News From Cook’s Corner 02.08.11

Fortunately, you guys had a lot of things on your mind last week and I can use that to go off on many different tangents in this column and make it look like I actually wrote a lot of stuff about wrestling news. That way Larry won’t get mad and replace me with a Steelers fan. I hear Andy Clark is still alive, but I’m not sure about Ron Gamble.

We better talk about the Super Bowl this week since we might not get to talk about football again for a very long time. The game delivered on pretty much every level to me, mostly because the two things I hate the most about the NFL are Brett Favre and the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was nice to see the Green Bay Packers keep the Lombardi Trophy from falling into Pittsburgh’s hands again and have Aaron Rodgers win the MVP so he could yank the torch out of Favre’s hands. Plus, it seems that the winner of the Super Bowl MVP award now gets a World Title belt, so that was pretty cool.

Unfortunately everything about the Super Bowl telecast that didn’t take place in the game was pretty much a disaster. I thought it’d be nice to have a halftime show where the performers were under 75, but it didn’t work out so good. We didn’t even get a wardrobe malfunction from Fergie, so it was a pretty big waste of two hours, or however long it lasted. The National Anthem…well, I still love me some Christina, but it wasn’t her night. What can I say, I’ve had a soft spot for her since the Genie in a Bottle days. I also thought the Obama/O’Reilly interview was disappointing. I was hoping it’d take place in a steel cage and blood would be shed, but neither of these things happened.

I think the highlight of stuff at the Super Bowl that wasn’t part of the game was A-Rod getting fed popcorn by Cameron Diaz. That brought down the house at the party I went to. Good party this year too. The last few years I’ve been at parties with work people where I got so drunk that most of those games were a blur afterwards, but now that I don’t work with most of those people anymore I went to a party my friend’s older brother was throwing. The highlight was a tossup between the Killian’s & the Chik-Fil-A Spicy Nuggets, which were tremendous.

I fully support the hiring of Jay Gruden as the new Bengals offensive coordinator. Jay used to quarterback the Louisville Football Cardinals, so obviously he’s going to get a lot of leeway from me. Hopefully he’ll bring a fresh take and a new outlook on things to a team that desperately needs change.

I guess that’s all the football talk we’ll have until August. Hopefully it won’t be longer. Now it’s time to get one step closer…to DASHING!

With the terrible an vindictive damage done to the Dashing One by Rey Mysterio, you might have to put a Phantom of the Opera type mask on the pic. I do hope they go darker with the character, kind of like the Joker. Remember Nicholson’s “wait ’til they get a load of me”? Hopefully the teased feud means moving up on the card. – Guest*9173

Capt. Smooth compared Cody’s promo from two weeks ago to Doctor Doom, so there seem to be a lot of comic book overtones going on here. Makes sense because most comic book villains became that way because of some horrible accident that gave them some sort of freakish quality that created a divide between them and society. I do think Cody (or any other aspiring villain, really) would be well-served to watch some Batman movies and study up on the Joker…either the Nicholson or Ledger version would be a good reference point for things he could do with promos, mannerisms & facial expressions. Plus, we know that Rey Mysterio likes to dress up as superheroes for really big shows.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the next few months are going to be huge for the progress of Cody Rhodes in WWE. Many people (myself included) think that he has the potential to be a long-term main event talent. He’s kicked his game up a ton since the move to Smackdown and the development of the Dashing persona. His matches and promos have seemed to get better with each passing week. People have been taking notice, including Rey Mysterio. The story going around is that WWE asked Rey who he wanted to work with at WrestleMania and he requested a match with Cody. It’s not like they let Rey have lengthy feuds with just anybody either, his last feud was with Alberto Del Rio and you see what he’s doing now. Working Rey had a lot to do with making Alberto into the big deal that he is, and an outstanding performance by Cody would elevate him to the next level.

The thing that makes Cody’s character what it is has been taken away by Rey Mysterio. How Cody responds to this, and how his upcoming feud with Mysterio is handled, will either make him or break him. I think he’s going to deliver.

I remember Osborne used to have a bat with him whenever he appeared. He was like Bull Pain Jr. – Guest#6298

There’s a name I haven’t seen in way too long! Bull Pain was one of my favorite indy guys for years…for those of you who are unfamiliar with Bull, he’s a big biker dude that beats the crap out of people with Brother Pain, his baseball bat. He’s really high on the list of people that I would leave the building if I was booked against. Especially if it’s a IWA Mid-South show, there’s no way that whatever Ian Rotten’s paying people (if he’s paying people) is going to be worth an ass-kicking from Bull Pain.

Yeah, that’s not somebody I want mad at me.

Yes, bringing in El Generico would be good for TNA, but you know what would be better? Bringing in KEVIN STEEN! Why the hell is this man not on my television anymore? Someone please explain why ROH thought letting him go was a good idea?(I know his knees are bad, but give the man some time off, don’t let him walk!) The only thing ROH could have done that would have been worse would be to do the same thing to Davey Richards. TNA should sign him and put the TV title on him or something. – Jwestmoreland

Kevin Steen would be a wonderful addition to TNA or any other wrestling promotion. He’s a great in-ring talent and can produce compelling television as a face or a heel. Some people claim to be an Anti-Christ because they think it sounds cool, but when Steen said it during his feud with El Generico last year you actually believed him. Steen said in an interview shortly after his departure from ROH that the reason he was let go was because he broke some television equipment and they kept getting complaints from their fans about some of his actions, like when he’d kiss people while he had blood on his face. Back in the old days, getting complaints from the fans meant that the heel was doing their job.

Steen’s recent comments on TNA in Powerslam Magazine makes one wonder if he’d be interested in going there:

“This won’t look good now that I’m a free agent and I’m looking to make a living off wrestling…

“I’ve literally gotten physically nauseous from watching TNA.”

I think he’ll get over it if they make the right offer, and we all know that wrestlers don’t watch the show they’re on. If they did it’d sure prevent a lot of problems.

So when Nash/Booker etc. are in TNA, people bash the older generation, but yet they love them in the WWE! Double standards? Me thinks so. – Jason St. Laire

Maybe a little bit. But to me it seems from the way they look and act on the shows that most of the older wrestlers care a lot more when they’re performing in WWE, while in TNA they’re cashing a paycheck. Take Goldust. His run in TNA as Black Reign was embarrassingly bad on almost every level from a creative and in-ring standpoint. Yeah, TNA gave him a pretty crappy character, but he obviously didn’t give a damn and didn’t put any effort into trying to make it work. Once he signed with WWE, he stepped his game up and had a bit of a late-career renaissance.

I do think that the crowds have a lot to do with it. Nash made a funny in an interview with WWE.com about being happy to be in front of people again, and I think it’s natural for people to care more about their performance when there’s a larger number of people watching it. But at the end of the day, I think the reason people bash the older generation when they’re in TNA (or at least the reason I do) is because TNA pushes them at the expense of the younger talent. In WWE, Booker T is a Smackdown announcer and a coach on Tough Enough. Both of these roles have him building up other people that need it more than he does. In TNA, he likely would have been an integral part of one of the company’s top groups and featured in high-profile matches. I’d rather see guys like Booker & Nash helping to build the future than getting one last run on top, and I don’t think I’m alone on this.

I’m sorry, Cook, but the Michael Scott reaction when Toby returned to The Office is a more appropriate reaction to the return of the Diva Search. – The Vanilla Wafer

It was a close call between the Dwight scream and NO GOD NO, but I went with Dwight for that occasion since I used Michael’s dismay when Daniel Bryan got fired by WWE. I’m still waiting for the perfect opportunity to use the best Michael response to Toby ever, which came on Casino Night.

I looked at the spoilers for how TNA replaced MEM. Sadly, it too WWE to make TNA do better booking. Well, better if TNA comes up with a coherent rationale. Seemingly easy to do until you remember Russo and Bishoff do booking. – Guest#9337

Don’t get me wrong, this was a better option than a Main Event Mafia reset. But here’s the biggest problem with making Fortune “They” that has come up in every conversation I‘ve had about it: Taking Fortune out of Immortal pretty much means that there’s nobody left in Immortal.

Your mileage on the guys that are left may vary, but the only guy left in the group that I’m remotely interested in watching in 2011 is Jeff Jarrett, due to his feud with Kurt Angle and the Double J Double M A stuff, which I thought was hilarious. Hulk Hogan was great in his day, but it’s sad to watch him whenever he appears now. Flair’s had his moments, but I’m not even sure if he’ll be part of the group now that his boys left. Bischoff is good to have because somebody needs to cut promos for the group, but he doesn’t make me want to watch the shows. You all know how I feel about the Hardys by now, right? I don’t need to get into that again. I haven‘t been interested in watching Abyss in years. Terry, Gunner & Murphy are all cannon fodder.

I don’t want to watch these guys get driven out of TNA in a top angle…I don’t even want to watch them on TV. I imagine they’ll try to even the sides by having somebody join Immortal for no reason. The top candidates are probably Kurt Angle & Mr. Anderson because their turns would make the least sense and that’s usually how they do things. Or maybe Fortune will rejoin Immortal on the next biggest Impact ever and it’ll be a double swerve.

But hey, TNA does deserve some credit because they’re getting some pretty good audiences for these biggest Impacts ever. We can’t be sure if it’ll last or not, but they seem to be getting some attention from some folks.

Why do the people who post on this site jizz all over one company and hate very other one? Can they not respected wrestling in more than one form? – Dinosaur

Before I address your point, let me make something perfectly clear: I don’t need to know what anybody reading this is “jizzing” over. None of my business.

People like to take sides in everything, and since we know that wrestling is pre-determined and the competitors in the ring don’t really hate each other (well, usually), on of the best ways for people who thrive on conflict to enjoy wrestling is to prefer one wrestling company over another. Part of the reason the Monday Night War was so huge was because it was the two biggest companies going head to head with each other. There was a lot of real-life drama there, and WWF & WCW fans constantly debated which side had the better wrestlers & the better shows. It was good times.

You also had companies like ECW that did a lot to build up loyalty to their brand name more than anybody else. ECW was the first place I remember seeing most of the fans wear shirts with the company’s name on it instead of a wrestler. That was important for them to do because the wrestlers came and went from there on a pretty regular basis, so they had to emphasize loyalty towards the company instead of a certain wrestler. That way they wouldn’t feel inclined to support WCW once Sabu, Guerrero, Malenko, Benoit, Jericho, Public Enemy, Raven & countless others went there to make a living. ECW fans were trained to accept ECW as the greatest wrestling company in the world, and to dismiss the big two promotions as not being “extreme” enough. Sure, every wrestling company ever has said that their brand of wrestling was number one, but I don’t think most of them took it to the extreme (heh) that ECW did. ECW & WCW eventually went away, but the concept of brand loyalty stayed around. The anti-WWE crowd’s had a pretty rough decade, so they really have to be hoping that this TNA thing catches on.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think that I’m one of the least biased Internet wrestling writers out there as far as coverage of the different companies goes. I’ve always given TNA & ROH/indy promotions time in this column, and I include international news whenever it’s something that I think people will be interested in. As far as what I prefer…to me there’s really just two different types of wrestling. Sure, there are all sorts of different styles, but you can narrow it down to two pretty easily:

-Good wrestling
-Bad wrestling

I like good wrestling and I don’t like bad wrestling. Which company promotes it is irrelevant to me. Pretty much every company has good wrestling and bad wrestling. I praise what I think is good, I trash what I think is bad. Simple enough, right? There’s no real agenda there, I can’t really help it if some people are constantly involved in bad wrestling.

I don’t think the IWC loves Trish nearly as much as you think. I have never seen a performer called overrated as often as she is. The problem is people gave her too much credit when she was around, and then for a couple of years after she quit as well.

Trish, like Rock, is an example of how the IWC gets angry when somebody they suck up to moves on from wrestling. – Guest#9248

Well, as recently as a couple months ago whenever there was a news item about Trish, we got all sorts of comments about how she was the best ever in every single category. I guess some people are cooling off on that notion. I won’t take anything away from Trish and her run with WWE, she had as good a career there as any other woman has. I’m just reluctant to say that it will never be equaled, which seemed to be the sentiment from a pretty good number of people. Maybe that’s changed.

My perspective may be different from some because I don’t feel any anger towards somebody that managed to move on from wrestling and make a successful living. It seems silly to get mad at Dwayne Johnson because he’s making millions of dollars to be in movies. Even if his movies generally aren’t very good, he’s much better off doing that than being in wrestling.

Can we get pix of 5 Hour Energy Girl and Fairly Legal Girl for comparisons … and to know who the heck you’re talking about? – elvis.foley

Slight problem. The identity of 5 Hour Energy Girl is unknown. At least, I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I certainly did some research. All we have to go off of with 5 Hour Energy Girl is this commercial:

Fairly Legal Girl has a lot more material available to us. We know her name is Sarah Shahi and she has a show currently airing on USA Network. She’s appeared on multiple shows in small roles, but the one that stands out on her resume to me is her role on The Sopranos. Here’s a description from Wikipedia describing her appearance in the episode “Kennedy & Heidi” as Sonya:

He (Tony) meets up with Sonya, a beautiful exotic dancer with whom Christopher used to spend time. He tells her that Christopher has died, and she begins to accompany him during his Vegas trip. The two have sex, smoke marijuana and take peyote, with an inebriated Tony winning a large amount of money on roulette while still high. Believing his recent bad luck has ended, he mumbles happily, “He’s dead” and subsequently collapses in a laughing fit on the casino floor. The episode concludes with Tony and Sonya looking out on the Nevada desert at sunset. Tony sees the sun flicker in the distance. He stands up to walk towards it. Both crying and laughing he exclaims, “I get it!”

I’m still not sure what Tony “got” there except lucky, but whatever. Anyway, here’s Fairly Legal Girl in all her glory.

I’m sure these girls will appear during Raw again, and now you’ll know who I’m talking about. I’ll keep you all updated if I gain any more information on 5 Hour Energy Girl. In other girl-related news, women pictured in last week’s column included Maryse, Annie Social, Velvet Sky, Rayna Von Tash, Kristin Astara, Brie Bella, Nikki Bella & Reby Sky. This week’s group should be easier to figure out, which will dramatically cut back on comments.

And now, the fake news!

The Allstate Arena is advertising that Triple H will appear on the March 28 Raw in Rosemont, Illinois. How come nobody’s speculated that Triple H is the guy wearing the long leather jacket in the 2.22.11 promo? I’ve heard every other name thrown out there, even Awesome Kong’s. I can only assume that the people saying it’s Kong have never actually seen her before.

Triple H should be back very soon, because it’d be pretty weird to have WWE Magazine have him on the cover with the headline “He’s back” if he didn’t plan on coming back soon. They might be celebrating April Fool’s Day early, but I seriously doubt it.

We may still be waiting on H’s return, but we no longer have to wait for the return of Vince McMahon to WWE television. It’s great that Vince recovered from his coma and is able to appear in public again. I think that he’s pretty great in small doses…I don’t want the guy cutting 20 minute promos to begin Raw every week like he used to, but it’s nice to see him come back from time to time and make somebody’s life a living hell.

Dave Meltzer reported during one of his Wrestling Observer radio shows that Sting & WWE have had absolutely no contact with each other. I’ve also read reports that TNA is pretty confident that Sting is going to re-sign with them, so while it seems bizarre that WWE wouldn’t have reached out to the Stinger, maybe they haven’t. Or maybe somebody’s not telling the newsletters everything they know. I guess we’ll just have to stay tuned…

John Cena missed a Raw house show in Minnesota over the weekend because he had to be at a party that Gillette was throwing at the Super Bowl. It figures that days after I talk in this very column about how reliable John Cena is, he goes and misses a house show. What is with these people always wanting to prove me wrong?

I jest because Cena’s Super Bowl weekend schedule was actually insane and I’m not sure anybody else could have pulled it off without losing their mind.

Chris Jericho apologized to UFC fighters after tweeting that they could never do what he and his fellow pro wrestlers do after watching UFC 126 over the weekend. He admitted that he was under the influence of alcohol while making that statement. And people wonder why I don’t have a Twitter account. I’d get drunk, say stupid things and get myself in trouble just like everybody else on there.

He’s probably right though, since most MMA guys don’t do moonsaults or Irish whip each other into the cage. That’d be awkward.

Abdullah the Butcher has been discussed as a potential inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. The Butcher never worked in the WWF, and I’m pretty sure he never even worked for Vince McMahon Sr., but he does live in the Atlanta area and is one of those legendary wrestling figures that they can get away with inducting despite lack of WWE involvement. He was a pretty big star wherever he went, including most of the U.S. territories & Japan, where he was pretty much a god. He also makes some pretty mean ribs. The one drawback I can think of is that Abdullah doesn’t really fit into the whole PG thing. They probably wouldn’t let him slice somebody up with a fork at WrestleMania.

Armando Estrada met with WWE officials recently regarding a potential return. He retired from wrestling in 2009 and opened a restaurant in Glendale, Arizona, but he closed it not that long ago. I would say that Armando would have fit nicely into Alberto Del Rio’s act, but Ricardo Rodriguez has done such a great job as Alberto’s personal ring announcer that it’s tough to imagine anybody else doing better.

I guess they could reveal that he was the anonymous Raw General Manager. I’m sure that wouldn’t be a letdown.

Randy Orton’s movie That’s What I Am is set for a small theatrical release in April and will be released on DVD & Blu-Ray in May, just in time for my birthday. Randy plays the part of the parent of a bully who becomes an adversary to one of his kid’s teachers. I’m sure this will be another fantastic production from WWE Films.

That line would have been funnier if you could see me say it, because there’s no way I could ever say something like that with a straight face. My acting skills are not that refined.

It’s been too long since we’ve had an AJ Lee update in the column. Apparently she is now “hosting” Raw house shows. A reader of another wrestling website said that at the Raw house show in Minneapolis, “she wore a skirt that was a half-inch away from WWE moving from PG into R rated territory.” He must have had some good seats. The last time I went to a Raw house show was with the Penguin back in 2004. We got Jonathon Coachman as the host. Hey, I love the Coach more than most (and Penguin practically worships the guy), but it seems like we got a raw deal.

Kaitlyn worked the Smackdown house show in Toronto as a heel, teaming with Layla against Beth Phoenix & Natalya. It remains to be seen whether this is an indication of future plans or if Kaitlyn was thrown into a slot to replace Michelle McCool since McCool doesn’t do many house shows these days. Kaitlyn does need more ring time, and it wouldn’t hurt to have her try working either side on the house shows just so she can learn.

Shaul Guerrero, the daughter of Eddie & Vickie, is currently working in FCW under the name Raquel Diaz. The Diaz name goes back several generations in wrestling and is one of wrestling’s most revered families, so it obviously makes sense to promote her under that name. Her mother Vickie Diaz will be appearing in FCW this weekend.

The Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers should be appearing on this week’s episode of Smackdown, which oddly enough takes place in Green Bay. I wonder if Alberto Del Rio will challenge Aaron Rodgers for his championship belt. WWE has publicly said that they are trying to get Rodgers to make an appearance on Smackdown this week. The schedule of a Super Bowl MVP is pretty hectic the week after, but I don’t think they’d make that public unless they were pretty sure he was showing up.

Speaking of Rodgers’ belt, Ric Flair was on ESPN News on Monday and said that he contacted WWE and had them make belts for Rodgers & Kevin Greene, a former WCW main eventer that’s currently on the Packers coaching staff. Well, he doesn’t seem to be on the best of terms with TNA management these days, so I guess he had to ask somebody.

Justin Bieber is in talks to appear at WrestleMania. Is it just me or is has he actually kind of been cool lately? He was good in the Church Lady sketch on Saturday Night Live, and his commercial with Ozzy Osbourne during the Super Bowl was pretty funny. I’m not a fan of the music, but the kid seems to understand business and is willing to go with the flow.

-Tonight’s beverage of choice is a 40 ounce Miller Lite. I was told there wouldn’t be alcohol at the Super Bowl party I was going to and should bring my own, but the person that told me that was ill-informed. So, I gotta get rid of this thing.

-Raw is in Milwaukee, so I represent with some Miller Lite. Nice.

-And here comes Mr. McMahon! 40 ounces might not be enough, folks.

-That head shaving at WrestleMania 23 was a bad idea for Vince, his hair’s just never been the same since.

-A WrestleMania guest host will be revealed next week. He came back to announce that? It better be good.

-Randy Orton comes out and talks about CM Punk. Vince leaves, remembering the time he got punted. I don’t think Randy remembers it because of the IED.

-Punk cost Orton the title at the Rumble because Legacy attacked Punk at Unforgiven 2008 and forced him to forfeit the World title. So somebody around here actually has a memory.

-I miss Maria.

-New Nexus attacks! The numbers game comes into play. I hate that I’ve gotten used to hearing that.

-Punk has some blood coming out of his nose after a shot from Orton. Orton’s had people fired for less.

-How come there were no commercials for The Chaperone during the Super Bowl? I’m pretty sure every other movie coming out in the next six months had one.

-Was it the head butt or the boot that got Punk? The replay proves inconclusive.

-Yeah, Mason Ryan should have gotten the Batista tattoos. They probably would have pushed him right into the main event.

-R-Truth is usually the worst live rapper I hear every week. He isn’t this week.

-Green Bay? I take back my last comment.

-Truth gets a “Milwaukee” chant. Mason Ryan may become the biggest face in the company if he wins here.

-Stretch Muffler/Brock Lock! Nice finish, Mason!

-I think the referee’s going to reverse the decision. I don’t think Mason cares.

-The fans chant “Milwaukee”. Maybe R-Truth should party after the show instead of before.

-Punk approves of Ryan’s actions. He implores McGillicutty & Otunga to hurt people. I think he’s asking the two wrong people to do that, at least on purpose anyway.

-Punk must be the smartest person in this company, because he knows that if his opponents get too injured they’ll be replaced.

-6 Diva Tag Team Match! I forget how many Divas they have on the roster sometimes.

-The match was pretty much what I expected, but the commentary was even worse. Way to put over the action and what you’ve got scheduled for next week, Cole.

-I still say 2.22.11 is Undertaker.

-Long video hyping the Chamber means I can work on the rest of the column!

-Morrison showing some fire. Too bad he can’t kick anybody’s ass.

-I think he mostly hit that Starship Pain. He bounced off McGillicutty, but the original landing was on him.

-Punk with some hairspray to the face of Morrison! Obviously he remembers how much it sucked when Prince Nana did it to him back in 2005.

-Miz is excited about Jerry Lawler being the #1 contender. Who isn’t?

-Miz claims he patterned his career after the King! He’s a modern-day Jerry “The King” Lawler!

-Lawler disagrees. He also gets the name of the town right.

-Good promo segment there, Miz & Lawler had a good back & forth going there as you’d expect from a legendary talker and a guy that isn‘t bad in 2011. After some extra-curricular activity with Riley, Ted DiBiase & Daniel Bryan, we get Miz/DiBiase vs. Lawler/Bryan!

-Whoever thought you’d see a Jerry Lawler/Daniel Bryan tag team? I sure didn’t!

-Hey, Maryse is still at Teddy’s side! Good for him!

-Alex Riley guarantees that Miz will beat Jerry Lawler at Elimination Chamber. Brother’s going out on a limb there.

-DOWN COMES THE STRAP! FISTDROP! 3 COUNT!

-One King just won, let’s see if King Sheamus can follow in his footsteps.

-Josh Mathews runs down to tell Sheamus that Mark Henry said that he doesn’t deserve to be in the Elimination Chamber. Sheamus runs Henry down. I have difficulty believing that Mizark said such a thing, something tells me that somebody’s stirring the pot here.

-And wouldn’t you know it, here comes Henry to fight Sheamus while David Otunga steps aside. Smart.

-And Henry beats Sheamus down! I don’t like Sheamus’s chances of getting Triple H at WrestleMania if he’s getting squashed by Mark Henry.

-ALBERTO DEL RIO~!

-What a ride! One has to wonder what the heck ADR’s going to drive into WrestleMania considering the awesome cars he’s had so far. Can he keep topping himself?

-Alberto vs. Santino! Santino was the last man ADR had to eliminate, so this could be a dangerous matchup for him.

-Best Santino match ever? Absolutely. That was a good piece of business right there, Santino looked pretty good in there and Alberto looked like a million bucks. But you already knew that.

-It should be noted that I am biased towards anything involving ADR. But you already knew that.

-Random MMA thought: How did I not know that Steven Seagal was tight with Anderson Silva? My opinion of Anderson increases ten-fold with this knowledge.

-So Smackdown has been #1 on SyFy every week since it premiered on the network. WWE acts like that’s a big deal, but have you ever seen some of the other stuff they air on that channel? They were airing a movie called Titanic 2 on Sunday night! We saw the last ten minutes of it after giving up on Glee after about five minutes, and it felt longer than the Black Eyed Peas halftime show! Brutal! Then they showed a movie afterwards that I forget the name of, but it might have been even worse! Not to mention whatever the heck that movie with Debbie Gibson & Tiffany was supposed to be. There’s just some bad stuff on that channel.

-Yeah, I decided to write about that instead of listen to Vickie Guerrero (w/Dolph Ziggler). I’m sure whatever she said was important.

-Cole complains about Cena saying the same thing every week. I don’t remember him leading off with a discussion about R-Truth’s drinking habits before, but maybe I missed that week.

-Why would the acting general manager of Smackdown get respect on Raw? Does the manager at Wendy’s get a discount at Burger King?

-Yelling “Go Pack Go” makes Vickie & Dolph go away. I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.

-Cena & Punk have some pretty good in-ring chemistry.

-Cena with a low blow after the referee threatens to DQ him! Well that’s kind of asking for it, right?

-Lawler hands Cena a chair so he can take care of Otunga & McGillicutty! I think the flaw in their plan was having Ryan check on Punk instead of one of the others.

-I think I like the 40 during Raw better than drinking bourbon/diet through the show. It lasted the whole show and I didn’t have to go make any more drinks. Much more convenient.

-Yup, that’s my overall thoughts on the show.

Mike Mooneyham, a longtime wrestling journalist, had a different version of Ric Flair’s European Vacation on the Ringside Rap radio show. Mooneyham claims that Flair (along with many other wrestlers) is owed a large amount of money by TNA and was asking for an advance on money that they already owed him. He didn’t bring a lot of money with him overseas and spent $10,000 to have his current wife make the trip with him. Flair apparently missed the show in Berlin on principle, because he felt disrespected. When he signed with TNA, he expected the “Ric Flair Treatment”…whatever that means.

Mooneyham thinks Flair has gotten a bad rap from people on this story, and also says that contrary to what other sources have said, Kurt Angle was not allowed to go home from the European tour immediately once he found out his wife went into labor. He said Kurt had to wait two days until being allowed to go home after his wife gave birth. It had previously been reported that Kurt was allowed to go home right when they found out about his situation, and publicly Kurt has been nothing but grateful to TNA’s treatment of the situation.

Mooneyham’s report on this story, whether it jibes with everybody else’s reporting or not, is important because it has more insight into what Ric Flair is thinking than the previous reports. Until this point we’d only heard TNA Management’s side of things. As the old saying goes, there’s three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. Now we know why Flair did what he did in Europe, or at least his take on it. The main thing working against him, and why he’s getting a bad rap from people like your humble correspondent, is that it isn’t the first time he’s thrown a fit over wanting more money out of a promoter. I’m sure Flair has his side to those stories too, but past behavior is generally a good indicator for future behavior, especially when it comes to people in their 60s because it’s tougher to change the further along you are in life.

As usual, we here at the Corner will keep you posted with the latest developments, claims and accusations from both sides, whether they are factual or not.

Speaking of Kurt, he’s been using his tweeter account to complain about Jeff & Karen Jarrett parading his children around on television. I see nothing that suggests this is anything other than some good ol’ fashioned e-fedding. Angle’s contract does expire in August, and he said on a radio show that while he plans on staying with TNA and is happy to be there, he will keep his options open. Because it wouldn’t be a year without some Kurt Angle contract drama, right?

Maybe there won’t be, as now Kurt’s talking about having TNA work with a movie production company he’s involved with to create TNA Films. Of all the things that TNA could take from WWE…a film company? Really? I’ve heard about some of the movies Kurt’s been in since starting his company, and they make the SyFy films I was making fun earlier of sound like good ideas. Let’s hope this never gets off the ground floor, or they just might shut Hollywood down.

Jeff Hardy was reportedly set to win the TNA title on last week’s Impact, but they decided against that because his court case hasn’t been settled yet. I believe this mostly because Mr. Anderson still has that stupid purple belt and I can’t imagine any long-term champion other than Hardy wanting to carry it around with them. Well, maybe Orlando Jordan, but he wouldn’t get a long title run because the company would close before that would happen.

Christopher Daniels has returned to TNA, and will be working under the Suicide gimmick for the foreseeable future. There’s talk that he could reprise his Curry Man persona at a later date. Daniels will also continue his work with ROH until his contract there expires. I figured it would only be a matter of time before Daniels came back to TNA, so this doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me. Yes, he has been misused for the lion’s share of his time in TNA, but the man has a family to support. WWE’s policy these days is not to hire guys approaching their 40th birthday, so TNA is the best place for him to make money in pro wrestling.

One wonders whether this means that TNA & ROH will be sharing talent on a more regular basis again. They stopped that arrangement back when ROH started doing their PPVs in 2007, but ROH now only does iPPV and their TV deal with HDNet is set to expire in April. Maybe guys like El Generico & TJ Perkins who have been rumored to be heading to TNA will be allowed to work both promotions. Of course, this largely depends on what ROH’s future plans entail, and if TNA will be cool with sharing their talent with a potential competitor.

In case you’re wondering why Tommy Dreamer hasn’t been on TV lately, it’s because creative has nothing for him. To be fair to TNA creative, Tommy’s run into this same problem within months of signing with every promotion he’s ever been with except the original ECW.

Chelsea has been removed from the TNA roster page. For those of you struggling to remember Chelsea, she was the woman by the side of Desmond Wolfe several months ago. The last time Wolfe was mentioned on television, Brutus Magnus said that Desmond had gotten rid of his woman problems and would be back in TNA soon. Englishmen have an interesting definition of the word “soon”.

Several months ago there was a report that Miss Tessmacher was working at a Hooters restaurant in Houston, Texas. The most recent update on that is that Tessie was only working there so she could enter a Hooters waitress bikini contest. She apparently won a “Hot Body” contest recently. This explains why none of the girls that work at my local Hooters look like the girls in the Hooters calendars or the girls they have on that annual swimsuit pageant show. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fantastic people, but nothing like what you see on TV.

This section wouldn’t be complete without a Divina Fly update. The latest scuttlebutt is that she’s the lady that’ll be appearing on Impact next week as Rosita, the cousin of Sarita. Bad names aside, this teaming is something that I wouldn’t mind getting behind.

Bruno Sammartino will be in Atlanta on WrestleMania Sunday, but unless hell freezes over he probably won’t be at the Georgia Dome. He’ll be at an event that WrestleReunion is holding on April 3 at the Downtown Marriott from 9AM to 5PM. They’re calling it the “Curtain Call For Bruno”, as this will apparently be Bruno’s last public appearance outside the Pittsburgh area. I’m not sure if that means that his health has gone downhill or if he just doesn’t feel like traveling anymore. OR MAYBE HE’LL BE SIGNING A WWE LEGENDS CONTRACT~! OMGLOLWTF?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111

OK, it’s probably not the third option. He is 75 years old, so there’s no real need for him to be traveling all over the country.

Shawn Michaels will be appearing with British-based 1PW in October. Shawn will appear at three events in England, and will be part of a four-day tour of Dubai. Boy, I hope Shawn gets his money up front on this one, because this just sounds all sorts of sketchy to me and there have been reports in the past of 1PW not being the best at paying people. Hopefully they’ve gotten their stuff together and this is all on the up and up.

The video below featuring the Osirian Portal became an Internet sensation last week:

On the scale of “ridiculous indy spots”, I think it falls below when everybody was incorporating Michael Jackson tribute spots into their matches right after his death. It’ll be interesting to see if becoming a YouTube hit can translate into becoming a drawing card on the indy circuit. It got Kimbo Slice on some televised MMA cards, so I guess it’s possible.

Ari talks about John Morrison. I must have missed his run in ROH.

Ramirez talks about famous non-Mexican luchadores. I had no idea JBL ever worked a Vampiro ripoff gimmick, so that was fun to learn about.

Turns out The Triple Threat was not “They”. Maybe next time.

JD Dunn is recapping wrestling PPVs again, at least for now. “The penguin from Happy Feet”…good stuff.

Hubbard says that Umaga should have been laid to rest at WrestleMania. I liked Umaga ok, but I think a funeral probably would have killed the mood of the show.

The Rs were a lot kinder to Impact than I would have been. I’m just sayin’.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week. Join us next week for more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…