The Bell To Bell News Report 09.20.09

Posted by Randy Harrison on 09.20.2009

It might be a little shorter this week, but the Bell to Bell is just as full of all of the pertinent information you need from the past week of professional wrestling and it's just one click away...




Hello folks, and welcome back to your week-ending wrap-up of all things professional wrestling, the Bell to Bell News Report! Last week I had plenty to talk about in the opening with my thoughts on this season's efforts from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but after that debacle at Canad Inns last Sunday, I think that that's the last time I'll be talking about them for a long time. Ok, THIS will be the last time that I talk about them for a long time. Instead of that, there's a ton of MMA deals going on with my day job including coordinating a blogger for the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter, setting up some pretty cool interviews and covering this weekend's UFC 103 event from top to bottom, so things are pretty packed.

I've been having computer problems for the past couple of days, so the news section might be a little thin, but I will make up for it next week with as much news as I can possibly cram into this puppy. Next week, I'm also pretty sure I'll be talking about hockey and my fantasy teams as I'm starting to get that itch that comes from shorter days and cooler nights that can only be scratched by some NHL action, but for now, let's get on with the news that you came here for!!

You know the drill...





Ding Ding....






WWE Breaking Point Results:

WWE Unified Tag Team Championship: MVP and Mark Henry vs. Chris Jericho and The Big Show - Winners: Chris Jericho and The Big Show (pinfall, Jericho on Henry after Show's KO punch)
WWE United States Championship: The Miz vs. Kofi Kingston (C) - Winner: Kofi Kingston (pinfall, Trouble in Paradise)
Submissions Count Anywhere: Legacy vs. D-Generation X - Winners: Legacy (submission, Rhodes and DiBiase double-submission on Michaels)
Singapore Cane Match: Kane vs. The Great Khali - Winner: Kane (pinfall, chokeslam)
ECW Championship: William Regal vs. Christian (C) - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch)
WWE Championship (I Quit rules): John Cena vs. Randy Orton (C) - Winner: John Cena (submission, handcuff-assisted STF)
World Heavyweight Championship: The Undertaker vs. CM Punk (C) - Winner: CM Punk (submission, RING THE DAMN BE.....uhhh...Montreal finish)


The first of the WWE's theme pay-per-views is in the books and for being a gimmick show that could have gone the way of a disaster, it was actually a pretty decent little show. I'm still not convinced that shows full of Hell in the Cell matches won't just burn that gimmick out completely and ultimately make it meaningless, but for the submission-only portion of the pay-per-view, the WWE did a pretty good job in making the matches seem interesting and different than the rest of the matches on the card.

Of course, the match that everyone is talking about is the main event that saw CM Punk retain his World Heavyweight Championship with some help from Smackdown GM Teddy Long, who it seems was channeling his inner McMahon when he cost The Undertaker the match in about the millionth redux of the Montreal finish from 1997. While some people are thinking that this was just a half-assed attempt from the WWE to be edgy and for them to continue sticking it in the faces of the fans in Montreal, but I beg to differ. With the guest host idea on Raw, Teddy Long on Smackdown and Tiffany on ECW, there were essentially three faces holding the positions of power within the WWE (kayfabe-wise). There needed to be a tweener or heel authority figure to balance out the odds and since there hasn't been anyone like that since Vickie Guerrero went packing, they made a pretty good choice and stuck Teddy in the de facto bad guy role by having him screw the most respected member of the Smackdown roster.

The match itself seemed like it was just a pre-show match for the Hell in the Cell PPV as they didn't get a lot of time, didn't really show anything and had the screwy finish to boot. While I still think that six weeks or whatever is too short a time for a Hell in the Cell to really be meaningful, I'd by lying if I said that I wasn't partly intrigued as to how they're going to pull it off. To me, it looks like it should be a match that follows the template of the original Cell match with Punk playing the Michaels role and The Undertaker playing..well...himself. Hopefully Taker beats his ass, Punk bleeds a ton, heels it up like a real bastard and then cheats his way to a win before reminding everyone that he's better than them because he doesn't need pills, booze, or voodoo mumbo-jumbo to be our champion. Something like that would solidify Punk as the go-to guy for the blue brand and give the WWE their first bonafide new main event superstar since the elevation of Orton/Cena/Batista/Edge a few years back. And yes, I realize Jeff Hardy came about in that time as well, but he's no longer around and was still working towards getting the rub as a true main event star from one of the old guard.

As for the other huge title match, I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the finish of the WWE Championship bout. They had a good thing going with Orton and the handcuffs as he was able to use something different that hasn't been seen in a while to take control while also setting up some cool spots like the handcuffs around the ringpost/Cena spitting in Orton's face deal. The build to the finish was actually kind of inventive too as they had Cena get the key and then handcuff himself to Orton to avoid having Orton try to sneak away. However, when we got to Cena having Orton cuffed to him, the wheels fell off. Cena forgot that Orton had been beating him for ten minutes nearly unanswered with chairs and canes and everything under the sun and turned into SUPER CENA....Defender of the Downtrodden!! He Cena'd up, completely no-sold all of Orton's abuse and wrapped him up in the STF, with Orton's arm hooked across his own face. I could have excused the no-selling if Orton had fought for a minute or even a few seconds, but instead he bitched out and slapped the mat, nearly before Cena had the hold locked in.

I've had issues with how Randy Orton has been booked seemingly forever as for whatever reason they never seem to want to get fully behind him without cutting his legs out from under him at the same time. This is no different as now instead of Orton maintaining at least a little bit of his heel heat from the beating he laid on Cena, all anyone will remember is him looking like a puss at the end of the match. I know that I Quit matches are usually designed for the heel to quit, but they picked probably the least manly way for Orton to quit in that one and while it won't affect Orton's standing on the card (There's no such thing as downward mobility in the WWE, what are you thinking?), it will hurt his credibility, at least in my eyes, and probably in the eyes of a lot of fans as well.

Since I've already talked a lot about this show, I'll just finish with my thoughts on the DX/Legacy match, which was actually a lot better than I expected with the right team going over. My only problem that I have with this one is that a win like this over a high-profile team would have done Legacy much better if it had happened a long time ago rather than coming now, when it looks as though Ted DiBiase is going to be getting a face push to coincide with his movie being released. While that's not certain, it's a possibility and getting a huge win over two of the WWE's legendary figures should be a springboard to bigger things, not just a cog in the mechanism of a face turn down the road. The match was solid work from all four, with all of them making great use of the submission stips that could have proven to be a hinderance. While I am beefing about how the win may end up being meaningless if they break Legacy up, it was still nice to see the young guys come out on top and that match will be a real feather in the caps of Rhodes and DiBiase when they begin their singles runs down the road.

The rest of the show was decent to good, with only the Singapore Cane match nearing the unwatchable range and that one was kept mercifully short. The Unified Tag Title match was solid, though now there's seemingly no one left for Show and Jericho that could be credible challengers. The ECW Title match was good, even though it was a little short for my liking and it proved that Regal could have a really successful run with the belt if he's given the chance. He still has it in the ring as he proved in that match, and the heat for his heel group would be off the page. Hopefully, he gets the chance. I'm not even going to talk about the Pat Patterson nonsense because I'm still pissed that we got that crap instead of a Ziggler/Morrison match on PPV.





Monday Night Raw Results:

Kofi Kingston and Primo vs. The Miz and Jack Swagger - Winners: Jack Swagger and The Miz (pinfall, Swagger's gutwrench powerbomb on Kingston)
Gail Kim vs. Alicia Fox - Winner: Alicia Fox (pinfall, scissor kick)
Ted DiBiase vs. Shawn Michaels - Winner: Shawn Michaels (disqualification, Cody-ference)
Hornswoggle and Evan Bourne vs. Chavo Guerrero and Carlito - Winners: Hornswoggle and Evan Bourne (pinfall, Hornswoggle's Tadpole Splash on Chavito)
Trish Stratus, Mark Henry and MVP vs. Chris Jericho, The Big Show and Beth Phoenix - Winners: Trish Stratus, Mark Henry and MVP (pinfall, Stratusfaction on Phoenix)
No Holds Barred: Randy Orton vs. Batista - Winner: Batista (pinfall, Batista Bomb)


Trish Stratus was this week's guest host of Raw and while it would be impossible to expect her to live up to the high standards set last week by the legendary Bob Barker, the show felt a little flat from start to finish, not something that you would expect one night after a pay-per-view. Whether it's because the big angle was on Smackdown or that the crowd was expecting a little more, things just felt a little stale and flavorless after a couple of weeks of shows that pushed outside of the WWE PG Universe box. It was fun to get to see her back in the ring again after her retirement and she's still better than 80% of the ladies on either brand, which doesn't say a lot about their current talent level considering she's wrestled twice in how long now? The six-person was inoffensive and fun for what it was and it was about as good as you could expect for five minutes.

Batista made his career-changing announcement and decided that he's had enough of losing title shots to the WWE Champion and that he's going to begin losing title shots to the World Heavyweight Champion over on Smackdown. While this may not have been the great news of a potential retirement like I was hoping for last week, this is still good news as it means that Batista won't be cluttering up a top-heavy Raw main event scene and it means that Smackdown gets a top-level face, which they need desperately. Sure, it'll still be the same Batista we've seen year after year since his face turn (hard to believe that it's already been four straight years of Batista as a good guy), but they need someone at the top of the card and once they get some of their guys like Mysterio and Edge back, maybe we can finally see them freshen up Batista with a turn. If he manages to stay healthy for that long that is.

Batista's swan song on Raw was a no holds barred match against Randy Orton, one of the guys that "broke his arm" to put him on the shelf this last time. This one was merely here to give the Raw fans one last time to see Batista in the ring while helping further the Orton/Cena angle towards Hell in the Cell. Cena came out and stopped Orton from high-tailing it and made him take his Batista Bomb like a man. The match was bleh, much like most of Batista's matches have been for the past year or so, but he didn't get hurt (which is a bonus) and he didn't hurt Orton (another bonus). The match was entertaining and did a good job of re-establishing Batista's schtick before he heads over to Friday nights, but it wasn't anything spectacular.

Jack Swagger solidified his position as the new number one challenger to the US Championship on Monday, pinning champion Kofi Kingston in a tag match that saw Swagger team with The Miz and Kingston team with Primo. While there hasn't been a lot of story-telling in this mid-card as of late with matches seemingly booked a week at a time, it's nice to see them work at building more than one guy as the challenger, giving multiple options for feuds once current feuds have ended. It shows a lot more foresight than the WWE has had as of late when it comes to the mid-card and it's going to be fun to see Swagger and Kingston hopefully get a few weeks to build a feud and maybe get a good PPV match at Survivor Series where Swagger picks up the win and the belt.

The last thing worth talking about from Monday is the DiBiase/Michaels match that stemmed from the previous night's PPV. Prior to the match, DiBiase and Rhodes cut a great little promo about their win against DX and how they're not sons of famous men, but fathers of Legacy. Good stuff from both guys and it really helps establish them as guys that are where they are because of their talents, rather than their last names. The match was humming along pretty good as well before Cody interfered to save DiBiase from taking Sweet Chin Music. The brawl between all four guys really helped sell the hatred and THIS is a feud that is worthy of being in Hell in the Cell as there are roots in this all the way back to Legacy helping Orton beat up Triple H before WrestleMania. After the submission match, I'm really looking forward to Hell in the Cell and I'm hoping that Triple H and Shawn Michaels show up in ass-kicking mode instead of in DX-comedy mode like they were the last time they were in a Cell match.





ECW on SyFy Results:

The Hurricane vs. William Regal - Winner: William Regal (pinfall, Knee Trembler)
Yoshi Tatsu vs. Zack Ryder - Winner: Yoshi Tatsu (pinfall, roundhouse kick)
Battle Royal For ECW Championship Shot: Vladimir Kozlov, Ezekiel Jackson, Tommy Dreamer, Goldust, Paul Burchill, Zack Ryder, Shelton Benjamin, Sheamus, Tyler Reks, and Yoshi Tatsu - Winner: Zack Ryder (last eliminated Tommy Dreamer)


After Christian defended his ECW Championship successfully against William Regal at Breaking Point, the quest for a new #1 contender began as the majority of this Tuesday's show was booked around a 10-man battle royal to determine who would be the next man to challenge Christian for the silver strap. Prior to the battle royal, we got a couple of matches with some of ECW's top guys and they were very much a mixed bag. The match between Regal and Hurricane was not so much bad as it was disappointing. Regal got jobbed out of earning another title shot by being in the battle royal and drew The Hurricane in singles action instead, which ended up barely being three minutes by the time they had a commercial break take away the opening moments. I'm not suggesting it would have been a better match with those two minutes as they seemed to just not have it chemistry-wise, but it was still tough to get involved in the match being thrown into the middle of it.

Yoshi Tatsu and Zack Ryder continued their little mini-feud and after some fun backstage interaction between Tatsu, Ryder and Goldust, they put on a very basic, very entertaining little match that was a good bit of fun and a nice lead-in for the main event battle royal. Tatsu continues to look strong as he picked up the win here and both guys got a good amount of offense while showing that they could be able to act on their potential. Watching this match reminded me a lot of watching an OVW match when they were the main developmental for WWE and had guys like Cena, Orton, Batista and the like in their ranks. You know that something is there and you know that they might be able to be big stars, but you just don't know if they'll be able to capitalize when the opportunity presents itself. Both guys capitalized here with a good match and if they're able to keep doing those kinds of things, they could position themselves very well for a bright future in the company.

The main event battle royal featured some nice continuity with Ryder still holding his head from the roundhouse kick and managing to eliminate Goldust, which was a nice little nod to Goldust's dig on him from earlier in the show. In the end, Ryder picked up the shock win to become the new #1 contender in a pretty fun battle royal that got plenty of time to develop instead of just cramming eight or nine elimnations into four minutes. That being said, I'm not a big fan of having Ryder lose just before becoming a #1 contender to the only title in the company. I get that it made it more of a surprise that he won and that he took advantage of Dreamer's ring position to pick up the win, but if Ryder can't beat Tatsu straight up, why are the people supposed to believe he's a legitimate threat to Christian's title? Just one of those little things that bugs me. The match was good and I enjoyed it, but the booking behind it and leading up to it puzzled me slightly.





WWE Superstars Results:

Chris Masters vs. Santino Marella - Winner: Chris Masters (submission, Master Lock)
Christian vs. Paul Burchill - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch)
Dolph Ziggler vs. Finlay - Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, Zig Zag)


After last week's five-match abomination, Superstars returned to its more current roots with three solid matches featuring mid-to-lower level stars from all three brands and it was more than welcome. Where last week's show felt like a disaster, this week was paced well, everything got more than enough time to get over and guys that have programs saw them moved forward through what happened on the show. The only down time/somewhat less than important segment was the Chris Masters/Santino Marella bout that opened the show. While I know that there's a little program going with the two of them, this one was just for laughs and wasn't really my cup of tea. Santino segments are usually at least mildly entertaining, but there's only so much he can do with a heat-sucker like Masters.

The match featuring ECW Champion Christian and Paul Burchill was where this show really shone as not only was the match between Christian and Burchill a solid wrestling match that got nearly fifteen minutes with some inventive offense, but Zack Ryder did a tremendous job in getting himself over when he joined Striker and Matthews for some commentary and scouting on his future opponent. Ryder got in some great lines and showed a lot of charisma, much like guys like Mizzorrison and the MCMG's in TNA have in the past. This was a great first step in trying to undo the loss to Tatsu before the battle royal and made Ryder look like he belongs in the same conversation as Christian. Despite the silliness of the Woo's, it looks like Ryder could really get himself over with the proper exposure and some solid booking that doesn't cut him down too much. This is the first time he seemed like a star to me, and it couldn't have happened at a better time for him.

The main event for the show saw Dolph Ziggler continue his march to an Intercontinental Championship match with a victory over the grizzled Irish veteran Finlay. Luckily for Ziggler, this one came towards the end of his march rather than the beginning because I don't think he would have been able to go very far with advancing past the mid-card. Neither guy really had it here and this one would have been far better served as being the middle match on the show rather than the main event. It was serviceable enough as a match and there was nothing actively bad going on in the ring, but it was just a little off. Hopefully this won't take too much away from Ziggler's momentum heading into the match against Morrison in the future.





TNA Impact Results:

Tara and Christy Hemme vs. Angelina Love and Velvet Sky - Winners: Angelina Love and Velvet Sky (pinfall, Velvet's roll-up on Hemme)
D'Angelo Dinero vs. Suicide - Winner: D'Angelo Dinero (pinfall, DDE)
Handicap Match: Sheik Abdul Bashir and Kiyoshi vs. Hernandez - Winner: Hernandez (pinfall, Border Toss on Kiyoshi)
Lumberjack Match: Alissa Flash vs. Cody Deaner - Winner: Alissa Flash (pinfall, Deaner atacked by various Knockouts)
TNA Legends Championship: Mick Foley vs. Kevin Nash (C) - Winner: Kevin Nash (disqualification, Abyss-ference)
Scott Steiner and Brutus Magnus vs. Robert Roode and Brother Ray - Winners: Scott Steiner and Brutus Magnus (pinfall, Doug Williams belt shot on Roode)
Awesome Kong and Raisha Saeed vs. Taylor Wilde and Sarita - Winners: Taylor Wilde and Sarita (pinfall, Wilde's bridging German suplex on Saeed)
Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan - Winner: Matt Morgan (disqualification, Angle-ference)


I was only able to catch a few bits and pieces of this week's Impact, but I can tell just from looking at the match results that there was probably way too many things crammed into the show this week. After two weeks where there were a bunch of matches and good pacing, it doesn't look like they were able to keep it up for a third week. Instead of talking about the show in depth, I'll just touch on some of the things that I saw.

D'Angelo Dinero is looking good in TNA and I think that he's going to do really well there in the long run if he can keep cutting great promos and having decent to great matches. The thing about Dinero is that if he's going to go with this full-on "Pope" gimmick, he needs to do some things to accentuate it. WWE has every wrestler with a finishing move that matches their gimmick and while the "Elijah Express" made sense, the D'Angelo Dinero Express isn't quite as good. If they want to go all out with his gimmick, they should rename it something like the "Religious Experience" or something like that.

Boy, how much of a huge sigh of relief must TNA be heaving after filming a bit of a reunion from the Beautiful People for this episode. Rather than having Velvet Sky team with some strange new partner for the finals of the tournament, they can have the Beautiful People begin a new incarnation with Madison Rayne taking the place of the visa-less Angelina Love.

I actually caught the whole main event and the aftermath and while I love that Morgan is just chomping at the bit to get at angle, is it really worth handing Samoa Joe to him on a silver platter like that? Joe got nothing in a four-minute match when he used to KILL guys in less time than that. Call me crazy, but I think that this could have been much more useful if it had been Booker on the receiving end of the beating from "The Blueprint". What's the point of making one new star if you had to sacrifice one on the way there by having Joe look like the bully that gets made into a bitch.





Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison vs. Mike Knox - Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Starship Pain)
Melina vs. Michelle McCool - Winner: Melina (pinfall, roll-up)
Cryme Tyme vs. The Hart Dynasty - Winners: The Hart Dynasty (pinfall, Kidd's neckbreaker on JTG after Smith hit him with a boot)
The Great Khali vs. Kane - Winner: The Great Khali (disqualification, Kane chair shot)
Batista vs. Chris Jericho - Winner: Batista (pinfall, Batista Bomb)


The Animal made his return to Smackdown this week and even before the stunning announcement on Monday night, there was plenty expected to go down as GM Teddy Long had to answer to The Undertaker for screwing him out of the World Heavyweight Championship at Breaking Point. Teddy definitely answered for his sins, though we just don't know how yet as Taker kidnapped him in a puff of purple wacky gas after Long cut a promo asking Taker to forgive him. Where this is going to go I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing that it's going to force Long's hand to where he's going to have to give Taker the Cell match with Punk, so it makes some good sense that way. A little too over-the-top dramatic for me, as most WWE skits and backstage vignettes have become when they're not doing comedy, but this was good for what it was and a way to begin to get from point A to point B.

Inside the ring, Batista had his first match back on Smackdown against Chris Jericho and after defeating Randy Orton on Monday, he made it two straight wins by hitting the Batista Bomb on Jericho for the three-count. While this was a decent enough match, you really have to wonder why they had Batista go over big twice in one week. Yeah, it's his return and all, but Orton takes two losses in a row and one half of the Unified Tag Champs goes down, taking a little steam out of the only legit tag team on the roster that's over enough to hold the belts. Granted, Jericho has decent matches with anyone and I think that that was what they were going for here, but there was a lot better way to do something like this. If they had put Batista in against Jericho and had Show come down to cause a DQ, their team could remain strong, while Batista could have gotten himself a partner, went after the Unified Tag Titles and been able to ease back into wrestling full-time to avoid another injury.

The lone tag match on the show saw Cryme Tyme taking on The Hart Dynasty in a bout that got a lot of time and gave the Hart kids yet another chance to shine. I know I've said it a lot, but they're really growing well in their role on Smackdown and growing even more as a team. They've got a great history of working together from their Stampede Bulldog days and they're just building on it with matches like this one. As far as I'm concerned the sky is the limit for these kids as they're taking a foundation of solid, old-school wrestling mentality and adding innovative moves and new-age philosophies to create something that is a great mix of both schools. It's a shame that both the Harts and Jericho/Show are heels because these kids really do deserve to start getting some shots a moving up in the division because they deserve it. I hope they're together for a good long while before they even think of breaking them up, but of course since it's the WWE, they'll be broken up and reformed twice over by Christmas no doubt.

Lastly, perhaps even mercifully, it appears that the feud between Kane and The Great Khali is over after Kane destroyed Khali with the ring steps during their rematch from Breaking Point. While the execution may not have been great with Kane seemingly forgetting how to swing a set of steps, the outcome was much appreciated as the ugliness between these two is now over. For those of you wondering why I haven't made much mention of Drew McIntyre's apperances yet, it's mainly because I'd like to see him do something....anything...other than just interfering before matches begin and laying people out. When he gets a proper in-ring debut, I'll be more than glad to talk about him. For now, he's just someone on the outside looking if as far as I'm concerned.






As I said, things are running a little differently this week so there's going to be a lot of stories in relatively short order so that I can actually finish this thing without throwing my laptop out the window and into the street, so this will be rapid-fire with nothing getting more than a paragraph or so of my opinions. Get it? Got it? Good....




-- I would say that the biggest story of the week in terms of wrestling is the announcement that World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon has officially stepped down from her post in the company to run for the US Senate in the state of Connecticut. While this may not have any effect on the product we see on TV, McMahon is a shrewd businesswoman and someone who really makes the gears turn smoothly behind the scenes. If she's not successful, one would assume she'll just resume her post in the company like nothing happened, but if she wins the Senate race, there's a pretty good chance that one of the key players behind the scenes at the WWE may be gone forever. I'm not suggesting this is some sort of "beginning of the end" scenario, but this could end up hurting the company pretty badly as what happens in the business side could directly relate to what happens in the ring if it means that bad business sends wrestlers elsewhere for work. It's a longshot sure, but it very well could happen, meaning that they had better find a suitable replacement or have someone that can learn on the fly because while she may not be on TV, Linda's got a hand in every single other aspect of the business to be sure.




-- TNA has released both BG James and Jim Cornette, both guys that were on the bad side of the whole debacle between Kurt Angle and Jeff Jarrett. By bad side, of course I mean Jarrett's side, and they were shown the door. James' departure isn't going to be a huge loss as there's not a lot that he was doing there besides some agent work I believe, but Cornette's loss is something that could hurt. He's incredibly creative and has a mind for the business like a steel trap, and while he may prove to be a little hot-headed and hard to work with sometimes, he's someone whose contributions to the product far outweigh his quirks. For his part, Cornette seems pretty unfazed by the whole release, even suggesting that it will work out better for him as it will allow him more time to work on wrestling projects that he enjoys. If you ask me, there was probably a lot smarter ways for TNA to deal with that situation than to get rid of one of the smartest men behind the curtain.




-- Ric Flair has decided to come out of retirement to be Hulk Hogan's primary opponent when Hulk makes his tour of Australia that is coming soon. While part of me wants to resent Flair for going back on the perfect send-off and ultimately becoming the same thing that Chris Jericho accused him of in the build to WrestleMania, but I just can't. The guy is broker than broke and is obviously trying everything he can think of to keep his head above water. For as gifted as Flair was in the ring, he was horrible outside of it when it came to finances and it's time to settle the tab so to speak in his later years. The good thing at least is that Flair has a name to make some money off of while most older people who end up this deep in debt just struggle under the weight of it forever. It sucks that Flair will be returning to the ring, especially against someone like Hogan, but hey, if anyone can make Hogan look good at this pont, it would probably be Ric Flair. For as much as it's hard to swallow that he's doing it, he still takes an ass whipping like few others can. Unfortunately for Flair, the tour is also going to have Brutus Beefcake, The Nasty Boys and Diamond Dallas Page, so expect for it to tank worse than a Megan Fox movie. Too soon?




-- Warrior Warrior Warrior Jr. The Third has lost his latest battle with the WWE as a judge threw out his lawsuit against the company that stated that they had broken a settlement agreement where neither party would disparage the other when they released the utterly awesome Self Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior DVD a few years back. Well, it seems as though the legal eagles uncovered Warrior breaching the agreement himself with some damaging statements against his former employers and that he is now entitled to a nice big bag of shit all. You know what they say about forces from another planetary level throwing carbon-based lumps when their own spaceship is made out of a byproduct of sand and heat while the moons of Jupiter align with the powers and the voices of time.....Wow, I couldn't even keep up the Warrior-speak for a sentence before it made me feel dizzy.




-- After promising that he would release a statement that would clear up that little "truckload of pills" misunderstanding on his Twitter account last week, former WWE superstar and future prison romancee Jeff Hardy has decided to delete his Twitter and MySpace accounts, presumably to stop him from making statements like that while a DA office builds their case against him. This is actually probably in Hardy's best interest as he is looking at serious charges and in this day and age any statement made anywhere can be taken out of context and twisted around to someone's advantage or disadvantage. Besides, I'm sure that if he feels the itch to be creative again, Jeff will get a lot of writing in as part of the Prison Pen Pal program anyhow. Oh come on, it's a joke people....



The Final Bell


Well, that wraps me up for this somewhat strange, somewhat truncated edition of the Bell to Bell folks. Randle's got you covered tomorrow with a Raw preview and the five biggest threats in wrestling not named IRS (the real one), DEA, FBI or ATF. I'll be back next week to talk about TNA's latest pay-per-view offering, the weekly shows and anything else that comes to mind, along with plenty of hockey as well. In the mean time and in between time, I'll see you all back here next time for an all-new, stuffed to the tits edition of the Bell to Bell.


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