The Bell To Bell News Report 12.26.09

Posted by Randy Harrison on 12.26.2009

Christmas is in the books, as is my run on Sundays as the Bell to Bell makes its debut on Saturdays with news on Tommy Dreamer leaving ECW, my thoughts on TNA's last pay-per-view of 2009 and the third biggest story of the first year of this column....




Hello again and welcome to the post-Christmas edition of the Bell to Bell on our new day. Last week, the inimitable Dustin James penned his final Saturday news report, which left me the opening to jump in on Saturdays. Of course, I end up having to write the first column near and on Christmas day, but that's not so bad I suppose since it gives me a break from egg nog and eating, two things that I've probably had more than enough of in the past few days. I won't bore you too much this week with anything huge about the hockey or any extraneous stuff since you're all still visiting family and out for the holidays, so let's just jump right in.


You know the drill...





Ding Ding....








TNA Final Resolution Results:

TNA World Tag Team Championships: The Motor City Machine Guns vs. The British Invasion (C) - Winners: The British Invasion (pinfall, powerbomb/top rope elbow combo on Sabin)
TNA Knockouts Championship: Tara vs. ODB (C) - Winner: Tara (pinfall, roll-up)
Feast or Fired Match: Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Cody Deaner, James Storm, Robert Roode, Eric Young, Sheik Abdul Bashir, Homicide, Kiyoshi, Big Rob, Kevin Nash, Samoa Joe - Winners: Samoa Joe (TNA Championship match), Big Rob (X-Division Championship match), Kevin Nash (TNA Tag Team Championship match), Sheik Abdul Bashir (fired)
Eight Man Elimination Tag Team Match: Team 3D, Rhino, and Jesse Neal vs. Hernandez, Matt Morgan, Suicide, and DeAngelo Deniro - Winner: Matt Morgan (pinfall, Carbon Footprint on Brother Ray)
Last Man Standing Match: Scott Steiner vs. Bobby Lashley - Winner: Bobby Lashley (knockout, lead pipe shot to Steiner)
Raven and Dr. Stevie vs. Abyss and Mick Foley - Winners: Abyss and Mick Foley (pinfall, Abyss' Black Hole Slam on Raven)
Three Degrees of Pain Match: Desmond Wolfe vs. Kurt Angle - Winner: Kurt Angle (Angle wins second and third falls)
TNA World Heavyweight Championship: Daniels vs. AJ Styles (C) - Winner: AJ Styles (pinfall, Styles Clash)


TNA's final pay-per-view offering of 2009 was perhaps a perfect microcosm of the entire year for the company as the show was uneven and somewhat overbooked, yet still featured some of the best wrestling seen in North America this year. When TNA does it right, they REALLY do it right, and when they stink it up they really, REALLY stink it up and we got a little taste of both with this show. For me, the first thing I want to say is that TNA really needs to cut down on their use of gimmick matches. I get that they're vying for attention in an ADD world and that this is a Russo trademark, but having four of them on one pay-per-view is a little much. Saving the added stip for the Wolfe/Angle match and having that one be the only one outside of Feast or Fired with special rules would have made that match even better and wouldn't have watered down the entire idea of a gimmick match. The elimination tag rules were nice, but pretty much unnecessary to add, as were the Last Man Standing rules for Lashley/Steiner. I've always said to TNA that less is more and if they're smart, their New Year's resolution is going to be to focus more on what's happening in the ring rather than how many stipulations they can jam into one show.

That being said, there were some tremendous bright spots on the show for me, starting out with the TNA Tag Team Championship match that opened the show. The Guns were somewhat outsized by the Brits, but still held their own and looked like real contenders here. For whatever reason, TNA seems very reluctant to get behind the Guns seriously, despite the fact that they're solid workers and have some real charisma and that was evident again here. They helped put on an exciting opener with Magnus and Williams here and did more than enough to help carry things on their end, but they came up short yet again. This team has been together for a very long time and they need to decide to do something with them soon. If it's giving them the titles, it needs to happen fairly quickly and if it's breaking them up (dumb idea in my book), that also needs to start happening. I know I've lamented the lack of tag teams that stay together for more than six months in the past, but most of the time those teams are actually doing something. The Guns have spun their wheels seemingly forever and in my opinion, TNA needs to shit or get off the pot when it comes to Sabin and Shelley. They're a great team, but if there's no future for them there, let them separate and head back into the X-Division where they might actually have a shot at some upward mobility.

Between the fun opener and the fantastic finish to the show, we got the middle of TNA's roster in a variety of matches that ranged from bland to bad. The TNA Knockouts title match saw a new champion in Tara, but little else as the whole thing was a sloppy, tepid match that didn't do anything for me. Feast or Fired saw Samoa Joe get his title shot for AJ Styles' belt while Sheik Abdul Bashir got fired. Meh. The elimination tag match was alright, but had a lot of problems, mainly the DQ of Hernandez for a chairshot on Jesse Neal when seconds earlier Neal had just waffled Suicide. That one left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of turned me off to the rest of the match in the sense of if TNA doesn't feel the need to try to make a match make sense, why should I feel the need to invest in it. In the second-to-last match before the real festivities started, Bobby Lashley beat Scott Steiner in a Last Man Standing match that was big on intensity, but small on psychology. Much like Lansdell said in the PPV report, there were moments, but it was a lot of spot, count, spot, count, which wasn't very good. The Foley/Abyss vs. Stevie/Raven match was fun for what it was, a garbage brawl by four guys that know how to do it well. It wasn't setting the world on fire or anything, but it was decent and a good enough way to send us into the two main events. And what main events they were.

The Wolfe/Angle Three Degrees of Pain match was a real barnburner and minus the retarded stipulation of the cage being illegal for the first two falls, this one was tremendous. Both guys are well-versed in mat-based wrestling and used it to perfection here, showing their hatred for each other by just grinding and wearing at each other in an attempt to inflict as much damage and suffering as humanly possible to their opponent. Much like the classic match between Austin and Triple H back in the day, all three falls felt like separate matches, a big key when doing a stipulation like this one, yet all of the matches flowed together and built off of each other in the grander sense. This is an incredibly hard task to pull off, yet Angle and Wolfe did a fantastic job in doing so. Wolfe finally got a pinfall on Angle in the first fall, exorcising that demon once and for all, but lost the war when he dropped the next two falls, continuing to further the fact that Angle is just one small step ahead of Wolfe. While a match like this is usually a feud-ender and probably should be, there's plenty of material to touch on and use if they decide to continue the program, either now or further down the road. Tremendous stuff from both of these guys and this was over twenty-five minutes of stiff, psychology-filled, tense and dramatic action, something you rarely see these days. It almost felt a little like a time machine back to the territory days of hard work with just enough flash to keep the people on the edges of their seats.

It would have been easy to think that AJ Styles and Chris Daniels would be in trouble having to follow that kind of match with the TNA World Title on the line, but you'd have been wrong. Styles and Daniels had a completely different, yet equally as entertaining match in the main event of the show, building off of their previous history while putting on a heck of a standalone wrestling match. If TNA has any aspirations of competing with the WWE on any level, these are the types of matches that they're going to have to put on consistently to have even a remote shot. This one had less of a grinding feel to it and was more about Daniels and Styles trying to top each other with devastating and high-flying offense. The finish was spectacular with Styles hitting the super Styles Clash on Daniels and that got him the three-count after over twenty minutes of action. This match added to the earlier Wolfe/Angle match gave us pretty much the strongest back-to-back matches from any pay-per-view that I can remember in recent memory in either WWE or TNA. Unfortunately for TNA, there was so much else with the show that was either wrong or bland that it's still only good for about a 6.5 or so. If they can start to trim the crap and continue to keep the quality at the top of the card, they could be on to something good.





Monday Night Raw Results:


Melina, Kelly Kelly, and Gail Kim vs. Jillian, Alicia Fox, and Maryse - Winners: Melina, Kelly Kelly and Gail Kim (pinfall, Kelly's dropkick on Maryse)
Randy Orton, Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes vs. Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne - Winners: Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne (pinfall, Kingston's Trouble in Paradise on DiBiase)
John Cena vs. Jack Swagger - Winner: John Cena (submission, STF)
Carlito vs. Chris Masters - Winner: Chris Masters (submission, Master Lock)
Sheamus vs. MVP - Winner: Sheamus (pinfall, Razor's Edge)
The Miz vs. Santino Claus - Winner: The Miz (pinfall, Skull Crushing Finale)


Wow, who would have thought that The Miz would be in the main event of Raw? I know, that the interview segment was technically the last segment of the show, but the last match on a show is typically the main event, meaning that not only did Miz main event the show, he actually won the main event, which is doubly impressive. All joking aaside, this show was almost like WWE deciding to try to out-TNA TNA by having a show full of solid wrestling with a couple of really good matches getting nearly choked out by some absolutely awful attempts at skits and sketch comedy. There's something to be said for comedy's place in wrestling and in this instance, there was just no comedy to be found in any of it, especially the terrible Little People's Court segment. Yeah, people may get on me for my continued dislike of all things Hornswoggle, but these segments were just awful for me. I really don't know what it is that they were trying to pull off with these segments, but they were a disaster. That also goes for the whole deal with the tiger and the blond lady, which was another colossal disaster. I didn't know what it was when it started, but as soon as I knew, I groaned and nearly changed the channel straight away. I know that it's Christmas and some of these shows get phoned in at the end of the year, but these openers were the epitome of a trainwreck.

Moving into the matches, there were two awesome matches for the show including a six-man match with the entire Legacy faction taking on Kofi Kingston, Mark Henry and Evan Bourne. Kingston and Henry have had some connection in the past as they've teamed with MVP on occasion, but the chemistry with Bourne was possibly even better as it gave them a really different dynamic. This one also helped keep the heat on the Kofi/Orton/Legacy feud as Kofi got a pin on DiBiase and seems to be continuing on with the momentum he's gained in the past few weeks. Another bonus for this match was that it was the perfect thing to get the horrible taste of the first twenty minutes of the show out of my mouth. It's rare to see some quality wrestling on Raw, especially in multiple-man tag matches that seem to feature six or eight guys and only last two or three minutes, so this was a welcome breath of fresh air on multiple levels. Rhodes and DiBiase were also superstars in the match, doing exactly what they needed to do to help their leader without looking like the lackeys that they were before.

The other really good match came with John Cena taking on Jack Swagger, a guy that hasn't had a lot going on lately. I went into it expecting something pretty similar to what CM Punk got last week, but instead it ended up being a very competitve match with Swagger getting more out of the bout in a losing performance than he's had in months since moving over to Raw. I like that instead of just having Cena run roughshod over everyone on the roster on his way to a rematch with Sheamus, something that would leave the heel roster on Raw in shambles, they had him running really even with Swagger. I wasn't in much doubt as to who was going to win here, but I really enjoyed that Swagger got as much as he did. I'm not sure if this is going to lead to something more for Swagger coming into the new year or if this is just a one-off before he's shunted back down into the midcard hell that's developed on Raw, but he's proven that maybe he's worth a second look in the future.

Speaking of stalled pushes, MVP got completely sacrificed to the current WWE Champion, Sheamus in what amounted to little more than a squash match for the champ to help build him a little more credibility. While it was tough to see MVP in this slot, there really weren't too many other people that could have been put in there that would have given Sheamus enough of a rub with a win to have it actually mean something. It's a shame to see how far MVP has fallen since his run on Smackdown that had him having a strong run with the US Championship, but the WWE is the land of opportunities and with what I just said about Swagger before, it's not outside the realm of possibility that we could see MVP bounce back. As for Sheamus, he looked fantastic and was really dominant, something that he needs as he continues on with his title reign. It's a little bit of a reverse situation as he's getting the wins he probably should have gotten prior to being given the belt after he's already won the belt, but it'll be interesting to see if they continue it in the next few weeks and whether it helps him gain a solid footing as the champ.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on the final segment of the show, which was a complete 180 from the way the show opened for me. This was my idea of a talky-type segment done properly and it actually helped to get Show and Jericho over as even bigger heels when they started beating the poor little people within an inch of their lives and threatened the same treatment for Hornswoggle. The crowd was totally hot for DX to make the save and popped huge when they came out to spare Hornswoggle from The Big Show's chokeslam. Unfortunately this is looking to be leading towards Hornswoggle continuing to be part of DX as their mascot, something that I can't say I'm a fan of, especially when DX hold the unified tag titles, but that's just me. Of course, Santa Jericho didn't hurt things as once again, Jericho proved why he's been one of the unsung heroes of WWE TV and he played the part to the hilt. Great work from Jericho and I'll be interested to see where he's going to fit into the WrestleMania card this year.

Overall, the show was a wreck, from Johnny Damon doing a terrible job as host, to the bad segments, but the two solid matches that anchored the middle of the show saved it from being a complete Christmas failure.





ECW on SyFy Results:

Zack Ryder vs. Tommy Dreamer - Winner: Zack Ryder (pinfall, Zack Attack)
Vance Archer vs. Goldust - Winner: Vance Archer (pinfall, reverse DDT)
Jack Swagger vs. Yoshi Tatsu - Winner: Yoshi Tatsu (pinfall, roundhouse kick)


ECW was another mixed bag this week as the first half of the show was pretty bad before the main event saved the show with some great wrestling from two of the WWE's rising stars. The show started out with Tommy Dreamer wrestling his final match for the ECW brand, something that I'll touch on when I get into the news stories, against Zack Ryder. You've got to give it up for Dreamer as he was a consumate professional all the way to the end, eating the pin and putting Ryder over on his way out the door. The match wasn't much, but Dreamer certainly had his work boots on and he showed the same kind of fire that he had during the heyday of ECW. It was a great final effort for Dreamer and it may not be a huge thing for Ryder ultimately, but he's certainly a little better off than he was before for picking up the win over Dreamer in his final match.

The less that I say about the abomination of a segment that saw Caylen Croft and Trent Baretta on the Abraham Washington show, the better off we'll all be. When Tony Atlas is the most entertaining part of your segment and it's not 1983, it's a pretty bad sign for the three guys that are trying to make their mark in the company.

The ECW Homecoming series continued as well with Goldust coming back to ECW to take on the latest big, bad squasher, Vance Archer. This was pretty much like every other Archer match since his ECW debut and he picked up the win again with the reverse DDT. Not a lot to see in this one and just another win for Archer that ultimately won't mean a whole heck of a lot because Goldust hasn't meant much in quite some time.

The end of the show saw Jack Swagger making his much-ballyhooed return to ECW to face Yoshi Tatsu as part of the homecoming series and Swagger certainly built off of his momentum from Monday night as he and Tatsu put on a great main event that really saved the show for me. The thing that stood out the most for me was the strong reaction that Tatsu is getting from the fans, something that a lot of the midcard faces on Raw and Smackdown would desperately love to be getting. Tatsu has really taken off since making his debut with ECW and it looks as though it could just be a matter of time before he's holding gold there or moving on to one of the other two brands for bigger and better things. Granted, they haven't done a ton to flesh out his character yet, but the same could be said for Kofi Kingston when he was a few months in. It just takes time for things to click sometimes and if someone is talented enough, they'll find a way to rise to the top. After this match, both of these guys could be on the radar as big part of the WWE's future from 2010 and beyond if they weren't already.





WWE Superstars Results:

Ezekiel Jackson vs. Vladimir Kozlov - Winner: None (double countout)
Primo Colon vs. Chavo Guerrero - Winner: Chavo Guerrero (pinfall, Frog Splash)
Kane vs. Mike Knox - Winner: Kane (pinfall, chokeslam)


The weird week before Christmas for WWE programming continued on Superstars as there were things happening here that I wouldn't and couldn't have expected. The biggest one that I can think of took place in the second match of the show, where Primo Colon met Chavo Guerrero. Not only did the match last more than a minute and not feature any of the midget comedy that has been involved in seemingly every Chavito match this year, Guerrero actually picked up a clean pin with the frog splash. I'm not one to think that the WWE sends guys messages with results in the ring as much as some people feel they do, but that has to be a HUGE message to Primo as the silly season of WWE releases rapidly approaches. Not only did you lose on the WWE's D show Primo, but you lost to Chavo Guerrero, the guy that couldn't beat an Irish little man. Tag team with Evan Bourne aside, I'd start updating that resume Primo because you may not be long for this company.

The show started off with another battle between Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov, who are totally on the same page and not having ANY problems at all, right William Regal? I guess you felt totally safe heading off on the "business matter" without explicitly explaining to them that they shouldn't wrestle each other, but you were wrong. Anyhow, the match itself was terrible with two big goons hammering on each other for a minute and a half before they got counted out. I didn't think much of this one at all, if you couldn't tell, and the only redeeming quality is that it was only ninety seconds or so.

The short match from ECW did lead to us getting a very rare Superstars promo with Drew McIntyre talking to us all about how much better he is than us because Vince McMahon says so. He called himself a future world champion before getting cut off by former IC Champ, John Morrison. The segment was just here to make the title rematch between the two for the New Year's edition of Smackdown, but it was still a good little segment with Morrison getting himself a little taste of revenge by attacking McIntyre and sending him on a one-way trip on the Starship Pain to end a fun little segment that was a nice twist from a show that rarely features this kind of interview building to a match.

The main event, the last Christmas present that the WWE decided to give their fans, featured Mike Knox and Kane duking it out. Almost makes you wonder if the writers are Hanukkah folks huh? I'm not being completely fair though as the match was a lot better than I expected it to be. Knox has some impressive agility and movement for a big guy, while Kane is always capable of at least putting on a decent match. It wasn't anywhere near as slow and lumbering as I had feared it was going to be and it was actually a solid main event for the show. The finish was a big surprise too with Kane and Knox ending up on the top rope teasing a super chokeslam before Knox knocked Kane off and dived onto him, landing right into a chokeslam to eat the pin. For as sarcastic as I was going in, these two busted their asses and have nothing to be ashamed of with this match. Neither guy has title hopes to be sure, but it was a good bout from two professionals that knew what they were doing in there. That's about all you can ask from a company that has midgets, Santino and the like.





Friday Night Smackdown Results:

R-Truth, Matt Hardy, John Morrison and Finlay vs. Dolph Ziggler, Drew McIntyre, Luke Gallows and CM Punk - Winners: R-Truth, Matt Hardy, John Morrison and Finlay (pinfall, Morrison's Starship Pain on Ziggler)
World Heavyweight Championship: Rey Mysterio vs. The Undertaker (C) - Winner: None (no contest, Batista-ference)
Cryme Tyme vs. Bryce Andrews and Pat Buck - Winners: Cryme Tyme (pinfall, G-9 on Buck)
Mickie James and Maria vs. Layla and Beth Phoenix - Winners: Mickie James and Maria (pinfall, James' kick to the head on Layla)
WWE Unified Tag Team Championship: The Hart Dynasty vs. D-Generation X (C) - Winners: D-Generation X (pinfall, Triple H's Pedigree on Smith)


This week's Smackdown fell on Christmas Night and throughout the majority of the show, it felt like they were expecting to have a lot of new people who haven't seen much wrestling watching the show. Grisham and Striker seemed to be explaining things a little more (Striker's repeated referencing to which wrestler was in which color tights as an example), while there was an effort to get nearly every big name currently on the roster on the show. That definitely seemed to be the thinking behind the eight-man tag match to open the show featuring pretty much every midcard wrestler on the brand. The action was pretty good throughout with Morrison especially impressing me, not just because he got the pin, but because he's looking like the same kind of breakout star on the blue brand that Kofi Kingston has become on Raw. A little more fostering of a connection between Morrison and the fans and he could blow up huge in 2010 if you ask me.

The Undertaker/Rey Mysterio match was not too shabby and I liked that they made it into a really big deal with the special ring announcing and the whole nine. Taker looked like he's at least a little bit better off than he was when he was barely able to go nine minutes in matches with four people in them and Rey hardly looked like someone who's come back from a recent knee surgery. I didn't care for the finish at all with Batista coming in to cause the disqualification, but I can understand why it happened because they're trying to keep Batista's heel heat high this soon into his turn. I liked the unpredictable part of things where Rey, the smallest dog in the fight, left as the last guy standing after Bastista and The Undertaker both ate 619's in a flurry of finishers from all three men. Yeah, it looked like there was a hint of luck in it all, but it still makes it a three-man feud, something that will likely lead to a match of that nature at the Royal Rumble.

The Chris Jericho interview segment that featured the Hart Dynasty and DX interrupting was a really fun segment for me as it gave the Hart kids some interaction with the biggest names on the brand while also continuing Jericho's run with DX, minus The Big Show. Jericho told them to make an impact, the Harts laid out Jericho with the springboard Hart Attack and definitely made an impact. The one thing that bugged me a bit is that Shawn's goofiness is starting to come off a bit more like him going senile. When you're thirty and forgetful, you're probably either drunk or being a goof. When you're over forty and doing it, they're probably a step or two away from trying to medicate you. The match itself in the main event with DX defending the Unified Tag Titles against the Harts was a REALLY good showing by the Harts and a much better match than the Raw match between the two teams. This one got time to build and has helped the Harts' credibility as viable challengers for the title immensely, as has their interactions with Jericho.

The rest of the show wasn't much to write home about, but two quality matches on a Christmas night show isn't much to complain about when it could have been easy enough for them to take the night off like Raw apparently did on Monday.








-- There's really not a whole lot of news in this debut Saturday edition as everyone kept a pretty low profile, no doubt due to some last-minute Christmas shopping or wanting to keep their collective noses clean so as to not ruin holiday plans. The biggest story of the week was Tommy Dreamer's decision to leave ECW after re-signing with the WWE over the summer to continue with the brand. It's a shame that Dreamer's departure ends with this kind of whimper (a televised loss to Zack Ryder and little to no fanfare), rather than the bang that it could have ended with if they had pulled the trigger on his "win the title or I retire" angle in the spring and early-summertime.

Dreamer has been a mainstay in the original ECW as well as the new reincarnation of the brand and he is probably one of the people that would be most identifiable with the letters E-C-W. Where Dreamer goes from here is pretty well up to him as he's more than likely got a backstage position available to him in the WWE if he wants to be done in the ring. That still means he'd be on the road, which could be a sticking point if Dreamer is looking to get away from the grind. There's also a chance that Dreamer could be finding his way down to Orlando to jump into the same TNA pool that guys like his former ECW running buddy Tazz have. There hasn't really been any buzz on Dreamer joining the company or even on any negotations or contact between either side, but since TNA seems to always be interested in people leaving the WWE, it's not outside the realm of possibility.

Personally, I would love to see Dreamer hang it up here as he is getting up there in years and it was health issues that had him contemplating retirement originally a few years back. He's accomplished about all that he possibly can in terms of competing in the ring for national company (Do you honestly see him winning any kind of title in TNA if he goes?) and there's really nowhere for him to go but down. I know that there's the passion that drives wrestlers to continue well beyond their expiration dates (Ric Flair), but I really hope that Dreamer has made his peace with the fact that his career is over and enjoys the memories that he has rather than trying vainly to create new ones while dragging down the overall quality of his body of work. As I said earlier, the only way it could have been better is if his leaving would have been the natural payoff to the angle in the summer surrounding the ECW Championship.

If this truly is the end, thank you Tommy for everything that you put into the wrestling business and all of your hard work and efforts in your career. Good luck to you in the future, whatever you decide to do.



-- The on-again, off-again story of the week saw WWE.com announce that Mike Tyson would be hosting Raw on January 11th. Sooner than you can say trainwreck, the announcement essentially disappeared from the site. It came back the next day and is now official, meaning that "The Baddest Man on the Planet" will make his return to the WWE. Tyson was an integral part of WrestleMania XIV, serving as a special enforcer outside of the ring and aligning himself with Shawn Michaels and Triple H before the show before ultimately counting the pin on Michaels and knocking him out after the match. Tyson is a huge fan of professional wrestling and while it may be a tough choice in terms of Tyson not being the best with the English language, he'll certainly be entertaining and will be hot on the heels of possibly the biggest return in the history of the company the week before. Honestly, they could probably get a chimp to host the show and it'd do pretty good if what everyone expects to happen on January 4th actually happens.



-- Some sad news to end the week on as former ECW star Kid Kash was arrested on charges of identity theft, forgery and theft of property, stemming from an incident that saw Kash, real name David Cash, attempt to use the credit card of a female acquaintance. Cash was charged with four counts of identity theft, two counts of forgery under $500 and four counts of theft of property under $500, but claims that he was given permission to use the card. Cash is currently being held in the Washington County Detention Center on a $10,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Washington County General Sessions Court on January 4. This is a sad situation no matter how you slice it but there's still a lot left to determine, including whether Cash had the permission to use the card or not. I'm not sure on whether or not that that will be enough to excuse the charges or not, but there will probably be a lot more to update on in the next week or so as the investigation progresses, so keep dialed in with 411mania for the latest developments.


The Top Three Stories of The Bell To Bell Era


I spoke a couple of weeks back about the upcoming fiftieth edition of the column and I talked about going through a mini-countdown of the top stories of my days as a news report writer. Last week got put on hold a little bit as I ran a little long with my talk on a couple of other topics, but this week we begin with the third biggest story of the past year, according to me.



-- Nigel McGuinness signing with TNA sits at number three for me in terms of the top stories of the year, partially because of how much he has gotten done in such a short time in TNA. The other reason this story is a big one is that McGuinness had reached a deal in principle with the WWE before moving to TNA and only entertained TNA's offer once it was determined that some of McGuinness' recent health issues could end up leading to more long-term injuries that might keep him from reaching his full potential. Think of it as a player in another sport failing a physical to void a contract.

As I said, this is a big story because of how high-profile McGuinness has become since his debut as Desmond Wolfe on Impact, immediately launching into a program with Kurt Angle that has both guys putting on pay-per-view match of the year candidates whenever they lock horns. McGuinness has injected a real shot of enthusiasm and excitement into the upper card in TNA and it seems to be infectious as the rest of the guys like AJ Styles and Daniels seem to be stepping up their games further as a result of Wolfe/McGuinness' current run.

The other thing to consider about this is where McGuinness could have been in the WWE as you have to wonder if Sheamus is perhaps the poor man's Nigel. There's a strong possibility that McGuinness could have been the breath of fresh air that was injected into the Raw main event scene by beating Cena if he had been able to get into the company. I'm not saying that things would have run exactly the same with it being a case of changing puzzle pieces, but you have to believe that there's a good probability that McGuinness would have made himself into a big star in the WWE as he's got the in-ring chops as well as the ability to get people to hate him, two things that will always help you get over.

Whether McGuinness will be one of the pieces of the puzzle that will help TNA catch up to the WWE remains to be seen, but McGuinness being turned away by the WWE only to become one of the biggest stars in TNA in a very short amount of time is an easy choice as my number three story of the Bell to Bell's first year. Check in next week for the number two story and in two weeks, we'll reveal the number one story of my first year of writing the Bell to Bell when I hit column number fifty!


That does it for me for this edition folks, I'm not sure if anyone is going to be in tomorrow as they're still trying to find/sucker someone into taking my old slot, so I'll just tell you to check out the news feed to keep up with all of the happenings in the world of professional wrestling. Happy Boxing Day all you fellow Canadians, happy December 26th to the rest of you and in the meantime and in between time, I'll see you back here next time for the next all-new edition of The Bell to Bell! Have a safe and happy new year everyone!!


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