The Bell To Bell News Report 09.24.10

— The top story this week saw Chris Jericho unleash a blistering tirade against rumormongers on his Twitter account this past week after rumors of him leaving the WWE after Night of Champions due to the lack of a new contract were proven false when he appeared on the following night’s episode of Raw. When word of the contract situation came about last week, people seemed convinced that Jericho was ready for another vacation with no indication of when he might be back with speculation running rampant. On Wednesday, Jericho put them in their place;

“Hey Internet…Im a heel. Heels lie, therefore if I say something boastfully and reneg on it, it’s not an official stipulation. Smarten up!

Hello Internet experts. Allow me to explain something to u kiddies. Winning and losing means nothing if you do it properly. I would be happy to lose to every single one of you and watch your faces as I walk out of the arena with more heat than before. Watch and learn children. Sit back and let the real experts work our magic as we make u behave like the puppets that you are. Cheers!”

While I don’t buy the whole “I’m a heel” explanation when it comes to why things turned out, Jericho has some pretty good points in there, especially when it comes to winning and losing. I’m never going to claim myself as an expert, but from a really young age I had an idea that how you win or lose is as important or more important than actually winning or losing. From Ric Flair always being over despite looking like he was getting the crap kicked out of him every week to Hulk Hogan always making his comeback to save the day, the way that things happened began to seem as important as how they happened or who came out on top. I also agree with Jericho’s assertion that he could lose to everyone and still have a ton of heat because no one has done it better than Jericho over the years. Whether he wins or loses, he consistently gets some of the biggest pops for his entrance and the Walls of Jericho is one of the most over finishers in the business.

Jericho is one of the really smart wrestlers that knows exactly what to do and when for maximum effect and quite honestly, this post is no different. At a time when he’s ready to leave for an extended absence to tour Europe with Fozzy, he’s the talk of the IWC for this little doozy and that should go a long way towards making sure that he’s not forgotten while he’s gone. There is a possibility that he could be back for WrestleMania and there are tentative plans for him to be booked into an angle for the show, but the earliest Jericho could be back is the beginning of November, meaning that they would have to start laying some groundwork right away in order for any possible match at WM to mean anything. Either way, Jericho has always been one of my favorites, going all the way back to the very beginning of his career and I am hoping that this isn’t the last that we’ve seen of him, but if it is then he’s had an amazing career and will go down as one of the greats of the business. That being said, I would start looking out for a return around Survivor Series (fingers crossed).

— Another week means more news regarding the Matt Hardy/WWE/TNA situation as this week Hardy made various postings online referencing his hope that he would be released by the WWE as early as the end of the week and that he would be able to sign with TNA shortly afterwards. In the meantime, he continues to trumpet himself as the “pioneer of internet fan interaction” or some other kind of nonsense nickname, while making somewhat cryptic postings like this one from his Twitter;

Things are about to get interesting, the WWW allows that nowadays-If people thought 2005 was controversial AT ALL-U ain’t seen nothing yet! Because sometimes, “We Got To Fight The Powers That Be!”

What that means, I have no earthly idea. Is he going to fight Vince Russo when he gets to TNA? Is he going to get Edge to grudgebang Lita again? He’s going to tag team with Flava Flav? Whatever it means, it looks like he’s trying to recapture the spirit of his push in 2005 and he’s going to try to push the envelope a little bit to try to position himself as the edgy alternative to WWE-PG, much like TNA does with their weekly show. This could pay off for him, but if he gets too far into trying to work the internet and have them help him get over, it could all blow up in his face just as easily as it could put him over huge.

I will say this for Hardy as he looks to be in tremendous shape while preparing for what is likely to be a jump to TNA to join his brother Jeff. He recently posted a picture from the gym where he was down to one of his lowest weights in years and the guy looks like he’s really getting serious…

Something to be said for the motivation of anger that’s for sure. With that being said, you have to wonder where this kind of motivation was during his final days in the WWE. Sure, there were plenty of complaints from Hardy regarding his push (or lack thereof), but pushes tend to go to the guys that work hard and deserve them for the most part. Hardy has pretty much been riding off of 2005 since roughly…the end of 2005 and not a lot has changed since then in terms of character progression or anything else. He looked like he had a bit of a spark during the feud with his brother Jeff, but that was gone soon enough and it was back to the malaise. Maybe this move to TNA is what it’s going to take to give him a kick in the ass to get going and realize the potential that many have seen in him in the past decade. All I know is that the longer this drags on, the more chance there is that Hardy is going to wear out his welcome as the internet tends to be a very fickle mistress. One day’s “Amber Lamps” becomes another’s “Leeeeeeeeroyyyyyyy JENNNNNNNKINNNNNNS” and if Hardy isn’t careful all of this exposure could lead to overexposure and a sizable backlash or even worse, indifference.

I know that I can already feel myself starting to get sick of this a little bit and I’m sure there are plenty of fans out there that are feeling the same way. There’s really no other option for Matt but TNA at this point in the game, now it’s just a matter of how long it’s going to take for him to get there and whether TNA knows what to do with him when he gets there.

— Late breaking news that crossed the desks at 411mania just hours before the column was due to post regarding one of the WWE’s top stars, but there are some light spoilers regarding this piece of news, so I’ll preface it as always with a spoiler alert, just to make sure that no one can complain after they’ve read it.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, Christian has suffered a torn pectoral muscle and is expected to be out of action for anywhere up to six months. There hasn’t been any indication on when the injury occurred or whether he will need surgery or just rehab the injury before making a return, but this is a major blow for Smackdown as Christian had been one of the featured performers just under the main event level and is consistently thought of as one of the better in-ring performers on the brand. Tonight’s episode of Smackdown will feature an angle with Christian being taken out by Alberto Del Rio as a way to explain the absence, but this is still a big hit to the WWE’s roster. Hopefully Christian can recover a little bit ahead of schedule and possibly slot himself into a WrestleMania bout (if they continue having Money in the Bank matches at WM, that would be perfect for his return), but the biggest concern is just for him to get healthy period. All of the best wishes for a full and speedy recovery go out to Captain Charisma from the entire staff of 411mania.

EDIT: Late news from a post on MVP’s Twitter account suggests that Christian will indeed be undergoing surgery. Again, all of us at 411 wish him the best for the procedure and subsequent recovery.

Anyone else think Mr. Anderson just asked Paul Heyman about coming to TNA?

— In some good news for TNA’s main event scene, TNA President Dixie Carter posted on her Twitter account that Mr. Anderson had signed a new contract with the company. There’s no word on the length of the contract, but hopefully for TNA it’s not one of those “number of appearance” types of deals because those have consistently come back to bite TNA in the ass while closing off possible angles for them by having talent be unavailable due to having worked too many dates. The same thing happened to WCW numerous times and I don’t understand why TNA is following in those footsteps. Getting back to Anderson, he has grown into a consistent part of the main event picture in TNA, especially with being featured in the main feud for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship at the moment, so it’s smart for TNA to look to lock him up long-term, especially if they have any plans for him to hold the title sometime in the future. I’m still not convinced that the guy has what it takes to be the face of a company as their top champion, at least not yet, but it should be fun to see it unfold and hopefully he proves me wrong and becomes the most entertaining part of TNA inside and outside of the ring. The more strong characters TNA can work with, the better the shows will hopefully become and signing Anderson is one key cog in that philosophy.

— Continuing on with TNA contract news, the promotion has come to terms with former WWE Diva Mickie James on a new contract, so expect to see her on TNA TV in the next couple of weeks. This is a good signing for both sides as TNA gets a quality in-ring performer and someone that has a pretty decent fanbase that might be willing to follow her into TNA and check out the product, while James gets a lightened schedule that will allow her to continue to work on her music career. Given that she’s already back in wrestling after such a short time away, my guess is that the music career isn’t quite panning out like she had hoped it would, but it’s still something that she can choose to do while working a lot less days for TNA with a lot less touring. Of course, I wish this signing could have been made a couple of years ago when Gail Kim and Awesome Kong had the Knockouts division buzzing, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. As long as Mickie can make the Knockouts division a bit more entertaining, this is a pretty smart move from TNA to bolster the ranks in their women’s division. Now they just need to cut some of the dead weight at the bottom of the scale (men and women) and they’d be set.

— A rumor making the rounds this past week regarding WrestleMania saw the WWE planning for a title unification bout between Sheamus and The Undertaker with the winner becoming the WWE Champion and the only champion on both Raw and Smackdown. While there’s some joy in hearing that there is at least some kind of plan for the WWE to unify the titles eventually, I have to say that Sheamus vs. The Undertaker would be a pretty underwhelming bout to have as a title unification. Given that Sheamus is a relative newcomer to the business, there’s little to believe that he would have any kind of edge over The Undertaker and given the whole deal with The Streak and the circumstances surrounding the match, he would seem like even less of a threat than Nathan Jones (if that’s possible). I think that Sheamus has an incredibly bright future in the business and that he’s goin to be on top for quite some time, but no one could buy into him being the guy to finally beat The Undertaker, no matter how much they tried to build him as such.

Now if you pulled Sheamus and stuck in John Cena, that would be pretty much the biggest match that the WWE could make with the starpower available that would A.) Be fitting of a title unification bout in the sense that these are the two biggest stars in the WWE, no matter how you slice it, and B.) Would be one of the fresher matches available out of the main event roster. Cena could win and get the mega-rub, or he could lose and be just as big a star as he is now with The Undertaker getting the honor of unifying the titles before he retires. Given that it appears that there would need to be at least one title change on each brand for this to take place, I’ll file this one under believe it when I see it when it comes to Sheamus/Taker, but if that’s the route they decide to go on, don’t be surprised if this columnist and a lot of other fans decide to take a pass next year.

— Following in the footsteps of my personal TV favorites like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Psych, the WWE has announced that Danny McBride from the hilarious Eastbound and Down show on HBO will be the guest star on the October 11th edition of Raw. I’ve been a big fan of McBride since The Foot Fist Way and the insane bit that he and Will Ferrell pulled off on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, so seeing him in the Raw environment could be kind of fun. Part of me is hoping for McBride himself, but I have to admit that a pretty big part of me is hoping that Kenny Powers shows up instead because having him interact with anyone from Randy Orton to Sheamus to Edge to The Miz could make for some pretty awesome television. I’m glad that they’ve ditched the guest GM thing because those made for some bad segments, but this is one time I wish that they were still in power because seeing McBride in multiple segments on the show would be tremendous.

— Exciting news for Ring of Honor fans in Dayton, OH as the show there on October 15th will be headlined by a bout featuring current Ring of Honor Tag Team Champions, The Kings of Wrestling (Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero) taking on the dream team of Christopher Daniels and Davey Richards. Given the ability of all four men, this has the potential to be an amazing technical display from four of the top professional wrestlers in the world. Granted, it doesn’t seem to fit into much of what ROH is doing with booking at the moment as Richards and Daniels are both expected to be involved in the title picture with new ROH Champion Roderick Strong, but sometimes a good wrestling match doesn’t need to have anything else involved than just two guys (or in this case four) that can just go in the ring and tell a story with their bodies. Congratulations Dayton as you’ve got one hell of a main event and I know I speak for myself and probably a lot of other ROH fans in saying that I wish it was happening in my area so that I could see it too.

— This week saw Lance Cade’s former tag team partner Trevor Murdoch speak publicly for the first time since Cade’s death last month and reading them makes it all the more heartbreaking to see Cade gone at such a young age.

His First Words On Cade’s Passing: “My partner’s been gone three and a half weeks now, and you’re really the first person I’ve spoken to just for the simple fact that I don’t want anybody thinking that I’m trying to capitalize on my best friend’s tragedy, and my best friend not being here,” Murdoch said. “Because I would trade anything in this world besides my wife and children to bring that man back here, and for him to be here with his kids. It is a tragedy and it is something where personally I’m struggling with Jesus right now, because I really don’t understand what the point is, taking a good man like that.”

On How Shawn Michaels Reacted: “It was so comforting to know that a man of his stature was just as brokenhearted as I was over this, and that I had somebody there that could understand and could do his best to try to make this as comfortable as possible. Shawn went completely above and beyond, out of his way, in this whole situation, not once worrying about the way he feels. The fact of the matter is… one of his boys is gone. At the funeral, at the visitation, it was very evident, the impact that Lance had made on his life and on my life. You don’t understand how important somebody is to you and how much of an impact they make on your life until they’re not there.”

You can almost feel the man’s hurt through the screen as you read. Things like this are what makes it hard to be a wrestling fan that suffers through the young deaths of so many great stars, even going all the way back to the days David Von Erich, Gino Hernandez and those names. While we tend to think of wrestlers as being the larger than life characters we see on TV every week, they are still human beings. Hearing Murdoch’s heartfelt words about his friend show just how deep the bonds of friendship can go for wrestlers that work together closely for weeks on end and spend nearly 300 days a year together. My best wishes go out to Murdoch during what appears to be an extremely difficult time and he is smart to realize how lucky he is to have Shawn Michaels by his side to help him make sense of it all. There were times I worried that Shawn was going to be one of the next guys to make the list of high-profile wrestling deaths, but he’s turned the corner and has a beautiful life to show for it. If anyone can help Murdoch sort all of this out, it would be someone who has faced the same kinds of problems that Cade was likely facing in his final days. It never gets any easier writing about deaths in this business and Murdoch’s comments are a perfect example of why.

— In a somewhat related story that should have wrestling fans worried, the downward spiral of Chyna continues as she was admitted to hospital this week after taking an excessive amount of Benadryl. She reportedly took four to five times the recommended dose in an attempt to help herself sleep and when she woke up she was unable to walk and vomiting. This comes less than five months after the incident in Los Angeles where Chyna was believed to have beaten another woman with a wire hanger in a hotel room and a couple of years after a drinking binge left the former Diva so drunk that friends found her passed out with cuts on her arms and the medical staff that treated her were unable to perform any type of psychological testing. Reports now are that Chyna is fine after some IV treatments at the hospital, but you sadly have to wonder if the clock is ticking for something terrible to happen. I have my fingers crossed and am hoping that that’s not the case, but it’s looking more and more like headlines featuring her unfortunate death may not be far off.

— The legal troubles for Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart continue to brew, but in some good news for him, things got a little bit cheaper this week as his bail was reduced from $138,500 to $57,500 after the bail on the harges of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, third degree grand theft, trafficking in illegal drugs (Methodone) and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute (Methodone)were dropped. The bail on the remaining charges, trafficking in illegal drugs (oxycotin) and for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute (oxycotin), remained in place but with the much smaller balance. Unfortunately for Neidhart he has been unable to make bail arrangements up to this point and has spent the past two weeks in jail. I know I’ve said the word “hopefully” a lot in regards to people like Neidhart and Chyna, but hopefully he’s able to get the help he needs, not only in making bail, but in making the changes in his life that need to be made to beat the addiction demons.

In ultra breaking news that happened literally moments before the column posted, The Amazing Red has beaten Jay Lethal at a TNA house show in New York City on Thursday night to become the new TNA X Division Champion, pinning Lethal with a flip piledriver. This ends Lethal’s reign after just over two weeks officially as champion (technically a week as the Impact featuring Lethal winning the title aired just last week), while marking the third reign with the X-Division crown for Red. There will likely be more to report on next week when more information comes in, but for now congratulations to Red for climbing the top of the X-Division heap for the third time in his career and the second time in just under a year.

— We close out this week with more TNA news as the promotion announced that they are returning to Nashville, TN to the State Fairgrounds building, better known to TNA fans as the Asylum, on November 12th for a house show. The venue was home to TNA for more than three years and was the headquarters for the company in addition to playing host to the weekly pay-per-views that TNA used to launch their business. There is no word on who is set for the card or what a line-up might look like, but given that the DVD set covering the years TNA spent at the Asylum is coming out on Tuesday and the company will likely be looking to pay homage to those years, expect this one to be a doozy. Say what you will about TNA, but you have to respect them going back to their roots and giving credit to where they’ve come from. All signs point to it being not only a special night for the fans in attendance that packed the building in TNA’s early years, but for the performers and employees themselves that remember those times.

Let’s celebrate with some of the best matches that TNA ever put on at the Asylum to close out this week’s column…

That’s it for me this week, folks. I’d have something a little snappier and better written, but I’m fighting off a horrible migraine, so I’ll just leave you all as usual by saying 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! Enjoy your weekend, everybody!

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