To follow up on reports last week regarding Matt Hardy suffering a torn abdominal muscle, the injury will require surgery and put him out of action for a decent length of time. Hardy had originally refused to take time off after suffering a broken hand at the Backlash PPV back on April 26 and was working week to week. Hardy has stayed relatively quiet about the injury on his official Twitter page that he is usually very vocal on.


Source The Figure Four Weekly Newsletter

Source ProWrestling dot com

ECW Tapings to Air on July 7th, 2009

Dark Match:

~Drew McIntyre defeated Jimmy Wang Yang

ECW Airing on July 7th, 2009:

~Nikki Bella defeated Katie Lea Burchill. They did the Bellas switch deal where Brie came from under the ring and won the match for Nikki.

~Shelton Benjamin defeated Yoshi Tatsu in a decent match.

~Ezekiel Jackson defeated a local jobber guy.

~Abraham Washington held the Abraham Washington Show segment with Tommy Dreamer as his guest. Both of them were doing comedy and Dreamer talked about Eddie Guerrero. Vladimir Kozlov interrupted and had a staredown and words with Dreamer.

~Christian defeated Vladimir Kozlov to face Dreamer for the ECW Title at Night of Champions.

Soruce ProWrestling dot com

Jim Ross is back with another blog on jrsbarbq.com. Some of the highlights:

- ECW is going to be a mix of a handful of vets mixxing it up w/ several rookies. WWE has many, talented youngsters who will make ECW their home for the foreseeable future.This show will showcase their ever improving skills.w/ some talents winning, some losing and all of them improving. That's the goal. Got a feeling this show will be feast or famine w/ no lack of effort. Sheamus, the Keltic Warrior is a keeper. Kovlov had a good nite. There is something good in the future for the Russian. Abraham Washington's "talk" show will be challenging at first but the young man can talk. Patience for these young kids will be needed by all involved but they'll succeed with hard work and the leadership of the vets.ECW will be unpredictable without question. I expect Christian, Dreamer & Regal to be viable vets on Tues nite.

- SD did well in the draft. It was easy to see it in tonight's locker room. The Hart Dynasty adds ready to rock youth and heritage. Finley adds a veteran who can have a good match w/ most anyone as he did w/ Ricky Ortiz who learned from the Quiet Man." Friday Night SD is wrestling heavy. Fit-Ortiz, Ziggler-Truth, Rey vs Kane, a diva tag that had the time to evolve,and the reluctant duo of Jeff Hardy & CM Punk vs Team Ego of Jericho & Edge.Once I slipped up and said "Edge & Christian." Opps...my bad or wishful thinking. The finish at the end of the show provided two surprises that you should watch Friday night.

- Plus there is one more night to go Wednesday in Bakersfield. This may be the most interesting night of the week as it relates to fatige and unpredictability. Jericho challenges Mysterio Wed nite for the IC Title. Let's hope that they can recreate their magic at The Bash. Wed's content will be voicedover next week in Stamford. We're all out here working hard with many new elements which keeps everyone on their toes & to be honest some of it will be great and some will be fodder for the critics.

- As seen on tonight's ECW on Sci-Fi, several new members debuted on the main roster from developmental.

* Yoshitatsu debuted and defeated Shelton Benjamin with one single move after Shelton mocked him for 2 minutes. He is the former Naofumi Yamamoto who has been signed to a WWE deal since September of 2008. He has worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling in the past.

* Abraham Washington, real name Brian Jossie, debuted his new talk show called The Abraham Washington Show. It was a rough segment to watch and his first guests were The Bella Twins. He's been acting as the general manager down in FCW and his gimmick is a take off of Barack Obama. He has trained at Ohio Valley Wrestling before and has been signed with WWE since September of 2008.

* Sheamus, better knonwn as Sheamus O'Shaunessy also debuted defeating a local independent wrestler. Sheamus was a star in Ireland before being signed by WWE in April of 2007. He's worked numerous WWE dark matches and live event matches in the past year. Sheamus has held the Heavyweight Title in FCW before.

* Tyler Reks, real name Gabe Tuft, made his debut with a surfer gimmick from California in a backstage segment with Zack Ryder. He will be wrestling Ryder on this week's Superstars. Reks is the current FCW Heavyweight Champion and has been signed to a WWE deal since February of 2008. He's also held the FCW tag team titles before.

Credits: ProWrestling.com

The following took place on Tuesday in Fresno, CA.

Dark Match:

- Drew McIntyre defeated Jamie Noble.

WWE Friday Night Smackdown Tapings for July 3:

- WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk kicked off the show apologizing for kicking the referee at The Bash saying it was an accident and demanded an apology from Jeff Hardy for attacking him after the match. Smackdown GM Teddy Long came out confirming Punk vs. Jeff Hardy at Night of Champions in a rematch for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

- Finlay defeated Ricky Ortiz.

- Dolph Ziggler defeated R-Truth.

- Kane defeated Rey Mysterio.

- Cryme Tyme defeated The Hart Dynasty.

- Melina & Maria defeated WWE Women's Champion Michelle McCool & Layla.

- WWE Unified Tag Team Champions Edge & Chris Jericho defeated WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk & Jeff Hardy.

- Post-Taping Dark Match: Jeff Hardy & WWE Intercontinental Champion Rey Mesterio defeated WWE Unified Tag Team Champions Edge & Chris Jericho in a steel cage match.

Source: ProWrestling.net

Tiffany is stood in the ring and welcomes us to a new era of ECW! Following last night's trade, ECW has changed, ECW lost some amazing superstars but gained some. Tiffany puts over ECW as the best brand.

Shelton Benjamin's music hits and gets a pretty decent face pop. His opponent is Yoshi Tatsu.

Match # 1 :Shelton Benjamin vs. Yoshitatsu.

Shelton grabs the mic and starts to mock Yoshi by speaking in a japanese accent then bends down to the crowd and Yoshi before doing a kong fu pose and the sumo wrestling stomp. Out of nowhere, Yoshi kicks Shelton in the head for the 3 count!

Winner: Yoshitatsu

Yoshi runs up the ramp as a replay of the kick is shown. The main event of Christian & Tommy Dreamer vs Kozlov and William Regal is plugged

Abraham Washington is shown backstage and we are told he has a talk show with The Bella Twins as we go to a break.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

We are back and John Cena vs HHH on Raw is plugged.

Abraham Washington walks down the ramp to a small pop. Two seats are in the ring and Abraham gets booed when he starts to talk. He talks about last last weekends PPV and calls Vince dumb for buying back Raw for double the amount he sold it for. Abraham plugs that John Cena's movie is out then brings out the Bella Twins who are dressed in red.

Abraham and the Bella Twins sit down then Abraham asks the Bella who is who. He has cue cards and asks how much money the Bella Twins spend on weaves. He asks who is younger,who got the better results at college,who was the first to get a kiss and who is the better at athletics and this leads to the Twins arguing. The segment ends with the Bella arguing and the crowd booing.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

We are back, Sheamus walks into the ring to face Oliver John. Sheamus puts over the fact he is Irish and calls himself the Celtic Warrior

Match # 2 :Sheamus vs. Oliver John

Sheamus locks up with Oliver and over powers him before kicking him to the floor. Oliver gets Irish Whipped into the corner before getting clothesline. He locks in a chin lock as the crowd gets behind Oliver. Sheamus chucks Oliver into the corner and starts to beat him down. A loud pop as Oliver gets back into the match only to walk right into a bicycle kick!. A Rock Bottom onto the knee of Sheamus ends this match

Winner: Sheamus

Koslov is shown backstage when William Regal walks up to him. He tells Kozlov not to embarrass him. Kozlov says something in Russian and says "I will embarrass you"

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Zack Ryder is in the back when Tyler Rex walks in and informs Zack they will wrestle each other on Superstars this Thursday.

Matt Striker and Josh Mathews introduce the Raw Rebound.

Christian is shown walking to the ring where he is cut of by Dreamer. Christian tells Tommy he still wants the belt and this leads to a little argument but they walk off together.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Match # 3 :Tommy Dreamer & Christian vs. Vladimir Kozlov & William Regal

Christian and Regal lock up with Christian getting the upper hand with two head locks. The two go into the corner were Regal hits two shoulder blocks before whipping Christian into the ropes. Regal tags in Kozlov who over powers Christian and locks in a Torture rack. Tommy tags Christian foot and hits a cross body on Koslov. Kozlov runs at Tommy who lowers the rope and Kozlov is sent flying. Regal checks on Kozlov as we go to an advert

COMMERCIAL BREAK

We are back and Regal has Dreamer in a chin lock. Dreamer starts to fight back but is cut off by two massive blows to the back. Kozlov and Regal double team Dreamer before Kozlov hits two elbows and tags Regal back in. Regal irish whips Dreamer into the rope and tags in Christian. Christian gets the upper hand on Regal and gets a two count with a roll up. Kozlov enters the ring and chucks Christian arm first into the turnbuckles before applying a arm bar.

Christian starts to fight back but is cut off by a massive knee. Regal enters and works over Christians injured arm by knee dropping it. Kozlov is tagged in and works on the arm with some arm drags and a arm bar. Christian starts to fight back but gets a belly to belly for his effort. Regal tags in and works on Christian's arm. Christian fights out but bangs heads with Regal.

Both tag in their team mates, Dreamer goes for a DDT,Kozlov blocks it so Dreamer hits a neck breaker. Kozlov tags in Regal and Dreamer gets a suplex from Regal. Kozlov tagges himself in and hits the Iron Curtin on Dreamer for the 3 count

Winner: Vlaidmir Kozlov & William Regal

A replay of the ending is shown as Regal looks at Kozlov is a confused way before raising Kozlov's hand.

Special thanks to Wrestlview

In an interview that he did last week in Fresno, CA in promotion with tonight's Smackdown/ECW tapings, Edge talked about the Ladder Match that he did with Jeff Hardy at the 6/7 Extreme Rules PPV. About the bout he said, "That one really took it out of me. Ten years ago if we did that match you know maybe in a few days we would have felt a lot better. We were 10 years younger though. Now, it took me almost a full week before I could walk upright.It took a while to recuperate from that one." He said that when you saw he and Jeff moving slowly during the match had for Smackdown a couple of days later it was because they were hurting. He said now that he's "not too bad". He didn't mention this, but it's also why he was not in the mix for The Bash going in to the event.

Special Thanks To PWInsider

Due to overseas tour plans, WWE taped next Monday's edition of WWE RAW at tonight's show. As was hyped Monday, the event includes John Cena vs. Triple H in the finals of the tournament for a shot at Randy Orton's WWE Championship and Ted DiBiase Sr. as the guest host.

~Ted DiBiase, Sr. opens the show with accompaniment from Cody Rhodes and his son. DiBiase orders a Night of Champions match; Edge and Chris Jericho will defend the Unified Tag Championship against Rhodes and DiBiase, Jr. He also announces Rhodes vs. Mark Henry and Randy Orton vs. Ted DiBiase, Jr.

~Edge and Jericho defeated the Colons in a non-title match after taking both champions' finishers--the referee was occupied with Primo as this was going on. Carlito went heel, turning on Primo after the match.

~Gail Kim and Mickie James defeated Maryse and Alicia Fox.

~In a segment with DiBiase, Sr. and Rhodes, Rhodes fails to talk his way out of his upcoming match. DiBiase, Sr. also cuts a promo on Dusty Rhodes.

~Mark Henry defeated Cody Rhodes by count-out.

~Randy Orton defeated Ted DiBiase with his RKO.

~A VIP Lounge segment with MVP and Jack Swagger planted the seeds for a feud between the two.

~Ted DiBiase, Jr. and Ted DiBiase, Sr. argued in a segment, with the younger DiBiase upset about having been put in the match with Orton.

~Evan Bourne defeated Kofi Kingston in a non-title match. Big Show attacked both of them after the bout.

~Triple H and John Cena fought to a no-contest when DiBiase, Jr. and Rhodes attacked both of them. DiBiase, Sr. ordered a triple threat with Orton, HHH and Cena for Night of Champions.

Credit: F4WOnline.com