The Bell to Bell News Report 12.21.08

After last week’s well-received debut (Thanks to all for the support), I’m back to cover another seven days in the wild and wacky world of professional wrestling. It’s the week before Christmas and if you’ve missed anything because of the insanity of last-minute shopping or family get-togethers, I’ve got you covered. There’s big events to get to and some big stories that need to be looked at, so let’s get to it!!

Sunday

The Show

The WWE closed out the year 2008 on pay-per-view with some style and a huge title change in the main event. Granted there wasn’t a ton of wrestling on the show, but it was still a pretty good show overall and had some quality moments. Here’s the results for the show.

Matt Hardy vs. Vladimir Kozlov – Winner: Vladimir Kozlov (pinfall, Uranage slam)
Intercontinental Championship Contender Tournament Final: CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio – Winner: CM Punk (pinfall, Go To Sleep)
Belfast Brawl: Mark Henry vs. Finlay – Winner: Finlay (pinfall, shillelagh shot)
Randy Orton vs. Batista – Winner: Batista (pinfall, Batista bomb)
Santa’s Little Helper Match: Michelle McCool, Maria, Mickie James and Kelly Kelly vs. Victoria, Natalya, Jillian and Maryse – Winners: Michelle McCool, Maria, Mickie James and Kelly Kelly (pinfall, McCool on Jillian w/ Cool Clash)
World Heavyweight Championship: Chris Jericho vs. John Cena (c) – Winner: John Cena (submission, STFU)
WWE Championship: Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge (c) – Winner: Jeff Hardy (pinfall, Swanton on Edge)

CM Punk and Rey Mysterio had a great match on the undercard with Punk coming out on top to win a shot at William Regal’s Intercontinental Championship. The main gripe that I have with it isn’t in the quality of the work. It’s that outside of the Intercontinental Title shot, the match doesn’t mean a lot of anything. I talked last week about how there are problems with the WWE’s midcard where none of the matches mean anything long-term. This match was a perfect example and it’s really too bad because a match like that deserves a better fate than to be forgotten about a week or two weeks later. Call me crazy, but Punk could really use a heel turn to freshen him up a little bit. The holier-than-thou Punk who heeled his way through the independents was a great gimmick and if he were to turn, it would give him a ton of new storyline potential, which he could definitely use.

In a battle of two of the WWE’s biggest stars, Batista was able to pick up a big win over Randy Orton in a match that while perfectly fine, seemed to be lacking something. People have accused Batista of dogging it since he’s fallen out of the title picture, but that didn’t seem to be the case in this match. This match ended up being one where the two men just weren’t meshing as there were a couple of spots where it looked like they kind of lost their place in the ring. The finish was hot with Batista hitting a couple of new moves and the usual finisher reversal sequences that seem to be in every WWE main event-type match, but the rest was just kind of there. I’m not going to call it a bad match, as much as I’m going to call it a forgettable one, which is bad when these are two of the biggest stars in the company. Wrestlers are allowed to have off nights just like everyone else, and these two had a night where they weren’t at their best.

I have to say that I’m interested to see where they go with this JBL/Shawn Michaels deal as both guys can talk like no one’s business and can be incredibly entertaining while building to a match. The match itself will probably be the drizzling shits, but in the meantime two of the better stick men in the WWE will get to spend their segments together. I’m not sure if I am willing to go along with this whole “Michaels is broke” deal since he would have to have been Ponzi’d to go broke with all the money he’s been raking in the past couple of years, but I guess there are worse ways they could have gone. I do like that they found the only way that JBL could have the upper hand on Michaels and used that, but again, it’s a little flimsy. I hope that Michaels can do a carry job better than he did with Flair when we get to the pay-off for the angle, whenever that is.

Jericho/Cena was pretty good, but there wasn’t a lot going on in their match and it only lasted 12 minutes. Jericho did well with the psychology to work the neck for nearly the entire match, but it sucks that it was pretty much forgotten about during the finishing sequence when Jericho went for the Walls of Jericho on the reversal of the STFU. If it was the old-school Liontamer, it would have made a lot more sense as that move always looked like it was murder on the neck of the poor sap locked into it. The WWE-ized Walls of Jericho is a glorified Boston Crab and doesn’t do anything to pay off all of the neck work that Jericho did during the majority of the match. Again, this one was a little short to mean anything, but it was still a decent match and proved that Jericho and Cena have a definite chemistry together. They’ve worked well together in the past (Summerslam a couple of years back and Jericho’s “retirement” match the next night) and this one showed that the WWE made the right decision in having Jericho be Cena’s first major feud upon his return. Jericho can work around anything and make anyone look like a million bucks, and he’s been doing it with Cena thus far.

That brings us to the night’s main event with Jeff Hardy and Triple H challenging Edge for the WWE Championship. Hardy’s been on for the past couple of months and this main event was no exception. After years of false starts and near-misses, Jeff Hardy finally won the WWE Championship. One of my favorite spots in the match was the table spot with all three men involved. The reversal sequence into the spear from Edge was tremendous and one of the better table spots I’ve seen in quite some time. As usual with the WWE, the end turned into a reversal/finisher-fest, but it was still a really good match leading up to that and the crowd popped huge for the finish with Hardy’s Swanton. The only real quibble I’d have is with the Matt Hardy/Vladimir Kozlov shenanigans at the end of it. I can understand why they did it, but I didn’t like it. I wasn’t a big fan of it happening when Mankind won for the first time with all of the DX/Corporation nonsense at ringside and I stand by that now with Hardy’s win. Hopefully they won’t book him as a weak champion and totally kill him off now that they’ve given him the belt after such a long wait.

The Stories

— The only story to come out of Sunday worth mentioning is the news that TNA announced Global Impact II, which will be filmed at the January 4th New Japan Pro Wrestling event at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. The same format that was used for the first Global Impact show will be used as TNA cameras will follow the wrestlers around in the days leading up to the event and film all of the footage of the stars of TNA acclimating themselves to Japan and the culture as well as the matches themselves. Here’s the listing of TNA talent that will be in matches for the show.

* Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Riki Choshu and Masahiro Chono vs. Takashi Iizuka, Giant Bernard, Karl Anderson and Tomohiro Ishii
* Team 3D vs. IWGP Tag Team Champions Togi Makabe and Toru Yano vs. Tenzan and Kojima
* The Motor City Machine Guns vs. IWGP Junior Tag Team Champions “No Limit” (Naito and Yujiro)

More matches could be announced before the show, but that is looking like the final line-up in terms of TNA’s involvement. While it doesn’t look to be as good in terms of match quality compared to the last show, it will still be an entertaining show when it airs on Spike because of the mixture of background footage and wrestling. The only match that looks like it might come close to Kurt Angle’s match last year might be the MCMG’s against “No Limit”, who have been tearing up Japan as of late. It will also be interesting to see what happens with Kevin Nash in what looks to be the main event and if he’ll be able to hold up with all of the other names in the ring.

Monday

The Show

The night after Armageddon saw Raw go back to the usual two-hour format and with Christmas around the corner, we even got to see an appearance by Santa Claas. Let’s take a look at how Raw shook out in the aftermath of the last WWE pay-per-view of 2008.

Kelly Kelly and Melina vs. Beth Phoenix and Jillian Hall – Winners: Kelly Kelly and Melina (pinfall, Kelly roll-up on Jillian)
Rey Mysterio vs. Sim Snuka (Deuce) – Winner: Rey Mysterio (disqualification, Cody Rhodes-ference)
World Tag Team Championship: CM Punk and Kofi Kingston vs. The Miz and John Morrison – Winners: The Miz and John Morrison (pinfall, Morrison’s Moonlight Drive)
Dolph Ziggler vs. Santa Claas – Winner: Dolph Ziggler (pinfall, reverse bulldog)
Batista and John Cena vs. Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Manu – Winners: John Cena and Batista (disqualification, Legacy double-teaming)

The show felt a little better than last week’s three-hour chore, but not by a lot. In terms of matches, the best match was delivered (with little to no surprise) by The Miz and John Morrison in their Tag Title defense against CM Punk and Kofi Kingston. The match started out slow and built, something that most matches don’t get to do on free TV these days and the finish was frenetic and awesome. Lots of big moves, lots of two-counts and the right result as Miz and Morrison retained over the makeshift team of Punk and Kingston. I get why they had Punk and Kingston win the titles as they had to get them off of Simply Priceless to let Dibiase go off to do whatever he’s doing and they did alright with the belts, but they were transitional with a capital T. I hope that Miz and Morrison get a nice long run with the belts, a la MNM on Smackdown, because they certainly deserve to be featured on the showcase brand with belts around their waists.

The Mysterio/Snuka match was interesting, if only because Snuka’s going to recognize his roots and go with his given name as opposed to the pointless Deuce name. It seemed silly to keep it after the break-up with Domino and I’m glad it’s finally been put to rest. Inevitably, it’s going to start the rumor mill firing up that he’s going to be the next man to join The Legacy, but I think that talk like that is coming VERY prematurely. Granted, he’s got the second-generation pedigree to be a part of the group, but his in-ring work has a ways to go and his promo skills are very untested. It could end up damaging the group to take Snuka in if he’s only going to be a weak link, so I hope they give him a chance to prove himself and that he actually does prove himself before he joins up with them.

I liked what Jericho did in his segments, continuing to be at his dickish best. Refusing to fight washed up Grandpa Duggan and then the back and forth with Stephanie were right on point for his character and it sets up the tournament-style action to try to determine a new number-one contender. I like that they’re setting up the title matches by having the contenders earn them, which tends to make things feel a little more believable. At the same time I don’t like that they’re sacrificing feuds to do it. The only feud going on for the title now is Jericho and Cena and that one has pretty much run its course. I’m sure they could squeeze one more match out of it, but that would be about it and it’s looking like they’re going to let someone new take a crack at it at the Rumble. If it’s someone other than Jericho, they’ll only have about three weeks to build to the title match in January, so if it’s someone that doesn’t have a recent back story with Cena it’s going to be an uphill battle. Then again, the Royal Rumble has had a history of having championship matches that didn’t have any point so what would be any different about it happening this year, right?

The main event saw the aforementioned Legacy taking on Batista and John Cena in a bout that served its purpose, but didn’t do a whole lot else for me. They got about twenty minutes or so, which is an eternity for a Raw main event these days. However, outside of the decent amount of heat that the Legacy was getting, this was everyone doing the same thing that they’ve been doing with nothing new or no real advancement of anything. Cena looked strong, Batista looked underwhelming like he has often as of late and the Legacy looked like your standard heel group with their cheating and double-teaming. So much double-teaming that they were disqualified for it in fact. I really didn’t like that cheap ending to the match and it dragged my enjoyment of it down quite a bit actually. The show-ending beating on Batista was well done, but it would have been even better if they had done it before the bell to draw the DQ.

The Stories

— TNA Wrestling continued to make the big stories of the week as they announced that they would be creating a new series called TNA Epix, which will begin airing in early-2009. The show is expected to feature the biggest moments, matches and superstars from the six-year history of TNA. I really like this idea as it has a feel to it not unlike WWE 24/7, which is probably one of the best ideas that WWE has ever laid out. While I question how it will work now with TNA only having six years of material to work with, they only have to fill an hour a week, which means that they can parcel out the good stuff and give themselves time to make more memories and great matches. I’m looking forward to getting to see some of TNA’s past as it’s hard to remember the weekly PPV days sometimes when you see the show every week on Spike TV. I’ll be anxiously awaiting word of where this show gets picked up and when it will air as I am very intrigued to get to take a trip down TNA’s memory lane.

— The WWE news of the day was Rey Mysterio and his contract status, which is currently in limbo. The WWE wants Rey to sign on for five more years, while Rey is looking for a three-year deal with the option to head down to Mexico once those three years are up. While it would be a hit for Rey-Rey in the wallet to go back to Mexico, he would be working a little lighter schedule and would be receiving a ton of perks that come with being one of the top wrestlers in the company. I think that the three-year deal and Rey getting to go to Mexico would be best for both parties as it would give Rey and the WWE three more years to continue to get the best out of each other before Rey dials down his in-ring career in his home country. While an injury could happen just as much in Mexico as it could anywhere the WWE tours, it would be good to see Rey end his career where it began and he would be more likely to stay healthy heading into a possible retirement.

Tuesday

The Show

ECW Results:

ECW Heavyweight Championship Match: Chavo Guerrero vs. Matt Hardy – Winner: Matt Hardy (pinfall, Twist of Fate)
Finlay vs Gavin Spears – Winner: Finlay (pinfall, Celtic Cross)
John Morrison, The Miz and Jack Swagger vs. CM Punk, Kofi Kingston and Ricky Ortiz – Winners: John Morrison, The Miz and Jack Swagger (pinfall, Swagger gutwrench powerbomb on Ortiz)

After being one of the better wrestling shows last week based on in-ring action, ECW took a little bit of a step back this week in my eyes. It’s mainly the throwaway match with Finlay that turned me off, but the rest of the show was pretty solid. The opener with Matt Hardy defending against former ECW Champ Chavo Guerrero was okay. Nothing that would set the world on fire and certainly nothing that should find its way onto a PPV someday, but a decent match like those two always tend to have. I also don’t understand how Chavo could have ended up with a title match in any sensible fashion as he hasn’t done anything of note outside of getting Vickie’s coffee for the past few months. I guess because it’s wrestling and they say so.

That pretty much says it all and was probably the most entertaining segment of the show. It’s rare that ECW has their best segment in an interview instead of a match, but this was solid stuff from Henry as he continues to roll on the microphone, something I never thought I’d be able to say about Mark Henry in a million years.

The main event featured the greatness that is Miz and Morrison and they continued their roll, teaming with Jack Swagger to down the three-man unit of Kingston, Punk and Ortiz. I haven’t seen a ton of Ricky Ortiz’s work, but he looks like he could have something and could be one of ECW’s top talents in the future. Swagger looked like a million bucks as they kept him strong for his upcoming ECW Championship shot, which has the potential to be a good little match against Matt Hardy. The thing about this match that bugged me was that after having two really solid, really long matches last week including a decent length on the main event, this week’s main event got nowhere near a long enough amount of time to put together a good story. It felt like the first half of a good match that was way too rushed. They could have easily dropped Finlay and Hornswoggle’s nonsense and given this match another four minutes that would have served it well.

The Stories

— Tuesday saw little happening news-wise, with the top spot going to Ring of Honor’s annual Wrestlemania weekend shows. The promotion officially announced that they will be in Houston for Wrestlemania on Friday, April 3rd and Saturday, April 4th at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Tickets for the events have already gone on sale and matches are expected to be announced closer to the shows. The cool thing about this year’s ROH shows is that while Friday’s bell time is the usual 8pm, Saturday’s show will begin at 3pm which will not interfere with fans who want to check out Ring of Honor’s show and the WWE’s Hall of Fame ceremony. These Wrestlemania weekend shows are a great thing for ROH as they get to showcase their product in new locales to audiences that might not know what the company is all about. If they’re able to convert even a handful of WWE fans at each show that they hold, it’s a win for the company as they slowly chip away at the WWE’s fanbase while broadening their own. The quality of the shows that ROH has had during WM weekends has been top-notch as well, so if you’re in the area, be sure to check it out. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

— Tuesday also saw the release of the ratings for the 12.12.08 edition of Smackdown on MyNetwork TV, which sat at a 2.0. While that’s not great news for the WWE, they are delivering numbers that MyNetwork have to be ecstatic about. The December 5th edition of the show, specifically the Undertaker vs. Big Show cage match, drew a 2.6 rating for the segment. That scores as the highest quarter-hour rating in the history of MyNetwork TV. That is big for the WWE as they are slowly but surely starting to raise the profile of their new network home. While many thought that it was a questionable decision to move the show to a network with far less clearance than their previous home, the CW network, they’ve shown that they can manage to make it work and that there is hope for the future. I don’t think they’ll ever reach a week-to-week level like they did on the CW, but if they’re able to gain some traction and get people to flock to MyNetwork, even for only two hours a week, they’ll have some major bargaining power once this current contract is up.

Wednesday

The Stories

— Again, no show on Wednesday so we dive headlong into the stories with TNA again at the forefront. Two big newsbits came out of their latest round of Impact tapings as it was reported that LAX have re-signed with the company for three years in deals that will keep both Homicide and Hernandez under contract until 2011. That’s some great news for the company as LAX has been one of the most popular acts in TNA in a long time. While they’ve lost some steam from their original white-hot run, they’re still way over and both have a lot of talent in the ring and on the microphone. There was some concern over their contract issues and I think that it would have been a big mistake for TNA to let them get away, so good on TNA for making sure they lock up some of their best homegrown talent long-term. The other news to come out of the tapings was that the Suicide angle could be dead again as Frankie Kazarian suffered a biceps injury while shooting an angle. Kazarian was already nursing a triceps injury and if there’s one thing that’s always been proven in wrestling, you tend to get hurt worse when you’re nursing another injury. Why they bothered to have him come back without being fully healed is beyond me. There was no real reason to keep the character alive as the opportunity to tie-in with the Impact video game was lost with Kazarian’s original injury. Just chalk it up to marketing the video game and no one outside of the smart fans would be the wiser. Instead they push Kazarian too soon and he ends up hurt worse. For every smart move TNA makes, they usually end up evening it out with boneheaded stuff like this.

— Last week we touched on The Wrestler and how the buzz is building for the movie, featuring Mickey Rourke as a washed-up wrestler looking for one last shot at glory. Wednesday saw a big batch of reviews from some of the heavy hitters in the industry and the results were a mixed bag. The Los Angeles Times and New York Times weren’t very complimentary of the film with the Los Angeles critic being especially harsh. The other big reviews were from all of the secondary New York papers and they were all on the flip side and quite happy with the movie. New York Daily News scored it at 4 out of 5, the New York Post scored it 3.5 out of 4 and New York Newsday gave it 3.5 out of 5. While I’m willing to take the thoughts of both the Times critics under consideration, the movie is generating serious Oscar buzz and that generally doesn’t happen unless a movie is worth it. To me this could be a case of critics coming into the movie with their own preconceptions of what wrestling is and that those could have colored their view of the movie. I’ll hold off on my own judgment until I see it, but I think that it could be a case of wrestling’s stigma rearing its ugly head yet again.

Thursday

The Show

The Main Event Mafia and TNA Frontline fought it out again this week, with the battle moving to the Six Sides of Steel, and Jeff Jarrett and Kurt Angle’s feud got a LOT more personal. TNA Impact had what I think was the best show of the week, including more X Division Championship Tournament action. Here’s the results from the show.

Lance Rock vs. Rhino – Winner: Rhino (pinfall, Gore)
X Division Championship Tournament Match: Chris Sabin vs. Sonjay Dutt – Winner: Chris Sabin (pinfall, Cradle Shock)
Scott Steiner and Booker T vs. Matt Morgan and Abyss – Winners: Scott Steiner and Booker T (pinfall, Booker axe kick on Morgan)
X Division Championship Tournament Match: Consequences Creed vs. Kyoshi – Winner: Kyoshi (pinfall, moonsault)
Rhaka Kahn and Raisha Saeed vs. Christy Hemme and ODB – Winners: Christy Hemme and ODB (pinfall, Hemme Flying Firecrotch Guillotine on Kahn)
Six Sides of Steel: Sting and Kevin Nash vs. Samoa Joe and AJ Styles – Winners: Samoa Joe and AJ Styles (Styles escapes the cage)

I liked a lot of what they did with this show. Granted there was some throwaway stuff like the Rock/Rhino match and the Knockouts Streetfight, which barely deserved to get any time to begin with, but the rest of it was solid stuff. While not a great match technically, the tag match between the MEM and Morgan/Abyss was good power wrestling with four big men and had a finish that played into both the MEM’s angle of doing anything to hold onto their spots as well as Morgan and Abyss’ angle of Abyss being duped and Morgan having to pick up the pieces. I’d expect to see Morgan go nuts and lose it on Abyss at some point and since it’s TNA he’ll probably viciously beat Abyss down as Tenay and West claim they’ve never seen Abyss beaten like that before even though it’s happened ten previous times at least.

The X Division Tournament kept rolling along as the first round is now complete and we’re looking at Alex Shelley vs. Eric Young and Chris Sabin vs. Kyoshi in the semi-finals. If they don’t find a way to make it an all-Guns final, I’m not going to be very happy. Sabin actually surprised me by doing a little business on the microphone that wasn’t completely wretched. Usually his promos affect me the same way as eating bad fish, but this time he was watchable and actually on the verge of being as entertaining as Shelley. Color me pleasantly surprised. Both X Division matches were exactly what you’d expect from them. Lots of flipping, lots of big moves and not a lot of selling, which is the one criticism I’d agree with when it comes to that style of wrestling. While visually appealing, it comes across as wrestling-lite because nearly all of the psychology of a match gets whisked away by all the high-flying. The good news is that now some of them have personality at least, which is more than could be said of them when the X Division started.

The big angle for the night was Kurt Angle’s tribute to the career of Jeff Jarrett, which started out well enough with Angle showing pictures of Jarrett’s start in Memphis, his time in the WWE and WCW (which was hard to do considering Vince owns it all), and finally his tenure as founder and star of TNA. It was all going along well until Kurt put up the picture of Jeff Jarrett’s three little girls and claimed that they’d be orphans and that “Uncle Kurt” would consider doing the right thing by adopting them. Like I said in the Impact report, I didn’t like that part of the segment at all. I’m all for them feuding because they don’t like each other and Angle wanting to crush Jarrett because of his anger and jealousy, but when they involved the girls it just started to feel wrong. Not in the sense of “Angle has wronged Jarrett and I want to see Jeff kick his ass at Genesis”, but more in the sense of “those poor girls have been through enough this past year, why exploit them in this way”. I get that they wanted to make the feud personal, but I’m sure there were other ways to do it than the way they chose and all of them would have been a lot less sleazy.

The Stories

— More news on The Wrestler as it was named as Sports Illustrated’s Sports Movie Of The Year for 2008. While the pickings were rather slim this year when it came to sports movies, it’s still a big honor for the film to pick up from the leading sports publication in the universe. The article mentioned Mick Foley and compared Mickey Rourke’s character to Foley’s real-life story on numerous occasions. I don’t necessarily agree with those comparisons as Foley is legendary for being frugal on the road to be able to save so he doesn’t end up broke and having to continue to wrestle to make a living. As I said before, this movie looks like it could be one of those sleeper movies that didn’t seem like much going in but the stars align and make it into something special. There aren’t many sports movies that I can say I was legitimately excited to see, and I can safely say that I’ve never been excited to see a wrestling movie before this one. I’m just hoping that it lives up to all of the hype.

— The other news coming out of Thursday was the WWE’s dislike of Tyson Tomko’s dark match prior to Monday’s taping of Raw. Apparently Tomko suffered a torn pectoral muscle and he was seen in a sling the day after the match. There are those in the company who are thinking that Tomko went into the match with the injury and tried to hide it from company officials. If he did that, then the rumors that he could be done with the company are well-deserved. I’m not against guys gettting second chances, but if he came into the match with an injury he hid and made it worse, then that’s his own dumb fault. I will say that I’m not going to agree with the way that Vince McMahon handled the situation and how the sheep that follow him around in the company immediately agreed that Tomko’s match was bad. He got a good reaction from the crowd in Pittsburgh, which could have been the problem. Any good reaction that Tomko got would likely be attributed to his run in TNA, and we all know how much Vince loves acknowledging competition. It’d be a shame if Tomko’s run gets limited due to an injury, but an even bigger shame if he gets his legs cut out from under him due to Vince’s pettiness.

Friday

The Show

Smackdown Results:

Hurricane Helms and R-Truth vs. Shelton Benjamin and MVP – Winners: Hurricane Helms and R-Truth (pinfall, Helms pins Benjamin)
Festus vs. John Morrison – Winner: John Morrison (pinfall, Morrison’s Moonlight Drive)
Matt Hardy vs. Edge – Winner: Edge (pinfall, spear)
Carlito vs. Ezekiel Jackson – Winner: Ezekiel Jackson (pinfall, Uranage Slam)
Maria vs. Maryse – Winner: Maryse (pinfall, DDT)
Jeff Hardy vs. Vladimir Kozlov – Winner: Jeff Hardy (disqualification, Edge-ference)

I unfortunately had to miss Smackdown this week and I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about a show that I wasn’t able to watch, so I’ll refrain from speaking too much about the show. I will say that I don’t like how weak Jeff Hardy was made to look in his first show as WWE Champion with the main event nonsense. They gave Hardy and Kozlov less than ten minutes and even then they had the schmozz at the end with Edge running in for the DQ and Triple H making the save. I don’t like it one little bit that they have Hardy coming out on the short end of the stick already. If they’re going to have him beat down, have him get beaten down. To have Triple H have to come out and save the day makes Hardy look like he can’t handle himself. They already planted that seed with the way he won the title by appearing to sneak into an opening to pick up the surprise win. If they continue to make him out to be a bitch that can’t fight his own battles, the people are going to turn on his title run and he’ll be out of the main event scene faster than you can blink.

The Stories

— Saturday morning wrestling fans rejoice, WWE Superstars will return!! Granted it’s not going to be the same style of show that it used to be back in the 80’s, but it’s still really cool to get to see the show make its return. It also adds another primetime wrestling night for the WWE as they’ll be on the WGN network out of Chicago for an hour beginning in April of 2009. I’d like it if they’d go back to the old-school format and have guys wrestling squashes like the old days, but those days are gone. I’d expect it to be something that they’ll tape before Smackdown and that it’ll have one or two matches with some C-level stars but nothing of note ever happening. Hey, maybe it’s more like the old Superstars show than I gave it credit for. That’s about it for the stories on Friday as there always seems to be a real slowdown of wrestling news in the few days leading up to Christmas.

Saturday

The deadline won’t allow me to cover the WWE’s annual Tribute To The Troops show, which airs on Saturday night at 9pm EST/PST, but I will say that while I appreciate what the WWE does every year for those servicemen and women, I will hope that this is the last year that they do the show. Not because they shouldn’t hold the show, but because they won’t have to hold the show because all of the troops will be home with their families safe and sound. Too many people have had to deal with the deaths of loved ones due to the current conflicts and if them being home means one less WWE show to watch per year, I’ll be more than happy to make that trade-off.

Here are the results for the show which was taped earlier this month in Iraq.

Jeff Hardy, CM Punk and R-Truth vs. JBL, John Morrison and The Miz – Winners: Jeff Hardy, CM Punk and R-Truth (pinfall, Hardy Swanton on JBL)
Rey Mysterio, Batista and John Cena vs. Randy Orton, The Big Show and Chris Jericho – Winners: Rey Mysterio, Batista and John Cena (double pinfall, Batista on Jericho, Cena on Orton)

The Stories

There was very little going on by way of news on Saturday, though there was an updated card listing for the Raw/ECW show on 12.28.08 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

* John Cena vs. Chris Jericho in a Steel Cage Match for the World Heavyweight Title
* Batista, Rey Mysterio, & Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, & Manu
* Shawn Michaels vs. Kane
* CM Punk vs. William Regal for the WWE Intercontinental Title
* Matt Hardy vs. Jack Swagger for the ECW Title

That looks like an alright show, especially the Punk/Regal match, which I think would be great as a twenty-minute, old-school match on any pay-per-view in 2009 and I hope that it happens at the Royal Rumble. The Kane/Michaels match reeks of “two guys that we don’t know what to do with so we’ll throw them together”, as does the team of Batista, Mysterio and Kingston, but the rest of the card looks solid. Hardy/Swagger could be a good little bout and if they get a month or so to work the house show circuit, they could put together a show-stealer at the Rumble. Cena and Jericho in a cage as the main event should also be a good bout as Cena is slowly starting to round back into form and Jericho is top shelf in regards to his ring work. You know there’s no way that Jericho is going to win the belt, but I’d bet that it’s going to be an entertaining cage match nonetheless.

With that we’re at the end of another week of wrestling action and news stories. That also brings us to the end of the last column I’ll be penning before Christmas, so I’ll take the opportunity to wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday. Eat lots of good food, spend time with the ones you love and enjoy all that is Christmas and I’ll see you all back here in seven days for another edition of Bell to Bell.