The Bell To Bell News Report 08.09.09

Posted by Randy Harrison on 08.09.2009

The Jarrett/Angle drama continues in TNA, CM Punk nearly kills Jeff Hardy on Smackdown and we step back into the old time machine to see what the AWA had to offer in Winnipeg twenty-five years ago. All of that is waiting inside this week's Bell to Bell, as well as the weekly recap of the TV shows of the squared circle and a whole lot more...




Hello again wrestling fans, and welcome to the Bell to Bell. Big thanks to Jesper for filling in admirably on short notice a couple of weeks ago and another big thanks to.....oh right, no column last week. Oh well, at least I got a trip to Anaheim out of the deal and got to see some cool stuff in Los Angeles to boot. A trip to the Natural History Museum and California Science Center, getting to see some of the cool sights and finally getting over my crippling fear of drowning to learn how to swim were just some of the highlights of my vacationary-type time, so I guess it turned out pretty well considering how bummed out I was about the Affliction MMA event being cancelled. Sadly, there are no video highlights of my trip, so unlike Meehan's column, you'll just have to imagine it all in your minds. As for the wrestling news, the WWE's on the road to SummerFe...SummerSlam, TNA is barreling towards Victory Road or Hard Justice or some other PPV with no real personality to distinguish itself from the rest of the year, and the news stories are feeling the heat as there's a lot less interesting things to talk about this time of year. Have no fear, as I'll finally get to give my take on the Kurt Angle/Jeff Jarrett drama in TNA, as well as my thoughts on the WWE's latest PPV buyrate information and all of the happenings on the weekly rasslin' programs, so let's get to it!

Apollo....do that voodoo that you do so well!



Ding Ding....







Monday Night Raw Results:

Jack Swagger vs. Evan Bourne - Winner: Jack Swagger (pinfall, gutwrench powerbomb)
Mickie James and Gail Kim vs. Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall - Winners: Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall (pinfall, Beth's Glam Slam on Kim)
Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase vs. Triple H - Winners: Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase (pinfall, CrossRhodes on Triple H)
Carlito vs. Primo - Winner: Carlito (pinfall, Backstabber)
Chavo Guerrero vs. Mark Henry - Winner: Mark Henry (pinfall, World's Strongest Slam)
United States Championship: The Big Show vs. Kofi Kingston (C) - Winner: Kofi Kingston (disqualification, Show using closed fists)
Lumberjack Match: The Miz vs. John Cena - Winner: John Cena (pinfall, Attitude Adjustment)


Monday Night Raw's guest host experiment continued this past Monday as Entourage star Jeremy Piven and Dr. Ken Jeong, who was last seen with his bare junk flapping around in The Hangover, hosting and it was a pretty spectacular trainwreck. The opening segment with Piven, John Cena and The Miz was a little long and a lot awful. I love Piven and I love him on Entourage, but it was a death segment and a bad way to start off the show. Piven looked like he was having a lot of fun out there, but he let his excitement get away from him a few times, especially with the "SummerFest" gaffe that has been all the buzz on the intrawebz this week. In the end, Miz got trashed by Cena, trashed by Piven and Dr. Kim ran around making train noises for all of the segment and we got a main event lumberjack match between Cena and Miz with the stipulation being that if Miz lost, he'd be banned from Raw....FOREVER!! (Or until the WWE decides that he's a big enough star to come back to the big show).

Moving to the actual main event match itself, we got to see Miz and Cena go at it with Piven going full-on heel and choosing Randy Orton, Legacy and a few other top Raw heels as all of the lumberjacks to help give Miz at least a glimmer of hope that he could come out on top. Seriously though, if you thought that Miz was going to go over Cena and stay on Raw, you'd have to have rocks in your head. Cena and Miz put on a five-minute match that was seemingly more of a backdrop for the interference from Dr. Ken and Jeremy Piven rather than an actual match. Miz deserved to get a little more out of this feud than he got considering how well he ran with the ball when he got his promo time, but the move to Smackdown will be good for him in that he can continue to build on his singles character and get more experience until he's ready for another shot at jumping up the card. Plus the move to Smackdown gives Miz and Morrison a chance to be on the same brand to finally settle the grudge that began with the team splitting. Seeing Piven coming off the top in the post-match melee was kind of fun since it seemed like he was taking his life in his hands, but that one moment doesn't make up for the rest of the show where he seemed to be out of his element. The end bump with Ken landing on his head was pretty scary and he's probably lucky he's not in traction.

The other big match from the show saw yet another Raw handicap match with Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase taking on Triple H. For once though, the heels actually took advantage of the odds being in their favor and they actually came out on top, getting the clean win over Triple H when Rhodes hit his Cross Rhodes finisher. Of course, the match itself and the win from Legacy will be rendered pretty much moot due to the post-match Triple H promo where he implies the return of Shawn Michaels and a new DX reunion, likely at SummerSlam. There's good and bad to this though as it's good that we'll get to see Shawn Michaels back for a few months or so after his long layoff, but bad that we're likely going to see Legacy get buried as bad or worse than DX buried the poor Spirit Squad. Sure, Rhodes and DiBiase get the minor rub from the win here, but you know that Triple H is going to get it back and then some once Michaels comes back, so they'll either be right back where they started or even a step or two back. Not the best way to bring along the next generation of main event talent, is it? There's been a lot of buzz about a possible Triple H/Shawn Michaels match at WrestleMania next year stemming from a heel turn in the DX reunion and if that's the way they go with it, I'm hoping and begging for one last Shawn turn so that we can see him go out the way he was when he was on the top of his game in the 90's. Sure, Triple H's face act is starting to get stale, but he can always turn once the Shawn angle is over because Shawn would likely be gone after the WM match, leaving a gap in the heel side that could easily be filled by evil H's.

The rest of the show was pretty much a dud with nothing really getting any time. The women's tag match was nothing special, the Carlito/Primo match did nothing to change my opinion that splitting them up was a huge mistake and the Big Show/Kofi Kingston match for the US Title was one of those matches that left you scratching your head as Show was disqualified for using closed fists. I get that Show's gimmick is his knockout punch, but there hasn't been someone disqualified since the 20's. The whole feud with Show and Kingston seems to be going nowhere fast and the best thing for them to do would be to just stick the belt on Show since that's where they seem to want it, or to kill it completely to let Kingston move on to a decent feud. I'm not one of those that's always thinking that Raw is a bad show no matter what happens, but this week's show was a bit of a stinker if I'm being completely honest.





ECW on SyFy Results:

Ezekiel Jackson vs. Danny Danger - Winner: Ezekiel Jackson (pinfall, spinning uranage)
Sheamus vs. Goldust - Winner: Sheamus (pinfall, dropping Goldust off the top rope)
Extreme Rules ECW Championship: Tommy Dreamer vs. Christian (C) - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch on a car door)

With all the momentum of molasses trying to roll up a hill, ECW had a tough act to follow on Tuesday, trying to be as entertaining a show as the main brand had managed the night before. Of course, that's me being facetious, but still it wouldn't have taken much for ECW to put together a better show than Raw and yet they still nearly failed. If it hadn't been for the main event being as good as it was, the show could have possibly been even worse than Raw, with less of an excuse since there wasn't a guest host to heap the blame on. The show started with a whimper with another edition of Abraham Washington's talk show, featuring Shelton Benjamin and Zack Ryder. This whole thing was pretty bad, but Shelton's promo work has really taken a step back it seems. The thing about Shelton is that he's always going to have the goods in the ring, but until he can talk in a segment like this and not have it seem incredibly forced and lame, he's never going to rise above the mid-card, no matter what brand he's on. From the singing to the smurf to the the brawl at the end, it was all just odd and if it's building towards some kind of feud between Shelton and Ryder, you can count me out on the promos and just skip straight to the matches.

As I said earlier, the main event really saved the show and Tommy Dreamer and Christian deserve a lot of credit for the match that they put on. While Extreme Rules matches may be a thing of the past in the new ECW, that's actually a good thing in my eyes because it means that when a match like this does happen, it doesn't feel repetitive before it even begins. These guys actually had a solid match within the Extreme Rules set and did well to introduce new weapons and new spots to help give a cliched match gimmick a new feel. Dreamer has really been bringing it for the past few months on ECW since his run at the top of the promotion began and you have to give big props to Christian, who has seemingly been able to get a decent to great match out of anyone since returning to the WWE. Given that there's still about six to eight more months of Christian in ECW before he gets bumped to one of the big two, there's still plenty of time and plenty of room for him to become a budding megastar that gets that extra nudge over the top from his first World Heavyweight or WWE Championship victory. Two professionals doing a great job in putting on a quality match in the main event. Shame that they can't seem to figure that one out on Monday nights.

The rest of the ECW show was just there as the Ezekiel Jackson squash was barely worth registering and only served to push a likely feud between Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov. That one might not be terrible to watch but again, we haven't really been given much to care about either guy for due to them mainly being seen in squash matches and nothing else of note. The fans haven't been able to invest in either character because the surface has barely been scratched when it comes to their development. The Sheamus/Goldust match was actually a pretty good showcase for Sheamus and he's actually doing something a little more than just squashing people week in and week out. A little mini-feud with someone like Goldust, who is a definite professional and an good hand in the ring, will do wonders for Sheamus and should help him a lot moving forward. Where he's going to move forward is the question as there's not a lot of feud potential for him, but maybe a program with Dreamer could push him a little further along in his development once Dreamer is ready to slide down the card a litttle bit.





WWE Superstars Results:

Santino Marella vs. Chris Masters - Winner: Chris Masters (submission, Masterlock)
William Regal and Paul Burchill vs. Tyler Reks and Yoshi Tatsu - Winners: William Regal and Paul Burchill (pinfall, roll-through on a cross-bodyblock)
Rey Mysterio vs. Mike Knox - Winner: Rey Mysterio (disqualification, Ziggler-ference)


Superstars has turned into quite the hit and miss show as of late as it has had some good shows and some bad shows so far through the summer. This week's show wasn't the greatest show they've had by any stretch of the imagination as there wasn't one blowaway match that made it a must-see show, but the action was solid and the nonsense was kept to a minimum, which is about all you can ask for from a show like this, which is essentially the D show. The opening comedy match between Santino and Chris Masters was quality as Santino did just enough to put up a good showing while making sure to get his comedy spots in as well. Masters kept things just serious enough that he didn't end up looking like a goof and he went over strong with his Masterlock. I'm sure that this isn't the last that we'll see of this pairing as they'll probably be in a Masterlock Challenge next week or something, but this wasn't terribly offensive or anything.

We also saw a reunion of sorts with Paul Burchill and William Regal teaming up to take on two of the rising stars of ECW, Yoshi Tatsu and Tyler Reks. Regal is definitely the guy that these three should be learning from, Tatsu and Reks especially, and all four of them put on a solid tag match with plenty of action and some good, old-school, mat wrestling mixed with the odd highspot thrown in. They actually got a good amount of time for the match, essentially making this one the unofficial co-main event for the show. Tatsu has shown a lot of growth from his somewhat lackluster debut on ECW TV, but as I said earlier during my thoughts on ECW's show, there's got to be a reason to care about him and become invested in wanting to see him win before the fans will really get behind him. The finish was great as well as it showcased Regal as the grizzled veteran of the match that was able to get one up on the young kid with a counter to one of his flashy top rope moves. Good work from all four guys, even though it will likely be forgotten by this time next week.

The main event saw Rey Mysterio taking on Mike Knox in a "who knew Mike Knox was still employed?" match for me. I haven't seen much of Knox lately and I've ben kind of tired of seeing Mysterio taking on the David vs. Goliath theme in his matches, but this one was actually pretty good. Knox surprised me in a few points in the match by keeping step for step with Mysterio including hitting a surprising cross-bodyblock that actually got a near-fall. While the match was decent and probably better than their other matches, Dolph Ziggler kind of lost a little bit of momentum by sitting in on color commentary for the match. I'm not sure if it's a situation that Ziggler's promos have been mainly scripted or if he's just not that comfortable sitting at the desk, but he seemed really wooden and it really distracted from the match rather than adding to it. The good news for Ziggler is that he doesn't need to be on commentary very often so that should keep him and the fans from having to suffer through this fate too many more times. Good match and a good idea to put Ziggler out there to keep the heat on his feud with Mysterio, but the execution was lacking.





TNA Impact Results:

Daniels vs. Eric Young - Winner: Eric Young (pinfall, piledriver)
British Invasion, Booker T and Scott Steiner vs. Beer Money Inc. and Team 3D - Winners: British Invasion, Booker T and Scott Steiner (pinfall, Terry's spinebuster on Roode)
Alissa Flash and Traci Brooks vs Sarita and Taylor Wilde - Winners: Sarita and Taylor Wilde (pinfall, Sarita's small package on Flash)
Matt Morgan vs. AJ Styles - Winner: Matt Morgan (pinfall, Hellavator)
Sting vs. Brutus Magnus - Winner: Sting (submission, Scorpion Deathlock)

I haven't seen much of Impact since the turmoil within TNA began a few weeks back and I have to say that missing a couple of weeks GREATLY improves the chances of you being completely confused watching the show. I've been reading up on the shows so as not to be totally in the dark, but there's a lot of stuff going on all at once it seems, especially now that Vince Russo appears to be completely in charge while the Jarrett/Angle fiasco plays itself out behind the scenes. This episode of Impact heavily featured Eric Young in his new persona as the heel leader of the World Elite group and Hernandez as the next big babyface, and while I'm never one to complain about seeing new talent pushed hard, things seemed a lot more scattershot than usual and it was hard to enjoy the show when you barely had a chance to take anything in before the next big bang. Young and the rest of World Elite joined the Main Event Mafia for the show opening promo and they cut a generic "let's open the show with ten minutes of talking" style promo that no one particularly stood out in, which ended up just making both of the groups seem a little boring.

The first match had Young taking on Daniels, who has seen pretty much all of the steam from his big return fizzle out. This one was short and all about the cheating from the World Elite side. Young got help from Kiyoshi on the outside on more than one occasion and while Daniels did well to take it to Young, nearly coming out on top, Young got a much-needed win with a piledriver after Kiyoshi sprayed mist into Daniels' eyes. It doesn't help Young's credibility as group leader as much as a clean win would have, especially in light of how abused he's been in the booking in the past couple of years, but I'm glad that he came out on top. What this will end up meaning for Young and whether the World Elite will just end up playing second fiddle to the Mafia remains to be seen, but for now Young is beginning to look like someone that TNA might be ready to finally get behind.

The big match for the show for me was the big eight-man tag match that may not have lasted for very long, but ended up with a GREAT brawl that did a lot to elevate a lot of the mid-card feuds. The problem with TNA is that they've always seemed to reserve hatred for main event feuds and just had everything else be a matter of guys wrestling in a series of matches without any real nasty grudges or things of that nature. The brawl and all of the stuff that went along with it really gave a main event feel to the mid-card and really had the hatred level ratcheted up for all of those guys. My only problem with the match was that it was shorter than it probably should have been for the brawl to mean more and that big Rob Terry got the pin in the match despite all of the other nonsense going on with a ton of run-ins. I mean I may have missed it, but for the referee to somehow not even notice or care about what was going on and to not call a DQ after the fifth or sixth run-in was laughable. Fun brawl and a wild segment that brought back memories of how things used to be during the good old days of the Monday Night Wars, but there were still some big problems that showcased some of the glaring weaknesses in TNA's booking.

The main event had Sting and Brutus Magnus locking up in a bout that like most of the other matches on the show, was there more as a set-up to the post-match antics than as an actual match. The bout seemed like it was barely underway when we hit a commercial break and then when we came back from the break, there was a minute or so of action before Sting hit the Scorpion Deathlock for the tapout. The big story here was Hernandez, who made the big save as World Elite tried to jump Sting after the match. Foley and Lashley joined with Sting, but the Mafia ran down to outnumber the faces before HERNANDEZ and his mighty chain cleared the ring, leaving SuperMex standing tall with the other three as his elevation seems to be complete. Hernandez is one of those guys that TNA fans have been pushing for for some time to get a bump up into the main event picture and it appears that they're finally going to have him at the top of the card. The best thing about it is that Hernandez didn't look out of place at all and that he is someone that could easily be bought as a championship challenger. The rest of the show may have been really uneven and a little too Crash TV, but the final segment of the show was a strong way to end the broadcast, especially in helping Hernandez with credibility as a main eventer.





Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison vs. Tyson Kidd - Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Starship Pain)
Charlie Haas vs. Slam Master J - Winner: Slam Master J (pinfall, top rope splash)
R-Truth vs. Finlay vs. Mike Knox vs. Dolph Ziggler - Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, ZigZag on Finlay)
Chris Jericho vs. JTG - Winner: JTG (pinfall, inside cradle)
The Great Khali vs. Ricky Ortiz - Winner: The Great Khali (pinfall, Punjabi Plunge)
World Heavyweight Championship: CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (C) - Winner: Jeff Hardy (pinfall, schoolboy roll-up)


As has been the case for the past three or four months, it was up to Smackdown to give fans two hours of programming with more good than bad and this week the blue brand was definitely up to that task. The show opening bout between John Morrison and Tyson Kidd was a perfect example of what Smackdown does best, letting two young wrestlers shine with their in-ring work. I was a little skeptical of what the Hart kids were going to be able to do in light of how little time they had spent in ECW, but so far they've been right at home on Friday nights, especially Kidd, who looks like a break-out star. This one was a great back-and-forth match with Kidd getting a ton of offense to look really strong against someone like Morrison, who has had brushes with the main event since moving over to Smackdown. The finish with Morrison outsmarting the heels was right on the mark and all in all this was one of the stronger matches of the show, if not the strongest.

Rey Mysterio's Intercontinental Championship challenger at SummerSlam was finally decided as a four-way bout between R-Truth, Mike Knox, Finlay and Dolph Ziggler led to Ziggler picking up a big win over Finlay with his finisher to gain the shot at the belt. Ziggler recovered from his poor showing on Superstars and regained some of his momentum in this match here, which was as quick and action-packed as you would expect from a match featuring those four men. Ziggler's character is really starting to catch on after such an extended and goofy beginning and I'm shocked to say it, but he definitely deserves to get a shot at a run with the IC belt. Ziggler was really the only choice to go over in this match and while most times that makes the match seem a little boring and predictable, this one was far from either. Solid work from all four guys here, especially a guy like Knox, who didn't seem too far out of place and had a decent showing to finish up a good week for him.

The other big development in the mid-card came from the bout between Chris Jericho and JTG, who put on a great little singles match to help continue to build towards the Unified Tag Team title match at SummerSlam. JTG looked like a real star here, though I suspect that as much of the credit for that has to go to Jericho for helping JTG get the most out of that match as he could. Jericho did a tremendous job of alternating between offense and defense and JTG got to get plenty in on Jericho before picking up the surprise win. Jericho got a nice visual pin with the Codebreaker into the near-fall which keeps him strong, while JTG gets the big rub from scoring a pinfall over the first-ever Undisputed Champion. I don't think this does much for Cryme Tyme's chances of winning the titles at SummerSlam, but JTG could have just given his chances for a singles run a real kickstart.

The main event saw Jeff Hardy and CM Punk meet in the next installment of their classic feud and while the match itself may have been one of the worst matches that they've had (and that's saying something when a three star match is their worst), this one was definitely one of the highlights of their feud because of how things went after the match. Punk came out on the short end of the stick in the match, despite having "The Angelic Pumpkin" Matt Hardy as a special enforcer at ringside. As I said, the match itself wasn't what was special as what happened afterwards completely overshadowed anything Punk and Hardy could have done in the ring. Punk laid an EPIC beatdown on Hardy and absolutely destroyed him, hammering him with chairshots and wedging Hardy's head into the chair before slamming it into the ring post. Vicious, vicious beating, but it was only made better by Punk screaming for the medical team to "Fix him so I can break him again", which is possibly the quote of the year in professional wrestling. Punk's heel character is now fully complete and I for one couldn't be happier as this was a tremendous way to put even more heat on their SummerSlam bout, especially with Teddy Long's announcement that the match will now be a TLC match for the gold. A perfect final segment and honestly one of those moments that people (and myself personally) will remember for a long, long time.






MAIN EVENT


"I wonder if these two ever tapped her...."

-- The main story in wrestling, as it has been for the past couple of weeks, is the drama going on backstage in TNA surrounding TNA founder Jeff Jarrett and the current TNA World Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle. Rumors surfaced a couple of weeks ago about a rather juicy affair going on between Angle's estranged wife Karen and Jarrett with Angle suggesting that he would be in power within the company after forcing Jarrett out. That was followed by Jarrett taking a leave of absence from the company and some of Jarrett's friends within the company like Savio Vega and Dutch Mantel being removed from the booking committee. Things got even crazier this week as Angle reportedly told BG James to pass a message along to Jarrett that he had an ass-beating coming to him the next time Angle saw him. Unfortunately, Jarrett tried to use this as an easy way out and allegedly tried to tell TNA management that Angle threatened to kill him.

Whether he did it intentionally to try to get rid of Angle or just as a way to try to save some face and regain his power within the company, if Jarrett did try to stooge Angle out like that it's the ultimate slap in the face to someone like Angle, who is one of the only established stars that TNA has left that can still go in the ring. I'm not saying that TNA would be bankrupt without Angle, but they certainly wouldn't be anywhere near where they are today because Angle has been the guy that's carried the bulk of the main event load since his arrival. If Jarrett was smart, he'd take himself out of the picture in TNA and have Angle do his thing for as long as he wants to because if Jarrett ends up being forced out of the company, it would be a sad day for the man who built TNA from the ground up and he would never get to see any returns back from all of the money and time he's put into TNA. If he sells off his stock, he can at least get something back for the years of effort and avoid having the entire company go up in smoke because of his actions.

Losing Kurt Angle out of all of this is not really an option at all because as I said, Angle is their go-to guy when it comes to main event matches. When you think of any of the best matches that TNA has had in the past couple of years, Angle's name inevitably comes up. Unfortunately for TNA, I don't think even Jarrett leaving will do anything to get the sour taste out of Angle's mouth and when his contract comes up, the company will either have to give him everything he wants or watch him walk away and head back to the WWE, leaving TNA with no Angle and no Jarrett and little chance of survival.

Angle has talked about being in charge of creative for TNA after all of this shakes out and Jarrett's gone from the company and I think that that's the only way he would ever decide to stay. Angle being involved in the booking is a double-edged sword because Angle has shown that he has a mind for the business in the past, but you'd have to wonder how much of that mind has been lost with concussions and chairshots and Angle's high impact style. Also, that gets us into the murky territory of having an active wrestler with the book, something that never seems to work no matter how good the intentions are of the wrestler/booker. The best thing that could happen for TNA would be to see Angle in charge with some of the other strong wrestling minds like Jim Cornette helping to guide him and craft angles and promos. Something like that, with a focus on younger talent and Angle putting over the next generation could end up turning something negative (Jarrett and Karen banging behind Kurt's back), into a positive (TNA growing even stronger in Jarrett's absence).



Featured Bout


-- The WWE held another of their quarterly conference calls this week and during the proceedings, the buyrates were released for Backlash, Judgment Day and Extreme Rules, along with the numbers for the corresponding pay-per-views from last year. The news was decent, but not great for the WWE as Backlash and Judgment Day both saw drops of roughly 20,000 buys, but that news was somewhat softened by the fact that Extreme Rules actually drew more buys this year than it did last year, gaining around 20,000 buys. While the loss in PPV revenue from the previous two events isn't very good news, the fact that Extreme Rules gained is a good sign for the WWE moving forward. The summer has always seemed to be a tough sell for the company as there are a glut of pay-per-view events in a short period of time and people seem to not view SummerSlam as the "WrestleMania of the summer" like they used to.

All in all, the quarterly buys showed a huge improvement as they were bolstered by having the WrestleMania buys (over 960,000 buys) included. While this looks like good news, when you break it down it actually looks a little bleaker as the buys for 2009 are roughly 750,000 better than the year before, meaning that they've actually lost PPV viewers when you take out WrestleMania's massive buyrate. Between the rough economy and the lackluster product that has been on the Raw brand as of late, the drop isn't completely unexpected, but it's still not good. Hopefully, the quality shows from Smackdown can start to inspire the Raw and ECW brands to follow suit and help bring the company back to an upswing, though I'm not exactly holding my breath.



The Midcard


Does this guy know how to play anything else?? Really??

-- John Cena has signed on for a guest-starring role on the USA Network show Psych, where he'll play the special ops soldier brother of regular character Detective Juliet O'Hara. Cena will help solve murders and thwart an illegal arms trading ring, which should be a real stretch for Cena based on the types of characters he's played in his movies. This makes the news report this week because I'm personally a fan of the show, but it's also big news for the WWE as they continue to make their impact felt on the USA Network. The interaction between Gus (Dule Hill) and Shawn (James Roday) on the show is one of my favorite things on TV and I'm very happy to have the show back for its summer season of episodes. I've been a big fan from the beginning and after seeing Mickie James on the show previously I'm interested to see what they do with Cena coming up.


If their theme song isn't Dayman, I riot...

-- Sticking with television shows that I love and wrestling-related news, it appears that we might be seeing the funny guys behind the FX show It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia as guest hosts of Raw sometime in September, coinciding with the return of the shockingly hilarious show for its fifth season. Glenn Howerton, who plays the gang's ringleader Dennis, has stated that the show will have a wrestling-themed episode this season where he and Rob Mcelhenney (Mac) and Charlie Day (Charlie) will form a three-man team called Birds of War. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper is set to guest star in the episode and according to Howerton if the dates work out, we'll be seeing the Birds of War on Raw in the fall. As much as some of the guest hosts have turned out badly, I would not care about how good or bad the show was if the Sunny guys were in charge. That would truly be a two-hour markout for me as Sunny has 100% been my favorite show on television since it began and I proudly own the DVD sets and have watched every episode about a million times.



Jerking The Curtain

I've had fun with the video portions of the column I've been running the past few weeks with the old Winnipeg independent shows and the Stampede videos, so I figured since things were a little light this week I'd go ahead and show off some of the great wrestling action I grew up with when the AWA came to town at the old Winnipeg Arena. Those old AWA shows were my first introduction to real wrestling and I can vividly remember the thick blue haze of smoke over the ring as I watched wrestlers like Nick Bockwinkel, The Road Warriors, The High Flyers, Curt Hennig, Rick Martel and a ton more in the rickety ring at the Arena that always looked like it was going to collapse at a moment's notice.


Nick Bockwinkel and Bobby Heenan Cut A Promo On Winnipeg...



Nick Bockwinkel vs. Ric Flair from January of 1986...



October 1984 Tag Team Battle Royal, Part 1



October 1984 Tag Team Battle Royal, Part 2



The last set of videos here hold a special place for me as I remember watching the promos for this match on television before heading out to the Arena with my Dad to check out this particular match live as it happened. One of the best memories for me as a kid was getting to see the AWA and if I'm not mistaken, this is the night that I got to buy the AWA program (which was more of a newspaper) and a button set with The Road Warriors, the High Flyers, Nick Bockwinkel and Rick Martel along with all my little snackies for the night. First up, the promos and then both parts of the match.


The High Flyers and Road Warriors Talk Championship Showdown...



The Road Warriors vs. The High Flyers from February of 1985, Part 1



The Road Warriors vs. The High Flyers from February of 1985, Part 2



Hope you enjoyed the look back at the AWA during the end of it's boom period in Winnipeg and let me know in the comments section what you thought of the videos and what you would want to see in future editions of the Bell to Bell.



The Final Bell


That does it for this week's extra-special return edition of the Bell to Bell folks. Randle's in tomorrow night from the 411 home office in Southern Ontario and I'll be back next Sunday with my thoughts on the week that was in wrestling as the WWE and TNA continue to push towards their summer extravaganzas and the backstage gossip hopefully gets even juicier. As the great Ed Whalen used to say, in the mean time and in between time, I'll see you back here next time for another edition of the Bell to Bell News Report.


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