The Bell To Bell News Report 02.27.10

Posted by Randy Harrison on 02.27.2010

Three new champions are crowned at the Elimination Chamber PPV, TNA gears up for the big move to Monday nights, Ric Flair gets involved in a domestic dispute and a whole lot more happened in the past seven days and we've got it all covered in this week's Bell to Bell!




Hello out there to all you wrestling fans and welcome to this week's edition of the weekend wrap-up of all things wrestling, the Bell to Bell! Last week's column was a little less than my usual standards because I was in the midst of a pretty awful cold. At the time, I had figured, you know what, it can't get much worse than this, I'll just tough it out through this week and by next week, I'll be as good as new. Guess who decided that rather than getting better, they'd spend the next week deteriorating even further until he's turned into pretty much a shell of a human being? If you guessed that it's the guy sitting in front of his laptop trying to push this column out while not dying or not ending up coughing up one of his lungs onto the keyboard, you win a brand new shiny nickel that you can expect in the mail after you've passed through the proper channels for claiming prizes from 411mania contests. Just think, you could be FIVE CENTS richer in just 4-6 weeks depending on shipping times. Fun for the whole family here folks.

As I write the end of this column, the Olympic hockey semifinal featuring Canada and Slovakia is underway with the US already being in the finals after a stomping of Finland on Friday afternoon. All I can say is that after some rough spots in the preliminary round, Canada put things together with a fantastic game against Russia in the quarterfinals that saw Canada take Russia down with a 7-3 victory in what was nearly a perfect game. Whether Roberto Luongo can lead this team to a gold medal is still up in the air, but I feel more confident in the team with Bobby Loo in net than I did with baseball swingin' Marty Brodeur between the pipes. I'll probably give a bit of an Olympic wrap-up next week in the opening, but for now, let's get to wrestling!

We've got a big week to cover this week with title changes galore at the WWE's Elimination Chamber show, the debut of WWE NXT to critical acclaim, TNA's Awesome Kong filing a lawsuit against Bubba The Love Sponge and a whole lot more.


You know the drill...





Ding Ding....







WWE Elimination Chamber Results:

WWE Championship Elimination Chamber Match: John Cena vs. Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Orton vs. Triple H vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus (C) - Winner: John Cena (submission, STF on Triple H)
WWE Championship: Batista vs. John Cena (C) - Winner: Batista (pinfall, Batista Bomb)
WWE Intercontinental Championship: Kane vs. Drew McIntyre - Winner: Drew McIntyre (pinfall, Future Shock DDT)
Michelle McCool and Layla vs. Gail Kim and Maryse - Winners: Michelle McCool and Layla (pinfall, McCool's Styles Clash on Kim)
WWE United States Championship: MVP vs. The Miz (C) - Winner: The Miz (pinfall, Big Show KO punch)
World Heavyweight Championship Elimination Chamber Match: R-Truth vs. CM Punk vs. John Morrison vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Chris Jericho vs. The Undertaker - Winner: Chris Jericho (pinfall, Shawn Michaels' Sweet Chin Music on The Undertaker)


I actually wasn't able to catch the entire show, but I did see the two Chamber matches and I'll be able to talk about those as there were some big happenings going on in those two matches. First up was the Raw Chamber, which was a bit slower-paced match and a lot more about building up the storylines on the brand as it was about the wrestling. There were some great moments, including DiBiase pseudo-turning on Orton and taking out Orton and Cena with a pipe thrown in by Cody Rhodes before pinning Orton, but the biggest moment actually came after the Chamber match. John Cena got a submission win over Triple H to win the WWE Championship, but before they even got through the first verse of his entrance music, Vince McMahon and Batista came out with McMahon granting Batista an immediate title match. Batista predictably destroyed Cena and won the title, which a lot of people didn't necessarily like. I didn't mind it however as it opens up the chance for Cena to get the WrestleMania moment of winning the title, while also paying off Batista's involvement in the McMahon/Hart saga a few weeks back. It doesn't necessarily devalue things like Money in the Bank or the Royal Rumble because of the timeline of how things ran. Batista was only given the shot because he did a favor for McMahon, the same way that has happened countless other times with McMahon in charge. Batista lost the Rumble, couldn't wait until WrestleMania, needed another way in and he found it. I don't like the fact that it was such a rapid-fire title change as those cheapen the belt a little bit, but all in all this was well done.

The Smackdown Chamber match was better wrestled than the Raw Chamber match and I honestly thought it was the better match before the shock ending. I loved that Punk got to have another match with a promo in it on PPV like he had at the Royal Rumble. He really made the opening part of this match and while he was unfortunately eliminated second instead of first like I was kind of expecting, he is still managing to make the most of what he's being given. I also thought that the spots in this match were a little more inventive and wild in this match, including Morrison's huge Flying Chuck, as well as Taker going through the plexiglass of the pod heading into the finish. The finish was pretty much what everyone thought it was going to be with Shawn Michaels costing Taker the match and the title to Jericho, but I have to admit that even I was shocked when Michaels came up from underneath the grating of the Chamber. There's something to be said about the finish and this one was right up there with being one of the best finishes I've seen in a Chamber match. I didn't expect Michaels to be involved quite as much when Morrison ended up taking part in the match despite the ankle injury he suffered, but he managed to find a way in and helped set up two of the three biggest matches in this year's WrestleMania show.





Monday Night Raw Results:

WWE Divas Championship: Maryse vs. Gail Kim - Winner: Maryse (pinfall, French Kiss)
Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne and Yoshi Tatsu vs. Legacy and Randy Orton - Winners: Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne and Yoshi Tatsu (pinfall, Air Bourne on Rhodes)
Christian vs. Carlito - Winner: Christian (pinfall, Killswitch)
Unified WWE Tag Team Championships: MVP and Mark Henry vs. The Big Show and The Miz (C) - Winners: The Big Show and The Miz (pinfall, Big Show's KO punch on Henry)
Batista vs. John Cena - Winner: John Cena (disqualification, Batista low blow)


Lots of things to get to as the WWE barreled past the Elimination Chamber and are headed full-speed to Phoenix with a show that was rather light on the wrestling, but pretty heavy on the talk and storyline progression. Things got started right out of the gate with the company looking to firm up their two big championship main events as Chris Jericho opened the show with a hilarious cocky promo and almost immediately got interrupted by Edge. Sure, it was anticlimactic as we all figured out as soon as the Chamber show was over that it was going to be Edge/Jericho, but I still liked that they set it up the way they did and I think it's going to be a fun month with these two going at each other. The segment didn't end there, with John Cena demanding an explanation for the events of the previous night's PPV. This led to another Cena/McMahon segment, which have been very entertaining so far, where McMahon went all "evil genius" and explained his plan to Cena before saying that if Cena wanted to face Batista in WrestleMania, he would have to beat Batista in the main event, or sit out and watch Sheamus take the shot if he lost. Not only did this segment go a long way to setting up longer-term matches, but it also set up the rest of the show as well, which is a great start.

The trigger was finally pulled on the Orton/Legacy break-up this week as well, with a six-man tag match leading to the dissolving of the group and the likelihood of a DiBiase/Orton match at WrestleMania. Leading up to the match, we got a little backstage segment with Orton, Rhodes and DiBiase, outlining how Rhodes was pretending to be on Orton's side, while he and DiBiase had a plan cooked up for the match. Getting to the match, Legacy took on Kingston, Bourne and Tatsu, a sort-of U.N. of jobbers if you will based on their recent results. After some good back-and-forth action and some more tension building between Legacy and Orton, Orton took out Rhodes with a hangman's DDT and DiBiase with an RKO on the floor before heading up the ramp to watch Legacy lose the match. The crowd actually got behind this one and were cheering Orton for the move, which means that he might be the face heading into the DiBiase match with DiBiase and Rhodes having the two-on-one edge to make things a bit more interesting. I like where this is going though as it seems like they're not going to try to change Orton at all, just have him do less heelish things, to become a face.

From that coolness, we got into the absolute best part of the show featuring Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker. From the video package that did a tremendous job of laying out the entire storyline while making it feel incredibly real and deep, to the promo work from Michaels and Taker in the ring, to the addition of the stipulation that if Michaels loses, he retires, this was one of the best segments that I have ever seen on Raw and that covers a LOT of ground. I also have to say that I can't say enough about that video package as it added layers to the feud that even I didn't notice until now. Like how Michaels was wearing the same ring gear at the Royal Rumble that he wore in the loss to Taker at WrestleMania XXV in a subtle nod to his motivation for the match. I hadn't even noticed that until then, but it feels like this is the most in-depth that the WWE has gone in promoting a match in recent memory and this is beginning to get the feel of a true match of the century. The entire package almost made it feel like you were watching a trailer for a movie rather than the build for a wrestling match. Now the only hope is that these two can pull out a match that is as good or better than last year's to pay this off the way it deserves to be.

That brings me to the main event with John Cena and Batista meeting for the second straight night. Much like at the Elimination Chamber show though, they kept this one short and sweet with the ultra-cocky Batista playing field goal kicker with Cena's nutsack to cause the DQ and punch Cena's ticket for WrestleMania. Following the match, Batista laid in a beatdown with a steel chair to soften Cena up that much more for their upcoming match. This segment was awesome for two reasons. Not only did they set up the Batista/Cena money match that people have wanted to see at WrestleMania for years, but they have also had them wrestle twice in the build-up to the show without giving anything away. When you add in that the two short matches all make sense in the greater context of the storyline, along with the sub-plots featuring Vince McMahon and Bret Hart, it makes for what could be a blockbuster main event at WrestleMania. In fact, the entire upper level of the card for WrestleMania looks insane with Batista/Cena, Edge/Jericho and Taker/Shawn II in what is possibly the strongest set of main events since WrestleMania 17 gave us McMahon/McMahon, Taker/HHH and Stone Cold/Rock.





WWE NXT Results:

Christian and Heath Slater vs. Carlito and Michael Tarver - Winners: Christian and Heath Slater (pinfall, Christian's Killswitch on Tarver)
Darren Young vs. David Otunga - Winner: David Otunga (pinfall, spinebuster)
Chris Jericho vs. Daniel Bryan - Winner: Chris Jericho (submission, Liontamer)


This week saw the debut of the WWE's effort to emerge from the ashes of ECW, WWE NXT, a show featuring pros mentoring rookies from FCW as they attempt to break into the main roster of the WWE. I have to say that I loved this show top to bottom, not just because it showed more promise in an hour than ECW had in the past few months, but because it genuinely felt different than any other WWE show, from the color scheme to the camera angles to the way the show was presented. This is what they should have done with ECW when they decided to veer away from the extreme style of the original and while it's sad that it took them retiring the ECW brand to do it, I'm glad that it's finally happening now.

Just some thoughts about the rookies, pros and rookie pro interactions on the show as I think that for all of the flack that people wanted to put on the WWE for having the Daniel Bryan/Miz pairing, it makes the most sense out of all of them as it gives Bryan a ready-made feud for as soon as his stint on the show is done, against one of the hotter performers going in the WWE right now. Rather than it being the whole "slap in the face of the indy darling" that people made it out to be, it's looking more like the best way to turn Bryan into a legitimate star out of all of this. Look no further than the fact that this show was basically the Daniel Bryan show as he held his own with Miz in an opening promo segment before facing Chris Jericho in a fun main event that gave us a little taste of what we used to see from Bryan in ROH and what we can expect to see from him in the future in the WWE.

A lot of people were high on David Otunga from his charisma and his Hollywood connections, but based on his "match" with Darren Young, he's got a lot of work to do before he can get bumped up to the main roster. That spinebuster finish of his was pretty nasty looking and when you can't even hit your finish properly, that says a lot about where your skills are in the ring. I'm not going to write him off just yet, but he's got some work to do to make a believer out of me. As for Young, I think that one of the best things that they could do for him is have him end up losing....a lot. If he loses repeatedly, it would eventually play on Punk's ego to be the best as he wouldn't want his name associated with Young's failures, drawing him further into the mentor role. Not only that, but I could easily see Punk watching from the sidelines for about six weeks as his "party boy" rookie loses until he finally offers up some salvation for the kid. Quicker than you can say "black X", you've got the SES properly represented on two shows instead of just one. Young looks like a million bucks, but he seems to be putting on an act with his current gimmick, which usually never works out. If they can use Punk as a way to get him out of it, while giving the kid an interesting storyline, more power to them.

All in all, I was really impressed by the show, including Michael Cole's smark-raging commentary that really underscored how different this show is than anything else that the WWE puts on. My only quibble was that the addition of Matt Striker as the show's "host" seemed a little superfluous and unecessary, but even that lent the show a different feel as well. Good stuff for a debut effort though, and they've got me hooked in as a fan for as long as they keep doing things the way they're doing them.





WWE Superstars Results:

Jack Swagger and William Regal vs. Santino Marella and Chris Masters - Winners: Jack Swagger and William Regal (pinfall, Swagger's Doctor Bomb on Masters)
Primo Colon vs. Zack Ryder - Winner: Zack Ryder (pinfall, Zack Attack)
Luke Gallows vs. Sylas Young - Winner: Luke Gallows (pinfall, Twelfth Step)
The Great Khali, Matt Hardy and Maria vs. The Hart Dynasty - Winners: The Hart Dynasty (pinfall, Springboard Hart Attack on Hardy)


Superstars this week was a show that felt a lot like the old Superstars where instead of featuring some of the lower level talent from the two brands in competitve matches, we got a majority of them consisting of squashes or extended squashes before we got a surprisingly good main event. The show opened with an unlikely team of Jack Swagger and William Regal taking on an equally unlikely team of Santino Marella and Chris Masters. The match was nothing to write home about and Regal kind of stuck out of the crowd like a sore thumb, but it was a decent enough opening match that had some action and excitement before Swagger and Regal got the win. I don't know whether this is a one-off deal or if Swagger and Regal are planning on teaming regularly, but I would be more than alright with seeing Swagger serving as a pupil of sorts under the mentorship of Regal. He would be a lot better off for it and would be able to learn a lot from the veteran Brit. Either way, it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it was just there, but we'll see where it goes.

The Primo/Ryder and Gallows/Young matches were little more than excuses to get either guy on TV, which leads us into the main event with the Hart Dynasty going up against the odd grouping of Matt Hardy, The Great Khali and Maria. This one was way better than I would have ever given it credit for on paper considering that Khali and Maria are not exactly known as technical marvels in the ring. Khali and Maria stuck within their limitations, Hardy wrestled the same kind of sound match that we usually get from him, while the Hart kids were firing on all cylinders, which gave us a decent main event. I like that the Hart kids won this one as they're the team of the future and need to pick up wins like this rather than having a makeshift team stall the momentum of one of the only true tag teams that are on the WWE roster. Kidd and Smith seemed to take a little time to gel back into their Stampede Bulldogs days, but they've got it back now and they could turn into one of the building blocks of the future of the tag division.





TNA Impact Results:

Tables Match: Team 3D vs. The Nasty Boys - Winners: Team 3D (3D on Sags through a table)
ODB vs. Daffney - Winner: ODB (disqualification, Daffney weapon attack)
Kazarian vs. THE Brian Kendrick - Winner: Kazarian (pinfall, Flux Capacitor)
TNA Global Championship: Ken Anderson vs. Rob Terry (C) - Winner: Rob Terry (pinfall, running powerslam)
Abyss vs. Desmond Wolfe - Winner: Abyss (pinfall, Black Hole Slam)


I didn't get to see a lot of Impact because I was lapsing in and out of consciousness, but what I did see wasn't very good. I'm hoping that we're getting close to the end of the Nasty Boys in TNA as they've served their purpose and they're about at the end of their rope. On top of that, this show felt like it was about 98% storyline and 2% wrestling. When you have a roster like AJ Styles, Daniels, Samoa Joe, Desmond Wolfe, Kurt Angle and others, and the Nasty Boys are in what I believe was the longest match of the show in the year 2010, there's not a lot else that needs to be said.

Speaking of Wolfe, he at least got the main event slot of the show this week, outside of the interview segment that closed the show, but he didn't fare very well. While there were a lot of people who weighed the Nigel McGuinness/Bryan Danielson decisions of where to sign after their time in Ring of Honor and suggested that McGuinness was the winner (myself included), I also had a feeling that it could all go away just as easily for Wolfe. Sure enough, Wolfe lost in a short match against Abyss that could have essentially been a squash outside of some token offense for him, and all of the hype and momentum that he brought into his feud with Kurt Angle and his incredible debut is now pretty much gone. Wolfe is in real danger of becoming "just another guy" on the TNA roster that has no direction and no real prospects for the future. I don't know if it's a situation where another newcomer like Ken Anderson has moved into the slot Wolfe would have taken, but it looks like he's getting shuffled down the card and that's bad news for Wolfe and for TNA.

After the whole Wolfe/Abyss match, things went even further down the hill as Ric Flair and AJ Styles attacked Abyss alongside Wolfe, leading to Hulk Hogan to run down for the save. Long story short, the heels took advantage, handcuffed Abyss, beat down Hogan and Abyss hulked up with the POWER OF THE RING!! and broke the handcuffs before sending the heels running. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either when I saw it and had to rewind the DVR to make sure I wasn't having a Nyquil hallucination. We cut to a commerical break and then came back with Hulk making the blockbuster announcement that Ric Flair and AJ Styles would team up to take on Abyss and....drumroll.....Hulk Hogan!!! Uhhhhhhhh yeah, that's....something. If I had told you two years ago that outside of AJ Styles, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair and Abyss would be the centerpieces of TNA in 2010, you would have laughed in my face. TNA had such high hopes heading into the new year, but it's looking more and more like Hogan's impact on TNA is not going to be a good one, at least when it comes to the in-ring product. Whether the benefits in ratings or publicity is enough to outweigh that and not hurt the company is going to be interesting to watch moving forward.






Friday Night Smackdown Results:

John Morrison vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. R-Truth - Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, Morrison's Starship Pain on Truth)
WWE Women's Championship: Michelle McCool vs. Mickie James (C) - Winner: Michelle McCool (pinfall, big boot)
Kane vs. Drew McIntyre - Winner: Kane (pinfall, kick to the face)
CM Punk vs. Shelton Benjamin - Winner: Shelton Benjamin (pinfall, PayDirt)
The Miz vs. Edge - Winner: Edge (pinfall, Spear)


The show opened much like Raw on Monday Night did with Chris Jericho gloating about his World Heavyweight Championship win, perhaps even wearing the same suit that he was during the Raw segment. He bitched about Edge coming down to ruin his celebration, and of course, that led to Edge coming down to interrupt his bitching. They had a nice little in-ring promo segment that led to Edge getting the advantage again with another spear on Jericho to counter the Codebreaker and they're building this one the right way, especially with Edge coming back from his injury and trying to ease back into the ring before going full-out against Jericho at WrestleMania. I really like what they're doing as they already have Batista/Cena which is just a main event on name alone. Edge and Jericho are going to have to build this match perfectly to avoid being the overshadowed main event behind Taker/Shawn and the WWE Title and so far they are definitely holding their own. Even better, this one is playing off of a longstanding history, which adds another layer that they might not have had the chance to get to do in just a month before WrestleMania.

Right on the heels of that segment, we got a really good triple-threat Money in the Bank qualifier between Morrison, R-Truth and Ziggler that saw Ziggler manage to avoid trouble in the early part of the match before sneaking in and stealing the cover from Morrison after Morrison had hit the Starship Pain on Truth. I loved the finish and loved the match and love that Ziggler is going to get to compete in the MITB match at WrestleMania. I don't know whether Truth and Morrison are out for good or if they'll get another chance, but I'd love to see Morrison in there, if only because of his spot monkey tendencies and his high-flying style. As for Ziggler, a good showing in that MITB match could do a lot to rebuild his damaged stock that has seen him fall down the ladder of midcard stars on Smackdown as of late.

I have to bring up the Drew McIntyre/Kane match because for whatever reason, they had McIntyre lose the match to put Kane into the MITB match. While that means that there's at least a slight hope that we get to see the Intercontinental Championship defended at WrestleMania, the bad far outweighs that good as McIntyre's first loss comes at the hands of a guy whose best days are behind him in a match where there was no title on the line and there was little meaning to it, outside of the qualification for Money in the Bank. I'm figuring that based on the way that McIntyre pitched a PMS fit after the match, they're going to go a different way with his character and have him go a little like Jericho did in WCW with his whining and crying after losses, but I still think that it was a mistake to blow the first loss of an undefeated champion on a match where the gold was nowhere to be seen.

The main event saw Edge take his first one-on-one match back against The Miz in a match made by Teddy Long earlier in the show. I thought the match was alright and Edge looked pretty good in it, but you can tell that he's about a half-step off due to the long layoff from the injury. It's good that he got the match in and I hope he gets a couple more like this on the way to WrestleMania as if the Jericho/Edge match is to go off with Edge competing the way he is now, he'd probably have Jericho wrestle circles around him and that's not good babyface protocol. It hasn't led me to be any less excited about their upcoming main event, but it has made me hope that Edge hasn't been forced back into action too soon. This was also another big match for Miz as this was one of his highest profile singles matches and when you add it to his Unified Tag Titles and US Title, as well as his mentoring gig with Daniel Bryan, who appears to be in the grooming stages of being one of the WWE's next big stars, it certainly appears to be "awesome" to be the Miz.






While the shows took the hit last week with my illness, this week it's the news that is probably going to come up a little short, which I apologize for in advance. I don't feel up to really going too in-depth into any story this week, so it's just going to be quick paragraphs on the stories I want to touch on. Hopefully by next week I'll be back at 100% and ready to follow the Road to WrestleMania and the new Monday Night Wars with both barrels. Until then, here's what made news in the past seven days.



-- It was a Black Friday for the WWE as Paul Burchill, Gregory Helms and Maria were all released by the company. Burchill isn't much of a surprise as despite all of his potential, the only time he was ever close to being over was during his Pirates of the Caribbean phase. He's not much of a loss to the WWE, though I wouldn't be surprised to see TNA pick him up and get him involved with the rest of the Brits on their roster. As for Helms, he probably moves a decent amount of merch with his kid-friendly Hurricane gimmick, but he sealed his own fate when he was involved in the Chris Jericho/Matt Hardy gas station incident in Kentucky a while back, so it's not surprising to see his name on the list. Maria was probably the most surprising out of the three releases as she is just about to begin a role on Celebrity Apprentice on NBC, which would have meant a good deal of publicity for the WWE depending on her success on the show. There had been rumors that Maria was looking to pursue other opportunities outside of wrestling, so that could have played a factor as well. All I know is that if I was someone like Jimmy Wang Yang or Slam Master J, I'd be feeling pretty nervous right about now as these releases tend to come in large bunches.



-- Ric Flair made news this week for more than just his return to the ring in TNA as Flair's fourth wife, Jacqueline Beems, was arrested on charges of misdemeanor assault following a domestic incident that left the 61-year old Flair with minor injuries. Flair has had some serious problems in the past few years, so this is surely the last thing that he wanted to have happen to him as he prepares to have his first televised wrestling match in nearly two years in TNA. There's not a lot else that has come out about the incident, and it looks as though it's pretty much going to fall by the wayside soon enough, but I can't help but continue to think about how sad things have turned out for Flair and how far the fall has been since his glory days in the NWA twenty-five years ago.



-- We didn't touch on it during the report on the Elimination Chamber PPV, but The Undertaker suffered first and second degree burns to his arms and neck after a pyrotechnic malfunction during his entrance that led to his jacket catching on fire. Taker shrugged the jacket off and was given plenty of water by WWE officials to pour over the burns to help deal with the pain while waiting in his isolation pod during the Chamber match. The videos that were posted around from various angles of the incident were scary to watch and you have to wonder if maybe it's time to tone down the entrances for The Undertaker as this is the second time that he has been involved in a pyro malfunction. Less is more, especially when it's leading to fans and in-ring talent being hurt. All of that aside, you have to give credit to Taker for showcasing more of his legendary toughness by gutting it out through the pain of that situation to perform in the Chamber match and put Jericho over as champion while kickstarting his own WrestleMania 26 match with Shawn Michaels. A lot has been said about the Dead Man and his deteriorating health, but he is as old-school as they come and the wrestling world will be down to one less link to the past when he finally decides to retire.



-- The situation involving Awesome Kong and Bubba The Love Sponge that made news a few weeks back with Kong taking Bubba to the potato farm came back into the news this week as Kong accused Bubba of making a phone call to her that featured some slurs of the sexist and racist variety, which has led to Kong filing a lawsuit against Bubba, while trying to get AT&T to release phone records to prove that Bubba was behind the call. For his part, Bubba denies being involved, claims that he is done with TNA and is pursuing his legal avenues and may even sue the company for all of the drama involved here, even though his friend Hulk Hogan is one of the guys at the head of TNA. This whole situation is bad news as it's seen Kong off of TNA TV and having to deal with all of the crap involved with Bubba and his mouth-breathing audience. The small positive is that it looks like we don't have to worry about Bubba sullying the TNA broadcast again, which should make a lot of people, including Jim Cornette, very happy.



-- With Kazarian returning to the TNA roster, there had been talk that TNA was going to retire the Suicide character that Kazarian had been playing since taking over the role from Christopher Daniels. Instead, it looks as though they will continue with the character, possibly even sticking Kiyoshi under the mask as the next generation Suicide. I don't really know why they're planning on continuing with the gimmick as there hasn't really been anything good that's come out of it, especially since he was a tie-in to the TNA Impact video game which turned out to be a dud. Kiyoshi ending up being the guy that's unmasked would make next to no sense, considering that he's a different body type than either Daniels or Kazarian, wrestles a different style than both guys and doesn't sound anything like Low Ki, who was the original voice of the Suicide character WAY back in the day.



-- Finally, the list of pay-per-views that the WWE posted last week on their website that included a Money in the Bank pay-per-view show has been removed from the website, which along with the qualifying matches for the Money in the Bank match at WrestleMania are leading people to speculate that the MITB show may be being pulled in favor of keeping the match as a WrestleMania-only attraction. I can only hope that that is the case as having a MITB match at WrestleMania and another match at a pay-per-view built around the gimmick would begin to devalue the match a little bit. MITB is one of the few WWE gimmick matches that the company hasn't completely oversaturated yet and I think that keeping it once a year makes it much more impactful, much like how there is only one Royal Rumble match. Time will tell what happens, but I think that having more than one MITB match in a year would be a big mistake.


That does it for me this week folks. Randle will be in on Monday, I'll be back next week with more news and I look forward to being here then, hopefully back at 100%. In the meantime and in between time, we'll see you all back here next time for another edition of the Bell to Bell News Report.


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