News From Cook’s Corner 08.26.09

Welcome to the Corner! It’s great to be back here on the 411 for Week 2 of the return of News From Cook’s Corner. You can already see one of the major changes I’ve implemented with the new era of this column, as each edition of NFCC will feature a cover with a hot chick on it! Hey, if it works for Maxim, FHM, Stuff, and countless other magazines I can’t keep track of, certainly it’ll work for me.

Many things have changed in the past year or so…I think the most notable change as far as writing this column goes is the recent development of my being unable to write while intoxicated, I was probably drunk through the last six months of my stint writing Ask 411 Wrestling, which surely doesn’t come as a surprise to anybody who remembers that era of the column. I don’t know what it is, but for whatever reason now whenever I’m drinking some alcohol and sitting in front of the computer, I have no desire to write. This inevitably leads to me going upstairs and watching wrestling DVDs, which is as fine a way to spend an evening as any I can think of. That might be why I don’t get many dates, but I’ve learned to live with it. Besides, it’s much easier to make yourself happy than it is to make a woman happy. Ask my father.

Before we start, a note to Jeffrey Small: Before taking your sloppy seconds I’m going to need to know what kind of quality to expect. Personally, I prefer to think of you as the appetizer to my main course. In fact, I’ve got the whole 411 News Report staff set up by courses of meal…

Harrison: Pre-Dinner Beer
Randle: Bread
Small: Appetizer
Cook: Main Course
Prag: Dessert
Meehan: Post-Dinner Beer
James: Late-night fast food run

I know Meehan will enjoy being referred to as an alcoholic beverage. Hopefully James knows the joys of a late night fast food run and won’t be offended by being one. OK, we can get on with the news now that everybody’s hungry…

Summerslam took place on Sunday and featured nothing really surprising except the return of the Undertaker, who attacked CM Punk after Punk’s victory over Jeff Hardy in the TLC main event that has gotten rave reviews from those who have seen it. I actually thought about going out to watch the show, but I ended up getting drunk at home instead. But…the fact that I thought about going out to watch the show means that WWE must be doing something right these days. I’m sure as hell not gonna pay the fifty bucks to watch it at home, but I might have gone down to the Buffalo Wild Wings or Hooters, gotten drunk and hit on unsuspecting hottie waitresses. I’ve been known to do that.

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon officially announced that the next PPV extravaganza will indeed be entitled Breaking Point, which will feature submission matches in the main events and an I Quit match between John Cena and Randy Orton. Although we’ve seen Cena face Orton for the WWE title approximately 934,287 times, I don’t think they’ve had an I Quit match before. I’m sure somebody will correct me if I’m wrong, but let’s give them credit for actually coming up with something different here.

I’ll also give Vince McMahon credit for being smart enough to book a show in Las Vegas on his birthday. How many billionaire promoters are cunning enough to do that? Kudos, Vinnie Mac!

Outside the wrestling ring, the WWE news generating the most interest the past couple of days in the Internet Wrestling Community has been the signing of “American Dragon” Bryan Danielson. Danielson has been one of my favorite wrestlers since I started regularly attending ROH events in 2005, and I couldn’t be happier to see him finally take the next step in his career. I don’t think this hurts ROH as much as people think it does since they haven’t really used him in any meaningful storylines in quite a long time, probably because they figured he’d be leaving at some point.

Will he succeed in WWE? I have no idea. I’m the guy who thought Colt Cabana would have a brighter future in sports entertainment than CM Punk, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask. Danielson is a versatile performer in the the wrestling ring who can work pretty much any match you ask him to, so I don’t think he’ll have a problem adapting to the WWE style. His personality is hit or miss…sometimes he’s entertaining and sometimes he’s entertaining in a bad way. And yes, there’s a skin complexion issue, but I’m sure he can fix that by hopping into a tanning bed or applying of that great spray-on tan people like to use. I will hope for the best.

Back on the Vince front, he recently did an interview with the LA Times where he said he hoped to have a WWE cable network up and operating in two years. They certainly have enough footage for it with all the wrestling libraries they’ve bought up. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of clearance they get from the cable companies, and what NBC Universal will think about it.

In very shocking news, Vince doesn’t like people being represented by agents. Gee, I can’t imagine why Vince wouldn’t like intelligent people being paid by wrestlers to get fair contracts out of him. Maybe this is why they’ve done away with managers…they remind people too much of agents.

Also in the interview, Maria stated that the Divas get reprimanded for showing too much cleavage. Wouldn’t you love to watch those backstage conversations? It sounds like my freaking high school, where girls got bitched at if a little bit of the midriff was showing. John Cena said that the switch to PG was good because the product was getting old and stale. All of the 411 commenters beat me to the punch on that one, so we’ll just move on.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. was able to guest host Raw even though his car was found at the site of a shooting on Monday. Since the site was a skating rink, that doesn’t exactly prove anything. So it’s not like another wrestling company keeping their title on somebody who got arrested for stalking an ex-girlfriend. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

In other news, LeBron James will host Raw at some point, but it won’t be next week because it’s in Detroit and Detroit hates athletes who are good at stuff.

Rock and/or roller Slash was at Summerslam, and he commented on the Twitter machine that WWE Divas look like pissed off strippers. See, I can’t really agree with this because most strippers I’ve known have been pretty pissed off. Think about it…if you had to take off your clothes and grind on some disgusting dude’s lap to make a buck, wouldn’t you be pissed off about it? I know I would be! So Slash implying that there are strippers that aren’t pissed off is not something that makes sense to me.

Oh, I should also mention that Slash thought he was at the WWF show on Sunday. I wonder what he’d compare female pandas to. Then again, I’ve seen some strippers the size of pandas…

In more evidence that TMZ has become the most reliable news outlet in America, they spotted Batista outside a club in Los Angeles not wearing a t-shirt. There’s nothing I hate more than jacked up juice monkeys who go to clubs not wearing t-shirts. This sort of thing wouldn’t fly in Kentucky…but now that I think about it I’d wager that nobody at the places I go to could do anything about Batista showing up without a t-shirt on. Also, I’d bet that the waitresses at the places I go to would swoon over the old geezer, which would completely depress me. I’ll just consider myself lucky that these kinds of people don’t show up in my neck of the woods very often.

Can’t say I’m a big fan of “taking shirt off in nightclub” guy. I lost a little bit of respect for Low Ki/Kawal/Senshi when CM Punk & Samoa Joe talked about how he took his shirt off while dancing to Petey Piablo at a club. I don’t care if the song implores you “take your shirt off”, you just don’t do it. Especially if it’s not a woman asking.

WWE sent a survey to “select fans” asking what they thought of PPV concepts involving all the main events being TLC matches, street fights, or featuring a one-night tournament. I thought they already gave up on that one-night tournament thing a long time ago. Also, is it just me or does giving all of the main events the same stipulation kind of water down said stipulation? I generally like Elimination Chamber matches, but I was struggling to get through the No Way Out show that featured EC matches for the WWE, World & ECW titles.

Coming up later this week, Smackdown’s main event will feature CM Punk defending the World title against Jeff Hardy in a steel cage. Will it be Hardy’s last WWE appearance? I’ve lost track of whether he’s actually supposed to be leaving or not, so tune in to find out! Also airing later this week is a 25th Anniversary of WrestleMania special on NBC…at least on NBC affiliates that aren’t airing preseason football games. New York City will be stuck watching the Jets instead…you have to wonder who they pissed off to deserve that.

Lilian Garcia will be around a few more weeks. No word on whether they’ve hired their new “girl announcer that screws everything up” yet…I hear Stephen Randle is still mulling over the offer.

Yes, I know that was mean to Lilian…sorry girl! She had a pretty rough weekend, as not only did she have a little difficulty on the show, but her cell phone and digital camera were stolen when she made a trip to Venice Beach on Saturday. Jeez, I’d heard Hulk Hogan had fallen on hard times, but I never thought he’d have to resort to something like this.

Down in Dixieland, the hottest rumor hitting the presses these days is the possibility of Sting retiring after Bound For Glory. The BFG poster more than hints at it, and apparently they went to the trouble of handing out Sting masks outside the Summerslam show. Since I didn’t catch the show, did anybody see any Sting masks while watching Summerslam? I didn’t keep my eyes peeled enough during the recap on Raw to notice.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time TNA has hyped a Sting retirement. Hell, they had him retire after his first match back with them in 2005. Besides, do wrestling retirements ever last? The only way a pro wrestler doesn’t come back to the ring is…well, you know the answer to that and it’s way too morbid for me to go into detail on.

In injury news, Samoa Joe & Kurt Angle have both suffered back injuries but are not expected to miss any time. No surprise here…how long have they been carrying the rest of the Main Event Mafia on their backs?

No real update in the Angle/Jarrett saga to speak of. Dixie Carter is reportedly much more involved in things than she used to be…has there ever been a situation where the owner becoming more hands-on led to something good for a wrestling company, sports team or other type of business?

Cover Girl~!

I’m sure that some of you are surprised by my choice for the very first News From Cook’s Corner Cover Girl. After all, I’ve had an on-again off-again relationship with another TNA Knockout for many years, there was the recent torrid affair with a former SHIMMER Champion, and everybody loves them some WWE Divas. Don’t worry, we’ll get to them. But when you’re picking the very first one, you can’t go with the obvious solution. You need to think outside the box, take a reach on somebody that maybe the general fan doesn’t appreciate as much as they should.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really appreciate Taylor Wilde when she first came to TNA. I think it was a combination of her being the one to dethrone Awesome Kong before it was necessary, her feud with the Beautiful People, who…well, I shouldn’t have to go into detail on this, and her insistence on dressing up like an American sailor when she’s from Canada. I don’t like my woman wrestlers dressing like a patriotic Donald Duck.

But recently Ms. Wilde has embraced her inner hotness and gone away from the whole nautical theme. At 23 years of age, she’s got nothing but time to improve her in-ring game, which is already on par with a good percentage of the Knockout Division. Personality? Well, like Manu likes to tell me, that’s probably asking too much of the performers and writers.

It seems that Taylor will be teaming with Sarita in order to pursue the Knockout Tag Team Titles, which with any luck won’t be won by Cody Deaner & ODB. While Sarita will certainly get most of the praise for any accomplishments the team has, don’t forget about the little Torontonian hottie with a heart of gold.

What is it about me with chicks from the T-Dot anyway? I really should just move there.

“I am honored to be the very first News From Cook’s Corner Cover Girl.” Miss Wilde stated. “Steve Cook is one of the most respected writers within our business, and I am glad that he chose me for this.”*

No problem, Taylor!

*-Quotes attributed to Taylor Wilde were not actually verbalized, thought or even spoken in tongues by Taylor Wilde

Jushin “Thunder” Liger will be returning to the United States on WrestleMania weekend 2010 to compete for Ring of Honor & Pro Wrestling Guerrilla on Friday & Saturday night respectively. Liger has not competed in the U.S. since his appearance in TNA’s 2006 X Cup, and previously appeared for ROH in November 2004. While Liger is 44 years old and certainly not the wrestler he was in his prime, he’s still a major drawing card among the smart wrestling fanbase and certainly adds a lot of interest to these shows from probably the top two independent wrestling promotions in North America right now. This was announced by WrestleReunion 4, which Liger will also be appearing at on WrestleMania weekend in Los Angeles, which is near PWG’s traditional stomping grounds but nowhere near ROH’s. ROH generally likes to run in the same town as WWE on WrestleMania weekend, but it was probably tough to find a place to run a show in Glendale, Arizona.

PWG’s show will also include Rob Van Dam, and you can fill in your own 411 catchphrase there.

South of the border, AAA held their Verano de Escalando event last Friday night, which featured Dr. Wagner Jr. defending the AAA heavyweight title against El Mesias & Cibernetico. Someday in this column I will explain the greatness of the Good Doctor and why you all should be Wagnermaniacs. Hopefully AAA will air this show on Galavision, as I’m still not happy about how they built up Triplemania for months and then didn’t let us in the good ol’ U.S. of A. see it. It’s all good though, I like me the lucha.

Dragon Gate USA’s pay per view venture is off to a bit of a rocky start, as some cable companies have listed the show as “ROH Wrestling: Dragon Gate USA”. I suppose that since the same company who produced the ROH shows is producing these, people might have gotten confused and assumed it was an ROH show. Or perhaps the people at the company got confused and thought they were doing an ROH show. Since there’s some crossover talent and ROH’s old booker works for DGUSA now, maybe that was enough to confuse somebody. Or maybe they’re just all idiots.

Before we commence with the plugs, I have received a PNN News Update from North Pole, Missouri…

Penguin: Let the readers know I’ve just been busy

Will do, Penguin! Our feathered friend does have a lot on his plate these days, as he’s got some sort of a job, some sort of a wedding to plan, and some sort of fantasy football asskicking to avoid. I’m sure when the time is right he will grace us all with his presence once again. OK, on with the plugs…

Ari returns to talk some AmDrag. He talks about many of the reasons ROH has faltered in recent months, but neglects to say that the lack of his column might be a part of it. Come on Ari, where’s your ego?

Andy Clark celebrated his 84th birthday this week. Happy birthday, Andy!

Rs Tuesday covered pretty much everything under the sun.

The CHIKARA column returns with talk of Player Dos winning the Young Lion’s Cup. I wish I hadn’t put all of my money on Player Uno.

Gerretsen compares Bryan Danielson to Chris Benoit. Then again, you can compare most indy wrestlers during the past decade or so to Chris Benoit/Dynamite Kid. I think most young wrestlers have taken to emulating Randy Orton…at least if Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase are any indication.

Eubanks & Lansdell both talk TNA. Judging from Chris’s hairstyle, that isn’t the only thing they have in common.