The Bell To Bell News Report 02.07.10

Posted by Randy Harrison on 02.07.2010

Edge returns to the WWE and turns the entire company on its head, Vince McMahon gets the best of Bret Hart again, and all of the competitors have been decided for the upcoming Elimination Chamber matches. TNA announces another PPV on the road and continues their 8-Card Stud tournament, while the indy wrestling scene EXPLODES with drama. All of that and a tribute to Jack Brisco is inside this week's Bell to Bell!




Hello wrestling fans and welcome to the latest edition of your week-ending written account of all things wrestling, the Bell to Bell! The news well has dried up a little bit this week as outside of one rather large return at the Royal Rumble and the announcement that will end one of the WWE's current brands while ushering in a new beginning, there hasn't been a ton of things going on this week in terms of big stories. No matter as we'll have our usual look at all of the weekly shows including the fallout from the Royal Rumble, as well as my take on what the return of Edge does to the WWE's main event picture heading into WrestleMania, the Davey Richards saga, a look back at the legendary career of former NWA Champion Jack Brisco and more.

No fantasy hockey or anything this week as we're pressed for both time and space, so let's just bring in Apollo to do his thing and get this dog and pony show started!


You know the drill...





Ding Ding....







WWE Royal Rumble Results

ECW Championship: Ezekiel Jackson vs. Christian (C) - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch)
WWE United States Championship: MVP vs. The Miz (C) - Winner: The Miz (pinfall, small package)
WWE Championship: Randy Orton vs. Sheamus (C) - Winner: Sheamus (disqualification, Cody-ference)
WWE Women's Championship: Mickie James vs. Michelle McCool - Winner: Mickie James (pinfall, DDT)
World Heavyweight Championship: Rey Mysterio vs. The Undertaker (C) - Winner: The Undertaker (pinfall, Last Ride)
Royal Rumble Match: - Winner: Edge (last eliminates John Cena)


The Road to WrestleMania has officially begun as last Sunday saw the Royal Rumble take place, which not only crowns the new number one contender for one of major WWE Championships, but also begins the time of the year where WWE programming seems to reach its peak and fires on all cylinders. This year's Rumble show was a really fun show for me and it all began with the ECW Championship match, which has been built to nicely, but left me worried that we'd get another thirty-second PPV title defense as seems to often happen with ECW. Instead of that, we actually got a very good opener that actually saw Ezekiel holding his own and doing some good work in the match rather than just being a big stiff that needed to be carried. Christian turned in his usual solid performance and defended the title, though he's seemingly up against it now with a lack of challengers for the title unless they give Jackson or Regal another shot.

I'm going to give a pass on the US Title bout as it was fairly bland and came out of nowhere, meaning that it could have been on any Raw show rather than only getting six minutes or so on a pay-per-view. Instead, I'll just jump right ahead into the WWE Title bout between Randy Orton and Sheamus, a match that I had hoped would be halfway decent, but instead came off as a somewhat lifeless affair that the fans had a hard time getting into due to the heel/heel dynamic. When you throw in that we got a non-finish due to Cody Rhodes' interference, this one goes from bad to worse. In the end, the entire match felt like little more than a prop to help further the eventual split between Orton and Legacy, which is something that should never happen with a WWE Championship match. It was interesting to see that Orton was getting the face reactions here despite the fact that it would usually be the opposite way around when two younger guys are breaking away from their heel leader. Should be interesting to see how this ends up, especially when it comes to whether Orton is out of the title picture or not.

Skipping again past the WWE Women's Title bout that rightfully paid off the Piggy James angle but didn't have much of a place on a major PPV with twenty seconds of match time, that brings us to the World Heavyweight Championship match between Rey Mysterio and The Undertaker, which worried me quite a bit due to both guys' limited physical capabilities due to various injuries. Both guys actually did well to hide their injuries though and as such, the match between them was much better than I expected it to be. The unintentional blood from Taker when Rey's kneebrace struck his face on the Asai moonsault gave the match another layer and helped put Rey over just a little bit more as a threat to the title, even though almost everyone's money was on The Undertaker retaining his title. He eventually did retain the title with a Last Ride that capped off a really fun finish sequence that saw Mysterio hit a pair of 619's before trying for the West Coast Pop and getting caught in a MONSTER Last Ride. For as good as the match was, the finish was even better and this was a great choice to make as the last match before the Rumble match.

The Rumble match itself. Where do I begin with this? First off, I absolutely loved Punk's run through the first third of the match including his promo work during the match, which he pulled off better than just about anybody. It reminded me somewhat of Steve Austin's run in the '97 Rumble in that Punk kept getting free space in the ring to put himself over while waiting for his next opponent. Not only did this make the early portion of the Rumble a must-see, which isn't always the case, it gave Punk a great chance to get his pious zealot character over with people who haven't had a chance to see him on Smackdown. From there, the match slowed into its usual pace with Shawn Michaels making his entrance and trying his best to win the match to get to his WrestleMania rematch with The Undertaker. He and HHH did a tremendous job working together until HBK pulled the switcheroo and superkicked HHH right out of the match in a twist that everyone saw coming, yet no one saw coming at the same time.

In the final third of the match, John Cena arrived, as did Batista, but the biggest development was the return of Edge, which popped the crowd huge as would be expected. Batista and HBK continued their long history that goes back to WrestleMania two years ago when HBK retired Batista's mentor, Ric Flair, as Batista eliminated Michaels with a beautiful sell job my Michaels on the elimination leading to HBK snapping and destroying a referee with a superkick before finally leaving. Crazy Shawn could be a fun way for Michaels to play heel without going into full-on dick mode like he was before the injury, a role that he has been reluctant to reprise since turning to his newfound faith. From there, the final three of Batista, Cena and Edge was whittled down to two as Cena eliminated Batista in a move that could possibly lead to those two meeting at WrestleMania this year in the match that many feel is the last big-money WrestleMania match in the current crop of WWE main event stars. Edge then eliminated Cena, winning the Rumble and the title shot while turning the WWE's main event picture on its ear.

I'll get into that development later in the top story below, but for now I will say that this was one of the tightest-booked and most entertaining Rumbles in quite some time and minus a couple of bumps in the road, the show was a very good way to kick off what amounts to the WWE's version of the playoffs heading into their "Super Bowl" in Arizona this March. Should be fun to see where he slots into the top of the card considering how settled things seemed to be in some aspects even a week or two ago.





WWE Monday Night Raw Results:

John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes - Winner: John Cena (pinfall, Attitude Adjustment)
Jack Swagger vs. HHH - Winner: Triple H (pinfall, Pedigree)
Randy Orton vs. Shawn Michaels - Winner: Randy Orton (pinfall, roll-up)
Mark Henry vs. Ted DiBiase - Winner: Ted DiBiase (pinfall, armbar DDT)
Kofi Kingston vs. The Big Show - Winner: Kofi Kingston (disqualification, Big Show knocks out referee)

The Raw following the Royal Rumble was something that I had almost forgotten could happen on this show as we got a night that was full of quality wrestling matches with very little in the way of backstage tomfoolery or guest host "comedy" bits. The show started out strong with Edge appearing before the crowd as the winner of the 2010 Royal Rumble and getting confronted by WWE Champion Sheamus. After verbal sparring that saw both guys try to play the "anything you can do, I can do better" game, Sheamus attacked Edge, but enjoyed a short-lived advantage before Edge cut him in half with a spear that left the champ laying. While most assumed that Edge would just head back to Smackdown to cash in his title shot, he's not firmly entrenched himself in the main event scene on Raw as well, meaning that he'll likely be a fixture on both shows until after the Elimination Chamber PPV which is when he's said he'll make his final decision. I loved seeing Edge back on Raw and this was a great segment to make the most impact possible with his return.

The aforementioned wrestling that I was talking about came in the form of Elimination Chamber qualifying matches, which dominated the show and made for some of the better Raw matches in recent memory. Despite the Henry/DiBiase and Kingston/Big Show matches that were just adequate and still got decent amounts of time, we got to see a tremendous ten-minute match between HHH and Jack Swagger that saw Swagger more than hold his own with the multiple-time champion and show some serious potential for the future, as well as a Shawn Michaels/Randy Orton match that, while criminally short, saw Michaels take another step down crazy road with his post-match slow burn following a roll-up victory by Orton. As I said before, I am a big fan of them taking Michaels in this direction as it will not only flip the face/heel dynamic that existed in all previous incarnations of HBK/HHH, but also gives Michaels a compelling character to sink his teeth into again. Michaels has proven that he can produce some rich and meaningful angles when he has the material and the right guy to work with and it looks like we might be nearing that type of perfect storm again, just in time for WrestleMania or beyond.

Also seeing action in the Elimination Chamber qualifiers was John Cena, who squashed poor Cody Rhodes just a night after his involvement in the finish of the WWE Championship match and looked every bit the invincible challenger that we've expected him to look for such a long time. If they're going to go with Orton as the face and Rhodes and DiBiase as the heels in the Legacy break-up, this makes sense as Rhodes can keep heel heat even when he's been beaten, but if they're going to try to make them the faces while Orton stays in his heel role, they can't have him losing that kind of credibility with such an easy and convincing defeat against Cena. It's a shame that they seem to be so indifferent towards some of their young talent on the Raw brand as guys like Rhodes, Swagger, Kofi Kingston and others could easily be the faces of the brand for years to come if they can be consistently booked rather than the mish-mash of mid-card booking that takes place now.

In case you're wondering why I haven't mentioned Raw's guest host from this past week until now, it's because he was practically non-existent, which in the case of William Shatner was actually a good thing. He didn't come off as forced or contrived like some of the celebrities who have tried to get too involved in their time on the show and yet still managed to make a triple threat match for the Unified Tag Titles for the following week, introduced Bret Hart prior to his main event interview segment with Vince McMahon and took part in one of the funnier bits of WWE Comedy in some time with his impassioned, heartfelt, incredibly emotional renderings of some of the WWE's classic theme songs. While there are some guest hosts that have been able to make a big splash all throughout the show, others have to play to their strengths and Shatner played to his in his few short appearances. Freeze frame, guys....freeze frame.

The end of the show saw Bret "The Hitman" Hart return again to confront Vince McMahon after McMahon laid out Hart with a kick to the gut to end his guest hosting stint on Raw last month. Hart cut another really solid promo on the entire situation, something that has surprised me so far considering how pedestrian Hart used to be on the microphone. After finally getting Vince out there, they added another layer to the feud outside of the Montreal stuff as Vince rescinded his offer to induct Bret's late father Stu into the WWE Hall of Fame. This was tremendous stuff from him and finally drove Bret over the edge as he laid into McMahon with right hands that were more reminiscent of a hockey fight. Following his attack, Bret went for a Sharpshooter, complete with throwing Vince's own shoe at him Iraqi dissenter-style. He was unable to lock it in as Batista came out of nowhere to interject himself into the feud by attacking Hart and holding him to allow McMahon to spit in his face. This seemingly came out of left field, but the more I thought about it after the show, the more it seemed to make sense as Batista will likely get a cushy spot in the Elimination Chamber or a full-on title shot for his efforts and with the build to Batista/Cena seemingly in full swing, along with Cena's promo work from last week on McMahon where he stuck up for Bret and his status as a legend, it's now just a matter of whether Hart and McMahon will be their seconds or have their own match.

This was one of the better Raws that I can remember in a long time as with most Raw shows there are good spots and bad spots, but this one was solid throughout with a few key peaks that have everyone's interest heading towards the Elimination Chamber PPV and beyond.





ECW on SyFy Results:

Shelton Benjamin vs. Vance Archer - Winner: Vance Archer (pinfall, rope-assisted roll-up)
Yoshi Tatsu vs. Trent Barreta - Winner: Yoshi Tatsu (pinfall, kick to the face)
Christian vs. Zack Ryder - Winner: Christian (disqualification, Ezekiel-ference)


ECW was a historic episode this week as not only did Vince McMahon appear on the show to address the ECW roster and fans, but in doing so he announced that the ECW brand as we know it is nearing an end, soon to be replaced by the WWE NXT brand, with the focus being on rising stars within the company. The idea sounds like a mix between Superstars and a developmental, but we'll tackle that when we get to it in the stories section below. Instead, we'll talk about the show itself, beginning with the Benjamin/Archer match-up that had me both interested and cringing because I had a feeling I knew who would come out on top. Sadly, my fears were confirmed and Archer (not the hilariously outstanding one on FX that is one of the best new shows this year) got the pin on Benjamin to continue to push one of the best physical talents in the WWE even further down the card. I know he's had his chances, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that there's nothing for him to do to move forward while a stiff like Archer seems to be on the fast track to rising up the card.

Following that match, we got to see Yoshi Tatsu take on Trent Barreta and much like the rest of his matches since he's debuted in ECW, Barreta bored me horribly. I have to say that I think that myself and Michael Bauer are pretty much in agreement when it comes to Croft and Barreta and as I continue to say over and over, they need more seasoning whether it's in FCW or elsewhere because they are just not doing it for me where they're at now. Also on the show was some fun with The Hurricane after he was arrested last week with Chris Jericho in Kentucky for public intoxication. From being one of the focal points of the Abraham Washington show at the start of the hour ("Stand back, there's a criminal coming through!"), to Hurricane's alter ego Gregory Helms getting destroyed by William Regal and Ezekiel Jackson, it was like watching punishment being meted out on live-ish TV. Whether that's the end of it or if Helms is still on the fast track to release remains to be seen, but it was funny to see for one night.

In the main event, Christian took on Zack Ryder in a non-title bout after their tete a tete during the Abraham Washington show. The match wasn't quite as good as we've seen them produce before and it makes me wonder if something might have been taken out of Christian at his Royal Rumble match with Ezekiel Jackson as he seemed a little sluggish. Of course before we got to an actual finish for the match, we had Jackson and Regal attack Christian to cause the disqualification. I had said earlier that it was a question in who Christian would have to defend against after beating Jackson and now it looks like it's just the matter of deciding whether Regal or Jackson are the guys that will be getting the shot based on their two-on-one attack of the current ECW Champion. My guess is that it will be Jackson as he's the one that's got the most momentum coming out of his Rumble performance, but it could really go either way as Regal would be a good dark horse that could send the ECW brand out with a bang as a challenger.




WWE Superstars Results:

Kelly Kelly and Eve Torres vs. Alicia Fox and Katie Lea Burchill - Winners: Alicia Fox and Katie Lea Burchill (pinfall, roll-through on a Kelly flying crossbody)
Evan Bourne vs. Carlito - Winner: Evan Bourne (pinfall, Air Bourne)
John Morrison, Matt Hardy and The Great Khali vs. The Hart Dynasty and Drew McIntyre - Winners: John Morrison, Matt Hardy and The Great Khali (pinfall, Khali's Punjabi Plunge on Smith)


Unfortunately, the full episode of Superstars had to go by the wayside this week as the negative side of sharing a DVR reared its ugly head and I had to give up my Superstars time slot to accommodate a couple of shows for my girlfriend, who was at work at the time. I did however go out of my way to make sure that I got to see the Evan Bourne/Carlito match that I had seen people raving about and I have to say that I was incredibly impressed with the effort from both guys. It's par for the course from Bourne, but Carlito has had issues with motivation before, even looking sluggish on occasion during his run with Primo. There was none of that here as these two got over ten minutes to show their stuff and they didn't disappoint. Kind of makes you wonder what would happen if the WWE let guys like this wrestle more often in that style. Ah well, I suppose we can all dream.






TNA Impact Results:

Brutus Magnus vs. Ken Anderson - Winner: Ken Anderson (pinfall, Mic Check)
TNA World Tag Team Championship: Team 3D vs. Hernandez and Matt Morgan (C) - Winners: Matt Morgan and Hernandez (pinfall, Morgan's Carbon Footprint on Brother Ray)
Samoa Joe vs. Jesse Neal - Winner: Samoa Joe (pinfall, Muscle Buster)
D'Angelo Dinero vs. AJ Styles - Winner: D'Angelo Dinero (pinfall, roll-up)
Kurt Angle vs. Tyson Tomko - Winner: Kurt Angle (submission, Ankle Lock)
TNA Knockouts Championship: Angelina Love vs. Tara (C) - Winner: Tara (pinfall, roll-up)
Mick Foley vs. Kevin Nash - Winner: Kevin Nash (pinfall, big boot)


TNA's Impact show continued the company's 8 Card Stud tournament to determine a new challenger to AJ Styles' TNA World Heavyweight Championship (didn't Lashley already win a tournament for a title shot at any title before he got "fired"?) and that was a good thing as it gave us some solid wrestling for the second week in a row. Unfortunately, we got a lot of bad with the good, which seems to usually be the case with TNA from week to week. The show started out with another match in the tournament featuring Mr. "Don't Call Me Ken" Anderson taking on Brutus Magnus and this was probably the one match of the show outside of the main event that I didn't really care for. It was just a bland display and a bit anticlimactic as you really couldn't imagine Magnus picking up the win, even for the shock value of advancing the tournament. Decent, but as I said, it was a little bland and not the best choice of opener in my opinion as it didn't really get me terribly excited about seeing the rest of the show.

It's a good thing I stuck with it though as we got a nice little match between Team 3D and the new TNA Tag Champions, Morgan and Hernandez, which not only gave the new champs a decent opponent to defend against, but also gave us something to further along the Nasty Boys/Team 3D feud which seems to be going no matter what with no way to avoid it. The feud is alright, don't get me wrong, it's just a match that doesn't seem like it's worth watching. Back to the tag match, Morgan and Hernandez looked strong again here and if they can get a good long run with the titles, this could go a long way towards establishing both guys ahead of the rest of the TNA pack.

I do want to make sure that I talk about the D'Angelo Dinero/AJ Styles match from the show as that was probably one of the best Impact matches that I've seen in a long while. It got some time, which is rare for an Impact match that doesn't feature Kurt Angle, and while I didn't really care for the roll-up finish, or for having the current champion lose a non-title match to stunt some of his momentum after the heel turn, I'm willing to go along with it if it means that this is their somewhat clumsy way of trying to bring Dinero up to the top of the card. Considering that he's been one of the more entertaining characters in TNA in the past few weeks and months, he's deserving of the boost. I really liked that while Flair was on the outside, they kept it pretty much to Dinero and Styles, both in the ring and in the presentation. Flair has a lot to offer in terms of being an outside interference or the like, but I'd rather have it mean something in the long-term rather than just a throwaway moment in a non-title TV match. Good stuff all the way around and just another example of why when TNA is good, it's really good.

Speaking of TNA being good, there's also the problem of TNA being REALLY bad when it's bad and that is where the show opened and closed this week with the Foley/Bischoff/Band stuff that hasn't been terribly entertaining. After the first match, the Bischoff/Foley promo segment came up and it was a nice effort from Foley to try to do the whole meaningful, from the heart-style of promo, but he's done them so much lately that it's starting to become old hat and have a lot less meaning to them. The promo segment led to the main event featuring Foley taking on Kevin Nash and the less that's said about this abomination of a main event, the better. They had weapons, but it didn't mean too much and the match was pretty much over before it started with one of the silliest finishes I've ever seen. The Abyss/Foley photo thing that led to the Nash victory and Band beatdown of both men was just lame and it reeks of them trying WAY too hard to make an epic storyline when simplicity is the much better way to go. More SHADES OF GREY though as we got to see The Band take out Nash, meaning that we still don't know whose side they're on and at this point, I'm really beginning not to care as they seem to be meandering aimlessly through TNA.





Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Kane - Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Starship Pain on Kane)
R-Truth vs. Mike Knox - Winner: R-Truth (pinfall, missile dropkick)
Batista vs. CM Punk - Winner: CM Punk (countout, Batista walks away from match)
Matt Hardy vs. Chris Jericho - Winner: Chris Jericho (pinfall, Codebreaker)
Michelle McCool and Layla vs. Mickie James and Beth Phoenix - Winners: Mickie James and Beth Phoenix (pinfall, Mickie's roll-up on Layla)
Rey Mysterio vs. Dolph Ziggler - Winner: Rey Mysterio (pinfall, roll-up)


Following in the footsteps of the Raw show on Monday night, we got to see a tremendous show from Smackdown as they also spent the show filling their slots for the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match. I really enjoyed this show from top to bottom as the matches were between good and great, there was just enough story sprinkled throughout to keep things from feeling like just a straight wrestling show and it feels like we're in pre-WrestleMania mode with the big stars interacting in slow-burning storylines that seem to be building towards big climaxes. The triple-threat match that opened the show was pretty good, considering that Kane was in there and has a totally different style than Morrison or McIntyre. It's also nice to see Morrison get a chance at brushing with the main event stars in the Chamber as he has seemed to be on the cusp of a breakthrough like this for a long time.

The R-Truth Chamber qualifier win is a similar situation in that he gets to move up based on the win, but it's somewhat hollow as we all know that there isn't much of a way that Truth wins this one. The other short Chamber qualifier saw CM Punk take on Batista and after seeing what Batista did on Monday in the exclusive footage from Raw (Batista Bomb-ing Cena on the ring steps after Cena tried to save Bret Hart), he just decided to take a walk and let Punk win via countout. I thought this was a little odd as after months of Batista fighting for a title shot, he just readily gave up on his chance to get into a championship match, but it seems like there's bigger plans for Batista so I'm going to let this one slide, especially since it lets Punk into the Chamber match to continue his current roll of awesomeness.

The other two Chamber matches, Hardy/Jericho and Mysterio/Ziggler were both really good matches that despite being a little predictable in terms of who was going to win, were still entertaining in their own rights. Hardy/Jericho felt a little bit like a footnote as the match was just average and more time was spent on building Jericho/Edge rather than the action in the ring. It felt a little like how WCW used to run back in the day with a great Jericho or Guerrero match being ignored so that the announcers could talk about the nWo or Goldberg. The other match was probably the best out of the Chamber qualifiers as Mysterio and Ziggler still have the great chemistry they had when they fought over the Intercontinental Championship. I'm not sure why they seem to have soured on Ziggler as much as they have as of late, but he showed that it's unwarranted, at least in terms of his in-ring performance, as he went step for step with Rey. It was a really fun match and hopefully leads to better things for Ziggler in the coming weeks. I'd love to see him in Money in the Bank and to have a strong showing there as well.

The real star of the Smackdown show, much like he was at the beginning of Raw, was The Rated-R Superstar and Royal Rumble winner, Edge. He started the show by confronting Chris Jericho as Jericho claimed that Edge didn't deserve to win the Rumble match the way that he did. Not only did this give us a chance to see more of Jericho and Edge slowly adding some heat to their inevitable match, but it also set up Edge hosting The Cutting Edge with The Undertaker. The closing segment was a thing of beauty as we got Edge, Jericho and CM Punk all getting to cut great promos before The Undertaker interrupted them all. The finish of the show with Edge spearing Jericho, Taker chokeslamming Punk and Edge threatening the spear on Taker before the two men stared down, was awesome. The whole segment just felt like it was all about the title and the guys that want it badly, as well as about who gets the prestige of headlining WrestleMania. Tremendous way to get the juices flowing for the Smackdown main event scene and add another layer to Edge's return from injury and eventual WrestleMania main event.







-- Easily the biggest story of the week, Edge made his return from injury at the Royal Rumble and not only entered the match, but won it by last eliminating longtime rival John Cena. Edge's return has completely reivitalized the WWE's main event scene while returning one of their top performers to television just in time for their biggest pay-per-view show of the year, WrestleMania. This has opened up a world of possibilities for the company as Edge now has his pick of just about any main event participant that he could want to face, from The Undertaker, to Chris Jericho, to Randy Orton, to Sheamus and anyone else in between that could be a champion heading into WrestleMania. There's not a lot else that needs to be said about Edge's return as there's still so much that has to happen prior to WrestleMania, but we can take a look at some of the possibilities for Edge and what could come next for The Rated-R Superstar.


Edge vs. Taker: This one got teased on Smackdown on Friday night with the staredown between the two men and based on their history and the quality of their previous matches, this could be a more than worth main event for WrestleMania. That being said, I don't see them using Edge's momentum from his return on another match that continues Taker's winning streak. There's a lot more that can be done with him besides just feeding him to The Undertaker and I think that it would be a waste.

Edge vs. Jericho: This one has been brewing since Edge's injury and many people felt like this was going to be one of the marquee matches at WrestleMania prior to Edge winning the Rumble match. If it's going to happen, Jericho will have to find a way to come out of the Elimination Chamber as the World Heavyweight Champion. I would love to see this match happen as they have business that needs to be settled, but I don't think that Jericho will win the title in the Chamber. I see this happening more as Jericho being the first challenger for Edge if he wins the title at WrestleMania, finally resolving their grudge.

Edge vs. Cena: Cena would have to win the Elimination Chamber on Raw for this one to go down and while it's certainly possible with what they're doing with SuperCena as of late, he looks like he's going to be busy with Batista at WrestleMania, which is a good thing. We've seen a LOT of Edge/Cena matches and just because we haven't seen one in a little while doesn't mean that it would feel any less stale than it would if they had a match at WrestleMania. Much like Jericho, I can see Cena being a possible challenger for Edge's title if he's able to win one, but I don't think that we'll see Edge/Cena for a while yet.

Edge vs. Christian: This one is a real longshot as Edge would take a big step down to challenge for the lowest-level title of the three brans to take on his former tag team partner. It would be fun to see these two go at it on the big stage of WrestleMania as they are able to put on great matches with each other and with others and the potential would be there for a classic. Again though, this would almost be like a backwards step for Edge after his Rumble win, meaning that there is about as much chance of Edge/Christian at WrestleMania as there is of Hornswoggle sneaking into the Raw Chamber match and winning the WWE Championship.

Edge vs. Sheamus: There has been a lot of talk about whether Sheamus would defend his title against Triple H at WrestleMania or not, but I think that the match to be made should be Sheamus against Edge. Sheamus could gain some real credibility by not only surviving the Elimination Chamber match, but thriving in it and the match would give Edge the chance to win the WWE Championship and emerge as the face of the Raw brand, taking all of the momentum that he has and harnessing it into the WWE's biggest weekly TV show. Sheamus would get the chance to main event WrestleMania against someone who could help him to have a great match no matter what and I really enjoyed their interaction from Raw on Monday. In no way is it definite, but this would be my choice for Edge as it would take the most advantage of what he can do and what he has going for him out of his return.


The best thing about all of this is that instead of it being the same old, same old heading into WrestleMania with all of the matches being decided well in advance with no real suspense in the February pay-per-view, we've got a real reason to watch the Chamber PPV show as well as WWE programming to see where Edge's juggernaut finally touches down.



-- The rumors of ECW's demise have not been exaggerated as Vince McMahon announced on Tuesday's ECW show that the ECW brand will be replaced with a new brand called WWE NXT, that will focus on the younger talent that Vince hopes will develop into his future stars. The change was thought to take effect on March 2nd, but instead the debut has been bumped up a week, meaning that February 16th's ECW show will be the last. I have to say that while I saw this one coming for a while, it doesn't seem like it's going to change a whole heck of a lot. There's nothing that really sticks out in the current ECW product that you could point to as saying that it is exclusively ECW and not a product of FCW or another developmental territory. The things that made ECW what it was have been gone for a VERY long time and while I thought that there was some real potential for the brand to be its own and have its own identity when things began with ECW One Night Stand back in 2005, it slowly became more and more like every other WWE show until it finally became what it is now. A developmental show with a few established stars and a TV deal.

Turning it into a new brand is one way for them to try to make a splash and turn around the falling ratings on SyFy, and it's also a way to allow for the real ECW to finally rest on its legacy from the old Paul Heyman days in the mid-to-late 90's. It's been sad seeing what ECW became and in reality it just felt like letters to distinguish the show from Raw and Smackdown rather than and continuation of the original brand, so it's probably for the best that things have gone the way that they have. If it means that we get to see more guys like Low Ki and Bryan Danielson on TV a big quicker while getting the chance to see the next generation of WWE stars working with each other in great matches and actual storylines, I am all for it. My hope is that instead of just having it be a half-brand like it has been for the longest time with no real main storylines outside of whichever two guys are fighting for the title, that they merge the ECW roster with some of the top FCW guys to give them a full brand and a full chance to succeed with running multiple storylines featuring fresh, young talent. I've found it hard to watch ECW sometimes in the past few months as it's felt really stale, so this change could be the shot in the arm that's needed.



-- Very sad news to report this week as WWE Hall of Famer and former two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jack Brisco passed away due to complications from a recent open heart surgery. Brisco was one of the greatest professional wrestlers in the history of the sport and also one of the best tag team wrestlers with his brother Gerald. Not only was Jack one of the best professional wrestlers in the world, he was a tremendous amateur wrestler that was the first Native American to win the NCAA national championship in 1965, winning the title while not giving up a single takedown for the entire season.

Not only was Brisco great in the ring, but he and his brother Gerald were very successful outside of it, running their own auto body shop in Florida while also setting into motion one of the biggest events in wrestling history. They owned a minority interest in Georgia Championship Wrestling and in 1984, convinced the majority of the shareholders to sell their stock to Vince McMahon, leading to the infamous Black Saturday that saw WWF programming take over the legendary 6:05 pm timeslot and also led to Jack and Gerry moving into the WWF as a tag team. Jack tired of the road and soon left the WWF altogether, but Gerald is still one of Vince's most trusted employees to this day.

Jack Brisco is and will forever be a wrestling legend, winning over fifty titles, various Hall of Fame and lifetime achievement awards and numerous trophies from around the world. Perhaps the biggest accomplishment in Brisco's life is that while many call him the greatest wrestler of his generation, they also say that he was one of the greatest men they had ever met, a true compliment if there ever was one. If you're wanting to hear more about Jack from the man himself, do yourself a favor and head over to 57talk.com to hear Jack's interview with Gary Cubeta as it was a great interview with lots of insight to his legendary career. Rest in peace, Jack. You will truly be missed. Condolences go out to his friends, family and fans during this sad, sad time.



-- There was some drama on the independent wrestling circuit this past week as Dragon Gate USA threatened legal action against both The Young Bucks, who are currently competing in TNA as Generation Me, and Davey Richards, who recently signed a new deal with Ring of Honor that made him their exclusive property. Both Richards and the Bucks were booked for Phoenix as Dragon Gate is running shows in the area on WrestleMania weekend, but the Bucks were pulled from the show by TNA and Richards by Ring of Honor. The legal troubles stemmed from DGUSA booker Gabe Sapolsky and DGUSA claiming that they had a verbal agreement with both Generation Me and Richards for the shows and that they had been advertised for the shows.

The situation got a bit more messy as it came out that Ring of Honor had been planning to look at their own possible legal action to keep Richards from working the Dragon Gate shows including filing an injunction to keep Richards from being able to wrestle at the shows due to his ROH contract. From there, Sapolosky released a statement about not being happy with the guys not honoring their commitments and that he wanted to avoid setting a precedent by having guys advertised and then pulling out of the show, thus depriving the fans of what they were promised. Ultimately, legal action was avoided on all sides as the management for DGUSA felt that by going after ROH or Richards in court, the costs of both time and money could hurt their product and waste financial resources.

Not only did this whole incident shed some light on the somewhat unscrupulous world of independent pro wrestling, but it also paints Sapolsky, one of the golden boys of indy wrestling, in a bad light. Not only did he threaten legal action against one of the workers in his company, which could alienate the brotherhood of indy wrestlers that Sapolsky has relied on heavily in his career, but he also looks like a bit of a fool for advertising the Bucks and Richards so far in advance, just to get the jump on Ring of Honor, who will also be promoting Phoenix-area shows on WrestleMania weekend. This seems like a case where all of this drama could have been avoided if Sapolsky had not gone so far ahead of himself in promoting the shows and not tried to get ahead of Ring of Honor, his former employer. What was that old saying about great pride coming before a fall?

It looks like Sapolsky wanted to put one over on his old promotion, the idea blew up in his face a little bit and he wanted revenge before cooler heads prevailed. I hope that it doesn't lead to a further fall though because I think that Sapolsky has done a lot of great work in independent wrestling and that he's capable of a lot more in the future.



-- Big news from TNA as they've officially announced that they are taking their pay-per-view show on the road once again with TNA Lockdown coming from St. Louis, MO on April 18th. The arena is the same location that held the 2007 version of Lockdown with the infamous "Electrified" cage match taking place there between Team 3D and LAX. That show was also the show that saw TNA have to change their cage at the last minute to what looked more like fencing with tin ropes strung through rather than an actual cage. You have to wonder if it's the best idea to bring that particular pay-per-view back to that particular arena considering how poorly received the last show was, but at least TNA is back out on the road for their pay-per-view shows again which is a good step. Hopefully they won't have to resort to a heavy papering of the crowd and can actually make some decent money off of this show as they have to begin looking at making money from their pay-per-views soon if they want to try to grow to a level where people aren't always worried about the beginning of the end of the company.



-- Not to be outdone by TNA, the WWE announced that the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA will be the home of WrestleMania 27 on April 3rd, 2011. Atlanta was thought to be a bit of a dark horse in the race as it was thought that Toronto was one of the leading candidates to score the show, but the WWE threw a curveball and the show will head to Georgia as the first large-scale wrestling show to run in the Georgia Dome since the heyday of WCW. If you don't think that Vince getting to run his biggest show in the backyard of his former biggest rival didn't play a factor in the decision, you're crazy. Vince will love getting to stick it to his enemies one more time, even if most of those enemies have moved on to other things and could probably care less at this point. Considering that it will be the ten-year anniversary of Vince's purchase of WCW, it almost seems fitting that the event will be held in Atlanta.



-- TNA producer Scott D'Amore, the man who was credited with the explosion in the TNA Knockouts division that made stars of Gail Kim, Awesome Kong and others before leaving and returning to the company, is leaving again. Not only did D'Amore leave on good terms with the company, which is nice to see, but he did so with one of the funniest Facebook postings ever, saying "Scott D'Amore would like to wish TNA well in their future endeavours! More to follow". That's awesome. Things look good for D'Amore's future as soon after he announced he was leaving, it was revealed that D'Amore's Border City Wrestling would be joining forces with BSE Pro Wrestling out of Toronto to form Canada's largest independent wrestling promotion, Maximum Pro Wrestling. Not only will the company look to run a large number of live events, but there are pay-per-view and DVD release deals in the works, as well as a new TV show. This is great news as Canadian independent wrestling has been very low-scale and not terribly influential since the demise of Stampede Wrestling. Given D'Amore's smarts for the business, this has a real chance of succeeding and I wish D'Amore and his partners the best of luck. Shame that TNA couldn't keep him as he has a lot to offer that company in the midst of their restructuring, but I think this will probably be a better deal for him in the end.


Well, that does it for me for this week as we've covered a ton of ground and talked about all of the biggest stories of the past seven days, as you've all come to expect from the Bell to Bell. Randle's got you covered after the weekend with his Wrestling News Experience, I'll be back next weekend with more news and notes as we head into the best time of the year to be a wrestling fan. In the mean time and in between time, I'll see you all back here next time for another brand new 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.