I was sorry to hear about Gregory Helms’ neck injury, because he is truly one of the good guys in wrestling. For those who do not know, Helms is undergoing surgery Monday to repair two broken vertebrae. It is the same procedure that Steve Austin, Chris Benoit, Edge and others had done, and it means that Helms will be out of action for a year.

I have been a Helms fan since his days in 3 Count in WCW. After I became editor of WCW Magazine in 2000, I wrote a column touting Helms – then known as “Sugar” Shane Helms – as the 3 Count member who would end up making it big as a singles wrestler when the trio broke up.

It was refreshing when Helms pulled me aside after that issue came out and told me how much he appreciated what I wrote. He and I became friendly, I think mainly because we both had a passion for the wrestling business, something a lot of people in WCW at that time – both office employees and talent – seemed to lack.

I used to talk so much about how WCW should give Helms a bigger push that some of my co-workers at the magazine accused me of having a man-crush on him (in reference to the Seinfeld episode with Keith Hernandez). I really got them going when I told them that Helms did indeed stay in my hotel room one night on the road.

I guess I better explain that one. I don’t remember the exact details, but after a Monday Nitro show (I can’t even remember what city we were in), Helms decided he wanted to spend the night there instead of driving onto the next town, which had been his original plan. He needed a place to stay and I had two beds in my room, so I offered him the spare bed. So, you see, there really wasn’t any man-crush – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

On a serious note, I wish Helms the best of luck in his surgery and look forward to seeing him back in the ring in 2008.

In other WWE news, I was surprised to see that Ariel was released earlier this week. I thought her vampire gimmick with Kevin Thorn in ECW was pretty entertaining. At the very least, it provided Joey Styles with the opportunity to use lines such as “That’ll knock out a fang” whenever Thorn got punched in the mouth. I’m really going to miss seeing Ariel hang upside down on the ropes like a bat, which was the second-best ring entrance by a WWE diva – to Melina’s split, of course.