The Bell To Bell News Report: Spoiler Edition 05.05.11

Welcome to this week’s spoileriffic edition of the Bell to Bell everyone! There’s going to be plenty of scrolling this week if you’re one of those people that doesn’t like to have future programming spoiled as there was a LOT of news that broke this week that is reliant on future shows in both TNA and the WWE. Not to worry as I’ve clearly outlined where the spoilers are and how to avoid them, especially in the first half of the column where things are kind of spoiler heavy. As always, there’s the chance that someone might see something they weren’t supposed to and might end up upset by it, but I’ve done my part on it and there’s only so much that I can do.

That being said, there’s plenty of non-spoiler news this week as we’ve got stories on Michelle McCool’s retirement and Kharma’s WWE debut, Nick Gage’s sentencing on armed robbery charges, Jay Lethal’s return to Ring of Honor, the results from last weekend’s ECWA Super 8 tournament, Christian finally winning the big one and a lot more.

Before we get into the heart of the matter this week, I want to send out some congratulations to both Scorpio Sky and Famous B, who will be part of the roster for the initial pay-per-view for the Urban Wrestling Federation, which is set to launch later this summer. Sky is well-known as one of the top independent talents in California as one of the featured members of the NWA Hollywood roster, while B is getting one of his biggest breaks as one of the top rising prospects in the Golden State. I’m looking forward to getting to see both guys getting some national exposure on pay-per-view and I wish nothing but success for both guys in their debuts!

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to jump headlong into the news….

You know the drill…

Ding Ding….

— As if there would be any doubt, the top story of the week this week was Christian’s victory over Alberto Del Rio in a ladder match at Extreme Rules to become the new World Heavyweight Champion less than a month after Edge was forced to vacate the title and retire due to a serious neck injury.

The match itself was quite good and there was plenty of drama including a surprise appearance by Edge, which helped push Christian over the top and to the title. Prior to the match, I felt like this was a repeat of the Eddie Guerrero/Rey Mysterio situation where Christian was only going to be getting the belt because he was Edge’s friend and tragedy had befallen the former titleholder. However, as the match wore on, it began to feel more and more like Christian was deserving of the belt on his own merit and accord and even though it took a little boost from his former tag team partner to do it, the reaction from the crowd and from Christian to the moment will go down as one of the top feel-good moments of 2011.

Christian has gone out of his way to prove himself in this business, busting his ass in the various ladder matches and TLC matches he was in as part of E & C (he usually took the most vicious bumps outside of the prerequisite Jeff Hardy lunacy), but was stuck in the midcard rut and had to leave the WWE to prove that he could hold his own as a top flight talent. His run in TNA may not have set that promotion on fire, but during his time chasing and holding the title, he showed that he was capable of not only holding his own in a main event program, but that he could help carry the load as well. Honing those skills in TNA made all the difference for Christian and despite him coming back to the WWE and getting lost in the shuffle after a brief ECW Championship reign, he’s managed to fight his way back to the top and that is to be congratulated.

Where Christian goes from here is kind of unsure as he no longer has Alberto Del Rio as a foil and the heel side of the Smackdown roster is beginning to get a little thin. It will be crucial for his reign to be in a solid program from the beginning because if he is booked into a feud that doesn’t really set the world on fire, many could view it as being Christian’s fault as champion rather than pointing to the lack of challengers. He’s got his work cut out for himself, that much is certain, but Christian is finally sitting on top of the wrestling world with one of the WWE’s major titles and here’s to hoping that he gets to enjoy the view for a little while.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

Apparently, that view from the top came with an expiration date as during this past week’s Smackdown tapings, Christian lost the World Heavyweight Championship in his first title defense against Randy Orton, who came over to Smackdown during the recent WWE Draft. While it’s unknown what was behind the move, one might assume that the title reign was set up for Orton to help smooth some feathers that might have been ruffled from his move over to the B show away from the bright lights of Raw. The timing of the title switch might suggest as much as well as it is a head-scratcher to have Christian earn an emotional title win only to give up the belt two (five in TV land) days later. It would be unfortunate for Christian if this was the case as he would end up having fallen victim to politics rather than having a chance to let his title reign sink or swim on the basis of his ability to draw as champ.

Reading the spoilers from the Smackdown taping, it appears that they may be attempting to turn Orton heel as he returned from behind the curtain moments after the title change to remind everyone that he was the champion once again. If he did it as a dick move to stick it to the folks who were probably pretty solidly behind Christian afer his title win, it might be fun to see Orton go heel and give Smackdown a strong presence there at the top of the card to replace Alberto Del Rio. That would allow Christian to be promoted from within into Edge’s slot at the top of the card on the face side and a new feud begins over the belt with Christian continuing to chase and getting the chance to win the belt again. As I said before though, it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t have at least held it off until the next pay-per-view to give Christian a few weeks with the title, but hopefully this is more of a CM Punk situation where it’s a prelude to a much longer reign rather than a Dolph Ziggler situation where Christian ends up stuck on the other side of the glass ceiling once again.

END SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

— The WWE is not the only promotion to have stories full of spoilers this week as TNA has its own little surprise twist as during their latest batch of Impact tapings, the identity of Kurt Angle’s mistress was revealed. If you don’t want to know what happened, you know the drill, but if you can’t wait, her identity is below and believe me, it’s a doozy.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

During the taping of the Impact episode that will air on May 12th on Spike TV, the woman formerly known as Chyna, Joanie Laurer, was introduced as Kurt Angle’s mistress to combat the Jeff Jarrett/Karen Angle power couple and even up the odds for the former Olympic gold medalist. Now, Chyna has not been seen in wrestling in quite some time and it will be interesting to see if she’s been able to put her life in order, but teaming her with Angle is like leaving the crazy fox in charge of the crazy henhouse. We can’t be surprised if this thing goes belly up and I’m sure that in the back of Vince Russo’s mind he’s almost hoping it does so that he can have more cool “shoot” storylines with the two of them having a crazy-off with Scott Steiner as the judge. I will say that the continuity of having Chyna come back for revenge on Jarrett after their history in the WWF is nice and should make for some fun in the next few weeks, but I’m still a little worried this could end up being a ticking time bomb waiting to go, especially with how shaky Angle has seemed the past few weeks with his arrests and Twitter tirades.

END SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

— Michelle McCool has left the WWE following her “loser leaves town” match against Layla at the Extreme Rules show and is expected to be done with the WWE as an in-ring performer following the bout. Mrs. Undertaker was never really my cup of tea in the ring to begin with, but she managed to make a more than suitable career out of her somewhat shallow beginnings as a Diva Search contestant. She was ranked #1 by Pro Wrestling Illustrated in their list of the 50 best female singles wrestlers in 2010 and held the WWE Women’s and WWE Divas Championship twice each. McCool is likely going to settle down with her husband now that he is off of the road for the most part as well and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we hear reports of a bouncing baby Deadman in the next year or so. Congratulations go out to McCool for a great career and best of luck to her in whatever she decides to pursue now that she’s taken her final steps out of the ring.

— The pay-per-view also saw Kharma make her WWE debut following the bout between McCool and Layla with McCool being stared down by the intimidating Kharma before being decimated in the ring with a HUGE implant buster that left McCool out cold in the middle of the canvas. Given the promos building her debut and the reaction she had following the buster, it’s almost looking like they’re going to have her playing a Mankind-ish gimmick where she’s alternating between crazy and intense while kicking people’s asses. If that’s how they decide to go, I’m totally okay with that as I was honestly concerned that they would try to change Kong and make her into something else completely just because her gimmick isn’t something that was created by the WWE. There have been rumblings of a feud between Kharma and Beth Phoenix down the road and if that comes to pass, it could be the first meaningful feud in the WWE women’s division in years and could maybe even breathe some new life into a division that has struggled mightily since the glory days of stars like Trish Stratus, Lita, Victoria, Mickie James et al.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

As great as things looked for Kharma following Extreme Rules, there could be some problems for her coming down the road as Alicia Fox suffered a shoulder injury after landing awkwardly following a stiff clothesline from Kharma during this week’s Smackdown tapings. It’s unknown how severe the injury is at this time, but if there ends up being a problem with Kharma not being able to adapt to the WWE style, this could be an issue for her, no matter how much the WWE has pushed her before her debut.

END SPOILER ALERT!!!

— It was a big weekend for The Rock as Monday saw virtually the entire episode of Raw devoted to his birthday party, (which was a terrible show in terms of wrestling, yet quite entertaining) as well as the news that his new movie, Fast Five, took in $86.2 million in its first week in theaters. That total was enough for the latest movie in the Fast and Furious franchise to run away with the top spot, earning over $70 million more than its closest competitor, the animated film Rio. This is big news for The Rock as he’s back on top at the box office, but there are some other factors to consider. The movie is more of an ensemble cast rather than having any singular leading man and while Rock is a featured character, it is a stretch to say he carried the movie. Also, the franchise itself is likely what helped draw as well as it did as the Fast and Furious movies have all done fairly well at the box office in their opening weekends and this is no different. While Rock played a key role in the film and this is big news for him, there is still a difference between this and if he had carried a movie to #1 on his own. That being said, congratulations to Rock for being part of something that successful and here’s to hoping for more success in week two.

— Proving that you still can’t talk about The Rock without talking about The Sock, Mick Foley has been working tirelessly as of late in support of the RAINN anti-sexual assault organization and this week he announced he would auction off items from his career with the proceeds going to the organization. Among the items that will be up for bids will be the sock that he used as Mankind the night that he won his first WWF Championship against The Rock, the original shirt that he wore as part of his outfit as Mankind, the bloody clothes that Foley was wearing during his TNA bout with Ric Flair last October, as well as the button down shirt that he was wearing when he was thrown off of and through the cage in his classic Hell in a Cell match against The Undertaker. There are some real pieces of historical interest here and the auction, which can be followed on the RAINN website, should probably bring in a pretty penny for the charity. Foley had pledged to help them raise $100,000 and met the goal, but has decided that he wants to continue to fundraise for the group, which leads efforts to prevent sexual assault while improving services offered to victims. It’s a tremendous cause and a tremendous auction and if there’s anyone reading this that wants a piece of wrestling history, there’s no better way to do it than through this auction. Good luck, Mick! The Bell to Bell is pulling for this to be a huge success!

— Landing on his feet relatively quickly following his release from TNA a couple of weeks back, Jay Lethal will return to Ring of Honor on June 26th as part of the “Best in The World 2011” iPPV event from New York City. The former ROH Pure Champion will be making his first appearance for the company in almost five years and though there is no opponent announced at this time, I would expect Lethal to get a very warm welcome upon his return. There is also no word on whether this means Lethal is back as a full-time ROH performer or if this is a one shot deal due to the show’s close vicinity to Lethal’s home base in New Jersey, but if Lethal performs well, it would be safe to assume that he’ll be brought back by the promotion again.

— Shortly after entering a guilty plea for his role in a December bank robbery, former CZW wrestler Nick Gage has been sentenced to five years in prison in the State Superior Court of Camden, NJ. Gage had plead guilty to one count of second-degree bank robbery in connection with the incident that saw him attempt to make off with $3000 from a PNC Bank branch in Collingswood, NJ. In addition to the sentence, Gage is also responsible for paying restitution to the bank in the amount of $3,095, as well as $150 in lost wages to the teller that he held up. Gage has previously spoken about hoping to be able to use his time in prison to overcome addictions to prescription drugs and is hoping to return to wrestling once he is released. Gage will not be eligible for parole until he has served at least 85% of his sentence, which means he’ll be in prison until at least sometime in 2015.

— Edge’s post-WWE career appears to already be off to a good start as he has been announced as a guest star on a second season episode of the SyFy series Haven. Edge will appear as a resident of Haven, who helps main character Nathan (Lucas Bryant), who is the sheriff of Haven, in the same way that he helped Nathan’s father previously. Haven is loosely based on The Colorado Kid, which was written by Stephen King, and has had a first season with some interesting stories and episodes. I haven’t seen them all, but the few that I have seen have been interesting and given that it’s a SyFy show, expect plenty of cross-promotion between the show and the Smackdown brand. Good on Edge for jumping right onto the horse after his sudden retirement and hopefully this is the first of many future jobs for the former “Rated R Superstar”.

— The main event for the upcoming ROH Supercard of Honor event on May 21st in Chicago Ridge, IL as former ROH Heavyweight Champion Roderick Strong will challenge for the title against either Eddie Edwards, the man that defeated him for the belt, or Chris Hero, who Edwards will defend against on May 7th in Toronto. As much as Ring of Honor likes to not telegraph the results of their matches by giving the whole “if Hero wins, he defends” speech, I don’t think there’s any way in hell that Hero will win and upset the apple cart for the rematch between Edwards and Strong. Their first match was a tremendous bout and given that this is going to be one of the bigger shows for Ring of Honor as they head into the summer, I would expect both guys to pull out all the stops. More bouts featuring the likes of ROH TV Champion Christopher Daniels, The Briscoes, Colt Cabana and the ROH World Tag Team Champions Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas are expected to be announced in the next few days and with that line-up of talent, the card should be stacked.

— Finally, congratulations are in order for Tommaso Ciampa, who won the ECWA Super 8 tournament that was held last weekend in Voorhees, NJ and aired live on iPPV. Ciampa defeated Rich Swann in the first round via pinfall, submitted Shiima Xion in the semifinals and then put on a tremendous performance against the number one seed in the tournament, Adam Cole, in the finals to win the tournament. Cole shocked many in the semifinal round with a clean victory over Austin Aries in what I thought was probably the best match of the night, though I’m sure there will be others who feel differently. The victory is sweet redemption for Ciampa, who made it to the finals in the 2009 and 2010 versions of the tournament, only to come up short in both final bouts. Ciampa has slowly been becoming one of the top names on the independent circuit and a victory in a tournament like this will only solidify his position for the rest of 2011 while laying the groundwork for a possible explosion into the top level of indy talent in 2012. Congratulations once again to Ciampa and to all eight men who competed in the tournament, which was awesome from start to finish.

Well folks, that’s it for me for this week. DeMarco will be up next with his Wrestling 5 & 1 where you can vote on hot wrestling chicks while getting informed at the same time. Makes you wonder how much better high school testing scores would be if they put chicks in bikinis in all of the male student’s textbooks. Alas, that is a question for another day, so in the meantime and in between time, I’ll see you all back here next time for another brand-new edition of the Bell to Bell! Chocolate Giddy-uuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!

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