an elimination after the rookies were given a brief time to talk. With that type of focus, I don't mind WWE switching things up a bit with a match like this to help sell the upcoming PPV with The Miz and John Morrison arguing over whether or not Team WWE needs Miz at SummerSlam. Plus, it was a good match. I seem to remember being disappointed in some of their previous matches, but not this one. I enjoyed it from start to finish. It had good back and forth action, never dragged, and built well to the ending with a possible injury to Morrison's leg. The announcers did a nice job of arguing (it got a little overbearing, but not as bad as I thought it would be) about Miz being the seventh member of the team. They also did a nice job of pointing out the danger to Team WWE if Morrison's injury is serious.

Rankings: WWE has done a better job in Season 2 with the rankings than Season 1. Last season, Wade Barrett was #2, then became #1 after Daniel Bryan was eliminated by WWE management (not the pros). After that, he stayed at #1 the entire time, and the rest of the field didn't shift places much at all. This season, Kaval and Michael McGillicutty have traded off a few times between #1 and #2. Husky Harris has moved up the poll. Percy Watson moved down, then up. Alex Riley moved up, then down. Too much movement wouldn't make much sense, and it wasn't totally believable that Riley would fall as low as he did this week, but I guess we are supposed to assume (based on Matt Striker's question about fans not connecting with Riley) that he moved down so much based on the fans' 50% of the voting. A better job could be done, but WWE is doing a good job with this aspect of the show. Kaval moved up since he got a win. McGillicutty moved down as he took the loss. Husky Harris has been winning, including getting the win in the tag match on Raw, so he moved up. Lucky Cannon hasn't made an impact, so he moved down. Cannon was the right choice to go home at this point. It will be interesting to see who goes home next week with two eliminations. On a bit of a side note, the Miz did a great job of selling relief when Riley wasn't eliminated.

NXT MISSES

None: Amazingly enough, I have no Misses for NXT this week. I can't really believe it myself, especially after there were no Hits last week. This was a much better show. There were two good matches, a good focus on the rookies, the right wrestler was eliminated, and there wasn't anything to complain about. I don't like the challenges, but the Power of the Punch challenge was so much better than last week's Kiss Contest (or some of the other contests especially the Talk the Talk Challenge) that I didn't mind it so much. A wrestler will likely have to punch an opponent at some point, so it had more to do with wrestling than most of the other challenges (they won't likely have to kiss an opponent I'm hoping). It was a good episode.

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.

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

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