News From Cook’s Corner 09.01.10

This is the part where I would talk about the Louisville vs. Kentucky football game if I was looking forward to it. I am more excited about my two fantasy football drafts that are going on during it. That tells you a little something about how Louisville football has been doing the last couple of years. It also tells you that I am obsessed with fantasy football.

I’m almost as obsessed with fantasy football as I am with wrestling. What can I say…I’ve always preferred my fantasies to my realities.

I found out two interesting things while reading the Small-For-All yesterday. First of all, Jeff Small uses CM Punk for material. He tries to embarrass me and goes with a fat joke? I’ve lost weight! OK, I found some of it. But still!

Secondly, I read that WWE is in talks with Isis the Amazon. Isis, the woman on the right in that picture, stands 6’9″, which is a good six inches taller than any woman I’ve known. When you put her in heels she’s like 7’5″. That is absolutely insane. I don’t usually recommend signing people just because they’re tall, but how many 6’9″ women do you know? I’m guessing not many unless you’re a WNBA groupie. I’ve read from message board types that she isn’t that great in the ring, but when was the last time WWE cared about that? Isis will indeed be part of Season 3 of NXT, using the name Aloisa. She has a pretty unique look that could be very marketable. Seeing her stand over every other Diva in the company should be pretty interesting.

Good find, Jeff. I’ll let you have the first crack at this one…we know you like them tall.

Editor’s Update: The early commenters are telling me the girl in the picture isn’t the right really really tall female. Are you kidding me? Now I know how Johnny Ace felt when he signed the wrong one-legged wrestler several years ago. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

And now, the fake news!

Chris Jericho said on Raw that he would leave WWE if he doesn’t win the WWE title match at Night of Champions. No big deal, right? Jericho’s lost more “Loser Leaves Raw” matches than anybody in the history of the show, so what’s another aborted departure? Well, it turns out that Jericho’s contract with WWE is set to expire in a few weeks and he hasn’t signed a new one. They seem to be at a bit of a stand-still because Jericho wants to work less dates per month so he can do other things. As we all know, WWE aren’t big fans of having their Superstars working less dates per month so they can do other things.

Jericho has revealed that he was invited to go on Dancing With The Stars this season, but had to decline because his schedule wouldn’t allow it. (Hey, maybe that means he’s re-signing!) That’s his excuse, anyway. I think he’s scared of the Hoff.

NXT will be leaving SyFy on October 1. The final episode will serve as a lead-in for the premiere of Smackdown on SyFy. If you’re wondering why SyFy doesn’t want to keep NXT, the answer is simple: ratings. That was their problem with the ECW show…it did really well early on, but eventually it became just a WWE C-show that most WWE fans didn’t think of as “must-see TV” and the ratings went way down from the beginning. Kevin Dunn did a great job pitching the NXT concept and SyFy went along with it to replace ECW. Once the ratings dipped below what ECW was doing, they had second thoughts. Then they got the chance to add Smackdown to the schedule, and NXT became expendable.

Finding another home for NXT is difficult. As part of WWE’s deal with NBC Universal, they can only air their cable shows on channels owned by NBC. That’s become a lot harder for them to do over the last couple of years, since while they’re doing good they’re not in a boom period where they’re huge in the mainstream scene. Plus, there’s always those fun executives that think that wrestling is too low-brow for their channel. Gotta love those sycophantic plebians.

NXT may become exclusive to WWE.com. There is the possibility that WWE would put the NXT stuff into Raw and/or Smackdown, similar to the Diva Search and that season of Tough Enough that gave us Daniel Puder and that miz guy. I could live with this on one condition: if it replaced the insufferable Raw Rebound. I am beyond tired of that segment. There have been some episodes of NXT that had about five minutes of actual content, so maybe tightening things up would be for the best.

I’d be a little surprised if WWE hasn’t tried to sell WGN America on NXT as either an addition to their WWE programming, or even a replacement for Superstars. I know I’m stepping on some toes here because a lot of the hardcore fans think that Superstars is the best wrestling show ever because it features long matches, but the show simply doesn’t matter. I’ve grown to hate writing the Rs for it every week because it’s the same thing over and over again. I could send Thomas an R contribution from last year, change the names and he probably wouldn’t notice. At least with NXT you have new characters and the occasional segment from hell that makes you wonder why you’re watching the show and gives a writer something to complain about. If you give me a choice between watching NXT & Superstars, I’ll take NXT every time, even if William Regal’s match gets a little time on Superstars.

You know how Alberto Del Rio is portrayed as having a very, very large ego? Well, it seems that there might be truth to that in real life. He’s reportedly getting a little heat backstage because he’s getting the push of a lifetime and apparently still finds things to complain about. Most notably: the removal of his mask. Del Rio is part of one of the most legendary Mexican wrestling families, as he is the son of Dos Caras & the nephew of Mil Mascaras & Sicodelico. These men take great pride in their heritage and value their mask as a part of themselves. It doesn’t surprise me that the man once known as Dos Caras Jr. would feel disconcerted about the removal of his mask, especially when (to the best of my knowledge) nobody else in his family has lost theirs.

On the other hand, I think WWE did the right thing by bringing in Alberto Del Rio and promoting him without the mask. The one thing that has stood out to me the most about ADR since his debut is his ability to express his emotions with something like a simple wink to his opponent before dumping him outside, or a smile he shows the crowd while standing over the fallen Rey Mysterio. Some guys are better off under a mask, and when they lose it their careers are never the same. Rey himself is a perfect example of this, as once he lost his mask his career wasn’t the same until WWE put his mask back on. I’m not saying he’s the Elephant Man or anything, but Rey has an easier time connecting with a crowd with a mask on.

Alberto Del Rio is the opposite. His promos about being the “last honest man” wouldn’t have had the same effect if you couldn’t see him smiling back at you like a Cheshire cat. His matches wouldn’t be the same without the looks he gives people. He’s got a bright future if he keeps his nose clean and does that thing that he does. There’s no need to worry about this whole mask thing because he’s better off without it. It’s like how Undertaker was better after ditching the gray gloves, or how Shawn Michaels was better off without Marty Jannetty.

Of course, it doesn’t surprise me that somebody would be feeding the newsletters this kind of information about Del Rio. One thing you can always be sure of in wrestling is that if somebody’s getting a push, somebody else isn’t happy about it and is going to tell everybody that will listen to them. It wouldn’t surprise me if Alberto had a large ego, but to me that’s not worth punishing somebody over unless their work doesn’t live up to it.

AAA star Alex Koslov may be on his way to WWE. AAA’s Dorian Roldan reported that Koslov signed a deal with WWE and would be going to FCW when his contract expires in 2011. You may have seen him on Smackdown last week as “the local guy getting pwned by Alberto Del Rio”. Kozlov has been working in Mexico the past few years, having spent the last two and a half with AAA. He’s a pretty skilled competitor and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of an opportunity he gets with WWE. He’s not a large man by any means, but he does have a good physique and I enjoy his pro-Soviet character. You just don’t see enough of that these days.

Maybe he could be Vladimir’s younger brother. He does have experience in comedy segments since he mostly wrestles women & exoticos.

Randy Orton was pulled out of a scheduled cage match with Sheamus in New Jersey due to a stiff neck. He was booked into a 6-person tag instead to protect his neck. Considering he’s in a 6-pack match at the PPV, I don’t think most people will notice that he slept on his neck wrong.

In case you were wondering why Joey Mercury had a sling on his arm on Raw, he reportedly tore his pectoral muscle. I thought it was part of a rule that one Straight Edge Society member must be wearing an arm sling at all times.

MVP shot down a rumor that he was going to be doing a rapping gimmick. That’s a bad rumor…WWE already has one guy doing a rapping gimmick, why would they need two? Come on Internet, you’re better than this! At least I thought you were.

US Senatorial Candidate Linda McMahon has received an endorsement from Kurt Angle! Yeah, I’m sure that’ll swing a few votes her way. Maybe they thanked Kurt by showing that footage of Triple H beating him up on Raw.

Here’s something interesting that happened at a Raw house show in Newark, NJ over the weekend…John Cena threw his t-shirt into the crowd like he usually does before his match, and a bunch of people got into a fight over it. Multiple people were ejected and some children were hurt during the melee. I always find it ridiculous when people get in fights over things thrown in the crowd. They did know they could buy his shirt at the merchandise stand, right? There’s no reason to be fighting people and hurting kids in the process. There must have been a bunch of Snookis & J-Wowws in attendance instead of good, honest, ordinary New Jersey people.

Finally, there’s a hot rumor going around that WWE plans on unifying all of their championships. They’ve already unified the tag team championships, the Divas & Women’s titles are being unified at Night of Champions, and plans are in the works to unify the US title with the IC title & the WWE title with the World title, the latter to take place at WrestleMania. I’m not really sure how this would work if they still plan on having Raw & Smackdown as separate brands. Take it with a grain of salt until they announce a match to unify the Intercontinental & United States Championships.

I wanted to turn my column in on time this week, so this was written before the Season 2 Finale of NXT aired. In the interest of fairness & being right about something once in a blue moon, I’ve prepared remarks based on every possible outcome. You may read the passage that applies to who ended up winning.

(Well, you can read the other two as well, but that would be kind of pointless.)

If Kaval Wins:

Congratulations to Kaval, who won Season 2 of NXT on Tuesday night. Kaval was my pick from the beginning, and he outshone every other rookie on the show by a pretty wide margin. I would expect Kaval to be heading to Smackdown where he can settle his issues with Dashing Cody Rhodes, hang out with LayCool & hopefully have a dream match somewhere down the road with Rey Mysterio. Kaval has a very bright future with WWE, and I look forward to watching it develop. He’s come a long way from the time I saw him selling his own t-shirts outside the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.

If Michael McGillicutty Wins:

Congratulations to Michael McGillicutty, who won Season 2 of NXT on Tuesday night. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that Michael would win, because he’s a third-generation guy & Vince McMahon loves guys that had fathers & grandfathers in the business. I’m not really sure where Michael will go…he didn’t really have any significant feuds on NXT. He does have a good look for the business & a lot of potential, so I’m sure he will do big things in WWE.

If Alex Riley Wins:

Congratulations to Alex Riley, who won Season 2 of NXT on Tuesday night. This was a bit unexpected, as Alex had been playing a pretty strong heel throughout the show, but I guess the WWE Universe & NXT Pros were impressed with his dickishness. I’m torn over where Alex should go…I think Smackdown might be good so he can get out of Miz’s shadow, but that show already has a prevalence of egotistical heels so he could get lost in the shuffle there. Raw might be a better fit, and he could hang with Miz for awhile until it’s time to make him step aside. I see potential in Riley, though I still think the “Varsity Villian” thing is kinda lame. He should at least have a cheerleader or something.　

All right, I’ve covered all my bases! Unless, of course, nobody wins.

You’ll never believe it, but some people think that pushing the EV2.0 group as top baby faces is a bad idea. Indications are that the Hardcore Justice show did a pretty good buyrate by TNA standards, so obviously bringing them in to begin with was a good idea for them. Some have questioned the follow-up, and one does wonder how long Tommy Dreamer, Raven & Stevie Richards can feud with upper-card talent in 2010 and not make them look bad. I’m not convinced that EV2.0 is what’s “ailing” TNA at the moment, and I’m also not convinced that these people aren’t overreacting to one bad TV rating. That’s what TNA people do: overreact to their TV ratings. Either everything is great or everything is terrible. There’s no middle ground, which is strange because TNA’s ratings are pretty close to the same number every week.

Dave Meltzer’s piece on this stated that Fortune’s attack on Hulk Hogan, Jeff Jarrett, Sting & Kevin Nash on Impact may have served as a backup plan in case they decide to junk the extreme thing and job all those guys out. Oh yeah, that’s just what we need. We can trade in top babyface old ECW guys for top babyface old WCW guys. Sounds like a brilliant idea to me.

TNA has talked with AAA about bringing in Zorro to team with Hernandez. Since Zorro pretty much does nothing in AAA this seems like a good thing for him to do. He would be using a different name because somebody probably has the copyright for “Zorro”. As an added bonus, Zorro likes to use a cane to hit people. Since Sandman is gone they need somebody that can do that.

Could the Dudley Boyz be heading back to WWE? The idea has been discussed within the company, but it seems pretty unlikely at this point. Most people there don’t seem to like Brother Ray much. Johnny Ace especially dislikes Ray, so that wouldn’t help his cause. Maybe Johnny’s mad because Ray always talks about how he’s part of the greatest tag team ever, and Johnny’s brother is Road Warrior Animal. Come to think of it, maybe WWE tag teams never get to do anything because Johnny doesn’t want them to outshine the Road Warriors. Hey, crazier things have happened. Anyway, Team 3D was scheduled for a Lethal Lockdown match at Bound For Glory & people still expect them to be back in TNA sooner or later.

Dixie Carter tweeted that TNA has signed “somebody that (her tweeter followers) have been asking about”. I can only hope they’ve been asking about D-Ray 3000. That guy’s long overdue for a comeback.

Mickie James is apparently not this mystery person, as her agent said that Mickie has not signed with TNA “as of yet”. I guess she still has a little hope for her music career.

Kurt Angle did an interview with the Baltimore Sun where he talked about his contract with TNA expiring in a year. He says that if he does retire, he’ll have a retirement match and then a part-time schedule. Hey, at least he’s honest about it.

Impact will not be airing on September 9. It’s nice to know that a show’s not going to be airing in it’s scheduled time slot. It makes it seem planned and stuff.

Lucha Libre USA: Masked Warriors is officially on hiatus. Their episode last week that got bumped with no notice to Saturday was announced as the “season finale” and the website that people were told to go to for information on a return date had nothing listed. LLUSA Managing Director Steve Shipp says this isn’t unexpected, as the plan always was for them to do “seasons” of the show like MTV’s other programming. I’d like to think he’s telling the whole truth and not trying to spin people, but one would like to think they would have done a better job of promoting their season finale if they knew they were having one.

Over the weekend rumors were pretty strong that the series was coming to an end, but now they’re saying that they will have a second season, and it will be filmed in a studio like TNA Impact is. That would have to be cheaper than running large arenas like the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas that even WWE has problems selling out. That was my number one concern with this promotion (aside from Pequeno Halloween), and if they addressed that it’d be a good thing.

The event that took place in Charlotte will be streamed on LLUSA’s website, and content from their upcoming show in Corpus Christi will appear online as well. No other shows have been announced and there was word not to expect anything until 2011, so I guess we’re going to wait and see on this one. Ratings for the show were what MTV expected them to be, as I’m sure they realize that not very much is going to pop a huge rating on MTV2.

I think Pequeno Halloween deserves a fair share of the blame for all of this. That little bastard needs to crawl back under the pile of burritos that he came from. I hate that twerp more than Michael Cole hates Daniel Bryan. And I’m not a hateful person. The only two people I hate in wrestling are this dweeb & Michael Cole. There’s something about that goofy-looking piece of orange crap that really grinds my gears. Hopefully if the show comes back it will come back without the waste of oxygen that is Pequeno Halloween.

Oh, like I’d appreciate somebody that disrespects the lovely Rebecca Reyes (yes, she‘s pictured above). C’mon man!

Trish Stratus & Lita are planning a movie that will be similar to the old El Santo movies. This has some potential. As an added bonus, it gives me an excuse to mention Trish Stratus & Lita in the column.

Luna Vachon passed away on Friday at the age of forty-eight. She had been living with her mother after her house burned down earlier this month. TMZ reported that that the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office report noted that they had found a box containing Oxycodone in the kitchen along with a pile of “blue, chalky debris next to a small straw” as well as multiple prescription bottles and unsecured pilled in the master bedroom. They also found a small plate that contained more pill residue and another snorting straw. Luna was bipolar and friends & associates say that she was often depressed about any number of things, mostly how her career had gone and how she felt she had never gotten the break she deserved in the big time, being forced to put over the likes of Sable instead of getting her chance to shine. I would say that the odds of somebody like Luna Vachon making it into WWE would be slim these days, but Luna was a second-generation wrestler and Vince McMahon might have pushed her harder if she came along fifteen years or so later than she did.

Friday featured a rare threesome of wrestler deaths. In addition to Luna, Anton Geesink passed away at the age of 76. I had never heard of Mr. Geesink until Jasper Gerretsen wrote an interesting article about him last October. You can read much more there about pro wrestling’s first Olympic gold medalist. Yes, he was older than Kurt Angle. Anthony Osborne, who wrestled as “Tough” Tony Borne, died at the age of 84. Tony was a mainstay in the Northwest and the father of Matt Borne, who went on to wrestle in the NWA, WCW & the WWF under different personas.

Japan has not been immune to the wrestling death parade. Kotetsu Yamamoto died on Sunday at the age of 68. He trained countless numbers of wrestlers that came out of the New Japan wrestling dojo and is credited with coming up with the idea of using a lion in NJPW’s logo.

Mickey Garagiola, the longtime ring announcer for Wrestling at the Chase, also died on Monday at the age of eighty-nine after a long fight with cancer. In somewhat of a coincidence, I just finished reading the book written by Larry Matsyik about the St. Louis promotion last week. Larry had nothing but good things to say about Mickey, who was a true fan of the pro wrestling and a nice fella. Apparently he was still ring announcing at local shows earlier this year.

JC Bailey passed away on Monday at the age of twenty-seven. Bailey, a Louisville native, mainly worked the deathmatch circuit in IWA Mid-South & CZW. I know that most of you aren’t huge fans of that particular style, and it’s not really my favorite either, but I’ve always respected the guys (and girls) that are willing to go through the kind of pain that they go through in order to entertain an audience. It’s not something I would do in a million years, but I’ll never question their heart or their desire. Bailey was noted for his willingness to take a lot of punishment and keep on ticking. Unfortunately he had some problems outside of the ring, as he was gone from wrestling for a couple of years to serve a prison sentence for attempting to steal a television set from a Walmart. He returned in 2009 and had a pretty big year in CZW & Mid-South, winning Mid-South’s King of the Death Match & placing second in CZW’s Tournament of Death. According to one of Bailey’s best friends & fellow deathmatch wrestler Drake Younger, JC was really excited about his comeback and looking forward to what the future held for him.

Time for some lighter news! The Smashing Pumpins’ concert in Mexico City was unceremoniously interrupted by members of AAA’s La Legion Extranjera. Alex Koslov, Decnis & Hernandez (yes, that Hernandez) attacked Billy Corgan during the concert and Hernandez even tried to Border Toss him off the stage!

How come he never does anything this cool in TNA?

Corgan was rescued by Extreme Tiger, El Mesias & La Parka Jr., all of whom are feuding with the Legion. Well, I think everybody in AAA that isn’t part of the Legion is feuding with them except for Dr. Wagner Jr., and we know Wagner lives in his own little world that is totally awesome.

Jake Roberts announced that he will be retiring in January 2011. Roberts is 55, so he’s pretty young to be retiring. I have a feeling that his retirement tour will be lasting a long time.

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is holding the 2010 Battle of Los Angeles this weekend. This is one of my favorite indy events every year, because they bring in the top talent and everybody goes balls to the wall. Here’s a listing of the first round matchups!

1. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Ricochet
2. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: Brandon Bonham vs. Brian Cage
3. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: Austin Aries vs. Rocky “Azúcar” Romero
4. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: Joey Ryan vs. Chuck Taylor
5. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: “Intrepid Traveler” Paul London vs. Roderick Strong
6. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: Brandon Gatson vs. Ryan Taylor
7. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: “Mr. Instant Replay” Matt Jackson vs. “Slick” Nick Jackson
8. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: El Generico vs. Akira Tozawa
9. 2010 Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match: “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Hero

The Battle of Generation Me should be interesting. Gotta feel bad for Hero & Daniels, as well as London & Strong, who get loathsome matchups in the first round. It looks like it should be a barn burner.

Ari might have fewer pretty pictures in his columns than I do, but he has access to more beautiful women than I do. That’s the difference between being from Kentucky and being from New York City. Ari has an all-you-can-eat buffet and I have the McDonald’s dollar menu. Not that I’m bitter.

Hubbard ranks the top ten Mick Foley matches. I’m glad he’s doing this, because the Mickster sure could use the self-esteem boost.

Weyer looks at SummerSlam 1990. 1990 was a pretty special year for me. It was the year I became a wrestling fan and the last year that the Cincinnati Reds & Bengals were good at the same time. The Reds have been good this year. Let’s hope the Bengals follow suit.

Grimm talks about Dudleys & cruiserweights. I forget that five out of six people in this match were in WWE.

Byers recaps a match where Raven & Tracy Smothers are on the same team. Too bad it’s in 2008.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! The distinguished JP Prag will be in tomorrow, and I’ll be back next week with more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…