By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

SMACKDOWN HITS

Edge vs. Del Rio: This was a good opening match. It did start out a bit slow and reminded me of some of Alberto Del Rio's early WWE matches which were not particularly good. But, the quality picked up and the match built nicely at the end. There was plenty of good back and forth action as the match moved towards what looked to be Edge hitting a Spear for the win. The Nexus angle was a nice surprise. I'm not thrilled with non-endings, especially when done too often (which seems to be the case lately), but this one worked to help keep Del Rio from taking a loss. It also set up the main event. I was confused by why Kane would be involved. It seemed out of character for him to really care about Smackdown, but I was assuming some sort of swerve was in the works, so I didn't mind it too much at first.

10 Man Tag Main Event: As I said, I was expecting some type of swerve in this match. After all, Nexus did help Kane defeat and bury alive The Undertaker at the PPV. I was disappointed that Kane was just there to defend Smackdown or whatever. It didn't fit in with his character at all. However, there was just enough good in this main event tag to give it a marginal Hit. The wrestling action itself was good. The five members of Nexus are all young and relatively inexperienced, but they looked good in the ring here. The announcers did a nice job of setting up the possible reactions that Wade Barrett would have to the rest of the group depending on the outcome of the match. I was glad to see Del Rio get out of the match when he did as that did fit in with his character. It was good to see Edge, as the #1 contender for the World Championship getting the win here and one upping Kane to keep building his momentum towards Survivor Series. It was also nice to see Kofi Kingston in a main event on Smackdown. Plus, the loss leaves me wanting to see Barrett's reaction on Raw.

SMACKDOWN MISSES

MVP vs. Rhodes vs. McIntyre: I will start by saying that there was some good wrestling action in this match. The three in the ring all worked hard. But, I just never got into the match. For one thing, didn't WWE just have a triple threat #1 contenders match for the World Title last week on Smackdown? And here were are, one week later, and they're having another triple threat #1 contenders match for the Intercontinental Championship. Come on. Do something different. Also, while this has nothing to do with the quality of the match, I hate Montel Vontavious Porter's new entrance music (hadn't had a chance to complain about it yet). It just sounds generic and unrecognizable. Back to the match itself, I feel as a general rule (with plenty of exceptions), triple threats work best with two babyfaces and one heel. This one didn't work as well since there were times when the two heels were working against each other, and the fans seemed to be just sitting on their hands waiting for MVP to get back in the ring. There were some good moments. It told a story as Drew McIntyre and Cody Rhodes tried to work together, before continuing to feud after their tag team break up last week. But, breaking up a heel team, neither of whom is being positioned as a possible face, doesn't work well.

Kaitlyn vs. Guerrero: Vickie Guerrero just should not be wrestling ever under any circumstances. I think we can all agree on that. This was an ugly "match" and I don't really need to spend much time on it considering the announcers themselves spent the entire time making fun of it.

Overall Show: Despite having an equal number of individual Hits & Misses this week, the show as a whole just left me a little cold. The first match was good, but started slow and had a non-finish. I had issues with the main event, despite giving it a Hit. There wasn't anything else that really stood out as Miss-worthy this week, but when you look at the rest of the show, nothing was good. Everything was ok at best. There were some short squashes which didn't do anything for me. They don't really seem to be building towards a PPV at this point. Even MVP is getting his IC Title opportunity next week, not at the PPV (although he'll probably win via countout or something to set up a rematch). Kane was out of character. The whole theme of the show was to get us interested in a Raw storyline with Barrett's reaction to Nexus' invading Smackdown. So, the focus wasn't even on this brand.

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

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

Keep reading! Below are links to the six most recent Hits & Misses articles. Have you grayed out each of them yet?... (or click here to return to front page main listing).

11/8 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Nexus/Otunga/Cena, Divas Cup, Tea Time With Santino, 10-Man Tag Main Event

11/5 WWE Smackdown Hits & Misses: Edge vs. Del Rio, MVP vs. McIntyre vs. Rhodes, 10 Man Tag Main Event

11/1 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Pee-Wee Herman - Miz - Riley, Bryan vs. DiBiase, Stephanie McMahon's Dream

10/25 WWE Raw Hits & Misses: Barrett - Cena - Orton Development, Bryan vs. Ziggler, Cena vs. Orton

HITS & MISSES - WWE BRAGGING RIGHTS PPV 10/24: Bryan-Ziggler starts hot, Orton-Barrett closes cold, Raw vs. SD, Match finishes, Survivor Series look-ahead

HITS & MISSES - ROH TV on HDNet 10/18: Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards, entire show dedicated to one match, Briscoes vs. ROH tag champs hype

TEN STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS

WWE News: The Undertaker has surgery, in danger of missing WrestleMania 27 (w/Analysis of WWE's potential WM27 options)

TNA News: Mr. Anderson interview - concussion was like something he had "never experienced," thought it was a broken neck, says wrestlers should not wrestle full-time schedule (w/AUDIO)

WWE News: Smackdown & Superstars SPOILERS - Links to our reports for this week's WWE TV shows

WWE News: Raw ratings are in for Monday night's show - did Raw maintain last week's ratings bump?

WWE News: Non-spoiler list of Smackdown matches for this Friday - Kane vs. Show, IC Title match, lumberjack match

WWE News: Smackdown SPOILERS 11/12 - Complete real-time coverage of Smackdown taping featuring Kane vs. Big Show, Nexus, more

WWE News: Updated line-up for Survivor Series with tweaks to Orton's WWE Title defense and Unified Divas Title match

CALDWELL'S WWE RAW RESULTS 11/8: Complete "virtual time" coverage of U.K. Raw - Ten-man tag main event, Cena vs. Otunga

WWE News: Smackdown ratings are in for Friday's show - did Smackdown rebound after hitting a low mark last week?

TNA News: Turning Point results - Jeff Hardy's first TNA Title defense, one title change, one "firing," one career ended, one match for Impact, Knockouts brawl