This Week in ‘E – A Canadian and a Superhero Walk Into a Bar…

Columns, Features

Edge makes his big return to cap off a fun Royal Rumble, WrestleMania comes to Hotlanta and does Gregory Helms have to smack a bitch?

Opening Witty Banter
What a Royal Rumble! The Orton-Sheamus match was a lot of fun for a heel-heel match, the Mickie James storyline had a great conclusion, Undertaker-Rey Mysterio rocked my face and the actual Rumble match was one of the best they’ve ever produced. Now its time to catch up on some DVRed Fox comedies and read up on the Grammys and the Pro Bowl. I mean seriously, if you couldn’t find anything to watch on TV on Sunday night you weren’t trying hard enough. Even Larry The Cable Guy had a new special on to appease wrestling fans that couldn’t watch the Rumble.

Let’s take some ‘E…

The News of the Week
Chris Jericho and Gregory Helms were arrested early Wednesday morning in Kenton County, Kentucky according to PWInsider.

Both men were charged with Alcohol Intoxication in a Public Place around 5 a.m. today by the Erlanger (KY) Police Department. The charge is a relatively minor one and they were released on bond a little more than hour after the arrest. It is expected the two will probably only receive a small fine and no jail time or probation.

Jericho and Helms were in that area as Kenton County is close to Cincinnati, Ohio, where World Wrestling Entertainment held SmackDown tapings on Tuesday night.

Cincinnati.com reported that Helms and Jericho were riding in a taxi with fellow WWE star Matt Hardy plus a man named Gary Kelley and a woman named Ashley Storer. According to TMZ, who talked to Storer, Helms and Jericho got into a play fight in the back of the taxi that escalated, and Storer ended up getting elbowed in the cheek. This caused the driver to pull over at a Shell gas station in Erlanger, Kentucky and call 911. Helms ran out of the taxi and was chased down by Hardy, who was sober. Helms returned to the taxi while Hardy did not. This was when Helms and Jericho were arrested for public intoxication. Hardy was not charged in the incident. Storer admitted in the article that she may have caused the scene to be blown out of proportion. In the interview with TMZ she said, “I was crying and drunk and tired from being out all night and I just wanted to leave.”

In the greatest bit of the whole story, CM Punk and Christian bailed Helms and Jericho out of jail.

According to F4WOnline.com, Kevin Gilpin of the Erlanger police responded to the call about the incident and made the following statement.

“It’s hard to say exactly how in depth this fight was. There was a disagreement while they were inside of a cab,” Gilpin said. “When we got there, obviously they were out of the cab and made contact with the police, and were arrested a short time after that. We get there and they basically say Helms kind of turned into an ass and starts kind of getting physical inside the cab.”

Helms and Jericho have a court date on February 16 at Kenton District Court on their misdemeanor charges. Their charge carries a fine of $25 and court costs of $134. Being it is just a misdemeanor, they can avoid court by just paying the fine before the scheduled appearance date. WWE released a statement yesterday, saying that they feel authorities will take appropriate action, if necessary and declined any further comment.

So remember a few weeks ago when everyone (including me) spelled the end for Tyler Reks after his airplane incident? Yeah, well now add Helms to that same corner of the world. In the long run this will end up being a non-story as it was just some drunk rasslers having some fun and the media (including me) ran with it in a fairly slow week. But it gave WWE some unneeded publicity and Helms is looking to face the brunt of the punishment. He was taken out of the Royal Rumble match and apparently will be off of TV this coming week as well. Matt Hardy may have gotten a little “F-U” for the incident as well. I mean I think he was in and out of the Rumble before his music finished playing. I know I laughed.

It has been announced in Japan that Antonio Inoki has been invited by WWE into their Hall of Fame. Stan Hansen will be inducting him.

Anything that gets “The Lariat” behind a live microphone is a good thing in my book. Just be careful that he doesn’t run into the crowd and starting throwing lariats at anyone who crosses his path.

According to Access Atlanta, WWE will announce Monday (today) that the Atlanta Sports Council is bringing WrestleMania to the Georgia Dome next spring. A noon press conference is planned at the Georgia Dome Monday.

Sounds like a good plan. Atlanta is a notoriously hot wrestling town and the Georgia Dome is a great spot.

Less 24 hours after its release, WWE: The Music, Vol. 10 is already #2 on AmazonMP3’s MP3 album charts and #9 in hard copy CD sales. Currently it’s only available in the US.

As an admitted WWE mark and lover of some questionable music, I must say this is hands down the best theme music compilation WWE has put out and is only rivaled by 2002’s Forceable Entry for their best musical outing.

According to InsideTV, WWE is working on a sitcom starring Santino Marella for WWE.com. They will then shop the show around to various networks. In the article, Marella says that Vladimir Kozlov and Beth Phoenix will co-star.

This sounds awful in every way. The only way to make it worse is to put Abraham Washington in it too. Now if Tony Atlas pops in every once in awhile just to laugh and we get a “Damn” punch line once an episode then they might have a winner on their hands.

Wrestler of the Week
Week of January 25 – 31: Edge
Yeah so it wasn’t a complete and utter outright shock like Cena’s return in 2008, but it was still pretty cool to see Edge return. I guess we should now have learned to never trust WWE injury prognosis timelines anymore. I see he was working on his Conan strike beard while he was away as well. While he didn’t look in top shape he has plenty of time to get himself back into fighting form by WrestleMania. The question is, does he end up on RAW or SmackDown? Is he a heel or a face? I guess it depends where Chris Jericho ends up right.

RAW’s On Tonight!
William Shatner will guest host RAW tonight live from Nashville, Tennessee on February 1. Shatner is no stranger to World Wrestling Entertainment. He made his first appearances with the company back in 1995 to promote TekWar series, which also aired on the USA Network at the same time. He got into an altercation with Jerry “The King” Lawler on Lawler’s King’s Court interview segment. The altercation led to a match pitting Bret Hart, managed by Shatner, versus Jeff Jarrett, who was managed by Lawler. Then in 2007 when Lawler was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame it was Shatner who was given the call to present him with the award. He will be on hand to promote his television show, Shatner’s Raw Nerve, which sees Shatner interview celebrities. The show airs on the Biography Channel. Expect him to also hype the 20th anniversary of his charity event entitled The Hollywood Horse Show, where proceeds from the event go to various charities. Plus Bret Hart will make his second appearance on the show since returning to the company to further his rivalry with Mr. McMahon. But if he doesn’t get a moment to reunite with Shatner and reminisce then something just ain’t right. Also Maryse and Gail Kim will go head-to-head for the vacant Divas Championship. Plus it is the night after the Royal Rumble so big things will be poppin’ heading into Elimination Chamber, and more importantly, WrestleMania XXVI.

On Last Week’s Episode…
Eison covers a FANTASTIC SmackDown. Between Triple H-Punk, Morrison-McIntyre and Shawn-Rey it looked like a special three hour RAW than a basic SmackDown.

Eison also covers Superstars. Raise your hand if you thought the combination of Primo, Chris Masters and Chavo Guerrero could put together such a fun match?

Marshall, Innarelli and Wheeler cover RAW featuring Dule Hill. Sue me but I loved this episode thanks to Dule’s appearance. I think Wheeler can agree with me that RAW needs more Aaron Sorkin/West Wing/Sports Night influence.

How They Rated
SmackDown! (1.15.10) –

Superstars (1.21.10) – 1.1

A.M. RAW (1.24.10) – .7

RAW (1.25.10) – 3.6

ECW (1.26.10) – .9

This is Boring, What Else is There to Read?
Ditch brings the puro love. Milano Collection AT retired? That’s too bad…he was a great guy to watch.

Please check out the great return of Junk News, which was able to get the exclusive transcript of what really was said during the now infamous Jericho-Helms cab ride.

In Case You Didn’t Spend the $40
Pulse Wrestling had FANTASTIC Royal Rumble coverage. Check out Marshall’s live recap and Keith’s rant. Once your done reading everything at the Pulse, check out my live thoughts on the show here.

Here’s the quick ‘n’ dirty results:
In a dark match Kelly Kelly, The Bella Twins, Eve Torres & Gail Kim beat Natalya Neidhart, Jillian Hall, Alicia Fox, Katie Lee Burchill & Maryse when Kelly pinned Jillian.

Christian beat Ezekiel Jackson to retain the ECW Championship.

The Miz beat MVP to retain the US Championship.

WWE Champion Sheamus beat Randy Orton by disqualification.

Mickie James beat Michelle McCool to win the Women’s Championship.

The Undertaker beat Rey Mysterio to retain the World Heavyweight Championship.

Edge won the Royal Rumble match.

IP Staff Roundtable Results for WWE TLC
The staff got together to talk Royal Rumble and here was what our expert analysis revealed. Somehow this completely slipped my mind, as other than picking Michaels to win the Rumble I think I would’ve done alright. And no points were awarded of course for Miz-MVP, as it was not added until show time.

Roundtable Champion: Raffi Shamir: 4-1 (125-109)

The rest:
Steven Gepp: 3-2 (29-40)
Tess Nolde: 3-2 (25-25)
Andrew Wheeler: 3-2 (171-102)
Widro: 3-2 (65-56)
Chris Biscuiti: 2-3 (8-21)
Michael O’Mahony: 2-3 (20-21)
Matthew Michaels: 1-4 (182-162)

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For more relevant, interesting and exciting wrestling information from your truly, check out my gig as the Pro Wrestling Examiner over at Examiner.com.

Mark was a columnist for Pulse Wrestling for over four years, evolving from his original “Historically Speaking” commentary-style column into the Monday morning powerhouse known as “This Week in ‘E.” He also contributes to other ventures, outside of IP, most notably as the National Pro Wrestling Examiner for Examiner.com and a contributor for The Wrestling Press. Follow me on Twitter here.