News From Cook’s Corner 03.15.11

Like many of you, I wasn’t happy with Colin’s comments at the time and dismissed him as somebody who’s opinions I didn’t need to pay attention to. A few years later I ended up listening to his radio show because there was literally nothing else on the radio other than the same songs I‘d heard hundreds of time before & political talk shows screaming gloom & doom and inciting fear in the unwashed masses. Turned out the guy had some pretty interesting opinions and I actually found myself agreeing with some of them. He’s very good at what he does, and I’m not going to hold his opinion on wrestling fans against him.

I wouldn’t like very many people if I judged them based on what they’d say if you asked them about wrestling.

And Buffalo Wild Wing’s waitresses are much hotter. Trust me, I’m sleeping with one. – Jamie

I hope it’s not the one I’m currently crushing on. That’d be awkward.

Why on earth would Michelle beadle want to work for the WWE. That would be a terrible career choice for sports journalist.

these guys are struggling to find work after they left the WWE. – Huh?

I agree with your name. Coach regularly appears on weekend editions of SportsCenter on ESPN and also shows up on some of their NBA coverage. From all accounts ESPN seems happy with his work and he’s happy to be there. Grisham is still with WWE. It might not seem like it since he’s on NXT and just interviewing people on Smackdown, but the guy still has a job. As for Sean Mooney, he is working with Fox Sports Arizona. It ain’t the most high-profile gig out there, but it’s something.

Also, Michelle Beadle is Michelle Beadle, and that helps her cause.

“-I hate to see perfectly good beer wasted on Michael Cole, but what the hell?”

Don’t worry, it wasn’t perfectly good beer. It was Keystone Light. – HeartBurnKid

Fair enough. Keystone’s something you drink if you’re really low on cash. I can’t think of many other reasons, though I did like their Bitter Beer Face commercials back in the day.

I think from what happened on Raw with Christian getting beat up by ARD and Edge not helping him makes it look like Christian will turn on Edge in the future. One thought I have is maybe if he wins MITB(if they even have one at WM) then he might cash it in after the world title match against the winner, and if it’s Edge then he can win the title and have a slow heel turn like Punk did when he cashed in his MITB on Hardy.

I have a question about Reby Sky, do she know you use her in this column? I mean I like that you do and even if you don’t know her, I understand having her in the column each because she is very hot. I just wanted to know because it seems like you might know her, have you actually met or talked to her before and does she know you put her pictures in your column? – Still Guest#8287

I know Christian’s fans are probably skeptical that he’ll get a push. After all, it always seems like just when he’s about to get a big push on one of the big shows, he doesn’t. After awhile it’s tough to keep the dream alive. But I have a feeling that Captain Charisma’s involvement in this angle will lead to something big for him. I have no idea what, but it seems like it’s coming.

As for your question, answering that would spoil my plans for my retirement angle.

We’ll wrap up this section of the column with a funny video that 411 reader Pedro sent me.

I think it’s pretty catchy.

And now, the fake news!

Here is at least part of the cast of Tough Enough for your reading pleasure:

-Rima Fakih (Miss USA)
-Matt Cross (M-Dogg 20, veteran of ROH and countless indies)
-Jason Watts (California indy talent)
-Juliet the Huntress (blonde who’s worked in WWC & Chicago-area indies)
-Christina Crawford (Sister of Alicia Fox, had been in FCW until recently…oddly enough, the scuttlebutt was that people were happy she left because she created a fair share of drama. That could make her good on this show.)
-Bobby Robinson (worked indies in Maine, was an Alberto Del Rio man-servant on Smackdown)
-Andy Leavine (was in FCW as Kevin Hackman, this explains why he disappeared from there)
-Mickael Saki (Tae Kwon Do specialist with indy wrestling experience)
-Tristan Gallo (Utah-area wrestler who works a bodybuilder-type gimmick)

WWE was originally unhappy with the Tough Enough contestants that were picked by Shed Media & USA Network officials. Their main complaint was there were too many indy wrestlers, as they wanted more models and things like that. I agree with WWE on the point that having a bunch of indy people on Tough Enough isn’t a great idea. The whole point of TE back in the day was to bring in a bunch of people with no wrestling experience and have people teaching them how to do it. It’s like how the more entertaining Dancing With The Stars contestants are the ones that don’t have lots of dance experience. If they brought in Austin Aries and he was rolling his eyes at Trish Stratus teaching him how to do a body slam, it would have defeated the purpose of the show. Although, now that I think about it, it’d be kind of funny if that was what they went with.

I will say that this cast isn’t really doing a lot for me. I like Matt Cross ok, but I’ve never really been compelled to watch him. Really, the only contestant on this thing that interests me is Rima Fakih. Really hot chick, wrestling fan for life, has never wrestled? Sounds like good TV to me.

Has King Sheamus renounced his throne? The Celtic Warrior ditched the crown and cape last week on Raw, and didn’t have the attire or name this weekend at the house shows. This either means that they figured out that the big green cape makes him look like a dope, or his entrance attire got lost in baggage claim. That happens sometimes.

Sheamus will be appearing on the cover of Muscle & Fitness, and there will be an article on his training schedule. Something tells me his push will be picking back up real soon.

The Miz re-hired Alex Riley as his apprentice on a Raw house show in Wichita, Kansas last Saturday night. They teamed in a losing effort against John Cena & Randy Orton. I’m not sure if it was anything other than something to explain the main event match involving a guy that doesn’t have a job anymore, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Riley back on Raw soon in some capacity. With Kevin Kelly gone, The Rock will need somebody else to call a hermaphrodite.

Drew Carey will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. I’m a little surprised that Bob Barker didn’t enter the Hall before his Price Is Right replacement did, but Carey does have a Royal Rumble appearance to his credit. I’m guessing Carey will either be inducted by Barker or his fellow Clevelander, The Miz.

Melina celebrated her birthday last week by getting kicked out of Skybar with John Morrison when they decided to jump into the pool. Apparently that’s against the rules, though, as Morrison noted in a tweet about the incident, one does have to wonder why Skybar has a pool if nobody is allowed to swim in it. That’s just asking for trouble, isn’t it? Anyway, something tells me that this type of behavior isn’t going to get them in the good graces of WWE Management…though I can think of at least one wrestling promotion that is all about that sort of thing and loves having ex-WWE people show up and talk about how they were so mistreated because they weren’t handed the world on a silver platter. Heck, if you act like an idiot in public they’ll push you to the moon.

Speaking of birthdays, Mae Young turned 88 last week. I wouldn’t be surprised if she jumped in a pool at Skybar.

-Rock gets punked out by a child dressed as John Cena. Nice!

-Kid can lay some rhymes.

-Aww, Rock made Kid Cena cry!

-Hustle, Loyalty, Respect, Fruity Pebbles!

-Nice dramatic music for the serious part.

-Rock will actually be on a Raw before WM? Stop the presses!

-Cole in a box! Haw!

-I wonder if The Miz was the first person ever to lie on Twitter.

-Miz cuts a pretty darn good promo. Not sure if he’s awesome yet, but he is getting closer by the week.

-Cole makes the mistake of leaving his box a lot earlier than I would have thought.

-Cena vs. Del Rio & Miz vs. Great Khali? Well, one of these matches should be much better than the other.

-Khali isn’t so bad in spurts. He’s gotten better at chopping and slapping the crap out of people.

-I also enjoy his usage of the skull claw. Shades of Crush back in 1992-93.

-Hey, it’s Alex Riley like I predicted earlier in the column!

-Miz wears Khali out with a chair. Khali’s immobility is his downfall once again.

-Cole demands that Miz give it to Khali. Whatever that means.

-Remember when people complained that Miz never got to look good? That’s sure changed in the last month.

-Cole’s going to expose Lawler’s true story to the world? Oh I hope he’s bringing out the King’s 21 year old girlfriend. Of course, that’d backfire on Cole & King would become a even bigger baby face.

-John Cena has five million Facebook fans. I’d settle for five fans.

-Glad “JOCKASS” wasn’t as obscure as I feared it was.

-Snooki slaps Vickie around & Dolph Ziggler is stylin’ and profilin’ like Ric Flair before he went insane. Which, from my calculations, was somewhere around 1985.

-Sheamus expresses surprise that Justin Roberts remembered his promo last week. To be fair, the guy’s been ignored a lot lately.

-Gotta love a 2-time WWE Champion that “has a lot of potential”.

-Should I get the Bryan comparison to James Franco?

-I think Josh didn’t get the memo on the “no more King” thing.

-And the US title goes to Ireland! I think they kind of spoiled that when they said Sheamus would be on a magazine cover.

-I wonder if he’ll have a big poster like Mr. McMahon did.

-Cole leaves his mine again. What’s the point of the box if he’s going to be out of it once every half hour?

-GRANDMASTER SEXAY!

-Dude can still dance.

-It is hard to believe that it took years for people to figure out he was Jerry’s kid.

-The King with a first-round verbal knockout!

-Christopher with a good showing here. You gotta wonder how much of that was something he’d been meaning to get off his chest for a long time.

-BOOMER SOONER? Business is about to pick up, by Gawd!

-A RAT BASTARD? Woah!

-JR vs. Cole? Well, not if Swagga has something to say about it!

-JR gave Swagger his start with WWE…no good deed goes unpunished.

-Cole with the ankle lock on JR! It’s Cole’s time!

-Well that was all sorts of unexpected.

-St. Louis likes them some Orton.

-I thought Mason Ryan had a chance of actually being at WrestleMania in Punk’s corner. Since this is in St. Louis, I expect him to win. WWE loves jobbing people out in their hometowns…somebody overheard that Kaitlyn was from Houston, so they let her appear on Smackdown so she could lose to Layla in a minute. That was odd.

-Well, there goes my talking point. I should know by now that Orton is immune to all traditional attempts by WWE to make people weak.

-I almost thought Orton wasn’t going to punt Ryan. Man, I am really off tonight for some reason.

-Maybe all the people Orton has punted lately will be on NXT Season 6.

-To be fair, Snooki’s been tolerable so far, but I say it’s because she was on for two minutes and Vickie Guerrero did most of the talking.

-I forgot to mention this during the Fairly Legal commercial earlier, but Fairly Legal Girl was on Jimmy Kimmel Live the other night, which was fortunate because it was the first time I’d seen any part of the show since I watched an episode that was randomly on before an NBA Finals game. She was wearing a white dress and I learned a lot about one of my future wives, so it’s worth sharing with you guys…

-I have no idea why a six minute interview can’t fit into one YouTube video, but that’s some good quality stuff right there.

-Did Drew Carey give CM Punk & Chris Hero the inspiration to wear black wind jackets for years on the indies? Now that’s a reason to put him in the HOF!

-And yes, anybody complaining about this needs to get a life…even if Drew is a Browns fan.

-I bet he’d do better in the Rumble now that he’s skinnier.

-Cole got played off by the Raw graphic & music.

-WOO WOO WOO

-Oh, Snooki would so hit that. I think Trish was giving him the eye too.

-The song Snooki walks out to is kind of catchy.

-I’m a little surprised she’s taller than the ropes. Not by much, but still.

-Trish has had a rough go of it since she came back. First she ripped off The Rock in a promo, and now she’s associating with Snooki.

-How come Vickie still has no entrance music?

-How come Snooki’s not on commentary? I’m sure she has a lot of wrestling knowledge to add to the proceedings.

-Also, how can Snooki steal Vickie’s spotlight when Vickie doesn’t even have a job?

-Yeah, I’m really over-thinking this.

-Vickie is a good person deep down inside. Must be really deep.

-Remember when there was a report going around that Trish had her implants removed? Either that was nonsense or she had them put back in. That would be awkward.

-Who throws a shoe? Really?

-And how did neither Cole or Josh use that line?

-Shoe to the butt!

-Nice dive by Morrison…oh yeah, this is no DQ so everybody can run in and help Vickie win.

-Are LayCool taking online pics? Poor Miz, he’s a Stolen Gimmick Victim.

-Layla making fun of short people is good comedy.

-A Snooki chant. Somewhere TNA Management is crying about how they couldn’t get the one person on Jersey Shore that’s over.

-OK, so Snooki wasn’t so bad and I was wrong about something for the first time in seven years. I still have no time for that show of hers.

-I think Morrison would fit in pretty well on the Shore.

-Also, Lou Thesz is rolling over in his grave because somebody named Snooki is using his Press.

-Are there words for how cool Sin Cara looks in these promo videos?

-10:58 and the main event isn’t close to starting. That’s always a good sign, right?

-Could you imagine John Cena showing up to an event under the influence? Absolutely not. Though it’d be pretty damn funny if he did.

-Cole claims that the Rock is here. Interesting.

-How come nobody told me this was a three-hour Raw?

-Oh…ALBERTO DEL RIO! Sorry, I was a little busy earlier.

-And he is looking good in here with Cena. Looks like a star. But is anybody surprised? Nah.

-How did we have big matches before the Yay/Boo spot?

-And there’s the run-in by Brodus Clay. Not a big fan, but you can’t have the first Cena/Del Rio match end cleanly.

-THE ROCK!

-Cole’s really excited for a guy that verbally knocked him out a few weeks ago.

-Hmm, something looks off with Rock tonight. I don’t remember him looking quite that constipated the last time I saw him.

-THUNK goes the microphone on Cena’s head. Shades of Magnum vs. Tully!

-I guess this one-sided feud thus far is supposed to make us think Miz can beat Cena at WrestleMania. Eh, I’m still not buying it. Call me cynical if you like.

-Huh, the WWE logo on the stage spins. Who knew?

-I wonder how long it took the live fans to figure out that wasn’t the Rock. Even though Rock’s probably got 50 pounds on Miz, the bald wig helped it look good.

-Interesting show this week with lots of wild stuff going on. I think the wildest thing was either Grandmaster Sexay making an appearance or Snooki not being terrible.

Victory Road’s main event match between Sting & Jeff Hardy lasted one minute and twenty-eight seconds. As one would imagine, this was not TNA’s original plan. The report going around is that Sting told TNA management before the match that he would not work a long match with Jeff if he was in no condition to perform. I found the match online and decided to watch the proceedings so I could have an informed opinion on the proceedings. Here’s a recap:

-Hardy emerges from the back 45 seconds into his theme song. He sways a bit down the ramp, nearly takes a nosedive walking up the steps, and enters the ring.

-Sting still has that stupid-looking belt.

-Hardy walks around the ring like he’s about to drop a deuce, then exits so Sting can have his moment in the ring.

-I will say that whoever painted Hardy’s face probably wasn’t under the influence because they did a decent job.

-Bischoff comes out to make it a No-DQ match. He takes a very long time to do this. Killing time? Probably.

-Hardy spends thirty seconds acting like he’s going to throw his t-shirt. Sting is none too impressed.

-Sting hits him off of a tieup, hits the Scorpion Death Drop and wins.

-Hardy gets right up after the pin. Way to put over Sting’s finisher.

-Sting celebrates half-heartedly at best before leaving the ring.

-Sting has the look of a man thinking “Why am I here?”

-Sting says “I agree” before leaving. I couldn’t make out what that was in response to.

There are a lot of questions that arise from all of this. Why did nobody backstage notice that Jeff was out of sorts? Was he ok earlier and got drugged up just before his match? Did TNA know he was out to lunch, let him go out there and hope that he got over it? Did they think that a one-minute match would be an acceptable event for a PPV? One thing that’s obvious is that Sting was absolutely peeved. Bischoff didn’t look too happy either, for the record. Jeff…well, Jeff looked like his usual self, except a little more out of it than he usually is.

TNA’s response on Monday was to hold Jeff off of this week’s set of Impact tapings. I don’t disagree with that move at all, it would have been insane to have him appearing in the Impact Zone the night after that debacle. We could have seen a justifiable homicide on this week’s Impact episode if the fans didn’t take kindly to what he did the night before. But I have a feeling that this isn’t the sort of thing that’s going to send Jeff the message he needs to receive. TNA needs to take drastic actions here to send Jeff a message, and much more importantly than that, send their customers the message that they care about them and want to put on shows worthy of peoples’ money.

They need to fire Jeff Hardy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Cook, you’ve never liked Jeff Hardy or anything associated with him since you started writing at 411.” Longtime readers just may remember how I referred to him in FSN-era Impact recaps as the “Charismatic Enema”. These are facts. Frankly, I’ve never been much of a Hardys fan. Back when they were kicking ass and taking names in those TLC matches, my support was with the Dudley Boyz because I loved them in ECW. Edge & Christian were my second choice because I thought they had star potential. It wasn’t anything personal…at least until I got freaked out by the Hardy Boyz fans in my high school. The boys would wear their silly tight t-shirts, and the girls were so fanatic in their devotion that you couldn’t talk to them without them going nuts. Not that you’d really want to talk to them, they weren’t exactly the cheerleaders & straight-A students of the class, but still.

But none of this has anything to do with Jeff Hardy or his status as a member of the TNA roster. I don’t wish Jeff any ill will, hopefully he overcomes this whole drug thing one of these days and becomes a positive influence on society. I don’t think sending him home is going to be enough to get him to change his ways, and I don’t think TNA should prolong the embarrassing publicity they’ve been getting by keeping him around no matter how much of a train wreck he becomes. The best thing TNA could do right now is to wash their hands of him and his tendency to screw up their plans.

Mind you, I don’t think that they will. I figure they’ll let him cool off for a few weeks, then he’ll come back and they’ll try and make some sort of an angle out of it. Either they’ll have Immortal bury him while he’s gone because he flaked out and couldn’t get the job done (might be the best option, actually), or he’ll be inserted as the big heel again. People will forget what he’s done, and life will go on as it usually does.

Or I could be wrong and TNA could grow a set and stop being content with being wrestling’s biggest punchline.

Hardy’s next hearing is on Wednesday, but I expect absolutely nothing to come of that. If the State of North Carolina was smart, they’d find some footage of this match and enter it as evidence in their case. I’m pretty well convinced that they’re not, so Jeff has nothing to worry about on this front.

There was some good news in TNA this week. Brian Kendrick appeared on The Price is Right! Video below:

Unfortunately WWE Hall of Famer Drew Carey didn’t seem to know that Kendrick had appeared on television. He did like Brian’s Seattle Sounders t-shirt. Interesting stuff, and it’s still weird to see Drew not being really, really fat.

Also, am I the only one surprised that a popcorn machine costs over three thousand dollars? The economy can’t be that bad if people are buying three thousand dollar popcorn machines.

OVW’s Matt Barela was the man who ran in from the crowd and tried to interfere in the Matt Morgan/Hernandez match at Victory Road. There’s two guys who are happy that Jeff took all the attention away from them, otherwise people would be ripping the horrendous finish to their match a lot more than they already are. Turns out it was only the third lamest finish of the evening.

Speaking of Hernandez, people backstage aren’t too thrilled with him these days. A main point of contention is his tendency to carelessly drop people on their heads, like when he Border Tossed Douglas Williams on his head on Impact a few weeks ago. I can see why people wouldn’t be happy about wrestling a big dude that drops people on their heads, and was named by Necro Butcher as the hardest hitter he’s ever been in the ring with. Let me just say for the record that I have no problem with Hernandez and am a huge fan. Indeed.

Honky Tonk Man says that Hulk Hogan is leaving TNA. Hulk says that Honky Tonk has no clue what he’s talking about. I guess this qualifies as news.

Kurt Angle says that he will be with TNA for life. Yeah, that’s what everybody said about the New World Order, and look how that turned out.

Late-breaking news right around the column deadline broke that Miss Tessmacher & Daffney had been removed from the TNA roster page. This may indicate their releases, but nothing is official as of this writing. If this is true, expect me to dedicate some time to each lady and their many contributions to wrestling in next week’s column.

I assume that “American Curves” is a magazine about winding roads.

Here’s an interesting story from the Memphis, Tennessee area. The Commercial Appeal printed an obituary on Thursday for the late Sam Ticer. The reason this warrants mention in my column is that the obituary stated that Ticer was “a professional wrestler for 13 years under the name of Stan Lane of the Best Tag Team ever to hit Memphis and Mid-South Coliseum as The Fabulous Ones with partner Steve Keirn.” Indeed, Sam had told Anna Marie Ticer that he was one-half of the Fabulous Ones.

This leads to all sorts of questions. First of all, how in the world did Anna remain married to Sam for twenty-four years without figuring out that he had never been a pro wrestler? That seems like something that’d be pretty easy to figure out even if you’re not a wrestling fan. She lived in the Memphis area too, obviously if Stan Lane was living there with her some people on the street would have recognized him and asked for an autograph or something. It’s not like they were living in Bolivia where nobody would know the guy.

Secondly, why did Sam think it was a good idea to tell Anna that he was a famous professional wrestler? Obviously, if she never noticed his little fib until now, it didn’t have much of an effect on her.

Then again, if people actually buy into this stuff, I think I’ll start telling the ladies that I used to be a pro wrestler. That’s right, they called me the Shockmaster. That’d impress people, right?

In the big picture, it wasn’t really a big deal. Stan Lane is still alive, and he got a little media attention out of it. You kind of feel bad for the woman who’s mourning her husband and then finds out that he wasn’t everything he said he was. Hopefully that’s the only thing he was lying about.

I wasn’t sure whether this qualified as a WWE or TNA story, so it winds up here…Ric Flair was unable to make an appearance at a World League Wrestling show in Eldon, Missouri on Saturday night. His flight on Saturday morning was cancelled, and for whatever reason he didn’t make any later flights. Maybe he doesn’t like hanging around airports forever. The show was put on by Harley Race, and they had advertised Flair’s appearance for an autograph session in advance. Ted DiBiase Jr. showed up in Flair’s place, driving 300 miles and missing a Raw house show (with the blessing of WWE) to do so. Kind of surprising that Flair would miss a show for a guy that he has so much respect for, but maybe there was a good reason for it.

Yes, I know it can be tough to think there’s a good reason for most of the things that Ric Flair has done over the past few years, but we here at the Corner always give people the benefit of the doubt. We’re sure he has a perfectly good reason for blowing off the guy who made him an NWA Champion.

Shane Helms was given a citation from police at a bar called “The Rehab” (nice) on Sunday night after getting involved in an altercation. Apparently things got heated when Kevin Wayne Creech, who was also arrested for his role, touched Helms’ girlfriend. I had a good joke about how he got jealous because his buddy Jeff Hardy was getting all the negative attention ready to go, but it turns out this happened before Hardy pulled his act at Victory Road.

And honestly, there’s nothing I can come up with that’s funnier than the fact that Helms was at a bar called “The Rehab”. What’s next door, “The Betty Ford”?

Tough luck for Stevie Richards this week. He managed to pitch a perfect game on the MLB2K11 video game, and since they’re doing a contest where the first person to pitch a perfect game wins a million dollars, he thought that he was going to win the big prize. Unfortunately for him, the contest doesn’t begin until April 1st…if it starts at all. Come on, a contest that starts on April 1st? It has to be a joke, right?

The Rs featured the legendary Tony Acero filling in for your humble correspondent. Good work, kid, and I would love to work a match with Layla like you alluded to in the column.

This NWA Championship Wrestling from Hollywood thing that Harrison reviews is starting to sound interesting due to the new NWA Champion, Skullkrusher Rasche Brown, and Buggy. I need to get De Marco or somebody to explain the name “Buggy”. Is she a recreational vehicle?

Hubbard lists the top ten WWE high flyers. He shouldn’t let his readers get him down.

WOTW was all over the map this week.

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