The Bell to Bell News Report 05.17.09

Posted by Randy Harrison on 05.17.2009

Raw drools, Smackdown rules, Impact and ECW fall somewhere in between and Ric Flair wants to make a comeback. It's been a slow seven days for news, but that doesn't mean any skimping when it comes to the Bell to Bell. Check out these stories and a lot more inside...




It's been a rather slow week for news this week in the fake fisticuffs department, but the stories that have broken have been rather big, from Ric Flair's potential return to the ring someday to the sentencing of Chris Benoit's former doctor in his prescription drug case. The shows weren't much to write home about this week, with the execption of Smackdown, but they all had their moments that will be covered here as well. I apologize if this week's column seems like it's been thrown together or is lacking my usual sass and snap, but there have been some emergency medical problems this week involving someone close to me that have taken up a great deal of my thoughts and my energy. With that in mind, the hockey talk will return next week and for now, we'll just ring the bell to get this one underway.



Sunday


The Stories

-- The only news that really made any waves on Sunday was TNA signing Amazing Red to a new deal that will keep him with the company for the forseeable future. He made his return recently and has only had two televised matches within the company, but those matches along with what he has been able to accomplish in his other tenures in TNA were enough to get the chance to sign his name on the dotted line. I'm happy for Red because he's an exciting wrestler and a link to the X-Division's past and for someone who thought that he would never wrestle again after all of the injury problems he's had it's encouraging to see him doing as well as he is. Now all we have to do is cross our fingers to make sure he doesn't get hurt doing one of his amazingly difficult moves so that he can last out the duration of his contract and all will be good. Knock on wood, folks.



Monday


The Show



Monday Night Raw Results:

Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes vs. Batista - Winner: Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes (disqualification, steel chair use by Batista)
Maryse and Jillian Hall vs. Mickie James and Kelly Kelly - Winners: Mickie James and Kelly Kelly (pinfall, Mickie's jumping DDT on Maryse)
Carlito vs. THE Brian Kendrick - Winner: THE Brian Kendrick (pinfall, roll-up)
Exhibition Match: John Cena vs. The Miz - Winner: None (No Contest, Big Show-ference)
Beth Phoenix vs. Santina Marella - Winner: Santina Marella (pinfall, small package)
MVP and Kofi Kingston vs. Matt Hardy and William Regal - Winners: MVP and Kofi Kingston (pinfall, MVP's Playmaker on Regal)
Randy Orton vs. Batista - Winner: Randy Orton (disqualification, Batista chairshot on Orton)

So I've struggled since about 11:30pm EST on Monday night trying to find a positive from this show. I've gone forwards and backwards, under and over, sideways. I honestly haven't been able to find much, but I was able to settle on the ongoing situation between John Cena and The Miz, where Miz is looking like a million dollars despite not having much going on before the mini-feud began. This show saw Miz and Cena in an "exhibition match" that started out much like the entire feud has, with Miz cutting Cena to shreds on the microphone. While some of the insults are starting to become a bit recycled, he's still doing a great job of running with what he's been given. It sucked for him that they had the match booked to where he was only even with Cena because of the injuries from Backlash, but it still helped make Miz look at least a little bit better than he did before. Contrary to what I was expecting, Big Show (who was at ringside the whole time), didn't get involved at all and The Miz came out on top by hitting a DDT after Vickie Guerrero distracted Cena by appearing on the Tron. Miz proclaimed himself 3-0 and in doing so continues one of the few good things going on Raw right now as we get to see this continue for another week. I'm still sure that it will end badly for Miz in terms of getting the upperhand on Cena as many times as he has, but I'm enjoying things for now and it's going to hopefully help Miz in the long run.

The other bright spot for me on the show was the bout with MVP and Kofi Kingston taking on Matt Hardy and William Regal as the feud between MVP and Regal continues on the slow simmer. The match was made out of William Regal's appearance on MVP's VIP Lounge which was solid in and of itself as Regal made the case for still being ahead of MVP on Raw's totem pole based on his unjust removal from Raw's GM position as well as his King of the Ring victory last year. Matt Hardy came out and made his case, touching on the previous feud on Smackdown with MVP that he came out on top in. Kofi Kingston got involved, playing off of his interactions with Matt Hardy as of late and all four of the pieces were in place for a tag team match. This was a good couple of segments for me as it set up not only the feud between Regal and MVP for the US Title, but also positioned Hardy and Kingston to be in the mix for the championship as well, which would give the red brand about three more viable challengers for its secondary title than it's had in quite some time. While I'm a little disappointed about MVP's move to the top of the card being stalled for a bit, he's still in the mix with some of the bigger names on Raw so it's not so bad. In fact, a long run with the US Title against three or four serious challengers like this could end up being very good for MVP in terms of upping his credibility as a main event level threat.

As for the rest of the show.....well....uh...they managed to fill the entire two-hour timeslot with no dead air. That's a bonus...right? The main angle for the show outside of what I've already touched on is the whole Batista/Randy Orton feud heading into their main event title match at Backlash. The show started with one of the most confusing show-opening promos since the show began. As far as I could follow, Vickie Guerrero put a "no contact" clause in the contract for the bout between Batista and Orton, ensuring both men would make it to Judgment Day at 100%. From there, Orton offered Batista a spot in Legacy, Batista respectfully declined in his own inimitably marble-mouthed way and Orton threatened that if there wasn't a no contact rule he'd own Batista right then and there. That led to Vickie Guerrero waiving the night's no contact rule and making a match between Batista and Rhodes and DiBiase with the stip that if Batista won, Batista got Orton one-on-one at the end of the show and if he lost, it'd be Batista against all three Legacy members. Wha' happen? This was honestly one of the least interesting ways to open the show and served as little more than a way to fill up twenty minutes of the show as the stipulation mentioned in the opening of the segment was rendered pointless by the end of it. Great job in booking a logical storyline there folks. Not only was it lazy booking to essentially continue with the same things they've done the past few weeks with the handicap matches and all of that, but it just muddied the waters even further than they have been sicne the end of WrestleMania. They were ham-handed in the way they pushed Batista's return, did little to make things better since and have essentially undid all of the good that Orton had put together in the months before his bout with Triple H. For the "A" brand, they've sure done a great job of damaging nearly every major star on the roster.

Moving on to the matches themselves, the handicap match was predictable with Batista getting DQ'd for losing his temper, but rather than having the three-on-one nonsense to end the show, things got even more ridiculous as Batista went on a little horror movie hunt through the backstage area, taking out Rhodes and DiBiase to leave it to a one-on-one match despite Batista losing earlier in the show. Wait, it gets even better. From there, Batista and Orton (who are booked to headline a major PPV in six days), closed the show with a stinker of a minute that saw Batista get DQ'd again for trying to break Orton's ankle with three vicious chair shots. Apparently they weren't as vicious as we were led to believe however, as Orton was able to get back to his feet on a "shattered" ankle to try to continue the fight with "The Animal". Not only did Orton get a case of amnesia and forget his injuries, but it must have been something in the air of the Legacy locker room because Rhodes and DiBiase, who were too hurt to wrestle, came down to try to make the save. The show ended with Batista standing tall in the ring after sending Legacy packing yet again, which not only foreshadows an Orton win on Sunday, but also defied all logic as it made EVERYONE involved in the angle look terrible. Orton looks like a feeb for not being able to handle someone, even with a three-on-one advantage, as well as for forgetting everything involved with selling. DiBiase and Rhodes look like idiots for the same no-selling, as well as not being able to handle Batista to begin with. Batista looks like a goof for getting himself disqualified twice in one night and allowing himself to be taken away from his goal of becoming WWE Champion by trying to avenge someone. I'm not sure who he's trying to avenge, whether it's Triple H or Shane McMahon, but he's doing a piss-poor job of it, the same way that the bookers are doing a piss-poor job of making me excited for Sunday night.


The Stories


We may be seeing him back sooner than we thought...

-- From the "Injury News We Reported Last Week" Dept., it appears that Hernandez's recovery time will not be as long as first thought. Jeremy Borash posted an update on SuperMex's condition on his Twitter page on Monday, stating that he had successful surgery on April 30th and that the recovery time was expected to be three months, rather than the six-to-nine months that had been originally thought. While this is good that Hernandez will be back sooner than originally thought and will be healthy quicker, I'm hoping that this is not one of those Kurt Angle situations where he comes back sooner than he should because of some kind of risky, experimental surgery that works for a few months before he ends up injured again and needing to have a much more invasive procedure. Either way, everyone here at 411 wishes Hernandez a speedy recovery and a successful return to the ring. With Homicide only having three months before his tag partner is back, I'd expect to see him treading water until then as three months isn't much time for them to give him a solid singles run before LAX is reformed. Then again, this is TNA so he could have four X-Division title reigns and "high-profile" feuds with 90% of the division before then if the Ritalin-laced booking of TNA gets the chance to do its thing.


If I could be serious for a moment....welcome back...

-- Monday also saw Ring of Honor make more news heading into their weekend run of shows in Toronto on July 24th and 25th. Last week, appearances by Ric Flair and Bret Hart were on the docket and this week, the promotion was able to confirm that Lance Storm will not only be appearing on both shows but he will be wrestling on both shows against opponents who are yet to be determined. This is great news for the fans in Toronto as they'll get to see one of the best technical wrestlers in the world strutting his stuff for the first time in over three years. Storm has been keeping himself active with his training school as well as occasional appearances on indy cards in the UK and Canada and if his 2006 bout with Bryan Danielson is any indication, it should be two great nights and two great matches for Storm as he makes his return to Ring of Honor. Last time Storm appeared for the company was in 2008 where he got into an altercation with Sweet and Sour Incorporated and superkicked Shane Hagadorn. With Larry Sweeney gone from the company and Sweet and Sour Inc. in shambles, I'd be surprised if they tried to play off of that previous encounter. I'm thinking that it's more likely that they'll just put him into a couple of singles matches which will be great as stand-alone matches, but mean little in terms of any storyline advances.



Tuesday


The Show



ECW on Sci-Fi Results:

Mark Henry vs. Tommy Dreamer - Winner: Mark Henry (pinfall, World's Strongest Slam)
Finlay vs. Tyson Kidd - Winner: Finlay (disqualification, DH Smith-ference)
Vladimir Kozlov vs. Chad Collyer - Winner: Vladimir Kozlov (pinfall, Iron Curtain)

Now, this show, while not heavy on the wrestling, did set up a lot of good things for ECW in the future including the continuation of the angle between Jack Swagger and Christian as well as the debut of the new Hart Trilogy faction with the introduction of DH Smith to the brand. The night began with a bout between Mark Henry and Tommy Dreamer that didn't really mean much of anything as Dreamer was apparently hurt on the house show circuit over the weekend and the match was kept relatively short. Dreamer came out on the losing end of this one and if they're going to have Dreamer run the angle to get his shot at the title before he retires, they're going to have some HARD work to do in the next couple of weeks to make that happen as he's seeming about as far from the title picture as he was when he made that announcement, despite the past few weeks where he's been involved peripherally in the title picture. For Henry, this might be step one on his way back to the ECW Title as he has been treading water since losing the belt.

The two big stories of the night though came later in the show as I mentioned as right after the bout between Dreamer and Henry, came a match between Tyson Kidd and Finlay to continue their mini-feud of the past few weeks. The match was alright and Kidd still looks like he's got the potential to be something big. It felt almost like they took a little off of this one as it was not quite as good as their match from a couple of weeks back, but I can kind of understand why they did that as they wanted the debut of David Hart Smith to be front and center. Smith got involved in the finish, nearly kicking Finlay's head off before he and Kidd beat Finlay down with his own shillelagh. They followed that up with a great-looking Hart Attack and when Natalya joined them in the ring, Striker christened them the Hart Trilogy. To me, this is exactly what both of these guys needed. They were great as the Stampede Bulldogs and to allow them to continue to build that chemistry while gaining experience in the ring is going to be help them grow by leaps and bounds. Kidd has a bit of a head start in ECW after the past couple of months, but if people can forget about his previous stops and starts, Smith shouldn't be far behind. Also, with them being on ECW, they have the advantage of having Matt Striker putting over the history of their legacy week after week, which will only help them seem like a bigger deal than they actually are.

The night ended with the ECW debut of the Peep Show as Christian had former ECW Champion Jack Swagger as his special guest. As has been the case the past few weeks, Christian continued to get one-up on the All American American, completely shutting down all of Swagger's complaints while showing video packages that had Swagger coming out looking the fool. The segment ended with Christian laying in a microphone shot to Swagger's face and Swagger bailing to the floor with Christian holding his ECW belt high. While I think that they're treading a bit of a fine line with Christian always being ahead, this was an entertaining segment and has me thinking that their rematch at Judgment Day should be pretty good with some added intensity. As I just said though, they have to be careful to not have Swagger look like too much of an idiot in this one because if he gets embarassed one too many times, they'll undo everything that they've put into him and possibly sidetrack his path to the superstardom that seems to be inevitable for him.


The Stories

-- Tuesday's biggest news was the sentencing of Dr. Phil Astin, the doctor who became famous as the physician for wrestlers such as Chris Benoit and Johnny Grunge, both of whom died and both of whom likely died in relation to the excessive amounts of drugs provided by Astin. Astin was facing a sentence of 20 years after pleading guilty to 175 counts of illegally distributing prescription drugs and conspiring to distribute prescription drugs. He'll also have three years of a supervised release and 250 hours of community service to perform once he's finished with his prison sentence. When I first read this story, I thought to myself "You know, it's not enough, but I feel ok with the fact that he's going to have to pay for what he's done and for how many lives he's ruined with his malpractice.", and I felt ok with that. Then I saw the Associated Press' report of the story where Astin was quoted as saying the following;

"I take full responsibility. I am sorry I hurt so many lives. I was thinking that I was looking after my patients."

Wow. If he had just said the first part, I would still feel like the sentence, while a little light for my taste, was just. However, when he adds on the flippant bit at the end about how he "thought he was looking after his patients", he shows just how callous he is and how disingenous the previous statement about taking responsibility was. How someone can think that providing dangerous levels of powerful drugs through fraudulent prescriptions is "taking care of their patients" is beyond belief. Astin is clearly not sorry for what happened, he's merely sorry that he got caught up in such a firestorm after the Benoit incident. After saying something like that, which can only be thought of as a slap in the face to all of the families he has hurt with his incompetence, prison is too good for him and I hope that those ten years are the hardest years of his life because he deserves to spend every single day there.


Hope he didn't already spend that DVD royalties check...

-- Moving on to some lighter news, apparently taking up twenty minutes of the biggest wrestling pay-per-view of the year while performing in near-silence is not the best way to ensure your inclusion on said pay-per-view's DVD release. After completely killing the audience at WrestleMania XXV earlier this year (which I totally called and thought was a bad idea from the beginning), Kid Rock's entire mini-concert has been cut from both the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the event. I'm not sure what this means for the Miss WrestleMania battle royal as it featured Rock on the entrance ramp during all twenty-five ladies' entrances, but I'm guessing they'll just start it in the ring and pretend that Rock never existed, which is something that I have done with great success for the past ten years (outside of his appearance on CSI:NY a while back which I ended up catching because I'm a fan of the show.). Of course, if they wanted to do a REAL favor to the fans they'd just cut that whole segment out entirely and pretend that the battle royal didn't exist either.



Wednesday


The Stories

-- We've already touched on one wrestling-related drug court case this week and Wednesday saw another as Scott Siegel, the man who portrayed the steroid dealer in the movie "The Wrestler", indicted on drug charges as well as charges of assaulting police officers. The charges stem from a February incident that had him leading police on a car chase before being caught and arrested, but not before Siegel hit a police car and attempted to hit a police officer with his SUV. Over $100,000 in cash and over 1,500 bottles of anabolic steroids were found in Siegel's two homes and he faces five years for the steroid charges and up to twenty years for each of the assault charges. With steroids being the problem that they are in all walks of life including professional wrestling, I'd expect to see Siegel get the book thrown at him. That's not even factoring in the charges of assault, which are never looked upon very kindly. Bottom line, steroids are bad, dealing drugs is a stupid way to try to make a living and unfortunately, this will probably not deter Siegel from doing it again in the future, no matter what the end result is.



Thursday


The Shows



WWE Superstars Results:

Rey Mysterio vs. Shelton Benjamin - Winner: Rey Mysterio (pinfall, springboard top rope splash)
Mark Henry vs. Christian - Winner: Christian (pinfally, cross-bodyblock)
The Big Show vs. Hornswoggle - Winner: The Big Show (disqualification, Goldust-ference)

Uh....and I thought things were weird enough after what had happened on Raw earlier this week. As with most weeks, Superstars provided one of the best matches of the week as Rey Mysterio and Shelton Benjamin tore the house down to open the show, but I'll get to that match in a little bit. Right now I want to touch on the incredibly bizarre main event that saw The Big Show taking on Hornswoggle in another "Exhibition match". Now there's been stuff between these two before so it's not that much of an issue and it was actually kind of fun to watch Show toying with him before trying to finish the match with his big KO punch. Here's where things get wild as Goldust (WTF??) ran in to save Horny and he ate a chokeslam for his troubles. As Superstars recapper Rob McNew mentioned, this could end up leading to a situation where Hornswoggle joins up with Goldust to replace the relationship he had with Finlay, which would be fine with me as it would mean that the likelihood of seeing either of them again lessens by grouping them together. Goes to show how far the wrestling business has come because if you had told me five years ago that The Big Show would main event a Superstars program against an Irish midget before a Goldust run-in ended the match, I'd ask for a hit off the pipe you were smoking from. Wait, did I say how far things have come or how far things have fallen?

Getting as far away from the insanity as possible, Rey Mysterio and Shelton Benjamin had themselves a great little bout to open the show. Even with the commercial, they still had about ten minutes of in-ring action (thirteen minutes or so total) and they did everything they could to steal the show before it even began. With Rey and Shelton in the ring, you knew it was going to be good and it was,it's not like it was anything earth-shattering or even something that will be remembered in a couple of weeks, but it was a very solid match. The only problem I had with the match itself was not with anything in the ring, but with John Morrison doing the color commentary with Todd Grisham and JR. Much like what happened with John Cena when he was turned face and lost everything that had given him his edge and made him popular, it looks like they're heading down the same road with Morrison. He came out and did the usual babyface handshakes and things like that, which is something that he would have NEVER done while he was a heel and was getting big responses from people. I know that the WWE is trying to go back in time to the PG days of the 80's, but that type of babyface hero is long dead and gone and there is no way to bring them back. The reason that guys like Steve Austin and The Rock got over as huge as they did was because they were being themselves rather than being shoehorned into a mold. Cena and Morrison are both guys that got over based on being heels and having heel personas that the fans eventually got behind. The WWE has already taken that edge away from Cena and I'm begging them not to do the same to Morrison.

The other match on the show featured Mark Henry and Christian going one-on-one in a non-title bout that saw Henry carry most of the momentum for the bout before Christian managed to pick up the win. This wasn't a very good match as it was mainly Henry's power offense which can get bland after a few moments and in my opinion this should have been what started the show off as it suffered even further by having to follow Mysterio and Benjamin. They didn't get as much time as the opening bout did, but that's to be expected, especially with Henry's usual lack of stamina. To me, this was just about making sure that people knew that Henry was still around and that he was still capable of pushing the ECW Champion to the limit. Like I said before, he has been treading water since he lost the title and has had nothing really important to do since then, so if he's going to be up on the top of the card, he's going to need some credibility. Things like this are part of the reason why ECW suffers by not having a secondary title, but I still think that there is no way that they would be able to support one with the lack of talent and the relatively small size of the brand. Nothing great, but perfectly acceptable and still light years ahead of Big Show/Hornswoggle.




TNA Impact Results:

Chris Sabin vs. Daniels - Winner: Daniels (pinfall, Best Moonsault Ever)
Eric Young vs. Samoa Joe - Winner: Samoa Joe (submission, Kokina Clutch)
Stretcher Match: Cute Kip vs. Awesome Kong - Winner: Awesome Kong
Team 3D Invitational Tag Team Tournament Semifinal: The British Invasion vs. Amazing Red and Suicide - Winners: The British Invasion (pinfall, Williams top rope kneedrop on Suicide)
Handicap Match: Team No Limit vs. Kevin Nash - Winner: Kevin Nash (pinfall, Jacknife Powerbomb)
I Quit Match: Jethro Holiday vs. Booker T - Winner: Booker T (submission)

After a tremendous Impact last week which featured a great mix of matches and interview segments, I was excited to see what I thought was going to be an extension of that show and another step forward for TNA. Instead, this week's show was completely dominated by the Jeff Jarrett/Mick Foley saga that began with Foley promising a shocking DVD before the end of the night and ended with Foley providing that DVD footage at the end of the show. From the beginning of the show, Foley spoke about this being a different kind of Impact show as this would be the first Impact that would not feature any involvement from TNA founder Jarrett. From there, we got Foley's ominous promise and some segments showing Jeff Jarrett at home in the Nashville-area with his family and some friends in the area. The segments were alright, but ultimately kind of boring and served as little more than filler for the show and a set-up for what was going to come later in the night. When the footage was aired, it was Mick Foley himself that did the shocking, beating Jarrett down as Jarrett visited the old Nashville Fairgrounds arena where he began his career and began TNA. Foley hammered Jarrett's already torn hamstring with a chair and screamed at him about Jarrett's father, whom Foley worked for in the past. Apparently, Foley still holds a grudge over the payoffs from Memphis twenty years ago and he decided to take it out on Jerry's son. The ending segment was alright, but it really seems like the rest of it was kind of meandering and pointless and the time that was spent on these segments could likely have been spent better on the matches for the show. With six matches, it didn't feel like there was one of them that had lasted for more than five minutes and it would have been better if some of those had a bit more time to develop in the ring.

With only a week left until Sacrifice, you would think that they would be trying to push the matches for the show and for matches that would be on the card, but instead of that they had Kevin Nash squash Team No Limit, Samoa Joe squash Eric Young and Booker T squash Jethro Holiday in an I Quit match. The lack of forward thinking for Sacrifice was never more prevalent than in the main event scene as we got a sit-down interview with Sting talking about his sacrifice with his career possibly being on the line and little else. The Foley/Jarrett stuff served little purpose to the match that's already made and will more than likely be a reason for Jarrett to inject himself into the match next week. Again, during all of these segments that took up nearly all of the show, no one mentioned the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and it was strictly a personal issue between Jarrett and Foley. As for the other confirmed participant in the match, Kurt Angle, he wasn't even at Impact this week as he was off filming scenes for his upcoming movie. In and of itself, that wouldn't be a problem, but this was two weeks before a major PPV main event and a show that saw no movement at all in the angle that the company is attempting to sell that PPV on. It wasn't all bad for TNA as there were a few bright spots, but in my eyes, this was a show that stalled a lot of the positive momentum that they had built from the previous week.

Speaking of bright spots, I have to say that The British Invasion is slowly starting to grow on me as a heel faction. I actually like that it's not going to be the same type of xenophobic heat that Team Canada got a few years ago in TNA, but ratther that they're a heel faction who just all happen to be British. I mean that could change, but right now it seems like it's not the typical "We hate America" deal that seems to bog down most foreign heel factions. While that may come down the road, for now Williams, Magnus and Terry are working well as a unit and have moved all the way to the finals of the Team 3D Ego-Jerk Tournament that will end with them defending their titles against the winners at Sacrifice. As I said during the Impact report, I feel like I would be happy with seeing the Brits taking on Team 3D because I would like to see Beer Money get their own shot without the tournament attached and for that feud to simmer for a little while to give it even more of a build rather than just having them win the title shot on Thursday with a match on Sunday. In terms of the match, the Brits did a solid job of working as heels against the smaller team and using the help they were given by the Motor City Machine Guns to jump on their opportunity.

The Guns were also part of the other good moments of the show as Chris Sabin took on Daniels during the first match of the show and while the match wasn't fantastic, it kept the simmer on the ongoing saga between the rest of the X-Division and Suicide/Daniels. Daniels picked up the win, but again it was more about the fact that the Guns still felt like he was Suicide. Later in the show, when the Guns cost Suicide and Amazing Red their shot in the tag tournament finals, Lethal Consequences showed up and they decided that it was time to help the Guns unmask Suicide. They came perilously close, but before they could finish their work, Daniels appeared out of nowhere and made the save, seemingly proving once and for all that they were two separate people. Daniels chased them all away and told Suicide that he owed him one, meaning that it's likely that there is going to be an X-Division Championship match between them down the road. Not only was this a great segment that had a lot of intrigue and was full of TNA originals, it also had some great comic quality as Don West went from stunned silence as his "Daniels is Suicide" theory went up in smoke to questioning whether someone was impersonating Daniels. This segment wasn't enough to save the show, but it was definitely a bright spot as it helped make the rest of the show, which was a real disappointment, more bearable.


The Stories


These days are long gone, Ric. The sooner you realize that, the happier we'll all be...

-- There was only one real story on Thursday, and it was a doozy. In a nationally syndicated interview, Ric Flair spoke of his desire to return to the ring and his feeling that he is still better than 90% of the current WWE roster. Okay, here's the thing. I love Ric Flair to death, I really do. He's been one of my favorites for as long as I can remember and I'm someone who was genuinely sad to see him retire, not because I wanted to see him continue, but because he was one of the last links to the guys that helped me to become a fan of wrestling. All of that being said, there is absolutely nothing to be gained from him making a return to the ring on any sort of semi-permanent basis. He was beginning to look worse and worse in the ring as he neared the end of his career and I can't imagine that being out of the ring for more than a year would have done him any favors. He claims that he's been wrestling with his son Reid, but that is nowhere near competing on the highest level with some of the best athletes in the world. All a return to the ring would do is further tarnish his legacy, which suffered a fair bit during the past few years with his various brushes with the law and his diminishing abilities in the ring. Please Ric, I'm as selfish as the next person when it comes to wanting to see more of you, but I'm also a realist who knows that that time has come and gone. If you want to continue as the amabassador of ROH or a manager for someone or whatever, that would be much better than trying to do what you used to do twenty years ago and can't do now. To give it an analogy from another sport, Brett Favre left the Green Bay Packers and was beloved by nearly everyone at the time. Now, after coming back to the New York Jets, "retiring" again and flirting with a return with the Minnesota Vikings, people are beginning to turn on Favre as someone who doesn't know when to say when. Flair would be well-suited to learn that lesson and just say no to an in-ring return or he may find that the respect that he's worked for decades to acheive may start to slowly slip away.



Friday


The Show



Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison and CM Punk vs. The World's Greatest Tag Team - Winners: John Morrison and CM Punk (pinfall, Morrison's split-legged corkscrew moonsault on Haas)
Jeff Hardy vs. Ricky Ortiz - Winner: Jeff Hardy (pinfall, Swanton Bomb)
Michelle McCool and Alicia Fox vs. Gail Kim and Melina - Winners: Gail Kim and Melina (pinfall, Melina's high-impact sunset flip on Michelle)
Jimmy Wang Yang vs. Dolph Ziggler - Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, reverse STO)
R-Truth vs. Mike Knox - Winner: R-Truth (pinfall, spinning corkscrew elbow)
Chris Jericho vs. Edge - Winner: Edge (disqualification, Jericho's use of a chair)

For all that was wrong with Raw on Monday, Smackdown managed to soothe the pain with their show on Friday night. Three of the matches (the opening tag, the Hardy/Ortiz match and the main event) were all good to great and the rest of the matches were passable and much better than what puked out of the TV during Raw. For all of the problems that Raw seems to be having in having direction at the top of the card while trying to introduce new stars in the mid-card, Smackdown is seemingly having new guys step up every week with a huge performance. While it's by no means a science, I have noticed that when there is a group of stars putting on quality matches week after week, Smackdown is seemingly always the brand where they get their chance to shine. This week, outside of the usual players that have been making Smackdown the new must-see WWE program, Dolph Ziggler had a chance to shine in a bout against Jimmy Wang Yang. Yeah, my Word program thought I made a typo too. They didn't set the world on fire, but after months of being little more than a joke and maybe even having a head on the chopping block, Ziggler has grown by leaps and bounds on Friday nights, to where he could become a viable contributor to the company's success down the road. I don't think he could ever reach the heights of the top of the card, but he could grow into a Val Venis-style of worker who has solid matches and gets a few runs with the secondary belt while helping to provide a bit of stability to the midcard. I never thought I'd say it, but kudos to Ziggler for managing to turn things around.

Going back to that core of talent I spoke of earlier, the show got kicked off with what was likely the best WWE match of the week as CM Punk and John Morrison joined forces to take on a newly-reunited World's Greatest Tag Team. Three of these four have very accomplished tag team resumes, and Punk is someone that has shown the ability to adapt and work in any situation, which meant that this one was a quality match waiting to happen. What did happen was well beyond even what I was expecting as all four men put on a match that was worthy of a pay-per-view slot someday. They used highspots, mat wrestling and psychology in just the right mix to have the fans in the arena and the fans at home on the edge of their seats. The finish was frantic and fit perfectly after the slow build up to it and the split-legged corkscrew moonsault that Morrison hit to finish the match was a thing of beauty. It's unfortunate that this match will likely be forgotten with Punk still trying to cash in his Money in the Bank shot while Morrison and Benjamin seem to be factoring into the IC title hunt, but for the time that this match was on, all of that was forgotten and I was just a fan watching a great wrestling match.

The Chris Jericho show continued as well on Friday as he cut a great promo on Rey Mysterio, only to be interrupted by Edge, who is seeming more and more like a tweener every week. As they fought back and forth about which guy was more important to Smackdown, GM Teddy Long decided to make a match between them as the night's main event. Just when I thought things couldn't get any better after the opening tag match, I get this? There is a God and he feels my pain for suffering through Raw AND Impact this week. Jericho and Edge had a great match to close the show and like the opener, this one got a ton of time for both guys to shine. With both needing to stay strong for the PPV, you had to figure the finish would be screwy, but that only took a little bit away from the great job that both guys did leading up to it. In fact, the finish up until the nonsense with the chair was great as they traded big moves, submissions and did fantastic work to make people think that someone was actually going to win. After the match, Jeff Hardy showed up to take a pound of flesh out of Edge before their match on Sunday and as Hardy, Edge and Jericho were left laying, CM Punk came out of nowhere with a referee to attempt to claim his shot at the title.

That attempt was thwarted by Umaga, who again attacked Punk and kept him from cashing in his Money in the Bank. The entire closing segment of the show was something else as we had the end of a great Jericho/Edge match, the surprise of Jeff Hardy attacking Edge, the bigger surprise of Punk trying to cash in his shot and the EVEN BIGGER surprise of Umaga cutting Punk down again. By the end of the show, you were left feeling like anything could happen, something that I don't think I have ever felt in all of the time that Smackdown has been the taped show. Whether it's the excitement of the new talent being elevated or the fact that Raw has been terrible as of late, but Smackdown has managed to position itself as not only the "A" show in the WWE, but the show that will likely innovate the business and possibly even usher in the next rise in business.


The Stories

-- If it's Friday, that means that there will likely be an update on the ratings for TNA Impact. This week is no different, though there is the addition of the rating for WWE Superstars for the sole reason that it appears that Superstars is beginning to make gains on Impact. Impact drew a 1.2 rating this week, while Superstars drew a 0.9. With TNA finally beginning to make some inroads in the ratings in the past few months, this is a tough one as it appears that the competition on Thursday nights is beginning to slow their growth. However, there is a silver lining as it looks like the gains being made by Superstars are from fans who follow the WWE, not TNA and as such the TNA ratings have not suffered too much as of yet. This could end up changing if Superstars continues to be the solid, action-packed hour of wrestling that it has been since its debut and Impact continues to be consistently inconsistent in quality, but for now it looks as if both shows are peacefully co-existing on the same landscape.



Saturday

The Show



ROH on HDNet Results:

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Brent Albright - Winner: Claudio Castagnoli (pinfall, low blow)
Grizzly Redwood and Alex Payne vs. The Dark City Fight Club - Winners: The Dark City Fight Club (pinfall, Dark City Street Cutter on Payne)
Jay Briscoe vs. Sami Callahan - Winner: Jay Briscoe (pinfall, Jay Driller)
Kenny King and Rhett Titus vs. El Generico and Kevin Steen - Winners: Kevin Steen and El Generico (pinfall, Generico's brainbuster on King)


Unfortunately no results for ROH this week as my HD channels on my Dish as well as most of my SD channels disappeared for the better part of two hours, during which I was on the phone with customer service while missing the ROH program. It seems like I've snakebitten myself by having to miss a week or two due to MMA stuff as it's becoming more and more of a problem from week to week to catch this one. I assure you that next week, despite the UFC 98 show on Saturday night, I will without a doubt cover the ROH show with my usual bullet-pointy goodness. Thanks to all of my readers for understanding and hopefully no one is too pissed off that I had to miss it.


The Stories


Apparently, you don't want to make him angry...

-- Closing out a slow week of news, former ECW Champion and infrequent TNA appearer Bobby Lashley competed on Friday night at the Maximum Fighting Championship event in Enoch, Alberta, Canada and put in a third straight dominating performance. After scoring a forty-one second TKO in his debut fight and controlling the entire bout en route to a unanimous decision in his second fight, Lashley did one better by choking out his opponent Mike Cole in less than thirty seconds to improve to 3-0 in his young MMA career. Cook took advantage of Lashley's WWE past at the weigh-ins and before the fight, wearing a Lucha Libre-style mask to mock Lashley. When the action began, it was Lashley that did the mocking, grabbing a front facelock and turning it into a guillotine choke in the bout's opening seconds, squeezing until Cook passed out and regained consciousness, leaving Cook flopping on the mat until he was released from the hold. With the success that Lashley is having in MMA and his plans on fighting three more times before the end of the year, including a June 27th bout with Bob Sapp, it seems like Lashley's TNA appearances may end up being one of those situations where he is forgotten about almost as quickly as he debuted with the company. I can't see Lashley being able to devote any amount of time to properly appearing for TNA while training with any level of seriousness for his MMA career, so unless he starts losing dramatically and has a big change of heart, I would be surprised to see Lashley in TNA anytime soon and even more surprised to see him in the ring or in any sort of physical altercation.


Wow, even with the news coming on like drips out of a leaky faucet for the entire week, we avoided having to deploy the sad looking empty-handed fellow for this week, which feels like a moral victory for me! That does it for this week's Bell to Bell, Randle's got you covered tomorrow for the News Experience and I'll be back next week with my thoughts on Judgment Day and all of the other goings on from the prior seven days in wrestling. Sorry if this one seems like it's lacking in quality as my mind is understandably elsewhere this week. Thanks for taking the time to check me out and in the meantime and in between time, I'll see you back here next time for an all-new edition of the Bell to Bell!


If you're a fan of MMA, be sure to check out Nokaut.com for more of my work.