The Bell to Bell News Report 05.24.09

Posted by Randy Harrison on 05.24.2009

While the WWE has had its Judgment Day and TNA prepares to make a Sacrifice, two huge stories dominated the weekly wrestling landscape. Click on in to see my thoughts on those huge stories as well as my take on the weekly shows and the inevitable Red Wings update!! Free hot dogs inside!!




Welcome to the holiday weekend edition of the Bell to Bell News Report and thanks for taking the time to check out the column between the BBQ's and trips to the lake that seem to punctuate the May long weekend. While there haven't been a lot of stories in the past week, two of them seemed to dominate the landscape for the entire week and as such they'll be touched on heavily in this week's report. Outside of the WWE's PR battle with the Denver Nuggets and Matt Hardy's MySpace page, there's plenty to get to in terms of the past week's shows as well, with the WWE putting on their Judgment Day pay-per-view last Sunday and following it up with one of the stranger episodes of Raw in some time. TNA had their go-home show for Sacrifice on Impact this week, but it was a show that I wish would have stayed home as there wasn't anything that would have enticed me to buy the PPV after watching that two hours. I'll weigh in on Smackdown and ECW, as well as have my usual bullet point goodness for Ring Of Honor's HDNet show. If that doesn't sound full enough for a column, my weekly take on the hockey playoffs is back as well.

Getting right into the hockey talk, the ending of the Caps/Penguins series was definitely anti-climactic and a little disappointing based on how the first six games of the series went, but those first six games were fantastic and may have helped reignite a buzz for hockey that has been sorely lacking since the lockout and missed season. As for my beloved Red Wings, they managed to get past the pesky Ducks of Anaheim on a late goal in game seven from Dan Cleary to move on to the conference finals against Chicago. After two games in Detroit where the Wings took it to Chicago and made sure that they knew what they were up against, Chicago managed to pick up an overtime win on Friday night to put the series at 2-1 heading into today's game four. While Chicago has shown glimpses in this series of being a team that could challenge Detroit in a couple of years, I think that they're just too inexperienced to get by a team like Detroit, that not only has a ton of depth, but a ton of experience at every level of the playoffs. So far, this has been the best playoff season that I can remember for some time, so I'm hoping that that continues through the rest of this series and the Eastern Conferernce series, all the way through to the Stanley Cup Finals, which if the schedule holds, should be finished a tidy four days before the beginning of the 09-10 season.

We've had the opening, we've talked hockey and there's lots of wrestling to cover, so let's get to it and ring the bell to get this news report cracking!


Sunday


The Show

WWE Judgment Day 2009 Results:

Umaga vs. CM Punk - Winner: Umaga (pinfall, Samoan Spike)
ECW Championship: Jack Swagger vs. Christian (C) - Winner: Christian (pinfall, roll-up with handful of tights)
John Morrison vs. Shelton Benjamin - Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Starship Pain)
Intercontinental Championship: Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio (C) - Winner: Rey Mysterio (pinfall, 619/splash combo)
WWE Championship: Batista vs. Randy Orton (C) - Winner: Batista (disqualification, Orton slapping the referee)
The Big Show vs. John Cena - Winner: John Cena (pinfall, Attitude Adjustment)
World Heavyweight Championship: Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (C) - Winner: Edge (pinfall, top rope Impaler DDT)

After a mixed bag at Backlash, the WWE hit the pay-per-view airwaves again last Sunday with Judgment Day from Chicago. The three biggest bouts of the card all had their problems, but that was almost made up for by a quality undercard featuring some of the WWE's highest fliers and newest stars. It may be a metaphor for the company as a whole at this point, but the first half of the show with new names like John Morrison, Jack Swagger and Christian was definitely more exciting for me than the second half with all of the established stars that have been on top for a while. The night started out on kind of an odd note as rather than a high-flying match like Morrison/Benjamin or Jericho/Mysterio, the show opened with hometown hero CM Punk taking on the Samoan Bulldozing Machine, Umaga. I get that it helped get the crowd hot because of the reaction to Punk for his entrance, but all of that heat was pretty much dissolved when Punk was pinned. Neither guy could afford to take the loss as Umaga's just come back and Punk is already holding the Money in the Bank briefcase, but they had to have someone lose and as is the usual WWE custom, the homer does the job. It's just sad that they ended up booking themselves into a corner like that because it ended up hurting Punk in the eyes of the fans when he should be being built into a legit title contender due to his MITB shot. Not only did it hurt Punk, it hurt the crowd as their favorite was brought out first and then pinned clean as a sheet.

Moving on to what was my favorite match of the night, John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin put on a great bout that while a last-minute addition to the card, still managed to entertain and help put over the storylines that are taking place over on Smackdown. I'm more than willing to admit that they had a few moments where there was some sloppiness and that a couple of things didn't quite click like they had hoped, but the match didn't suffer too badly for it. Morrison and Benjamin both acted like they saw this as their opportunity to make a big impression on pay-per-view and neither guy held anything back. Benjamin has a bit of a head start in terms of his singles push and that showed as well as Morrison was bumping like an absolute madman from start to finish to try to showcase himself. He did a fantastic job throughout the match and managed to get the win over the former United States Champion with his newly-named Starship Pain (split-legged corkscrew moonsault). I was so impressed with both guys and their efforts that I was even willing to overlook the silly name for Morrison's new finisher. I get that he needed to have a catchy name that was a little bit quicker to say than "split-legged corkscrew moonsault", but it just sounds silly compared to Morrison's character and something in the ilk of his Moonlight Drive finisher would have been at least a bit better. That being said, it's still an incredibly impressive move and a finisher that should give Morrison an even bigger leg up in getting over as a babyface.

The Raw and Smackdown title matches headlined the card, sandwiching a grudge match between The Big Show and John Cena. I'm not going to touch much on the Cena/Show match as it was bland, lifeless and ultimately fed directly into the SuperCena hate that seems to permeate most wrestling fans these days. Instead, I'm going to talk about the WWE Title match between Randy Orton and Batista first as that was the first of the two big title matches. Much like I feared in the build-up to Backlash, it looks as if Batista rushed himself into a comeback as he spent a lot of the match babying his hamstring as if he was afraid of injuring it worse. The rest of the match was just boring. Orton is great at getting heel heat leading into his matches, but when he has to be in control of the match as the heel that's calling the shots, his matches generally fall in the bad to boring range with this one covering the entire spectrum. The finish was pretty predictable as well, with Orton getting DQ'd on purpose to save the title, but that's where things FINALLY started to pick up a bit. As you would expect, Orton's posse came down to do a little tap dance on Batista's face, but Ric Flair made the surprise save for his protege, which could lead to a little Evolution/Legacy program down the road that might be decent. I think it's rather telling that one of your main event matches for the pay-per-view is only saved by a run-in from a sixty-something retiree after a bullshit disqualification finish. Perhaps a new direction is in order.

Speaking of new directions, Smackdown's new direction since the draft has seen them consistently put on solid shows while outshining Raw at every turn, including in the main event of the PPV. Jeff Hardy and Edge have faced each other more times than I could count on everyone's fingers that are reading this column, but they still managed to make it compelling on Sunday night. They were fighting hard to try to save the crowd after they had to sit through the two Raw matches, but they were able to do it after a rough couple of minutes through their hard work. It may not have been their best match ever, but up against the crap from earlier in the show it didn't have to be. Instead, we got two solid professionals changing things up a bit from their previous encounters and by the end the crowd was right there along with them. The finish with Matt Hardy costing his brother the match with a cast shot continued to play into their angle and likely has set up a match for either The Bash or Summerslam that will see Jeff and Matt finally settle their grudge once and for all. While I tend to like my PPV main events to have clean finishes, this one is understandable as they were trying to serve two different masters with Jeff feuding with Edge and Matt simultaneously. Again, it wasn't their best match ever and probably wasn't even the best match of their recent feud, but it was satisfying after the bitter letdowns of the previous two matches.

All in all, this show was pretty much a synopsis for how all three brands are going. Smackdown stole the show with their talented workers and solid storylines, ECW provided some entertainment with the short amount of time they were given and Raw disappointed despite having a roster bloated full of the top names in the WWE. I know it's a lot to ask, but would it be so bad to have a show where all three brands were able to bring it and put on great performances rather than having one great, one decent and one sucking ass? Just a quick question is all.




The Stories


Not any more it isn't...

-- With the pay-per-view happening, all of the other wrestling news in the world just seemed to stop. There was one little piece however about the WWE deciding to rename the Great American Bash pay-per-view in June to just The Bash. In light of where it falls on the schedule nowadays, the move makes sense. If the pay-per-view was in July, which is where the original tour in the NWA that gave the show it's name took place, it would make sense to continue calling it the GAB to continue on with the tradition. However, when it comes down to it, there was no real reason to call a mid-June pay-per-view with no real attachment to the show of old the Great American Bash. Maybe if we're lucky and the WCW DVD goes well, we'll get a WCW reunion show and they can call it the Great American Bash or Starrcade or something like that.



Monday


The Show



Monday Night Raw Results:

Diva's Battle Royal - Winner: Kelly Kelly (eliminated Mickie James last)
Santino Marella vs. Chavo Guerrero - Winner: Santino Marella (pinfall, roll-up)
Primo and Carlito Colon vs. THE Brian Kendrick and....Goldust? - Winners: The Colons (pinfall, Primo's springboard bodypress on Kendrick)
United States Championship: Matt Hardy vs. MVP (C) - Winner: MVP (pinfall, Playmaker)
Miss WrestleMania Crown Match: Vickie Guerrero vs. Santina Marella - Winner: Vickie Guerrero (pinfall, William Regal knee)
The Legacy vs. Batista and John Cena - Winners: Batista and John Cena (pinfall, Batista spears Orton)

Raw saw the fallout from Judgment Day begin and it began right from the opening of the show, with Randy Orton cutting a promo about the previous night's match against Batista. As usual, Orton gloated despite not accomplishing anything before moving on to talk about how he's punted every member of Evolution and proven that he's superior to them all. He even got a dig in at Ric Flair about how if he hadn't hit the punt, Flair might have been able to beat Shawn Michaels in the retirement match. After a little more Evolution talk, Flair himself hit the ring to give Orton a verbal beatdown. Flair shot down Legacy and talked about how Batista had passed Orton by to become the "chosen one" of the Evolution group. Not only was the promo work a little stale from both guys (like they couldn't believe that the angle was going to keep going), how bad does Batista look for having to have someone else do the talking for him. I get that it's Flair and he's Big Dave's mentor and all, but it just makes him look like a chump when he sends out a grandfather proxy to debate the champion. Flair gave Orton the news that he'd be facing Batista in a steel cage match for the belt and predictably Orton attacked, with Legacy coming down to give him a hand. This was all pretty much what was expected after the way the Raw main event at Judgment Day ended, but things got thrown on their ear when John Cena come out to make the save for Flair. I guess he's going to be up next for Orton after Batista chokes on his millionth title shot in the cage.

As with most Raw shows these days, the backstage shenanigans and silliness overshadowed anything that could have happened in the ring, though there was one bright spot in all of the lunacy. The maturation of The Miz continued to impress me, especially after his work on Monday night. It's been the case the past few weeks, and it was the case again here as Miz came out in full Cena impersonator mode, using Cena's old music and stealing Cena's rapping gimmick to really up the heat while calling Cena out yet again. After a couple of rough patches in the beginning of the rap, Miz really pulled it together in the end and with a couple of quality digs at the end of it, seemed to think he'd done enough to put himself to 5-0 against Cena. I've said it before and I'll say it again, they're doing exactly what SHOULD have been done with the Jericho/Goldberg angle back in the day in WCW and it's really helping Miz to break out of the tag team mold he was in after his run with Morrison. The segment was great until Jerry Lawler decided to stick his flourescent orange head into things, burying Miz's rap before pointing out that calling someone out doesn't mean you've beaten them. Lawler could have just left it there and the rest of the segment with the Big Show coming out to eventually attack Lawler could have happened exactly the same way without any problem. Instead, Lawler went way overboard trying to make his point, milking his TV time for all it was worth while killing the heat that Miz had worked hard to build up to that point. It wasn't something that was Miz's fault and it didn't really hurt him a lot, but when you're trying to build a new star every little thing is crucial and having King babbling on to kill a segment that Miz had made is not a good thing.

Despite the broken arm, Matt Hardy had another strong Raw, fueling the momentum he gained after costing his brother Jeff the World Heavyweight Championship at Judgment Day. Matt cut a decent promo talking about how he got his shot at MVP's US Championship while still using the tried and true heel heat techniques of the cast. It wasn't setting the world on fire, but when Hardy's fighting against the stigma that he can't cut a promo, every solid piece of mic work helps him immensely. Moving on to the actual match, it was a good one, but not a great one, mainly because they weren't given enough time to do anything worthwhile. After their lengthy feud on Smackdown, these two could probably wrestle each other in their sleep and put together a decent match and this one was no different as they worked hard and did what they could with the short time they were given. Yeah, not like we could have given them some more time by cutting out a lot of the Santino/Santina nonsense or anything. Gots to have our gender-bending comedy fix I suppose. The big thing here is that Matt could have easily found himself lost in the shuffle after the draft, but with the built-in heat of his injury and a solid feud with MVP, who himself has had brushes with the top of the card since moving over to Monday nights, Hardy's beginning to show himself as a player with a definite upside. Where they go with that upside likely depends on how the Matt/Jeff feud ultimately finishes off, but if Matt is able to come out of that one strong, he could find himself inching closer and closer to a spot at the top of the WWE's star-filled brand.

The main event saw a handicap match between Randy Orton and Legacy against John Cena and Batista. This was a pretty good idea as I'm certain that Batista would have had some problems in handling another one-on-one match or even another variation on the lame handicap matches that have been pushed on Raw the past few weeks. The match itself was alright in that it served as a main event, while continuing to further the Batista/Orton and Cena/Big Show storylines, while also keeping Ric Flair involved from the opening segment. Compared to the rest of the show, the main event was at least a little bit more stable and featured all five guys doing what they do best. The problems came about with the way that Batista cleaned out Legacy after the match, continuing their "cut out at the knees" run of late, while Orton is still in the limbo of being booked alternately as a heartless bastard and a scared shitless coward. The match was ok, but in the grand scheme of things this one was more about helping to further storylines for a pay-per-view that's less than three weeks away rather than anything else.

I'm not even going to get into the idiocy of the whole Santino/Chavo/Santina/Vickie nonsense. Yeah, it's good for a chuckle or two, but it's taking up WAY too much time every week for my liking, especially when a team like the Colons and guys like Matt Hardy and MVP are left dying on the vine in three minute matches to make room for that crap. I know that I'm probably in the minority on this, but I'm hoping that the whole thing goes away and goes away soon because the sooner it does, the sooner the show gets about twenty minutes back to do much better things with. Also filed away in the category of things I won't touch is the continued shots at the Denver Nuggets and their owner, which seemed to permeate the entire show. Anyone saying that they're shocked at the way that Vince continued to bring it up and take cheap shots is obviously someone that's new to wrestling, so since it was pretty much the pettiness that everyone expected, there's no point in touching on it in-depth.


The Stories


Nothing like controversy to help get your brand some free publicity...

-- Well, I guess there was some kind of big story that ended up starting on Monday as the WWE ran into a scheduling snafu with the fine people at the Pepsi Center in Denver for their upcoming edition of Monday Night Raw on May 25th. I'm going to run through this timeline-style, so what happened on Monday will be reported in Monday's news, and so forth. Starting out, it seemed as if the WWE had the venue booked months in advance for the Raw show, but with the Denver Nuggets in the midst of a semi-improbable run to the Western Conference Finals in the NBA, a conflict arose between Raw and the basketball playoffs. The NBA stayed out of it and it was eventually decided that the Nuggets would get the date and the WWE would be shit out of luck. An alternate venue (the Denver Coliseum) was offered up to the WWE on Monday night, but with the venue likely proving to be smaller than the advance tickets that the WWE had already sold for the event, that offer was turned down. Later in the same day, the WWE issued a press release on the situation, slamming the Denver Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke, with Vince McMahon saying the following;

"Even though the Denver Nuggets had a strong team this year and were projected to make the playoffs, obviously Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke did not have enough faith in his own team to hold the May 25th date for a potential playoff game,"

Ouch.

As much as people usually get on Vince for saying things like that in public forums, this is one instance where he's actually justified in getting his digs in as he's in the right. The owner of the venue should have held the date, based on the playoff potential of his team and only booked the date after it had been known for certain that there would be no conflict. As of late Monday night, the confusion was still reigning supreme and there was no venue for the Raw show that was to take place six days later. Suffice to say, the story wasn't over.



You'd think that TNA would know better by now....but you'd think wrong...

-- Also making news on Monday was the unofficial announcement from TNA that they would no longer use former ECW Champion and current MMA prospect Bobby Lashley until they had him under a contract with the company. You'd think that TNA would have learned from the other TEN TIMES that they've pulled this kind of stupid shit, but apparently they haven't. After spending the entire build to Lockdown hyping "two former world champions" it looks like both of them are going to end up being duds. When you've got a proven track record, you can afford to have a couple of promotional duds here and there and not have it affect your business or your credibility that much. However, when you're a new company that is struggling to gain some measure of a foothold in the business, bait-and-switch deals like this are a sure-fire way to kill your brand. This isn't to say that Lashley is completely done with the company as he's said that he's willing to work through scheduling issues with TNA to try to get something done, but at this point the horse is already out of the barn. TNA was reckless and stupid to have him appear on TV without some sort of agreement in place, and it's a shame that they seem to have no sense when it comes to this kind of thing. They've made the same mistake multiple times and if they continue to make these kinds of mistakes on a regular basis, they'll risk alienating the smaller, but fairly loyal fanbase that they've spent seven years trying to build.


Nothing says angry crowd like $7 tickets and $9 beers..should be fun!

-- For anyone else out there who's been wondering how TNA plans on even halfway filling a huge venue like the Palace of Auburn Hills for their upcoming Slammiversary pay-per-view, wonder no longer. TNA sent out a press release late on Monday, announcing that a limited number of tickets for the seventh edition of the pay-per-view will be made available to the public for $7. While the press release tried as best as it could to spin it as TNA trying to allow people to see the show live while living in the current economic climate, this will likely end up being the way that they sell the majority of their tickets for the show. If they tried to sell full-priced tickets, the event would likely flop and have an attendance that would be somewhere on the level of SuperClash III. With these cheaper tickets, which will likely be more than the "limited number" trumpeted in the release, at least TNA will be able to draw a bigger house and have the perception of being on the big time level, even if they end up losing a bunch of money by giving away their tickets for next to nothing. Given how much they've had to paper most of their pay-per-view outside of the Impact Zone, this actually isn't a terrible idea as a ticket someone paid $7 for is better than a ticket that someone paid nothing for, but again it's something that's going to end up being a problem for TNA in the long run if they can't legitimately draw significant crowds for their larger shows and pay-per-views outside of Orlando.




Tuesday


The Show



ECW on Sci-Fi Results:

Christian vs. Paul Burchill - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch)
Zach Ryder vs. Adam Green - Winner: Zach Ryder (pinfall, I have no clue what it was)
David Hart Smith vs. Finlay - Winner: David Hart Smith (pinfall, back suplex)

ECW continued along their path of building Christian as a credible champion, while also focusing on the newly formed Hart Trilogy, with both playing heavy roles in the show. Christian was the focal point of the first twenty minutes or so of the broadcast, with former champ Jack Swagger complaining to interim GM (I think she's interim) Tiffany about Christian's cheating to win at the PPV. Swagger decided to channel the seventies and staged a sit-in, but it was short-lived as Tiffany finally grew a set of balls and told Swagger where to go (her office) and how to get there (by taking the rest of the night off). After having it seem like Tiffany was going to be in Swagger's back pocket, it was a nice touch to have her stand up to him. Christian was on his way to the ring for his non-title bout against Paul Burchill and as he and Swagger crossed paths, Swagger went ultra-dick heel and shoved Christian off the stage. Despite the injury to his knee suffered in the fall, Christian went on to have the match against Burchill and it actually turned out pretty well. The heatless Burchill had a built-in reason for people to care about him as he attacked the knee throughout the match. They built well to the finish which saw Christian manage to avoid an attack to slip in a couple of moves before hitting the Killswitch. Burchill is pretty dead on arrival at this point in ECW, but he showed flashes here and he could be rebuilt into something if he's given the chance.

The final twenty minutes of the show were dominated by a LONG main event between Finlay and David Hart Smith, who was making his official in-ring debut in ECW. As I said before, this one was long as they got nearly twenty minutes total and just about fifteen or so minus the commercial break. While there were some points where it felt like it was kind of plodding along, it was a solid mat-based match-up that showed that Smith might have the chops to be able to hang on the WWE's main roster after all. There were some really fun spots in this one, especially the running Bulldog powerslam on the floor by Smith that did the not-so-subtle job of reminding us just who he is and who his father was. The finish was right on as Smith, the newcomer, needed all the help he could get from his heel running buddies to put the pin on the veteran Finlay. The boot shot at the end was vicious and you could literally hear it thwacking off of Finlay's skull, which was a nice touch and something I'm sure Finlay was totally ok with. In fact, I'd be surprised if he didn't pull Smith aside before the match and tell him to send it with the boot to really help get the kid over. The match wasn't the greatest ECW main event ever and will probably go down as one of Smith's worse matches in his ECW tenure due to his relative inexperience and the slow nature of the bout, but it served the purpose of helping get the new faction over rather well and also gave Smith a chance to learn in the ring from one of the best teachers around.

The rest of the show was pretty much a wash as we got to see Zach Ryder 'woo woo woo' his way to another win over a local jobber in the attempt to try to get him over as something other than an Edge look-a-like, and Kozlov's continued attempts to become ECW's answer to Ivan Drago through the ECW Rewind. Kozlov actually cut a promo this week as well, though it was mostly in Russian and mostly the same kind of Cold War rhetoric that would have meant something if this was 1983 but falls short of having the same kind of impact these days. Maybe if they had him threaten to cut off the supply of Russian vodka to the rest of the world people might care, but right now he is twisting in the wind with a new look and a new jobber-killer persona that haven't amounted to anything in ECW so far.


The Stories

-- The whole WWE/Pepsi Center/Denver Nuggets situation exploded on Tuesday with a ton of national press coverage of the incident and the bickering between Vince McMahon and Stan Kroenke. There were a lot of developments, including the offers from venues like Madison Square Garden (whose arena hasn't seen a long playoff run in fifteen years) and ironically, the Staples Center in LA (home of the Nuggets' opponents the LA Lakers) to host Raw on short notice. The WWE looked into hosting the show in Colorado Springs, but again it wasn't going to be up to the attendance level that the WWE needed to cover all of their advance ticket sales so that plan fell through. ESPN provided nearly blanket coverage of the incident thoughout the day on various programs, with most of it leaning positively towards Vince and the WWE, something that is incredibly rare when the topic of the WWE comes up in the mainstream media. Nearly everyone agreed that the owner of the Nuggets made a mistake when he signed the date for the WWE, with some even echoing Vince's statements about Kroenke not having the faith in his team to have a long run into the playoffs. In another of Vince's patented ballsy statements, he even promised late on Tuesday to drive the WWE's production trucks to the Pepsi Center on Monday, suggesting that they would even hold the show in the parking lot if they had to. Honestly, that would have been something different and something that had the potential to be really cool. I'm not sure if they would ever decide to do something like that or if they could even get away with something like that, but to do a show like that would be a great way to help break up the monotonous feeling that one gets when watching Raw week after week. Rather than the same old cookie-cutter show, a show in the parking lot outside of the venue they were unceremoniously dumped from less than a week before the show would give Raw a little bit of edge and also give back some of the spontaneous feel that is missing these days.



Wednesday


The Stories

-- Wednesday was yet another day in the saga that had enveloped nearly all of the wrestling world, though instead of more back and forth, the situation seemed to find a bit of stability. After various press releases and more posturing from Vince McMahon, including reiterating his disapproval of Stan Kroenke's business practices in any public forum he could find, the WWE announced that they had accepted the offer from the Staples Center in Los Angeles to host both Raw and Smackdown on short notice. Kroenke fired back to try to salvage his image, suggesting that a deal in principle had been reached to move the show to May 24th before McMahon changed plans and took the deal at the Staples Center. While I'm sure there was some level of negotiations in place, I would be surprised by Vince just rolling over like that. Vince knows when he's in the driver's seat and I doubt he would jeopardize all of the public support by trying to pull a "rasslin double cross" on Kroenke. As part of the announcement, the WWE made sure to cite the ability of the arena to hold both shows as one of the main reasons. Yeah, I'm sure that their current playoff rivalry with Denver had NOTHING to do with it at all. I was even less convinced that it wasn't all about spite when McMahon announced that a ten-man tag match main event was being made for Raw with Legacy, The Miz, Big Show and Randy Orton taking on John Cena, MVP, Jerry Lawler, Batista and a "fifth player" noting that it was their response to the Lakers vs. Nuggets series. Gotta love professional wrestling, that's for sure. Even after it seems like the situation is all over and you're thinking that nothing else could happen and the story would slowly start to die out, Thursday would end up proving us wrong...


It might be time to admit that the internet is not your friend Matt...

-- You'd think that Matt Hardy would have learned his lesson about using MySpace from the first time that he got fired by the company, but Wednesday saw him post a new blog that was filled with cryptic messages regarding the possibility of his brother re-signing with the WWE. Here's Matt's post;

"Much to my chagrin..

The deal has been reached, the contract has been signed as of May 19th, 2009.. Why? What about Matt? I'm sucking it up and giving every fiber of my being for..for them. With a legitimately excruciating broken hand.. but really.. for what? Nothing really ever changes.. I hope this makes everyone happy..

"I never ever cried when I was feeling down.. I've always been scared of the sound. Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load.. I'm too young to feel this old"

Cold Desert, Kings Of Leon

Matthew"

The "deal" that he refers to could be something to do with Jeff's contract situation, but it also seems like he could be writing this in a kayfabe sense and talking about some kind of contract that's been signed for a dangerous match between Jeff and Matt in the future. If I had to guess, it seems like it's something that's meant more in the second sense than the first because it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that the WWE would want publicized in a MySpace post, no matter how vaguely worded it is. However, like seemingly every story in the news this week, this would still continue as the week went on.



Thursday


The Shows



WWE Superstars Results:

ECW Championship: Tommy Dreamer vs. Christian (C) - Winner: None (No Contest, Swagger-ference)
Kofi Kingston vs. William Regal - Winner: Kofi Kingston (pinfall, Trouble in Paradise)
CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho - Winner: CM Punk (pinfall, inside cradle)

I missed Superstars due to the previous engagements that forced me to miss my Impact recap duties, but I made it a point to catch the Punk/Jericho match so I can at least touch on that aspect of the show. I was a little disappointed in their earlier match that took place on Raw, but this one was able to rectify that by being twelve minutes of fast-paced action that ultimately saw Punk hopefully begin repairing his status by picking up the win. This one was solid all the way through and the finish with Punk outsmarting Jericho when Jericho thought he was outsmarting Punk was great stuff. The reversals were crisp and after the match we even got to see Jericho hit a huge Codebreaker to get back the heat he might have lost by coming up short against Punk. It wasn't a free TV MOTY candidate or anything like that, but after sitting through Raw and having the best match on ECW feel like it was happening at half-speed for most of it, this was a welcome change of pace and a good way for the WWE to move towards the end of the week with their best show on the horizon.




TNA Impact Results:

Lethal Consequences vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. Suicide and Daniels - Winners: Suicide and Daniels (pinfall, Suicide hits Codebreaker on Shelley)
Eric Young vs. Sting - Winner: Sting (submission, Scorpion Death Lock)
Matt Morgan vs. Kurt Angle - Winner: Kurt Angle (pinfall, small package)
Samoa Joe vs. Jeff Jarrett - Winner: Jeff Jarrett (disqualification, Joe beats up the referee)
Mick Foley vs. "Rocky Balboa" - Winner: Mick Foley (pinfall, elbow drop)

Sigh. It usually bothers me when something comes up and I have to shirk my duties as the TNA Impact recapper, but after reading the report and then watching the show myself later on the replay, I have to say that this is one case where I am not the least bit disappointed in missing this show. The only parts of the show that I can say that I'm a little sad to have missed are the triple-threat tag match and the Morgan/Angle match as those seemed like a lot of fun in the recap and proved to be so when I saw the replay. The rest of it seemed like a piss-poor job by TNA of trying to sell a pay-per-view less than seventy-two hours away.

At the height of this dog and pony show nonsense was Mick Foley and his "former World Champion" that he faced in the night's main event. After an opening segment where Jeff Jarrett put himself into Sacrifice's main event by putting voting shares in TNA at stake and Foley booked all four competitors into matches against worthy opponents, the stage was set for Foley in the last match of the night. The announcers teased and pushed the former world champ thing as hard as they possibly dared, while Foley himself put it over as a great threat to him, just two days before Sacrifice. Much like EVERY OTHER tease that TNA has pulled like this, the end result was a crushing disappointment as Foley ended up taking on a cardboard cut-out of Rocky Balboa. Not only did Foley end up "wrestling" a cardboard cut-out in the main event of a go-home show before a major pay-per-view show, he looked BAD doing it. He hit some fake looking moves and then nearly killed himself trying to run the ropes over the cut-out to drop the elbow that finished the joke. Yeah, I get it. It plays into Foley's slow descent into insanity, but this was absolute shit. The only thing that kept me from putting my fist through my television was Don West's over the top commentary. I never thought I would put Don West over as the best part of a hideous segment like this, but then again I never thought I'd see crap like this from a wrestling promotion in 2009 either.

Before I give myself a coronary, I'm going to move on to talk about the rest of the four matches that Foley booked for the competitors in the Sacrifice main event. Sting took on Eric Young in another match that showed just how criminally Young is being wasted in TNA. He was someone that Sting chose a few months back to take a spot in a match wrestling as his proxy and now both Sting and Young look silly for that choice because Sting beat the piss out of him and finished him clean in like three minutes. The Samoa Joe/Jeff Jarrett deal was exactly what I thought it was going to be with Joe's latest mean streak towards referees and Jarrett's torn hamstring. Joe laid out a beating for a few moments despite Jarrett having his moments, and Jarrett maybe got beaten enough to possibly further the storyline that he's been hurt even worse heading into the PPV. In the end, Joe got himself disqualified by attacking the referee, falling back into the same stupid pattern as he had before, taking out his aggressions on referees. How is anyone supposed to want to cheer for Joe when he's doing nothing but acting like a dick? I mean, no one wants to cheer for him and no one thinks he's a heel because he's not with the Mafia. They're killing Joe one week at a time and it's starting to become sad. The only decent match out of the bunch was the bout between Matt Morgan and Kurt Angle, and even that one got torn up by a commercial break. They did an alright job of making Morgan look like a big deal and someone who could hold his own with Angle, but there wasn't a lot that made me feel like they might actually pull the trigger and push him up the card. This ended up leaving me feeling a lot like I did when Kaz was getting his big push only to have it forgotten in a moment's notice. As cool as it would be to see Morgan in an apprentice-type role to the Mafia, expect to see him feuding with Rhino or someone similar in the next month or two.

The opening match of the show saw the continuation of the Suicide/Daniels angle featuring Lethal Consequences and the Motor City Machine Guns as all six met in a triple-threat tag match. It was six minutes or so, didn't get hammered by a commercial break and was actually a lot of fun. The finish with Daniels and Suicide coming out on top with Suicide dropping one of the Guns for the pin paid off what had happened the past few weeks with the Guns calling Suicide out. I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go, but if it means we get to see some combination of these six guys fighting each other on every Impact and pay-per-view for the next few months I'm more than ok with it. As for the rest of the show, it was a lot of talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. The contract signing for the Awesome Kong/Angelina Love match was fun, if only because Kong got to nearly cremate referee Rudy Charles without fire by hammering him through the table and nearly through the ring. The Team 3D promo was alright, but it's starting to feel like they're becoming egomaniacs because every promo talks about them and their love of tag team wrestling and how they should be treated as wrestling royalty because they're a tag team and they want to make sure that other people like tag team wrestling. Sure, it's good for the business and good for them that they put together their tournament, but it's all a bit of a circle jerk because unless whoever wins the tournament beats Team 3D for the belts, it's all a waste of time. I will say that I am getting more and more into the British Invasion as the weeks pass and that they're quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the show. Outside of that, the show was a total loss for me and probably would have tested my ability to remain loyal to my job and not drink heavily during my recap.


The Stories

-- Proving that the story will probably continue to make news right up until Raw goes live on USA Monday night, the Associate Press continued to report on the Denver debacle, stating that there had been an agreement in place between the WWE and the Pepsi Center to move the show to Sunday night and have it taped for a Monday night airing, but that once Vince saw the press release that was being planned, he backed out of the deal, feeling like it had him kissing too much ass for someone that was in the right. Sports Illustrated jumped on the story as well, suggesting that the WWE turned their backs on the Colorado fans strictly for the publicity that they could gain from it. While I don't think they did it to spite the fans of Colorado, I do think that they were one of those collateral damage casualties that ended up caught in the middle of the unfortunate situation. Vince McMahon also addressed the rumors that a deal had been reached to try to keep the Raw show at the Pepsi Center, stating that such a deal had been talked about, but had gone no further because Kroenke Sports Entertainment, the owners of the Pepsi Center would have only paid incremental damages to the WWE for the move of the show, and the owners would have wanted to control all of the publicity and statements made by the WWE regarding the change. I don't blame Vince for not taking that deal at all because it's a situation where he would have been painted into a corner by not being allowed to say anything without it being essentially censored by KSE. Considering that TMZ got a hold of the unreleased press release that featured a quote from McMahon to the effect of..

"By all accounts, Mr. Kroenke is one of the most respected professional sports team owners in the world, and the professional way he and his staff good-naturedly handled this conflict gives further testament to the type of business leader he is. We look forward to Sunday's WWE event and future events at the Pepsi Center."

...McMahon definitely made the right decision to not strike a deal. That seems like it would have only been the tip of the iceberg and that there would have been a much messier situation once McMahon had become fed up of the spin and tried to voice his own opinion. McMahon has publicly stated that the above quote never passed his lips and when you have two different people trying to speak for a party, only trouble can result.

-- As mentioned on Wednesday, the Matt Hardy blog story didn't want to go away either, and Thursday saw the portion of the blog that may have cryptically addressed Matt's brother Jeff changed to the following;

Things aren't always what they seem in life. And before anyone criticizes me.. Everything I addressed is valid. I thank my people-you know who you are.."

This lends a little more credence to my theory that it was some kind of gimmick match signed between the two brothers rather than a new contract for Jeff as every part of this post seems to reek of Matt saying "I didn't say that Jeff re-signed" without actually having to use the words. At this point, everything was still pretty confusing, but again there was still more to the story before the week closed out.



Friday


The Show



Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison and Cryme Tyme vs. Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas and Ricky Ortiz - Winners: John Morrison and Cryme Tyme (pinfall, Morrison's Starship Pain on Haas)
Michelle McCool vs. Gail Kim - Winner: Michelle McCool (pinfall, Styles Clash)
Chris Jericho vs. CM Punk - Winner: CM Punk (disqualification, Umaga-ference)
Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth - Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, jumping Russian Legsweep)
Jeff Hardy vs. Edge - Winner: Jeff Hardy (pinfall, Swanton Bomb)

After a less than interesting week of programming leading into it, Smackdown had a lot of work to do to make up for all of that. In my opinion, not only did the show deliver, it blew everything else from WWE or TNA out of the water. The show opened with a great promo from Edge to continue his streak of quality mic work and after Edge did his best to make sure we remember what a loser Jeff Hardy is, GM Teddy Long came out to make a rematch for Extreme Rules, as well as a one-on-one match as the main event where the winner got to choose the stipulations for the PPV match. Fantastic stuff here, especially with Edge's patented temper tantrum nearly making its return. After that promo, there was a lot for them to live up to in the main event of the show and boy did they ever deliver on it. These guys went all out, putting on an even better match than they had at Judgment Day with the crowd just loving every second of what these two were doing. I've never been impressed with the crowds at Smackdown tapings since they always look like 10,000 coma patients, but this time they were alive for every second of the match, which only added to my enjoyment of it. This one had great psychology, a good mix between mat wrestling and highspots and the Hardy victory set up the announcement of a ladder match between them at Extreme Rules. Granted, everyone knew that was what Jeff would choose if he won, but really can anyone be that disappointed that two of the best ever in that type of match will do battle with gold on the line coming in off of the best singles match they've had together.

CM Punk and Chris Jericho met again in a rematch of their bout from Superstars and I dare say that even with the screwy finish that saw interference from Umaga, they surpassed their bout from the previous night in this one. The fact that there were almost as many counters as there were moves in this one played well off of them having just faced each other on Superstars and only added another level to what was already a very solid match from them. Punk not only got the pinfall on Superstars but he got what was essentially a visual pin on Jericho without the pin by hitting the GTS to send Jericho flailing out to the floor. With the level that Jericho's been working at for the past year, Punk can really gain some credibility by running neck and neck with him on a weekly basis. The finish with Umaga attacking Punk with the Samoan strap and actually speaking to challenge Punk to a strap match at Extreme Rules was nice as well and not only kept Jericho from suffering back to back losses, but also gave Umaga another boost up on Punk as they head towards the strap match.

The show opened with a strong effort from John Morrison and Cryme Tyme as they took on Shelton Benjamin, Charlie Haas and Ricky Ortiz. I was a little confused as to why Ortiz was involved in this match, let alone why he was on the heel team, but I quickly forgot that once the action got underway. Morrison continued his strong in-ring run, looking great like he did earlier in the week and with guys like Benjamin and Haas on the opposite side of the ring, he got to showcase his entire set of skills. Cryme Tyme seemed to be a step off in the early going, but they picked up their pace and actually hung pretty well with a tag team like Benjamin and Haas, meaning that there could be hope for them yet despite being stuck on Smackdown after a less than impressive run on Raw. As I said, the only guy that seemed to be completely out of place was Ricky Ortiz, but even he managed to get a moment or two where he looked like he belonged. In the end, Morrison got to shine in the finish, flipping out of a Haas German suplex before hitting the Starship Pain to get the three-count. They're really giving Morrison every chance to get over in the ring and he seems to be taking it, but again I'm hoping that they don't make him lose everything entertaining that helped him get over enough for the turn to begin with.

With the rest of the show featuring nothing that was terribly objectionable (the Dolph/R-Truth match was close, but not outright terrible), Smackdown again carries the day as the best show of the week and if they keep going like this, they could find themselves the victims of a mid-year draft or something to try to breathe some life into the flaccid Raw brand.


The Stories


I'm sure that part of their negotiations included comparing bicep measurements if Vince had his way...

-- The story that never ends, continues to make news as the WWE announced that their ten-man tag main event would now feature the babyface team wearing Laker jerseys while the heels would be wearing Nugget jerseys. On top of that, Vince McMahon was scheduled to make an appearance on the show to confront Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke, with a "mock" Kroenke expected to appear. While I was with McMahon every step of the way through the course of the week, this might be going a bit too far. I understand that it's pro wrestling tradition to lampoon everything that happens including having impersonators or midgets or whatever, but this was a chance for the WWE to take the high road a little bit and not squander some of their public good graces on a comedy bit for their show which probably won't be funny or make any kind of point. The jersey thing was not the worst idea ever as it would add a little bit of extra heat to the match while also serving as a bit of a play on the situation, but if the mock Kroenke bit ends up with Vince beating him up or something just as silly, it's a bad idea and will probably end up blowing up in the WWE's face. A much better idea would be to have McMahon make a professional statement about the situation, expressing his disappointment in the way that Kroenke does business, rather than going with the cliched pro wrestling response to controversy.

-- TNA jumped on the WWE/Denver bandwagon as well, sending out a press release that they were coming to the Pueblo Convention Center on May 29th, with anyone bringing unused tickets from the cancelled Colorado shows receiving a $10 discount for their tickets to TNA's house show. TNA President Dixie Carter also extended an invitation to all Nuggets personnel including players, coaches and broadcasters to attend the Pueblo show as guests of TNA. While all of this reeks of trying to pile on the competitor, you have to hand it to TNA for trying to spin this whole situation into their favor even slightly. Considering that this has been a huge story, in the mainstream media as well as with the wrestling media, TNA would be foolish to not try to get in on this and have some sort of deal to try to gain some of the disgruntled WWE fans. That being said, some of the shots they took at the WWE reeks of the whole "Universal Studios, fake Vince and Triple H" incident of a couple of years back. Things like that make TNA seem bush league when compared to the WWE. I know that it's asking a little much for some dignity in professional wrestling, but if they had done it without some of the unnecessary cheap shots it would have worked out much better for them in terms of PR.


Don't be surprised if he looks worse than this come June 27th...

-- In a refreshing twist, there was some news on Friday that didn't revolve around either Matt Hardy or the WWE in Denver controversy as some matches were announced for the upcoming Legends of the Arena ECW reunion show that is set for June 27th. Added to the show were matches between Rhino and Spike Dudley, Raven and Justin Credible, Da Baldies and Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney, and C.W. Anderson and 2 Cold Scorpio. The rest of the card is as follows and seems to have nearly every big name that made ECW outside of Taz, the Dudleys and Tommy Dreamer. With a show like that, it should be a fun night for memories at the old ECW Arena. Unfortunately it wasn't all good news as the same press release announced that premium ticket prices for the second and third rows. While it's spun as being a response to their fans requests, I'm betting that it's a situation where people weren't buying them at full price and the cut was necessary to make sure that the front rows weren't empty come show time. While the economy likely plays a small role in it, the greater role is probably played by the fact that the fans are burnt out on the ECW reunion shows. Sure, they're not held every year or twice a year or something of that nature, but how many times can you pay to see a show that has the same names, doing essentially the same things they did ten years ago, only they're now a year or two older. Before anyone gets on the WWE for something similar, they don't do it for nostalgic purposes like these reunion shows. The WWE may have a lot of the same talent on top, but they have storylines that progress and change, making matches that have been made before seem different. These are just one-off shows featuring a mixed bag of matches with no real angles. I'm not saying that they should stop doing the reunion shows as I'm not against anything that anyone wants to do to make themselves happy, but it certainly seems like the market is dying down for them after being at its height with the release of the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD a few years back.



Saturday

The Show



ROH on HDNet Results:

Kenny King vs. Kenny Omega vs. Jay Briscoe - Winner: Kenny Omega (pinfall, sunset flip/victory roll combo on King)
Irish Airborne vs. The Dark City Fight Club - Winners: The Dark City Fight Club (pinfall, sit-out powerbomb/neckbreaker combination on Jake)
Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Hero - Winner: Chris Hero (disqualification, Kingston not breaking on the five count)
Necro Butcher and Delirious vs. Brodie Lee and Jimmy Jacobs - Winners: Necro Butcher and Delirious (pinfall, Delirious hits Shadows over Hell on Lee)


This is mainly an action based show that hasn't had a lot going by way of storylines, so I'll just hit this with some bullet points to touch on things that jump out at me as I watch the show before deadline.

-- I hope it's not becoming a trend that this show begins with an in-ring promo because the fact that it didn't was one of the few things that I actually liked compared to Raw, Impact and the like.

-- How much better would that table powerbomb on Hagadorn have been if Larry Sweeney was still part of the company? Seriously. Hagadorn just isn't cutting it for me and if Sweeney had taken that, it would have been epic.

-- Oh man, a tables match. Haven't seen one of those in a couple of months. Call me jaded, but I'd rather see Generico and Steen taking on the Wolves in a straight-up match. It'd be much more enjoyable in my opinion.

-- Omega!! Winnipeg in the house, bitches!! He doesn't have a prayer, but it's still cool to see him representing now that Jericho is from some Parts Unknown kind of location.

-- Dammit, he's getting killed in there. I just hope that King takes the pin, though I'm not very hopeful at this point.

-- "He's just an annoyance"? Piss off Dave, or you're going to have the Slurpee Mafia on your ass.

-- Wow, all three guys are running pretty even all the way through so far, which is a big surprise for me since I figured this one was going to be all Briscoe.

-- King's little cackling dance would be fantastic if he ever ends up getting into one of the big tw.....HOLY SHIT, OMEGA WON!! FROZEN PRAIRIES FOR THE WIN!!

-- Hope these guys packed some extra potatoes because the DCFC is going to put one or both of them in the hospital.

-- As exciting as it is to watch them kill jobbers every week, they really need to figure out something to do with them soon because this is going to start getting tired soon.

-- And Chris Hero is now my favorite Ring of Honor wrestler after the It's Always Sunny reference. Tremendous.

-- I think that I got served at the deli counter by a guy that looks exactly like Kingston. Good to see him pissing all over the Code of Honor too, which isn't the first time it's happened tonight by the way.

-- Kingston might not have much of a look, but he's not a bad hand in the ring. I don't know where he's going to fit in long-term in ROH, but he's a guy that looks like he can go with anyone. Shitty finish to the match though.

-- Man, I hate split-screen brawling. It's too hard to even pick up even the slightest about what's going on. At least the finally cut away from it to get things back to a normal camera view.

-- Look for Delirious and Butcher to star in a remake of The Odd Couple, coming to theaters in early 2010.

-- Oh sweet merciful Jeebus, I think that Necro just got dropped on his head...that was a NASTY spot.

-- "It's not their fault that Necro can't get up and be a good partner for Delirious..." BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!! That was epic.

-- Great comeback by Delirious and Butcher to win and this just reinforces my belief that AOTF are nothing more than ROH's version of the J.O.B. Squad


The Stories

-- In an attempt to stack the deck and ensure that Monday and Tuesday's WWE shows at the Staples Center will be successful, local advertising for the shows are announcing three big cage matches featuring The Big Show vs. John Cena, Edge vs. Jeff Hardy and Randy Orton vs. Batista. While I'm about 90% certain that all of those will be dark match main events, that's plenty of incentive for WWE fans in the LA-area to pick up some tickets to the last-minute shows. I don't know what kind of business the shows will do, especially with only a week to sell tickets in a financial environment that isn't conducive to impulse spending but three matches of that calibre, even if they don't mean anything in the long run, will probably help draw in some people who ordinarily might not have gone to the show.

-- In the final update on the Matt Hardy blog story for this week, Hardy addressed the MySpace blog that appeared and then disappeared, making another post on Saturday that sealed the deal in letting everyone know that it was a kayfabe blog post that people may have interpreted a little bit too much into. The fact that he plays the whole "maybe it does, maybe it doesn't" card when talking about it having something to do with Jeff and the WWE means that it's likely going to be some type of match that has been signed, possibly for the Summerslam pay-per-view if Matt ends up costing Jeff the title at Extreme Rules in the ladder match. If that's the case and Jeff hasn't signesigned a new deal, it still gives me hope that they could set Matt up as a monster heel for being the guy that "injured" Jeff Hardy and drove him out of the WWE forever (or until Jeff decides he wants to make a comeback) by having him do something despicable to Jeff in a huge gimmick match like Hell in a Cell. While the WWE would be down a little because of the loss of Jeff's huge merchandising dollars, they would have Matt set up as one of the biggest heels in ththe company for taking out one of the most beloved characters on any of the brands. Look at how through the roof Chris Jericho went for taking out Shawn Michaels in their feud last year. He was a mid-level heel floundering in the IC title picture until he injured Michaels and took that momentum to the World Heavyweight Championship. I could see something similar happening with Hardy if he was given that chance. Of course, this is all speculation since there is no firm reports on Jeff's contract status, but it would be a solid idea to use if they have to down the road.


That does it for this week's edition of the Bell to Bell. With this weekend being a holiday weekend in the United States, as well as the Sacrifice pay-per-view this Sunday, there will be lots of things in and out of the ring to keep everyone busy. Stay safe, have fun in whatever you decide to do and I'll be back to do it all again next week with my thoughts on Sacrifice, the remaining fall-out from the situation surrounding Monday Night Raw and everything else that happens in professional wrestling. In the mean time and in between time, I'll see you all right back here next time for a brand new, stuffed to the gills edition of the Bell to Bell!


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