News From Cook’s Corner 02.17.10

Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good as I write this. Seriously though, I am moving to a tropical climate as soon as it becomes economically feasible. Once I get Csonka to give me that raise, So Long Kentucky and Aloha Hawaii!

Or maybe I’ll just move to Vancouver. Whose idea was it to hold the Winter Olympics in Canada’s Hottest City anyway? It looks like a nice place, I’m just saying that if Montreal can host the Summer Olympics, surely we could have given Vancouver a Summer Games and hooked up some place with actual snow with the Winter Games. Again, I nominate the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. I’m sure we could find a place to hold the luge where people might not get killed.

But enough about that. We’re here to talk about some wrestling news, and that’s just the thing to take my mind off this snow business. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

ECW General Manager Tiffany is going to need to find something to do now that her show is closing up shop, and so far there’s at least one thing that will keep her busy…posing for Playboy’s lingerie issue!

Wait a minute, Playboy has a lingerie issue? Isn’t that kind of like Jenna Jameson being in a movie and not having sex with somebody or something? Strange.

Who wants some NXT news? There’s a lot of it, and it’s debuting next week, so that’s what you’re getting! Variety Magazine reports that the show will pair eight of WWE’s up and coming wrestlers with established talent, who will show them the ropes and help them become superstars. This is good because I was wondering what guys like Goldust & William Regal were going to do now that ECW is kaput. Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson & Low “Kaval” Ki are expected to be focal points on the show, which in itself has me interested in watching. It’ll be fun to watch the WWE diehard Internet fans completely change their opinion on Danielson being too bland to ever be a star once he actually becomes one.

Here is the roster announced last night:

* Justin Gabriel
* Daniel Bryan
* Skip Sheffield
* Wade Barrett
* David Otunga
* Darren Young
* Heath Slater
* Michael Tarver

Back in the OVW days I would have known who all these young kids were. Now I just know the ones that have been with ROH or TNA, and the ones who have parents that wrestled. Somebody go dig up Melchor and ask him if these guys are any good.

In other NXT news, the trademark concerns some were worried about with a Scottish wrestling promotion also having a “NXT” brand have been alleviated, as the Scottish Wrestling Alliance will be changing their feeder promotion’s name to SWA: Source. Though it didn’t explicitly say in the press release, I’m sure the Scots got a few bucks to go away. And good for them.

So what will happen to the ECW guys? Nobody’s sure at this point, but the latest scuttlebutt I’ve heard has Christian & the Croft/Beretta team going to Smackdown while Regal/Zeke & Ryder/Rosa go to Raw. I’d like to see Christian on Smackdown because I can see him having great matches with Chris Jericho, CM Punk & Edge there, among others. Regal can either keep playing the sinister heel or introduce himself to the mid-card Raw comedy hour, I’d be happy either way because he can excel at either role. Ryder & Rosa would certainly fit in well with the comedy, and Zeke might be ok because no-nonsense tough guy heels have done pretty well on Raw lately. Or maybe he can join the MVP/Mark Henry pairing and they could form a WWE version of Team FIST (Friends In Similar Tights).

Of course, I expect everything to change by the time this column posts. Right now they’re also saying that people like Shelton Benjamin, Goldust, Yoshi Tatsu, Vance Archer & Tiffany will remain on the main roster. For their sake, let’s hope so.

There has been talk of using the old War Games match for September’s Bragging Rights show. That would make much more sense than a seven on seven tag team match, though it may take some of the personal intensity out of War Games if it’s just to decide which brand is better. I mean, it’s not like you’re representing your home country. Raw…Smackdown…what’s it matter? They both pay the same.

Mickie James’ new single has hit the Internet! I’m not a country guy so this doesn’t do a whole lot for me…one thing I heard in the song does raise a question though: if Mickie likes guys with Southern drawls, what was her attraction to John Cena about? Or Kenny Dykstra, for that matter. The song’s just kinda there musically, but with the right promotion it could do all right. If you look at the Billboard charts these days it’s a wasteland of noisy nonsense from people I couldn’t spot in a police lineup.

Speaking of musical acts related to WWE…not only will there be ROH & Dragon Gate USA shows in the Phoenix area on the Friday before WrestleMania, but there will also be a Fozzy show! I gotta tell you, if I was in the area I don’t know which of the three events I’d attend. It’d probably be whatever I could get the cheapest ticket for. Not that people going to WrestleMania are too worried about money.

There was briefly some fuss raised over whether or not Chris Jericho paid a fine to the good people of Kenton County, Kentucky, but my informants at the PD inform me that he has. OK, I have no informants at the PD. I used to know a couple of people that later became police officers, and it still surprises me that they are in fact police officers. The phrase “inmates running the asylum” comes to mind.

Next week’s Raw guest hosts are Jewel & Ty Murray! I used to find Jewel kind of attractive if I couldn’t see her teeth. I’ve always been a sucker for blondes with good breasts, what can I say? Haven’t seen her do anything in ages, so I have no idea if she’s aged well or not. I’m told Murray is some type of a bull rider or something that happens to be married to Jewel. Yay? I hope they don’t appear in as many segments as Jerry Springer did.

Speaking of Jerry, people are saying he was very popular backstage on Monday, second only to Bob Barker in the rankings of “Raw Guest Hosts that People Liked”. Heck, Barker still gets shout outs on WWE television, as Alicia Fox wanted to be his Valentine on last week’s edition of Ask the Divas. I can’t speak to this anymore because I have a job during the daytime, but when I didn’t I loved watching shows like The Price is Right and the Jerry Springer Show. It doesn’t surprise me that WWE wrestlers, who usually work at night, would be the same way. No word on if Springer touched the young Superstars in the locker room like Bret Hart did.

In other Bret news, he’s wondering where the heck Jim Ross is. On his facebook page he talked about how nobody called the action like JR and he wished that he’d been there to call Bret’s previous appearances on Raw. I love JR as much as everybody else, but not even he could have saved the attempted vehicular homicide on this week’s show.

I do have to admit that as much as I think Michael Cole gets unfairly crapped on by the fanbase, he’s done a lot to undermine this particular angle. On Monday he not only implied that Bret touched young superstars, but he also said that it was the worst night in Bret’s life. I’m not sure that actually getting his leg crushed in an automobile accident would even make Bret’s top ten worst nights. VINTAGE COLE!

Money in the Bank qualifying matches will be taking place on next week’s Raw. I got twenty bucks on Hornswoggle! Come on, who wouldn’t want to see a midget in a ladder match? The material writes itself.

Pack your lunch, fellas.

With the WWE’s version of ECW now being dead and buried, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take a look back at this particular television show with the ECW letters. I think a big mistake a lot of people made (myself included) is that we expected WWE’s ECW to be just like the old ECW that we grew up with and loved like a drunk uncle. Times were different. In the long run, expecting this ECW to be like the old ECW was kind of like expecting WCW to be like the Australian promotion that Jim Barnett ran from 1964-1978. It was a much different show…early on, some of the old qualities were still there, but most of those didn’t last very long, and there were some other qualities that…well, weren’t so good. Eventually ECW became what was considered a glorified developmental by some, but without a lot of the nonsense that permeated other WWE shows ECW actually became a pretty watchable show. But, the fan base had already been scared away by that point, and it was time to start something new. Something NXT.

That story has yet to be written. But let’s take a look back at the history of WWE’s ECW…

June 12, 2005: ECW One Night Stand captured the imagination of the Internet, bringing back memories of the promotion that had closed up shop four years ago. Due to a successful buyrate for this show and good DVD sales for The Rise & Fall of ECW, many saw value in the ECW brand name. It would take almost a year, but soon enough WWE would try and get as much as they could out of it…

June 7, 2006: WWE vs. ECW was presented on the USA Network live from Dayton, Ohio. Your humble correspondent was in attendance for this show, which was intended to build fan interest for the second edition of ECW One Night Stand and the weekly ECW show debuting on the Sci Fi Network. My personal highlight was getting to watch Terry Funk bust Mick Foley open about twenty feet away from where I stood, and seeing a match I never thought would happen for a multitude of reasons: John Cena vs. Sabu. Fans were optimistic about the new brand’s future.

June 11, 2006: The second edition of One Night Stand was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and featured Rob Van Dam winning the WWE title from John Cena. RVD would soon become the ECW champion and had two belts over his shoulders for…well, almost a month. Things happened.

June 13, 2006: ECW on Sci Fi had its premiere episode. The highlight of the show? I’d say it had to be this:

Sadly, this was the Zombie’s only appearance in ECW. Of course things like this led to much bellyaching from old ECW fans like myself, who had yet to realize that the promotion they had watched back in the day had faded away in 2001. This was a completely different animal, and we’d find out just how different over the coming weeks. Another highlight here was the television debut of Kelly Kelly, an exhibitionist who never got to exhibit too much and specialized in bad dancing. She’s gotten much better at her craft in the past three and a half years.

July 4, 2006: The Big Show became the first man to hold the WWE, WCW & ECW championships, defeating RVD in Philadelphia, PA. Much to the delight of the Philly fans, many of whom had followed the original ECW that had made its home in the City of Brotherly Love.

OK, they weren’t exactly delighted. Big Show would go on to have “memorable” title defenses against the likes of Undertaker, Ric Flair, Batista and other ECW stalwarts. The Batista match especially won over the hearts and minds of ECW loyalists…

August 1, 2006: ECW on Sci Fi aired from the Hammerstein Ballroom, featuring the loyal ECW crowd crapping all over Big Show vs. Batista and keeping WWE from airing future ECW events held at smaller venues. Also of note here was a youngster named CM Punk making his in-ring debut with a victory over Justin Credible. The NYC fans got behind the man many of them had watched hone his craft in Ring of Honor, and many audiences in the following weeks also fell for the Straight Edge Superstar. ECW had its first new star.

December 3, 2006: ECW presented its first (and last) PPV, December to Dismember. It truly was, as the show featured very little of note other than Bobby Lashley winning the ECW title in an Elimination Chamber match. Also of note was the 90,000 buys the PPV received, which was the lowest amount for a PPV in WWE history. Many old ECW fans pretty much gave up on the promotion at this point.

Oh, and Paul Heyman left WWE.

April 1, 2007: ECW made its first appearance at WrestleMania, as the show featured an 8 man tag pitting the ECW Originals (RVD, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Sandman) against a group called the New Breed. The feud was intended to put the young guys over, but what happened to the New Breed?

Elijah Burke: Fired, went to TNA
Marcus Cor Von: Left the business to attend to family matters
Kevin Thorn: Fired, faded into obscurity
Matt Striker: Became a manger and now commentates on Smackdown

Huh. My personal favorite member of the group, Ariel, also ended up biting the dust.

Hindsight being 20/20, she didn’t have all that much going for her besides boobs. But I was huge into goth chicks at the time, so I was a big fan.

April 29, 2007: Vince McMahon won the ECW championship by defeating Bobby Lashley in a three on one handicap match where McMahon teamed with his son Shane and Umaga. One of these people is still with WWE. Lashley would eventually win the title back from McMahon, but to be perfectly honest nobody really cared.

June 11, 2007: Chris Benoit was drafted to ECW, and was expected to serve as a player-coach type for the youngsters competing on the brand.

June 24, 2007: Johnny Nitro defeated CM Punk for the vacant ECW title at Vengeance. The match was originally supposed to be Punk competing against Benoit, but Benoit didn’t show up for some reason.

July 10, 2007: Big Daddy V made his ECW debut.

Yeah.

July 17, 2007: Johnny Nitro changed his name to John Morrison and became an Internet god.

September 1, 2007: CM Punk beats John Morrison for the ECW title, winning his first of 45,674 titles in WWE.

November 16, 2007: John Morrison & the Miz win the WWE tag team titles from MVP & Matt Hardy in their first match as a tag team. They would go on to be one of the highlights of the ECW show throughout 2008, taking their awesomeness to Raw & Smackdown fairly regularly because…well, because they could.

March 30, 2008: The ECW title was defended at WrestleMania for the very first time. Kane defeated Chavo Guerrero in 10 seconds to win the title. Joey Styles & Tazz were there to call that match. Easy paycheck for the fellas.

April 15, 2008: Mike Adamle replaces Styles as the play by play announcer for ECW. Michael Cole sighs in relief as he finally has somebody to take the heat off of him.

June 3, 2008: The man later known as Evan Bourne makes his ECW debut in a losing effort against Shelton Benjamin. It didn’t seem like WWE had big plans for the former Matt Sydal, but the kid made Shelton look so good that people took notice, and now he makes people look good every week on either Raw or Superstars.

July 29, 2008: Todd Grisham replaces Adamle, who had become Raw’s general manager. Nothing like failing your way upward, is there? Tazz would leave the company soon afterward and was replaced by Matt Striker…Grisham & Striker would become the most critically acclaimed announce team in WWE (even winning a Slammy Award!) and they currently host WWE Smackdown.

September 7, 2008: Matt Hardy wins the ECW title from Mark Henry in a scramble match at Unforgiven, becoming the first Hardy to win a world championship.

What?

September 9, 2008: The All-American American Jack Swagger makes his ECW debut, and would become Champion not long afterwards. Swagger showed a lot of potential on ECW, but has yet to make much of an impact on Raw. There is hope.

February 10, 2009: Christian makes his return to WWE, and he becomes an ECW Superstar! There’s an Impact ratings joke there somewhere, but Christian would end up having a very productive year with ECW, holding the title for 248 days out of the year and six days he spent there. And he had some darn good matches too with guys like William Regal, Jack Swagger, Tommy Dreamer & others.

June 30, 2009: Tiffany officially becomes General Manager of ECW. She had served under Theodore Long as an assistant throughout his reign as GM, and was made interim GM after Long’s return to Smackdown in April 2009. Tiffany’s acting was very popular with certain segments of the IWC.

September 1, 2009: Tony Atlas makes his debut as announcer on the Abraham Washington Show. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

December 29, 2009: Tommy Dreamer has his last match with ECW, a losing effort to Zack Ryder. The emotional response by Dreamer and the fans afterwards was easily one of the best moments in WWE’s ECW history.

OK, this whole exercise kind of backfired. My plan was to go over some of the highlights of the WWE version of ECW and show that it wasn’t so bad after all. Instead, I got so offended by reliving bad memories of shows that were just piss-poor that now I’m kind of glad ECW is dead. Whoops.

Ah, but there were some bright spots. Where else were you going to see Christian carry a brand, Goldust almost make us forget about Black Reign, William Regal actually be taken seriously as a threat to a heavyweight title, Tiffany be all about business while having a theme song talking about how much she wanted to have sex, Mike Adamle replace Joey Styles, Macho Libre and THE ZOMBIE?

Only in ECW.

Cheers, old friend.

So Impact is moving to Monday nights. Yup, we all pretty much saw that one coming…they’re planning on doing it the way WWF used to do Raw back in the late 90s, having a live show every two weeks and taping a show the day after the live show. For traveling purposes it makes sense. I’ve been talking about how TNA should move to Mondays for awhile now, and nothing has happened to change my mind.

WWE is not worried, according to spokesperson Robert Zimmerman. Why should they be? WWE has been the preeminent name in sports entertainment ever since most wrestling fans can remember. They’re putting out a product right now that I’d say is pretty darn good. They’re making a heck of a lot of money all over the world. Why should TNA moving their show to Monday nights bother them?

It doesn’t bother me because the NCAA Tournament’s coming up and they have games on Thursday nights.

OMG something craaaaaaaazy happened at the Impact tapings last night….

Orlando Jordan is doing a bi-sexual gimmick similar to the one he was scheduled to do in WWE before he got fired, and similar to his real-life sexuality. On Monday night’s Impact taping he came out with a male valet and a female valet, and omg he kissed both of them!

You can probably tell from my tone that I don’t think this is a huge deal. I don’t do dudes, but some people are into that kinda thing. Whatever. Gay gimmicks have been part of wrestling forever, and they usually get pretty strong reactions from the fans. One can question the political correctness of it all, but to me it’s nothing more than a good way to get heat. However, it was kind of a big deal backstage. Not everybody was thrilled with it, and one performer went so far as to use the company motto to describe it, saying TNA “crossed the line” there and Spike TV probably wouldn’t like it because they cater to men who aren’t into the whole men kissing men thing.

I can make a couple guesses as to who in TNA wouldn’t like it. One of them is the current TNA champion and commonly used the term “faggot” in his indy matches back in the day. He’s also known for being extremely Christian in his views. I’d also think that his current advisor wouldn’t be a big fan of the gimmick.

The thing I don’t like about it is that it’s Orlando Jordan. I’ve never seen anything worthwhile from the guy. And he beat Samoa Joe. Really, TNA? Really?

Dave Taylor has been hired by TNA to fill Scott D’Amore’s old role as an agent. Two things:

-I didn’t know D’Amore was still working for TNA until he quit a couple of weeks ago
-Huzzah Squire! Taylor was a solid worker that had a decent run in WCW many moons ago and even had a brief yet enjoyable run with WWE a few years back. He should be a fine addition to TNA’s staff.

Awesome Kong will not be appearing on the next couple of Impacts, as she has been suspended. This is due to her missing the European tour…no word on when she’s expected back. I’m sure they’ll be building up that Kong vs. Bubba feud whenever she does return.

Speaking of Bubba, Hulk Hogan said that he would be turning heel soon on the Bubba the Love Sponge show. Since he said that, I can only assume that he’ll be a baby face for a very long time. And who can tell if he (or anybody else) is a face or a heel anyway? Manu asks me about this every week and I’m never sure how to answer him. Maybe we can call TNA wrestlers “Shades of Grey”.

I can hear the radio advertisements now…”Join the TNA cast members as they cheer on the TNA shades of grey!” If that doesn’t equal ticket sales, I don’t know what does.

Hulk and friends are going to try and set the record for most fu manchus in one place on February 26 in St. Louis. I wonder if I can talk the Penguin into doing a road report for the 1st annual Hogan Fu-Fest. He loves Hulk, but I’m not sure what his opinion on growing a mustache would be. I was told that Mrs. Penguin loved the massive beard I grew last winter, so maybe she’d be open to it.

Eric Bischoff is being credited for the institution of a ranking system for title shots. He’s also been credited with the WCW Top 10, the ROH Pick 6, and the Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club. I mean, that is how you get a title shot in WWE, right?

In our Rob Van Dam Update, the pride of Battle Creek, Michigan says there‘s “a good chance” he‘ll sign with TNA. Recently he’s spoken out about how the WWE travel schedule isn’t something he’s interested in re-living, and he’s also talked of how it feels good that TNA has pursued him so much. Hulk Hogan recently called in to RVD’s Internet radio show and talked to him about coming to TNA for a whole hour, which really impressed Van Dam. Those of you who saw Van Dam’s appearance on Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling know that Hulk’s a pretty big RVD fan. We can build on this.

Ring of Honor has kept themselves busy signing people to contracts and reestablishing relationships with old friends. The Motor City Machine Guns will be returning to ROH on May 8th, and this is fine with TNA because the Guns won’t be appearing on ROH’s HDNet show or a PPV. There’s the obvious joke about Sabin & Shelley not appearing on TNA television or PPV either, but I’m pretty sure everybody else has used it.

Sonjay Dutt will be getting married this weekend. It’s nice to see the Guru find success with the ladies so soon after having to break up with So Cal Val when he left TNA. No, I don’t know why couples have to break up when one half leaves a promotion. I think it’s part of the wrestler code.

Dragon Gate USA had an announcement scheduled for after the last episode of ECW went off the air. Since my column needed to be posted by then, we can only speculate as to what it is. So from the Home Office in Edgewood, KY…

Top 10 Possible Dragon Gate USA Announcements

10. Next show will be held at Gabe’s parents’ house

9. Did you know Dave Meltzer really likes our stuff?

8. We’re suing WWE for marketing Ricky Steamboat as “The Dragon”

7. The Massive Q has been signed to appear at the WrestleMania weekend shows

6. We’ve signed a network television deal with Logo. Wait a minute, what’s Logo?

5. Did you know Dave Meltzer really likes our stuff?

4. Your next Dragon Gate USA Champion: Dragon Dragon

3. Gabe’s been fired, we’re replacing him with Adam Pearce

2. Did you know Dave Meltzer really likes our stuff?

1. DRINKS FOR EVERYBODY!

If the announcement is actually one of these things I’ll eat my hat.

I agree with our R readers who don’t want the Young Bucks or American Wolves compared to the British Bulldogs. Indeed, why should we equate these kids with a drug addict and one of the biggest assholes in the history of the business? It wouldn’t be fair to the Bucks or Wolves to say they could leave that kind of legacy.

Hubbard lists the top ten Survivor Series moments of all time. Gobbledy freaking Gooker! Man, I was six years old when I saw that and I still didn’t know what anybody was supposed to get out of it. You’d have though that would have been right in my wheelhouse at that point of my life. Even then, I didn’t see a wrestling chicken getting over. Granted, CHIKARA didn’t exist yet.

Sarnecky talks about the ECW that had nothing to do with the ECW that just ended.

Ari needs to bow down to Betty White, a long-time favorite of the Corner staff. Here at the Corner we tend to objectify our women, but Ms. White is one that has always been over with us because she’s just freaking hilarious on whatever show she’s appearing on. Her run on Boston Legal was a thing of beauty.

Csonka has takes. I’d like to congratulate him for finally getting that masters from Clown College. Way to go, Larrold!

Eubanks is sick. No, not like that, he has a flu or something. Hopefully it’s not as bad as the death flu I got a few months ago that had me questioning if I’d wake up if I fell asleep. On the bright side, I watched the entire box set of Angel on my deathbed, so hopefully the next time I’m dying somebody will hook me up with another television show I didn’t see much of when it was actually on.

And in our AJ Grey post of the week, Paris Hilton got drunk and fell down on Valentine’s Day. Something tells me she wasn’t the only one. Did you see her on Letterman a couple of weeks ago? I haven’t been a big fan of what I’ve seen from her lately, but she was hot that night. Good stuff. It was a good night for chicks I usually don’t dig, because Sarah Silverman was on the show and she was getting it done too. She usually rates somewhere in the “OK” range for me, but something about her Saints fandom and having to continually pull her top up did it for me. I almost wanted to watch her show but I completely forgot about it the next day. Oh well.

That’s all we have time for this week! I must say that my hopes were low for this column on Monday night, but I had enough ridiculous stuff bounce around in my head to make the effort worthwhile. The honorable JP Prag will be in tomorrow, and I’ll be back next week with more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…