The Bell To Bell News Report 09.13.09

Welcome back to the Sunday trdition that’s more fun than sleeping in church, the Bell to Bell News Report! We’ve got TONS to get to this week as the past seven days have followed the same trend of the past few weeks where nothing seems to happen until about Thursday, where the proverbial crap hits the proverbial fan and all hell breaks loose. From Rey Mysterio getting dinged for a Wellness Violation, to Nigel McGuinness signing with the WWE, there’s been some big stories breaking at the end of the work week for me in the past few weeks. None bigger than Friday’s bombshell about Jeff Hardy however, and I’ll have my full thoughts on the entire story. It’s not just all about Hardy though, as I’ll be covering a backstage altercation between The Big Show and The Great Khali, the latest “JR to TNA” rumors and giving my somewhat late thoughts on Dragon Gate USA’s first PPV effort, along with a ton more stuff.

Before we get to that though, I’d like to take a second to publicly shame the Bombers for their sad-sack performance in last week’s Labour Day Classic against Saskatchewan. My one worry about the game coming into it was that the Bombers would be flat coming in off of their bye week and sure enough, they came out and dug themselves a hole they couldn’t get out of. There’s still hope for them if they can pull it together and win during today’s Banjo Bowl, but if they drop that game there’s a pretty good chance that we’ll have to wait until next year to see anything resembling a decent football game from the Blue and Gold. 4-6 still gives a little glimmer that things can be turned around and that there could still be playoffs in their future. 3-7 is a disaster and likely an excuse to start trying new things or firing non-playing personnel. Outside of avoiding further shame, this one is a big game for the Bombers, so hopefully they’ll remember that and actually show up in the first quarter this time.

Alright, we’ve covered what I’m covering, we’ve ripped on the Bombers for stinking up the stadium last weekend, so that only leaves one thing left to do…

Ding Ding….

Monday Night Raw Results:

Chris Jericho vs. MVP – Winner: MVP (pinfall, Jackknife roll-up)
Chavo Guerrero vs. Evan Bourne – Winner: Evan Bourne (pinfall, roll-up)
Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena – Winner: John Cena (disqualification, Orton-ference)
Body Slam Challenge: Santino Marella vs. The Big Show – Winner: The Big Show
Body Slam Challenge: Mark Henry vs. The Big Show – Winner: Mark Henry
D-Generation X vs. Chris Masters and Randy Orton – Winners: D-Generation X (submission, Michaels’ inverted figure-four leglock on Masters)

The Price Was Raw this week as Bob Barker took his turn as guest host of the WWE’s flagship program. Out of all of the guest hosts that have been involved with the show so far, Barker’s appearance was probably the one that was the most anticipated because of his place in history as one of the most beloved game show hosts in television. People love legends. In this case, their love was justified as Barker nearly validated the whole guest hosting experiment in his two hours on the program. While there were a couple of moments where he stumbled and it felt like he didn’t fully know what he was talking about, he was a fantastic guest host because he didn’t try to do anything outside of what he knew. He turned the show into a wrestling version of The Price is Right and it all worked perfectly.

I absolutely loved the opening segment, especially Barker’s interactions with Chris Jericho. From Jericho’s pouty face and name tag on bare chest routine when he was introduced, to Barker threatening to take Jericho over his knee, it was all funny. The fact that it also was used to help lead to a match that’s helping to build to the PPV was just icing on the cake. As funny as it is to say, the show was more logically booked for Bob Barker than it was for any of the other wrestling-related guest hosts. Barker was right back in the zone and it felt like he’d never left television as he schmoozed and smiled and completely won over the crowd. When you add in the other segments that Barker was involved in with IRS, D-Generation X and others, Bob proved that he’s still got it when it comes to hosting shows. Best choice so far from the WWE.

The night’s action in the ring delivered as well with a great opener featuring MVP and Chris Jericho that continued the build to the PPV tag match while also continuing to build my hopes that the four of them could put together a great match. Cody Rhodes and John Cena continued their mini-feud with a good match that saw Cody get a lot from the bout. Rhodes has been patient and biding his time as part of Legacy since he turned on Hardcore Holly back in the day, but he’s really beginning to come into his own and could be ready to make a big break up the card. The main event between DX and Masters and Orton was pretty good, but when the match was made you knew that Masters was going to take the fall, so some of the suspense was driven out of it. Masters wasn’t as bad as he has been in some of his other matches since his return, but he still looked out of place, making what could have been a blockbuster main event into something rather pedestrian.

My only real complaint when it came to the in-ring action was the match between Evan Bourne and Chavo Guerrero. Bourne’s been slowly starting to regain some of the momentum he lost when he was off due to injury, and while he may not be a top mid-card talent, he is someone who shouldn’t need help to beat someone who has spent the last eight weeks jobbing to a leprechaun. Bourne ended up being little more than a prop to help continue to the terrible Chavo/Swoggle feud and he deserves better than that. The match itself was actually quite good and a reminder of what Chavo could actually be contributing to the roster instead of what he’s doing now. There’s no reason why the Hornswoggle stuff couldn’t have happened after the match to allow Bourne to get a clean win on his own. Unless they plan on turning Bourne and Swoggle into a team, in which case God help us all.

When that’s the only complaint that I can have for an entire two-hour episode of Raw, that’s a pretty good sign. I don’t think it would work all the time as the gimmick would obviously get tired quickly, but for a one-off show, Barker did a fantastic job as host and it would be fun to see him back involved in WWE programming again in the future.

ECW on SyFy Results:

The Hurricane vs. Paul Burchill – Winner: The Hurricane (pinfall, Eye of the Hurricane)
Shelton Benjamin and Sheamus vs. Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust – Winners: Shelton Benjamin and Sheamus (pinfall, Benjamin pins Goldust)
Zack Ryder vs. Rory Fargo – Winner: Zack Ryder (pinfall, Zack Attack)
Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson vs. Tommy Dreamer and Christian – Winners: Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson (pinfall, Jackson’s uranage on Dreamer)

Coming off of a wildly successful Raw show, ECW on SyFy continued to build their feuds with almost every program that the brand has been pushing in the past two months featured on the show. We started out with a GREAT opening match between Paul Burchill and The Hurricane. Hurricane is crazy over and has been doing a great job of rebuilding the character since its return to the ECW brand. While Hurricane is the name that is expected to carry this feud, Burchill brought a lot to this particular match on his own, especially when it came time for him to be on the offensive. Burchill did a lot to raise his stock in this one match and maybe after months and months of him floundering around on every show, he’s finally going to gain some footing to rise up the card. While there is some of that that is his own doing, Burchill has also been a forgotten man when it comes to the booking team, who has done nothing to help get him over but give him some tits to come to the ring with him. While this could be a blow-off for this feud, I’d be more than happy to see it go on so that both guys can continue to build momentum with quality matches.

Things went off the tracks a little in the middle of the program though as the tag match was short and forgettable and the Ryder match was a pointless squash. While I can understand why they want to try to get over as many people as possible to help build the brand, this would have been much better if they had given Ryder an actual match against an opponent that is on the roster, or if they had given the tag match an extra four or five minutes by cutting the Ryder match entirely. None of the four guys in the tag got a chance to really do anything interesting and it didn’t do anything to help further either feud other than to just give them another match to add to the list. The number of matches doesn’t help make a feud though, it’s the quality and this one was definitely lacking in quality.

The uneven nature of the show continued as after a great opening and somewhat lackluster middle, the main event delivered and finished the program strong. William Regal’s hired goons, Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov, took on Tommy Dreamer and ECW Champion Christian in the bout and not only did they get a lot of time to build a quality match, but they actually used the correct formula for once in having the big guys control most of the action. Jackson and Kozlov look better when they’re dishing out destructive punishment and Dreamer and Christian are awesome sellers so everyone was doing exactly what they do best, making this match a success. When you add in the finish and the post-match shenanigans that had Regal locking a Regal Stretch on Dreamer before standing tall over both faces, it was a strong closing visual heading into the pay-per-view. Great finish to a show that really needed it as leading up to it, the program was really struggling to capitalize on the strong opening match from Hurricane and Burchill.

WWE Superstars Results:

Kane vs. Jimmy Wang Yang – Winner: Kane (pinfall, chokeslam)
Sheamus vs. Yoshi Tatsu – Winner: Sheamus (pinfall, Irish Curse)
Katie Lea Burchill vs. Nikki Bella – Winner: Nikki Bella (pinfall, switcheroo cross-bodyblock)
Dolph Ziggler vs. Slam Master J – Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, jumping reverse bulldog)
Jack Swagger and The Miz vs. Kofi Kingston and Primo Colon – Winners: Jack Swagger and The Miz (pinfall, Miz’s Skull Crushing Finale on Kofi)

Wow, watching Superstars this week was like going back in a time machine to the last time the Bombers won the Grey Cup, which is a LONG-ass time ago. Much like the ECW shows that I used to malign, Superstars went with FIVE matches for a one-hour show, and predictably the result wasn’t very good. Kane got things started by destroying everyone’s favorite Japanese hillbilly Jimmy Wang Yang in just over two minutes. I guess this was a way to get Kane some face time before the match with Khali, but it wasn’t very good. Things didn’t get much better when we had Sheamus and Yoshi Tatsu in the next match as they got four minutes where Sheamus looked great and Tatsu looked like a jobber to the stars, a la Tito Santana. When they’re trying to build both guys as future stars, a match like this doesn’t do a lot of good for the brand.

The Diva match was kept thankfully short and showed that just because you’re AROUND wrestling doesn’t mean you should BE wrestling. They did most of their moves ok don’t get me wrong, it was just bland and flavorless and a waste of three minutes considering that Katie isn’t going to get a wrestling push anytime soon and Nikki and Brie are more of a comedy act with their switching in the middle of the match than a legitimate pair of wrestlers. This one really should have been scrapped as it could have given Tatsu and Sheamus a little more time for give and take where both guys could have been built by the match instead of just making the winner look like a star.

The rest of the show was actually not too bad as we got to see Dolph Ziggler in an extended squash-style match against Slam Master J, something that had the potential for disaster but ended up being halfway decent. Ziggler seems to be on a real roll and I think that it’s just criminal that his match with Morrison has gotten bumped off of the PPV even after he didn’t get the chance to dethrone Mysterio for the IC Title. I get that they had Morrison do it so that there would be a ready-made feud between Ziggler and Morrison that could help elevate both guys, but by not letting Ziggler get his reign and bumping his PPV match, I’m starting to worry that this is a false start and that Ziggler will be shunted back down the card for a while for whatever silly reason. It seems to me that the WWE is the place to be for failed pushes and if they wait for too much longer, than Ziggler may end up being the next one to be added to the list.

The main event saw Jack Swagger and The Miz continue their pursuits of Kofi Kingston’s US Championship by teaming up to take on Kingston and Primo Colon. Because of the nature of the show, they only got about five minutes, but it was still the best match on the show and one that shows that despite Smackdown being the place where new stars are made, Raw has its share of young talent as well. They may need to learn how to use it a little better, but the talent is there. Miz picked up the win for his team, which could mean that he’s going to be next in line for a singles feud with Kingston, which actually wouldn’t be too terrible. Colon is DOA and will probably be relegated to Superstars status until he’s released and Swagger could actually use another mid-card feud away from the title to help establish his character further on Monday nights.

Hopefully this little experiment is a one-off deal because I don’t think I could handle Superstars if it ends up being an endless buffet of squashes week after week. I suspected when it began that this was the road that they might end up going down, but I’m still holding out some hope that this is the exception for the show rather than the rule.

TNA Impact Results:

Team 3D vs British Invasion vs Beer Money vs Scott Steiner and Booker T – Winners: The British Invasion (pinfall, Magnus pins Steiner after 3D)
Daffney and Alissa Flash vs. Taylor Wilde and Sarita – Winners: Taylor Wilde and Sarita (pinfall, Sarita’s belly-to-belly suplex on Flash)
Jay Lethal vs. D’Angelo Dinero – Winner: D’Angelo Dinero (pinfall, DDE)
The Beautiful People vs. Madison Rayne and Roxxi – Winners: The Beautiful People (pinfall, Love’s tights-assisted schoolgirl on Rayne)
Abyss vs. Dr. Stevie – Winner: Abyss (pinfall, Black Hole Slam)
Tara vs. Cody Deaner – Winner: Cody Deaner (KO, Kong-ference)
AJ Styles and Daniels vs. Kurt Angle and Samoa Joe – Winners: AJ Styles and Daniels (pinfall, AJ roll-up on Angle after Matt Morgan chairshot)

Ok, I really tried to like the whole episode of Impact this week after last week’s strong showing and there were some real moments on this show that I enjoyed. I also enjoyed the fact that their storylines may actually be showing some real consistency and the continuing elevation of some of their homegrown talent and younger stars seems to be a plan for the future rather than a stop-gap solution. That being said, there was just WAY TOO MUCH stuff crammed into this show for my tastes. Seven matches is a little much for a two-hour TV show, just like five matches are too much for an hour show. Watching the show, it felt like you barely had a moment to breathe before the next “big thing” happened, which takes away from a lot of the big things by not giving them the time to sink in that they deserve. A perfect example of this came in the main event finish where Matt Morgan cost Kurt Angle the tag match with a chair shot that was totally… inadvertant?

Instead of getting some time to marinate on that development in the awesome mind games angle going on between those two, there was barely a moment to spare before The World Elite tricked Hernandez into a beatdown with a swerve from their newest member, Hernandez’s former partner, Homicide. Both of these things should be considered major developments in their respective storylines but because they were nearly piggybacking each other, neither one had the same impact (no pun intended) as they could have had.

That’s not to say that there are some things that aren’t being rushed because the slow burn is evident in both the Morgan/Angle program and the simmering tension between the World Elite and the Main Event Mafia. These storylines are getting their just due and being given time to develop, something that TNA has been woefully guilty of in the past. It’s really no coincidence that those are the two best angles going in the company at the moment as they’re relying on tried and true booking tactics rather than zany mishaps or Attitude-era rehashes. I’m especially happy to see where the World Elite is going now that they have Homicide in their ranks as heel Homicide is one of my guilty pleasures and Eric Young has been doing a fantastic job as the overzealous leader of the pack. As for Morgan and Angle, they are doing great work when it comes to the idea of who is really getting into the other’s head and which one will come out on top when the mental jockeying is all said and done. Morgan has been a surprise to me in this role as I was worried he wasn’t going to be able to pull it off, but he’s done splendidly.

More goodness came from the Motor City Machine Guns, who sat in on color commentary and did great work, especially in their interactions with Tazz. It would be better if they could actually get a match on TV every once in a while as they are two talented guys that seem to be dying on the vine in the midst of TNA’s verison of a “New Talent Initiative”, but I can’t get too greedy I suppose. Sabin and Shelley were gold and if they come back to do the same thing next week, I wouldn’t complain at all. There were a few dud moments like the Abyss/Dr. Stevie match and the Deaner/Tara disaster, but even those were kept short enough to not detract too much from the good stuff going on with the rest of the show.

After months of suffering through the Main Event Mafia dominating every show and seeing TNA drop the ball on the Frontline/MEM feud while doing my duties as Impact recapper, I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by TNA’s direction in the past month or so. They still have a long way to go when it comes to long-term booking goals and making enough new stars that they can effectively market the product as their own and not just ex-WWE talent, but they’re making strides. That’s honestly something I never thought I would have been saying three months ago and it’s exciting to think that for the first time in a long time, TNA could be close to becoming must-see TV.

Friday Night Smackdown Results:

Belfast Brawl: Finlay vs. Mike Knox – Winner: Finlay (pinfall, shillelagh shot to Knox’s dome)
David Hart Smith vs. The Great Khali – Winner: None (no contest, Kane-ference)
The Big Show and Chris Jericho vs. Cryme Tyme – Winners: The Big Show and Chris Jericho (pinfall, Show’s KO punch on JTG)
John Morrison vs. Charlie Haas – Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Starship Pain)
Melina vs. Layla – Winner: Layla (pinfall, crutch to the gut from Michelle McCool on Melina)
Submission Match: CM Punk vs. Matt Hardy – Winner: CM Punk (submission, Anaconda Vise)

Smackdown served as the go home show for the upcoming Breaking Point PPV and while it did a good enough job of that, the show was down a little from the high standard that it’s been setting as of late. The feud between The Undertaker and CM Punk over Punk’s World Heavyweight Championship was the focal point of the show and the show started with a great opening promo segment that had Punk not backing down from The Deadman. I will say that as great as it is to have Taker back on Smackdown, he really needs to lay off the spray tan. It’s a ridiculous look for someone who’s supposed to be from beyond the grave, considering that it’s not that easy to get yourself a tan when you’re six feet under. All of that aside, the promo segment was awesome and led well into the main event, where CM Punk took on Matt Hardy under submission rules.

That match was very important heading into the PPV because after using it exclusively as his finisher for months after his debut, Punk hasn’t had a place in his regular moveset for the Anaconda Vise in a long, long time. If we’re expected to believe that he can beat The Undertaker with it come main event time, they needed to have Punk slap it on someone to show how effective it can be. Considering the history with Punk and the Hardy family, Matt was the perfect choice and the match was actually good. Not anywhere near the top-notch matches we’ve become accustomed to on Friday nights, but still a very solid match that got Punk’s Vise over big time. Add in the closing visual of Punk celebrating before the lights go out and Taker has Punk’s belt in his hands and you’ve got a pretty successful build for less than a month heading into the match. I’m hoping this is just the beginning for their feud as Punk could do some really great things with Taker, but we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

The rest of the show had the surprising feel of a throwaway, especially so close to a pay-per-view show, as the Diva match was just there, the Finlay/Knox match felt like the opener of a brand-specific PPV circa the beginning of the brand extension and the Morrison/Haas match was good, but not anything particularly exciting. The tag match featuring The Big Show, Chris Jericho and Cryme Tyme was in the same vein. Interesting enough, but not anything that would set the world on fire. It also underscored how hard it is sometimes for the bookers to focus on more than one thing at a time as in the rush to build the MVP/Mark Henry team for their shot at the Unified Tag straps at Breaking Point, Cryme Tyme has virtually disappeared, or at the very least, had their legs cut out from them a little bit. It’s a shame that for whatever reason, there can’t be more than one credible challenger in the tag team division, but such is life.

MAIN EVENT

Jeff Hardy…..Dumbest Drug Addict or THE Dumbest Drug Addict

Easily the biggest story of the week and possibly the biggest story of the year broke on Friday as former WWE Champion Jeff Hardy, less than two weeks removed from the company, was arrrested at his home in North Carolina on a plethora of drug charges. Authorities found 262 Vicodin pills, 180 Soma pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, trace amounts of powder cocaine and a variety of drug paraphernalia in Hardy’s home. Hardy was arrested on charges of trafficking in controlled prescription pills and possession of steroids, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg for the man formerly known as the Charismatic Engima and the Rainbow-Haired Warrior.

The charges against Hardy include felony charges of trafficking in opium, two counts of felony possession with intent to sell or deliver a Schedule III controlled substance, felony maintaining a dwelling to keep controlled substance, felony possession of cocaine, and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s FIVE felonies and a misdemeanor, which could be bad news for Hardy if it comes to a time where he’s to be sentenced on any of the charges he’s facing. Not to say that there are any, but those aren’t exactly softball felonies either as those are some heavy charges when it comes to drug-related crimes.

There’s new developments coming in the story almost as fast as they can be reported, but what is known is that there was a tip delivered to the Fayetteville, NC police department a few days ago that led to the investigation and search warrant of the house where Hardy was arrested. When pressed further for the source of the tip, an anonymous source at the Fayetteville PD confirmed off the record that a call was placed last week by an Adam C., who claimed to have intimate knowledge of Hardy’s prior working environment. Ok, maybe that last part didn’t exactly happen, but there was a tip that led to the police getting involved, which makes you wonder who Hardy pissed off to have them snitch on his stash.

Various wrestlers have already weighed in on the situation, reminding us that Hardy is innocent until proven guilty and that there should be a pause in the rush to judgment on Hardy until all of the facts come out. That comes on top of Hardy himself, who used Twitter soon after posting his $125,000 bail to state that everything wasn’t as it seemed and that there was more to the situation than meets the eye. I agree on the rush to judgment as there is a justice system for a reason and they will do their due dilligence and if Hardy is guilty, he’ll be punished. However, Hardy’s “there more to this than you know” response seems to be smacking of the old “I was holding it for a friend” routine or something like that. I’m all for the process of justice, but there’s also a place for accepting responsibility for one’s actions and Hardy seems to be lacking in that department so far.

In hindsight, the WWE’s probably breathing a huge sigh of relief that Hardy decided not to renew his contract as with all of the bad press that they have received in the past two years, Hardy’s arrest would have been yet another black eye for an employee of the company. While Hardy is still a former WWE employee and was with the company as late as last month, this will likely have less of an impact on the company than it would if he was still an active competitor. This also leaves the WWE with the option to bring Hardy back once he is fully removed from his legal troubles as this most certainly would have been his third strike and release from the company, meaning that the chances of a Hardy return would have been slim and none.

As a fan of the sport and knowing how talented he can be when Hardy is straight, I’m not happy at all with what he’s done. He’s throwing his life away with his drug addiction and if this isn’t the wake-up call he needs to get clean for good, there’s a pretty good chance that he’s going to end up the next wrestler to die well before his time. Personally, I’m done giving Hardy chances. He could be the nicest guy in the world, but I can only watch someone make the same mistake so many times with promises of change before I just throw my hands up and walk away. I’m sure he’ll be back in wrestling in some capacity eventually, but I don’t think that I’ll be able to muster up even the slightest energy to care.

Featured Bouts

— Prior to Jeff Hardy’s arrest, the biggest story of the week was the backstage brawl between The Great Khali and The Big Show with Show suggesting that Khali was using moves that fall into his moveset and that Khali should stop using them post haste. A scuffle ensued and not only did Show end up looking bad for losing the fight, but the feeling among everyone backstage is that the fight was entirely Show’s fault, making him a two-time loser. This is not good for Show as not only did he lose a little his aura as a giant, but he’s also lost some respect from the boys in the locker room by being a bit of a troublemaker to start a fight while the company is on a foreign tour (yes; Puerto Rico counts as foreign to me).

The good news is that neither guy got hurt out of it since there’s bad history when it comes to locker room disagreements in Puerto Rico. According to various reports, Show threw the first punch, Khali blocked it and ended up on top of Show, ready to beat that ass. For some reason completely unbeknownst to me (likely wishing to avoid a homicide investigation), some of the braver members of the locker room stepped in and pulled Khali off of Show to stop the fight. You have to wonder if there could be a move to Raw in the future for either Khali or Show to keep them out of the same locker room as much as possible. They got lucky this time by having the fight broken up before someone was hurt, but next time they might not be so lucky.

For someone who had a bunch of boxing training, Show has to be embarassed by the fight as he lost to a guy that seems to have about a thimble’s worth of natural athletic ability. Beyond the embarassment of losing, there’s the fact that Show thought that he was someone who has an untouchable moveset and he called Khali on it, despite the fact that most of Show’s offense is the same offense that guys like John Studd and Andre The Giant used throughout their careers. He was absolutely out of line in this whole situation and I think that this could end up being a big detriment for him once the Unified Tag Title reign comes to an end. Show’s beef was silly, the way he went about handling it was silly and in the end, Khali made him look silly.

— The WWE has gone on a rebranding binge as of late, giving way to PPV’s featuring all submission matches, all Hell in a Cell matches and now December’s Armageddon PPV will now be a Tables, Ladders and Chairs PPV. I’ve spoken previously about how the WWE needed to do something to give some of the non-Big Four shows some personality to make them feel a little different. While I give them an A for effort on that front, the execution gets an F as it’s incredibly sloppy and will likely contribute to the killing of multiple gimmick matches that the WWE had taken great care to preserve in the past decade.

The thing that makes these kinds of matches special isn’t that they’re all crammed into a specific pay-per-view, but rather that when they’re finally made, it’s usually after months of build and with a great deal of history between the combatants. There is talk of a possible screwy finish in the Punk/Taker match at Breaking Point to help build to a rematch between them at the Hell in the Cell PPV in October. For a feud that just started at the end of August, two months of build to a Hell in the Cell match is woefully inadequate and just what I’m talking about when I say that it’s going to begin to cheapen the gimmick. I could be wrong of course, but taking away those kinds of feud-enders from times that they’re really needed because they need to be kept special for the specific PPV they’ll be featured at with two guys with no real beef in them, is really going to hurt them and the product as a whole in the end.

The Midcard

— This week saw the latest in Jim Ross’ seemingly never-ending denials of the rumors that he may be considering a jump to TNA. While a lot of people certainly wouldn’t fault Good Ol’ JR for heading down to Orlando for a reduced schedule and a fat contract, I don’t know if I see it happening. For as much as Ross has had to endure through his WWE tenure (and it’s been a whole hell of a lot), he’s had plenty of chances to leave in the past and hasn’t, so I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere any time soon. While I understand that he’s happy with the security of working for the industry leader, I think that putting Ross in as head play-by-play with Tazz and Tenay on color would be a strong three-man announce team. Add in that Ross has a history of being a tremendous talent relations guy and you couldn’t blame TNA for wanting to add that to their roster. If Ross is slighted by the WWE again, it may happen, but I think that the WWE has learned their lesson from letting Tazz go and would be leery of having Ross follow so soon after. This one is likely a whole lot of talk over nothing and I would be incredibly surprised to see Ross involved with TNA anytime in the future.

— On Monday’s episode of Raw, a “groundbreaking” announcement from Batista was hyped for next week’s show. No one is really sure what is going to happen when “The Animal” makes his return to Raw for the first time since his latest surgery, but one can only hope that he’s finally come to his senses and is going to announce his retirement. Since falling to all of the various injuries and muscle tears, Batista’s work in the ring has gotten sloppier and sloppier and it’s getting close to the point where he’s becoming a liability on the roster. It would be the best move for both sides as Batista would be free to do movies or whatever it is he’s been doing during his time off, while the WWE cuts salary, opens up a main event slot and gets rid of a sloppy worker before someone ends up hurt. While that’s what a lot of wrestling fans are hoping for, the more likely scenario is that he’s going to announce some date for his comeback and we’ll start getting the hype train for his return. I don’t want that to be the case, but that’s the likeliest thing to happen unfortunately. If he does come back, let’s at least hope he’s a heel so it’s not a complete waste.

— I was finally able to catch a replay of the Dragon Gate USA pay-per-view earlier this week and to say that I was blown away is an understatement. These guys had aerial moves down cold and worked some great spots in to make the matches equally exciting, yet completely different. I’ve loosely followed Dragon Gate, CHIKARA and the like and am really going to enjoy getting to see these guys on a full-time basis. Yamato was a deliciously condescending dick heel and got great heat despite not speaking a word of English and I’m hoping to see him and Quack settle things one-on-one on the next PPV (I’m avoiding spoilers so I’m still justified in hoping).

BxB Hulk and The Young Bucks stood out for me as the real MVP’s of the show, with Hulk doing a fantastic job of bringing the crowd into his match and the event as a whole in the opener, while The Young Bucks revitalized and revolutionized tag-team wrestling and double-team moves all throughout their match with CIMA and Susumu Yokosuka. That’s not to take anything away from guys like Dragon Kid, Jigsaw, Shingo, The Colony and all the rest of the great wrestlers that dotted the card, it’s just an issue of there only being so many kudos to go around. I have to say that I agree with JD Dunn’s assessment of the main event in his review, especially the early portion of the match where he talked about how there needs to be some ground game and wrestling to give the high-flying moves the feel of something special.

If I had a beef with the show, I would have to say that that would be what it was. That for all of the pretty moves, sometimes they were left feeling kind of meaningless and the matches were just two guys wrestling for no real reason. I’m not suggesting that they need to bog themselves down with storyline (the Quack/Yamato set-up was perfect as an example), but they need to have reasons for these guys to be competing against each other rather than just to exhibit their new triple-flip, double-dip springboard missile moonsault. As much as I love seeing moves like that and matches full of speed and highspots, there has to be some meaning involved as well. That being said, I was incredibly entertained with the first show from Dragon Gate USA and I am looking forward to seeing what they bring with show two.

Jerking The Curtain

— In honor of Bob Barker’s hosting stint on Raw this past Monday, here’s some of Bob’s classic moments from The Price Is Right. I used to love this show growing up, so Bob’s always had a soft spot for me, but trust me, there’s some comedy gold here.

Poor Bob…he should have let the cripple do it….

The man’s got comedic timing and a quick wit to say the least…damn feminists…

Bob decides to take a powder when someone doesn’t understand the game…

How she managed to find the studio to begin with is beyond me…

The Final Bell

Well folks, by the time you read this I will likely be in tears with another crushing Bomber loss stuck in my throat, but I’m done for this week. Next week we’ll be back to cover the Breaking Point PPV, the weekly shows and everything else that goes down in the next seven days in the world of sweaty, spandex-clad men. Geez, that sounded kinda bad, so I’m just going to back away from it. Randle’s got you covered tomorrow from somewhere that may or may not have already been swallowed up by Toronto, so in the meantime and in between time, I’ll be back here next time for an 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.