The Bell To Bell News Report 01.06.11

Hello wrestling fans and welcome to the first Bell to Bell of 2011! After a power outage two weeks ago and a stranding away from home last week, your faithful and intrepid reporter is back to talk on all things wrestling that have taken place in the past week. There haven’t really been any big stories in the past seven days as there is still a bit of a Holiday hangover in the world of wrestling that is keeping stories from breaking, but there were still some choice bits that we’ll get to shortly.

Before we go along any further, I want to talk about the World Junior Hockey Championships, which just ended with a bitter loss by Canada to Russia in the finals. The World Juniors are a Christmastime tradition in Canada and in the past few years they have been shown on the NHL Network in the United States, providing a welcome taste of home during the holiday season. This year’s team was led by Ryan Ellis, who became the highest-scoring defenceman in the tournament’s history, and Braydon Schenn, who tied the record for the most points ever by a Canadian player in one World Junior tournament. They may not have gone all the way, but the team full of youngsters thrilled the country for the better part of two weeks and they deserve to be commended for that even if they came up just short of gold.

Back to the wrestling side of things, there may not have been any of the marquee stories that all of us writers love, but there was still plenty of news to cover including Nick Gage’s unfortunate brush with the law, Awesome Kong’s new contract with the WWE, news on Booker T’s next wrestling appearance, two big title changes in Japan, an announcement on the Ring of Honor title match for their upcoming WrestleReunion show and more. Sit back, relax and finish off the last of that holiday booze because it’s time for the Bell to Bell!

You know the drill…

Ding Ding….

— For the first, and most likely last, time in Bell to Bell history, we kick off this week’s report with a story out of Combat Zone Wrestling. Apparently they’re not paying their guys enough for their work or something because earlier this week, CZW star Nick Gage was arrested for his role in a bank robbery. A warrant was issued for Gage, real name Nicholas Wilson, after photos and surveillance footage of a man leaving a PNC Bank in Camden, NJ surfaced, moments after the man had handed a teller a note claiming that he would shoot her if she didn’t give him money.

The incident, which took place on December 22nd saw Gage make off with roughly $3,000 and authorities closed in rather quickly, forcing Gage to turn himself in earlier this week after a blitz of airings of the surveillance footage on local newscasts. Gage was the first ever CZW Champion and is the only Grand Slam Champion in the promotion’s history while also currently holding the Jersey All Pro Wrestling Tag Team Championship with Necro Butcher.

It’s unknown at this time why Gage did what he did and there is still the legal process to go through, but one would have to assume that this is going to be the end of his wrestling career and it’s a real shame. Anytime anyone feels desperate enough to have to resort to crime it’s a sad state of affairs and while there’s plenty of room to speculate about what happened in Gage’s life based on his career in a “garbage wrestling” promotion like CZW, that kind of editorializing won’t be taking place here.

CZW issued a press release on the story, offering up their official statement and if it’s possible it was seedier than Gage’s alleged dalliance in a life of hard crime;

Combat Zone Wrestling, LLC has no direct knowledge of any alleged wrong doings by Nick Gage. We firmly discourage any fans from emulating any of the actions alleged. We also hope that if these accusations are true that Nick will turn himself over to authorities. If you have questions about Combat Zone Wrestling please feel free to contact CZW Owner DJ Hyde or CZW Vice President and Promoter Maven Bentley at [email protected] or [phone].

I get that they have to make themselves available if reporters want to talk to them and I applaud them for asking Gage to turn himself over to authorities, but if they have to discourage their fanbase from heading out to knock over a bank just because they read that their hero did it, there’s not a lot of hope for the fans of CZW. I readily admit that it’s never been my cup of tea, but if you have to tell folks that watch your product not to rob banks because one of the guys involved with said product did, maybe it’s time to be marketing your product to a different and uh….less shady….audience.

However this whole thing shakes out, it looks as though it’s just beginning, so expect to see more updates in the Bell to Bell on this situation in the weeks and months ahead.

— The other big story of the week came when Awesome Kong posted on her Twitter account that she was set to accept the job of her dreams, implying that she had signed with the WWE after being released from TNA late last year after the issues with Bubba The Love Sponge. Those implications were later confirmed with a couple of various sources and it appears that Kong is on her way to the land of Titan in the very near future. While this is huge news for Kong and certainly exciting for her fans, it is certainly twinged with a little disappointment and fear for the simple fact that the WWE hasn’t had an adequately book women’s division since the days of Trish, Lita et al and even then it was a situation where they had about six months to a year or so and then it all went away.

Kong’s style is a lot less about the sizzle outside of the ring and a lot more about the steak inside of it and while Daniel Bryan gets the chance to shine with less sizzle due to the fact that he can get to put on a twenty minute match every once in a while, Kong won’t have that opportunity. She is a tremendous performer in the ring and I’m hoping that she gets the chance to show it and doesn’t end up running a similar career arc to someone like Beth Phoenix where she was riding high for a while, destroying everyone in the division, until she became a bit of an afterthought. The women’s division in the WWE has always lacked and while Kong’s signing is huge, that won’t change overnight. Hopefully with Kong there, there will be a reason for the WWE to begin to push the ladies and their title with Kong being the focal point as she deserves that kind of success and the ladies of the WWE deserve that kind of platform.

— Big news from Japan as the All Japan Junior Heavyweight Championship has changed hands at a show from the Korakuen Hall as Minoru became the first man to defeat Kaz Hayashi in nearly two years to become the new champion. During his reign that began back in February of 2009 when he defeated the great Naomichi Marufuji, Hayashi made seventeen successful title defenses, an All Japan record. His second reign as AJPW Junior Champion was easily the more successful of the two and it will be tough for Minoru to fill those shoes, even with his extensive resume that includes four separate reigns as IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and five reigns as IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion during his eight years as part of New Japan’s roster. Congratulations are in order for Minoru and it will be interesting to see how his reign is booked compared to how things went for Hayashi as All Japan moves forward.

— Not to be outdone, New Japan Pro Wrestling held their huge Tokyo Dome show featuring various talent from TNA and had their own big title change as well with Hiroshi Tanahashi beating Satoshi Kojima to become the 56th IWGP Heavyweight Champion in the promotion’s illustrious history.

Here are the full results for the promotion’s blockbuster event;

* World Wrestling Interpromotional Match: Wataru Inoue, Tiger Mask, Tomoaki Honma & Tama Tonga beat Yujiro Takahashi, Tomohiro Ishii, Jado & Gedo (7:33) when Inoue used the Spear of Justice on Gedo.

World Wrestling Invitation Match: Koji Kanemoto & Ryusuke Taguchi beat Kenny Omega & Taichi (8:04) when Taguchi pinned Taichi.

IWGP Tag Team Title – 3WAY Match: Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson (c) beat James Storm & Robert Roode and Manabu Nakanishi & Strong Man (8:36) when Anderson used the Gun Stun on Roode (4th defense).

La Sombra & Mascara Dorada beat Jushin Thunder Liger & Hector Garza (7:42) when Sombra pinned Liger.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan beat Takashi Iizuka (11:13) with the Anaconda Cross.

Rob Van Dam beat Toru Yano (11:28) with the Five Star frog splash.

Yuji Nagata beat Minoru Suzuki (16:15) with a backdrop hold.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion Prince Devitt beat Kota Ibushi (16:22) with an avalanche-style Bloody Sunday

Takashi Sugiura & Yoshihiro Takayama beat Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada (12:08) when Takayama used an Everest German on Okada.

TNA champion Jeff Hardy beat Tetsuya Naito (11:04) with a Swanton bomb.

Shinsuke Nakamura beat Go Shiozaki (14:17) with the Boma Ye.

Togi Makabe beat Masato Tanaka (12:46) with a King Kong kneedrop.

Hiroshi Tanahashi beat Satoshi Kojima (21:57) with the High Fly Flow to become the 56th IWGP champion.

Tanahashi is entering his fifth reign as IWGP Champion and earned the shot at the title after beating Tetsuya Naito and Hirooki Goto on back to back nights in mid-December. The victory also avenges a loss that Tanahashi suffered to Kojima in the finals of the G-1 Climax tournament in November. The eleven-year veteran is well on his way to becoming one of the most successful stars in the history of the New Japan promotion and earning such a prestigious title for the fifth time in less than four years is a huge honor.

In fact, he is already sixth on the list of names to have held the title in terms of length of combined reigns with legendary Japanese names like Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto and Tatsumi Fujinami ahead of him. If he is not plagued by the bad luck that led to the end of his fourth reign when he vacated the title due to a fractured eye socket back in August of 2009, he should easily pass up the number five man on the list, Yuji Nagata, while having an outside chance at catching Kensuke Sasaki and Fujinami as well. Congratulations to Tanahashi on his latest title reign from all of us here at 411mania.

— TNA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Hardy is expected to plead guilty to “one or more of the drug charges” he is currently facing when he returns to court on January 20th according to Moore County District Attorney Maureen Krueger. Hardy was arrested in September of 2009 and charged with felony possession of cocaine, felony drug trafficking of opium, two counts of felony possession with intent to redistribute a Schedule III controlled substance, maintaining a dwelling for drug use and/or distribution and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, the combination of which could lead to some serious jail time for Hardy.

As part of the plea agreement, there is a sentencing agreement as well for both sides that is very highly unlikely to be rejected by the courts. Given that TNA is still on the Hardy bandwagon, it’s likely that there will be some kind of probation and fines in lieu of any actual jail time for the “Charismatic Enigma”, which means that if he’s engaging in the type of behavior that a lot of people assume him to be engaging in, he’ll have dodged a major bullet. Here’s hoping that this is maybe the incident that scares Hardy straight as it seems like it doesn’t take much these days to go from headline news to the wrestling obituatry page and having a drug problem is probably the easiest way to make that fall from grace.

— Former WWF legend “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff has been diagnosed with cancer in news that Orndorff disclosed during a recent interview. Orndorff did not elaborate on what kind of cancer he had been diagnosed with or what the prognosis was for his recovery, but he did discuss his time in the WWF and whether he could have done things differently;

I was a rebel. I’m proud and I’m not proud of that. I let my work do my talking. I wasn’t a very good politician. I said what I thought. I did what I thought was right for me and my family. Were they the right thing? I don’t know. Were they the wrong thing? I don’t know. Am I rich? Hell no. I have cancer right now. I wished I had saved some of my money…but that’s just the way it is.I don’t know, I’m going to the doctors and they’re doing things and I brought that up not for sympathy but because I don’t want it. I just found out. And I’m sitting here telling you all this stuff because I wonder if maybe I should have just played the game.”

Given Orndorff’s history when it comes to injury with the serious neck injury that ended up costing him most of the muscle and mobility in his right arm, it’s sad to hear him looking back on what might have been during a very vulnerable time in his life. Orndorff is a man to be respected from all of my impressions of him during his interviews after his career and best wishes for a full recovery go out to Orndorff from all of us here at 411 as he prepares for the biggest fight of his life.

— The new version of WWE’s Tough Enough show finally has a debut date as the first episode will air on April 4th at 11pm EST on USA Network with the regular episodes airing Monday nights at 8pm in the hour slot before Monday Night Raw. News on the format of the show was also made public as there will be eliminations every week according to a WWE-issued press release with the final two competitors “battling it out” for a WWE contract. Not sure what battling it out means, but if it means that they’re fighting for a contract in a match, that could be something interesting to see.

I can understand why they don’t want to run the show after Raw as that would be starting to get into late-night territory that would lose a lot of viewers, I think that the WWE is missing an opportunity in having Raw be the lead-in for the show. Getting people to watch an hour of wrestling that isn’t quite wrestling before they watch the actual wrestling program that they want to see will be a tall task and I will be interested to see how the WWE tries to pull it off. The press releases for the show sound eerily similar to what they tried to do with NXT with some of the phrases even being exactly the same, but here’s to hoping that it’s less like NXT and more like the original Tough Enough show (first season), which I’ve always felt was very underrated when it came to entertainment value.

— Ring of Honor has announced their main event title match for the upcoming show on January 28th in Los Angeles that will take place during the WrestleReunion convention that same weekend. Ring of Honor World Champion Roderick Strong will defend his title against El Generico, who comes into the bout full of momentum following his emotional victory over Kevin Steen at Final Battle last month. I haven’t been terribly impressed with Strong’s title reign overall, but he has been bringing it as of late including his Final Battle bout with Davey Richards and this one features two of the hottest performers in Ring of Honor going at it for their biggest prize, which is a great main event for one of their rare West Coast appearances. I’m still hoping to get to make it out to these shows myself, and this bit of news is only making me more excited about the possibility of seeing some great legends and some great wrestling live and in person.

— TNA’s international television presence took a bit of a hit this past week as the Bravo channel that had been airing TNA Impact in the United Kingdom closed its doors. While TNA is without a home currently, there is good news for TNA fans in the UK as Sky Television has stated that they are planning on making it their goal to find Impact a new home on one of the other channels in their broadcast family and that more information can be expected later this month. For a company that relies as heavily on their international success as TNA does, this could have been a dangerous situation for them, but it looks like their TV partners over there are remaining committed to them for the future. As long as TNA isn’t stuck on some out of the way channel or placed in an awful time slot, they should be able to weather this storm fairly well.

— Exciting news for the WWE and The Big Show as hot on the heels of the surprisingly well-recieved Knucklehead movie, Show has landed a role in the upcoming Nickelodeon action-comedy series, Supah Ninjas. According to reports, a casting call went out for a stand-in for Show with the requirements being “Caucasian male, 6’9″ or taller who weighs 400-475 lbs.”. Yeah, there should be no problem finding someone like that. Anyhow, the show is supposed to be about a group of high school kids who actually turn out to be ninjas as well and it looks like it could be a pretty big opportunity for Show as nearly all of Nickelodeon’s teen shows have been big hits in the past couple of years. This is also good for WWE as it gives them a ton more free publicity for their product with the age group that they have been targeting more than ever lately. As of now, there’s no word on when the show will begin airing, but expect more news as we get closer to a premiere.

— Former five time, five time, five time, five time, five time WCW Champion Booker T is set to make his latest wrestling-related appearance as a part of the upcoming Viva La Lucha pay-per-view taping later this month. The press releases certainly make the case for it being an interesting show as Sinn Bohdi (formerly known as Kizarny in the WWE) will be performing magic, Shelly Martinez will be serving as the head official (nudge, nudge) and LA Park, Blue Demon Jr. and Octagoncito will be making appearances on the card. For anyone in Las Vegas, this one could be something to make a point to see, if only for the oddity factor of all of these various worlds converging into one place. If the show goes off with tons of hitches or if the collection of people and energy forms some sort of earthbound black hole, I’m sure it will be covered in one of the future editions of the Bell to Bell. The show is set to premiere on PPV on February 11th on all of the usual providers.

— We close out with some sad news this week as Verne Langdon, the owner of the Slammers Wrestling Gym, passed away at the age of 69. In addition to starting many wrestling careers including former WWF, WCW and TNA writer Ed Ferrara, Langdon was heavily involved in the movie industry, working on the make-up team for the original Planet of the Apes movie and monster masks for TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also wrote, produced and recorded numerous CD’s, LP’s and singles as a musician, singer, comedian and performer. Our deepest condolences go out to Langdon’s students, family and friends from all of us here at 411wrestling.com as they work through this difficult time.

Condolences also go out to Hulk Hogan, whose mother, Ruth, passed away this past week at the age of 88. Hogan has had a rough time of it as of late with the various back surgeries and pain issues he’s been dealing with and this is just another blow that has to hurt deeply. Thoughts and prayers go out to Hulk and his family and here’s to hoping that 2011 turns out to be a better year for the Hulkster than 2010 was.

That does it for this week’s report folks. I’ll be back next week with my thoughts on everything that has happened in the upcoming seven days in the world of wrestling. In my usual plut that will likely be in every column from now on, anyone in the Southern California area looking for a fun afternoon of wrestling this weekend should check out the NWA Championship Wrestling From Hollywood TV Tapings at the Regent Showcase Theatre, 614 N La Brea Ave in Hollywood. The show takes place on Saturday the 8th with a 4pm bell time and tickets are available at SaveFans.com. The show will feature the likes of Austin Aries, Joey Ryan, Adam Pearce, Willie Mack, Natural Selection and others and should be a fun show. The ultra talented Michael Ornelas should be in tomorrow with a new edition of Your News, My Views, so be sure to check that out and in the meantime and in between time, I’ll see you all back here next time for another all-new edition of the Bell to Bell!

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