The Bell To Bell News Report 07.28.11

It’s Thursday folks, and that means that it’s time to kick your weekend off a little early with another edition of the Bell to Bell News Report. There’s plenty to get to this week with big returns in the WWE, a generation gap in TNA and plenty of news from the biggest indies across the United States, but before we get to that it’s time for me to touch on two of my usual favorite topics.

Last weekend, the 2-1 Winnipeg Blue Bombers blew into Toronto to face the Argonauts in their home opener and fell behind 17-6 at the half. Now, if you’ve been following the Bombers for any length of time, this hasn’t exactly been an odd occurence in the past few seasons and it looked like the boys in blue were going to lose their grip on first place in the East Division while falling into a pack of 2-2 teams with Toronto and Hamilton. Instead, the Bombers played inspired football in the second half and actually managed to pull out a 33-24 win. :ed by Buck Pierce shaking off an illegal hit that saw a Toronto player ejected from the game, the Bombers actually came back and nutted up, winning a tough divisional game to keep pace with Montreal at the top of the division. Next up for the Bombers is a date with the winless BC Lions and I have to admit that I’m nervous about it as these games that the Bombers seem sure to win often tend to be their worst performances. They already appear to have shaken some of the monkeys off of their backs from last season though, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that they come out with both barrels blazing at Canad Inns Stadium to continue their current run of success and match their win total for last season in just the fifth week of the year.

The other big news last week saw the Winnipeg Jets reveal their new logo at a hastily called press conference on Friday afternoon following a leak of the logo earlier that morning. After much speculation and discussion, here’s what the new team will be sporting when it hits the ice in October…

Personally, I think that it’s one of the sharpest logos in the league and an upgrade from the logos of the past. The logos of the past have been somewhat romanticized for their place in the history of the city, but they weren’t really anything special as they focused more on the words rather than the jet in the logo. This logo is distinct, unique, honors the Canadian Air Force and their long history in Winnipeg and has a clean, classy and timeless feel that will go a long way towards establishing new hockey tradition in Manitoba’s capital. Initial reaction from most of the public was mixed at best, but once the merchandise began to go on sale late Friday, the fans spoke with their wallets and the response was overwhelming. Lines weaved out of the arena from the team store, which was only selling t-shirts and baseball caps, and by the time all was said and done on Sunday, they had moved almost $200,000 worth of merchandise and nearly depleted their entire stock. More merch is expected out shortly with a bigger variety of products and pre-orders for jerseys are expected to get underway this week with the jerseys being released sometime in late-September. After 15 years, the city has proven itself to be just as hockey mad as they were when the first incarnation of the Jets left and I am eagerly awaiting the puck drop, perhaps even more than I was before.

Alright, for all of you who weren’t interested, it’s time to get to what you’re here for and for the few of you who took the time to read all of that, thank you for checking it out. Now, let’s get this sucker going with the top story of the week featuring a certain Pepsi-drinking superstar…

You know the drill…

Ding Ding….

Much like the past few weeks, the past seven days showed that this is CM Punk’s world of wrestling for the time being and we’re all just living in it. Even before his return to the WWE this past Monday on Raw to confront John Cena, Punk had a whirlwind week that saw him in Chicago to see a Cubs game, at an indy event in the Midwest to show his appreciation to a special young wrestler and crashing the WWE’s panel at Comic-Con in San Diego to take shots at the WWE and its new leader, Triple H. Throw in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live and on the BS Report with ESPN’s Bill Simmons and it was a busy week for the Straight Edge Superstar with the belt of diamonds and gold over his shoulder.

Of course, all of it ended up leading to Punk’s return on Raw where he got in the face of John Cena after Cena defeated Rey Mysterio to become the WWE Champion again, just eight days after losing to Punk in one of the hottest WWE PPV main events in recent memory. This wasn’t the same old Punk though as he appears to be channeling the “Summer of Punk” by returning to his old ROH theme music while maintaining the new persona that has gotten so over with the fans in the past six weeks. The first few moments of Punk’s “Cult of Personality” music led to confusion among most of the WWE’s audience, but to those who are familiar with Punk’s history, it was music to their ears. By the time Punk actually appeared in front of the live crowd and they put it all together, he was welcomed back with a roar and actually received more cheers than Cena when they went nose to nose and belt to belt in the center of the ring to end the show.

Also as part of his return, Punk will be on the house show circuit for this upcoming weekend, taking on John Cena in Champion vs. Champion matches that will likely be used to help put together the match at SummerSlam. Punk is only booked to be on TV for the rest of the lead-up to the big PPV, so one could assume that while they’ll be working out chunks of the match during this weekend’s loop, they’ll also be saving a good bit of it for the pay-per-view itself. Where they go with the title match is not sure, but if they want to really continue to make the splash that they’ve been making the past six weeks, they’ll show more balls than they did in letting Punk win at MITB by having him win again here to go two up on Cena. Hell, everyone has always said that the only way to turn Cena would be to have it be a double-turn and it’s looking more and more like Punk might be the only guy that could help Cena pull that off.

Have Cena get more and more frustrated that his efforts to beat Punk are not only coming up short, but aren’t being appreciated by the WWE fans who are cheering for Punk. Have Punk continue to get the upper hand on him until he finally snaps and we get the turn with Punk continuing his straight shooting character as a face while Cena is obsessed with getting back to the top and will do so by any means necessary. He’s already going to be booed out of the building when he faces Rock at WrestleMania, so why not just embrace it and have him run a few months on the evil side of things leading up to it. The WWE has been trying to force Rocky into the heel role for the showdown and it just doesn’t seem to be working, so let nature take its course and give Cena a good run on top as a heel. It won’t hurt him in the long run as he could be just as over as a face when he turns back and it would allow him to freshen up his character a little bit in the meantime. As an added bonus, if the WWE is worried about losing out on merch revenue by turning Cena, CM Punk has been a money machine as of late with all of his stuff available on WWE’s shopping website either out of stock or on back order.

While I think that it was a bit of a mistake to bring Punk back so soon, especially when there was plenty of material for them to mine while he was gone for another week or two, I get why they had to do it with SummerSlam being roughly two and a half weeks away. The one thing that really bothers me most about all of this has been the reaction from some of the IWC’s finest who complained that Punk wasn’t on Raw the night after Money in the Bank and then complained that he was brought back too soon when he returned this past Monday. Either you want to have a slow build to a feud or you don’t, but a lot of people looked like they were just looking for something to complain about and would have done so whether Punk had been on the show or not. If there’s a problem with how the WWE booked this, it’s that they didn’t allow themselves enough time before SummerSlam to execute the slow build that could have brought this thing to another level, but I don’t think that even they could have forseen how successful this angle would be for Punk or the company. The biggest thing now that will determine whether this angle is ultimately viewed as a successful shift in the WWE’s future or just another case of the same old, same old is how the main event is booked and who comes out of it the winner.

Just when you thought there wasn’t going to be a more anticipated main event than there was at Money in the Bank, this one looks like it’s going to be off the charts.

— Punk wasn’t the only big return on Monday night as both John Morrison and Jim Ross were brought back to the show with Morrison returning to battle R-Truth while Ross took over the announcing duties for Michael Cole, forcing Cole into a bout against Zack Ryder. The return of Morrison was somewhat expected as he was due back from an injury, but JR’s comeback was quite a shocker as he has stated repeatedly that he was all but done as an announcer in the WWE. Whether he’s back full-time or it’s just part of the angle with Triple H taking over and he’s gone again in a few weeks, it was nice to have JR back calling big matches as only he can. As for Morrison, it’s looking like he’s going to be feuding with R-Truth near the top of the card and it will be interesting to see if he can finally run with the ball to get the main event push that the WWE has seemed to be grooming him for in the past couple of years. This is his chance to shine and if he’s able to make it work, we could be seeing the beginning of Morrison as a main event talent. If not, Truth could just as easily be crazying his way up the card and into the hunt for the gold as 2011 winds down.

— The latest twist in the feud between The Rock and John Cena that has seen both guys using the internet and Twitter specifically to take shots at each other continued this week with The Rock getting the latest jab in. Apparently, the Cenation has been rather unhappy with how The Rock has been laying the verbal smackdown on their hero and have let Rocky have it on his Twitter account, prompting The Great One to post the following as a response earlier this week…

“Cena fans: pls stop tweeting me to stop being “mean” to John. If u think I’m mean now, just wait til Survivor Series in NYC.”

Not that it takes a rocket scientist to figure it out, but it looks as though things between Cena and The Rock will begin to heat up again around Thanksgiving with Rock likely to return at Survivor Series in some role. Whether it’s simply making an appearance to cut a promo or possibly interjecting into a Cena match in some way, I’m hoping it’s at least better than Rock’s “hosting” job at WrestleMania, which was far less exciting than his Raw return in February. Expect plenty of speculation in the next few months as people try to figure out what exactly Rock will be doing in New York City, and the Bell to Bell will continue updating the situation accordingly.

— For the few who may have an interest in Linda McMahon’s political aspirations, her possible campaign for Senate in the state of Connecticut in 2012 took a major blow this past week as a poll of Republicans had 57% of respondents either probably or definitely not voting for McMahon if she were the party’s nominee in the 2012 race. McMahon’s 2010 campaign for the Senate got off to a decent start and even caught up to within three points of the eventual Democrat winner Richard Blumenthal, but she was crushed rather decisively on election day losing by 11% of the vote. Linda’s campaign in 2010 cost nearly $50 million and a 2012 campaign would likely cost that much or more, which is money that could easily be pumped into the WWE product in one aspect or another if she were not to run. There had been talk of McMahon being a front-runner for the 2012 nomination after she narrowly won a straw poll of the Connecticut Tea Party Patriots, but one would have to think that the results of the much larger phone poll would cripple those plans. Should Linda make a second attempt to get elected to the Senate and do you think those campaign plans could negatively affect the product that the WWE puts on TV? My vote definitely goes to no more campaigning for Linda, but make yourselves heard in the comments below.

— In an interesting glimpse behind the curtain with TNA, former TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rob Van Dam conducted an interview with a Florida newspaper recently and made some rather interesting points regarding how the younger talent and older talent get along and work together within the company. Here’s what RVD had to say about the subject of offering advice to some of the younger guys coming up in TNA…

I’m open to it. Most of the guys, I don’t know if they don’t feel welcome to ask me or any of the other veterans or what. That is probably an issue that we have is the young guys should ask some of the older guys. They should be saying, ‘Hey, watch my match. Let me know what I can improve on.’ That never happens enough. Some of the young guys who are or were there, I don’t want to mention any names. There were two young guys who just left and looked like they were out of high school. The whole time they were there, they never introduced themselves or shook my hand. Things are way different than they used to be.”

Like Cook said in his News From Cook’s Corner this past week, I get that the younger guys aren’t making the effort to reach out to the older guys, but by the same token there should be some move made by the older guys to let the youngsters know that it’s ok to ask. Wrestling, perhaps moreso than any other business, is one that’s predicated on respect and paying your dues. Who knows if a lot of the young guys in TNA feel like it might be disrespectful to bother the veterans without the veterans first offering up their help. If TNA is smart, they’ll have a meeting with the wrestlers and air all of it out and make sure that everyone is working on the same page to be their best personally while making TNA the best product it can be. I get the feeling that if TNA management doesn’t step in and make some headway with this issue to bridge the gap, the divide is only going to get wider and wider over time.

— Dragon Gate USA returns to pay-per-view television this Friday night and they’ve got a pretty stacked lineup for their return to the airwaves after a successful run of iPPV shows earlier in the year. Here’s how Friday’s show looks heading into the weekend….

1st Ever Eight Way Freestyle: Rich Swann vs. Sami Callihan vs. Jon Davis vs. Scott Reed vs. Flip Kendrick vs. Louis Lyndon vs. Pinkie Sanchez vs. Caleb Konley
Brodie Lee vs. Tony Nese
Austin Aries vs. Susumu Yokosuka
Four Way Freestyle: YAMATO vs. CIMA vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Masato Yoshino
Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Arik Cannon
Akira Tozawa vs. AR Fox
Three Way Freestyle: PAC vs. Ricochet vs. Rich Swann

It’s always great to see Akira Tozawa on the card, but I have to admit that the three multi-man freestyle matches have my interest piqued. Rich Swann has been tearing it up this year and having great matches with pretty much everyone so I would expect him to come up big in both matches on this show. That’s not even getting into the line-up of the four-way with four of the best in DGUSA hooking it up in one match. I haven’t been able to catch as much of the Dragon Gate USA iPPV shows as I would have liked as of late, but I will definitely be making plans to check this one out this weekend.

— Some scary news regarding WWE Diva and former Playboy model Maryse as she was in court this week to file a permanent restraining order against 61-year old Lee Silber, who she claims has sent numerous terrifying letters to her home while leaving more than 50 voicemails on her personal cell phone. In the letters that she received, Maryse told the courts that he promised her a check for $100,000 and a 100 carat diamond ring worth $20,000,000 to prove he is her friend and that things have taken a scarier turn as of late with him saying that he would come to LA for her and the plans on taking her to heaven with him. Maryse has stated that she hopes that Silber ends up in either a psychiatric hospital or jail and has added extra security since the situation began to attempt to feel safer. The next court date coming up is on August 3rd, where it is hoped that she will be granted the order. It’s unfortunate that sometimes people cross the line from fan to fanatic and it’s terrible that Maryse has to go through something like this. Let’s all hope that the order is granted at the next court hearing and Silber is kept far enough away from her to ensure that he can never harm her. Far too often, we hear stories of celebrity stalkers who have gone too far and I’m sure that every wrestling fan has their fingers crossed that Maryse does not end up as a statistic on that terrible list.

— Santino Marella is the latest WWE superstar to end up on the injured list as he suffered a broken nose while taping a match in which he teamed with Chris Masters to face WWE Tag Team Champions David Otunga and Michael McGillicutty. There is currently no word on how much action Marella will miss, if any, and we at the Bell to Bell wish Marella a speedy recovery. There’s also no word on if the injury means that he gets to come back with a sweet face mask with a Cobra printed on it like the one above sported by former NHL goalie Gary “The Cobra” Simmons, but if he does, it might just have been worth it.

— A few months back I spoke about a Juggalo Championship Wrestling show that was cancelled due to an improper liquor license issue and stated that it would probably be the only time that the promotion was ever mentioned in the column. As much as it pains me to do it, I have to eat my words and admit that I was wrong. The promotion has been offering up a plethora of iPPV shows in the past few months and while I’ve been reluctant to get involved with anything ICP-related in the past, I’ve finally given the shows a shot and I have to admit that they’re pretty damn good. If you can get past some of the gratuitous swearing and all of that, the storylines have actually been pretty fun and it was a treat to see “Officer” Colt Cabana bring in back-up in the form of US Marshall Adam J Pearce to defeat 2 Tuff Tony to become the JCW Champion in the main event of last Thursday’s show. The shows have been getting better and better and they’re starting to put a lot into the production values of the show as well, which is an added bonus. Cabana is awesome with his cop character and he and Pearce always have great chemistry, so it just adds that cherry on top. This week’s show is set to feature Cabana facing Corporal Robinson, while Pearce faces off against the man he screwed out of the title last week, 2 Tuff Tony. For $5, you can’t go wrong and, I never thought I’d say this, the shows are quite entertaining. If you’re on the fence about checking one out, go ahead and take the plunge and it’s likely you won’t come away disappointed.

— The past seven days also brought bad news for the current Ring of Honor Heavyweight Champion Davey Richards as he was hospitalized earlier this week due to a rather nasty staph infection. Richards, who made the announcement on his Twitter account, is not expected to miss any action in Ring of Honor, but was unfortunately forced to cancel his scheduled appearance for PWG this past weekend that would have seen him challenge Claudio Castagnoli for the company’s title belt. Richards is expected to be at 100% by the time August 13th rolls around and that’s good news as it was also announced this week that he will be defending the ROH Title against Roderick Strong in one of the main events at the first TV tapings for their Sinclair Broadcasting Group debut in September. The bout will join an ROH TV Title bout and an ROH Tag Team Title bout that will feature defending champions El Generico and Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team as part of a triple bill for the big tapings in Chicago Ridge.

— Continuing on with the previous story regarding Richards and his withdrawal from the PWG EIGHT show, his place in the main event was taken by ROH exile Kevin Steen, who made his return to PWG at the event. Steen wrestled three times on the show, defeating PAC in the first bout of the night, teaming with CIMA to beat PWG Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks in a non-title bout and finally defeating Claudio Castagnoli to become the new PWG Heavyweight Champion. The win gives Steen the biggest singles title of his career and continues the compelling storyline that Steen has carried through a list of independent promotions since losing his ROH contract last December in a Mask vs. Career bout against former tag team partner El Generico. Steen has torn through ROH and EVOLVE in the past few weeks and is now seemingly set to do the same with PWG. The win also seems to suggest that there might be some substance to the rumors that Claudio and his partner Chris Hero may be moving to the WWE in the near future as Castagnoli would have to drop the belt before making his way out of PWG. No matter the circumstances, this is a huge accomplishment for Steen and congratulations are definitely in order for “Mr. Wrestling”.

— The injury bug has hit TNA as well as Matt Morgan has found out that he has a torn pectoral muscle and will be out for the next six weeks or so to rehab the injury. Morgan was set for MRI’s last week, but the results had not been made public before the deadline for the column so I was unable to report on the situation then. This is a tough break for Morgan, who was likely going to be heavily featured in the Bound for Glory series throughout the summer and this effectively takes him out of the running for the title shot. If there’s any good news to be found in this, it’s that the doctor who discovered the injury said that if the injury had been any worse, rehab would have been off of the table and Morgan would have had to undergo surgery to repair the damage. I’m sure the knowledge is of little comfort to Morgan now as he sits on the sidelines, but it’s a much better timeline and prognosis for full recovery for the man formerly known as “The Blueprint”. Best wishes go out to Morgan for a speedy recovery and here’s hoping TNA may actually have figured out something substantial to do with him by the time he makes his return.

— Hulk Hogan’s latest project, Mirco Championship Wrestling, has been given a debut date on Tru TV with the first episode set to air on September 14th at 10pm EST. The show, which is set for a six-episode run on the channel formerly known as Court TV, will feature matches taped during production for the show which began in March of 2010. Hogan will apparently be along for the ride to give the wrestlers training and mentoring and to likely provide a little bit of star power for the show, which is being put together by the production company headed by Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey. This show is not to be confused with the Half Pint Brawlers show which aired on Spike TV last year and will feature a completly different cast of characters with the company claiming to have an “all-star roster” of midget wrestling talent. Nothing against any of them, but I can’t say that I really care to watch midget wrestling, even back in the days of Sky Low Low, Lord Littlebrook, The Haiti Kid and Cowboy Lang. In fact, I can guarantee that this show would probably never have seen the light of day if it wasn’t for Hogan’s involvement and it will probably go the way of Celebrity Championship Wrestling and be one and done. As long as it keeps Hogan from deciding to step into the ring in TNA though, I’m all for it.

— Finally, in the WWE’s seemingly never-ending attempt to gain mainstream acceptance, the company has announced that Grammy Award winning R&B star and star of NBC’s The Voice, Cee-Lo Green, will be performing at the SummerSlam PPV on August 14th in Los Angeles. Green, who is likely best known for last summer’s smash hit “Forget You”, is providing the show with the theme song “Bright Lights, Bigger City”, which is Green’s latest single. The WWE has a long history of bringing in celebrities to their bigger events and Green’s appearance in the Staples Center will be no execption. I’m on the fence about this one though as the WWE’s history with concert performances taking place on their TV or PPV shows has been spotty at best. In case anyone has forgotten, there’s no need to look further than Kid Rock’s entirely unecessary and poorly received performance at WrestleMania a couple of years ago to see that the WWE usually comes up short when they try to mix concerts into their programming. Wrestling fans are there to see wrestling, not a rock concert and vice versa. If they keep Green’s performance to just the one song, it should be fine, but if they decide to try to get an extra song or two in on the show, things may turn a little bit further south rather quickly. Then again, the fans may be more willing to cut him some slack considering how much he looks like D-Von Dudley.

Alright wrestling fans, that’s it for me for this week. Be sure to check out DeMarco’s 5 & 1 this weekend with the continuing Versus Summer Tag League to get your Saturday dose of wrestling news and incredibly beautiful ladies. Hey, anyone that loves Buggy is a friend of the Bell to Bell any day. I’ll be back next week to talk more about the CM Punk angle, how the WWE is faring with Triple H in charge and anything else that makes news in the next seven days. In the meantime and in between time, I’ll see you all back here next time for another 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.