By Jon Mezzera, PWTorch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Backstage Interviews: I liked the backstage interviews that Renee Young had with the four wrestlers who would be part of the contract signing at the end of the show. They were short and to the point which meant that they got to say what needed to be said without overstaying their welcome since they would also be featured in the contract signing itself. They were all good. I liked Dean Ambrose's promise to create chaos. Roman Reigns came across as confident. I liked what he had to say about his three opponents and how he said it. He has been improving on the mic for sure. Randy Orton also promised to take out one of his opponents before Payback. And Seth Rollins was good in talking up himself and his accomplishments while continuing his tension with Kane.

Erick Rowan: It was obvious when he came out after Luke Harper's victory over Fandango that he was going to beat up Fandango, not Harper. But, I'm ok with that. Rowan has never worked for me as a babyface. He isn't good enough to be a top singles star. And while I do think that Harper has a chance to be a top singles star, it is crowded with Rollins, Reigns, Ambrose, Orton, John Cena, Rusev, Bad News Barrett, Sheamus, Dolph Ziggler and a hopefully soon healthy Daniel Bryan all in that upper and upper-mid card level. Plus Bray Wyatt and Ryback too. So, while I am a fan of Harper, I'm not sure who I would push him ahead of in that group (some of them for sure, but enough to put him near the main event? Probably not.) Last year at this time, one of the best things going in WWE was the feud between The Wyatt Family and The Usos. There is definitely chemistry between Rowan and Harper as a team. This was the first step in what might be sort of a try out for Rowan to impress his former teammate and I look forward to that journey.

Rusev: Rusev has shown that he doesn't need Lana to talk for him. He is doing good work on the mic himself. I liked his promo where he claimed that John Cena's wins over him have been flukes. He also channeled Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese with his mercy is for the week speech. He also called Cena out to meet face to face on Raw which gives the fans at least something to look forward to at a time when WWE is so poor at hyping their shows on their own shows.

New Day vs. Kidd, Cesaro & Ryback: I wasn't sure who would team up with Tyson Kidd & Cesaro to take on all three members of The New Day. Ryback was a decent choice. It got another popular wrestler into the match and allowed for New Day to get the win after distraction from Ryback's new antagonist Bray Wyatt. The match itself went over 12 minutes and was fun to watch. I am really enjoying this feud between New Day and Kidd & Cesaro. Kidd & Cesaro are emerging as a strong top babyface tag team. They are over with the fans. Kidd has an exciting style which lends itself to being a babyface. Cesaro despite being Swiss has shown in the past an ability to connect with the fans and get a positive reaction (like he was getting before last year's WrestleMania when he was a babyface in winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal before turning heel again the next night). New Day is a fun heel trio. And there was plenty of good wrestling action with these six involved.

Contract Signing: I still wish WWE would be consistent with when they have contract signings and when they don't. And don't tell me that all matches have contracts, they just don't show them all. That isn't the case. There was no contract signing for the impromptu tag match from earlier in the show. At least recent contract signings have been pretty entertaining. This one was fun. I like how Rollins refused to get into the ring and tried to get Kane to sign the contract as his proxy. Even when he came to sign it, he had J&J Security go to get it and bring it to him to sign. This is simple classic heel behavior. I particularly liked how he started turning Reigns, Ambrose and Orton against each other by bringing up things that they had said about each other to him in the past during the days of The Shield. This fits in well with his character. I also like how Ambrose started setting up the table since we all know where this was going anyway. The physicality at the end worked well and allowed Rollins to stand tall as opposed to the end of Raw.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

Barrett & Sheamus vs. Ziggler & Neville: This Miss is for the first three segments of Smackdown. This wasn't terrible. There was some good here. But, I am not liking what WWE is doing right how with King Barrett, Sheamus, Ziggler and Neville. As I said in my Raw Hits & Misses, I don't like going with the All Hail King Booker gimmick for King Barrett (although at least his English accent is real). It just doesn't seem to add anything to his gimmick that was strong enough to begin with. The way he talked down to Jerry Lawler in the opening seemed like a retread to me. And how many times are we going to see these four wrestlers against each other in various singles and tag matches? Here we got a very short version of Barrett vs. Ziggler that broke down with Sheamus' involvement and then the save from Neville only to have it turn into a tag match after the break. I guess Teddy Long was on hand to help book Smackdown. After taking the loss on Raw, I would have liked to see Neville getting more offense and actually getting the pin here, so that was disappointing. Also, Neville was late in breaking up that pin when Barrett had his feet on the ropes. And of course since the heels went over on Raw, the babyfaces went over on Smackdown and we are back to where we were last week with neither team having any kind of momentum.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw and Smackdown each week. Email him at his NEW email address - jmezz_torch@yahoo.com.

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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