News From Cook’s Corner 09.27.11

This is the part where I would talk about The Office, but a British fan recommended that I not do that because they don’t get the show until later. I was rather surprised by this because the British people I know look down on the American version of the show. I admit that the British version is one of the greatest television shows ever and doesn’t have any flaws that I can think of off the top of my head, but I think the U.S. version has done very well under different circumstances. And they’ve added James Spader to the cast this year, which is totally awesome because he’s one of my favorite actors ever. So I’m pretty excited about this season and the first episode did nothing to dissuade my enthusiasm.

I hope you all are having a good week, and if you aren’t, hopefully my column can make things better for a few minutes or so. That’s what we’re all about here at the Corner, making people forget about their problems! We’re also about hot chicks & Cody Rhodes.

Even though the 411 on Wrestling went almost three hours this week, there were some issues I wanted to address that I didn’t get the chance to. Normally I wouldn’t worry too much about this because Larry Csonka is the draw of the program and everybody tunes in to listen to what he has to say, but there were some requests made and some business that I needed to talk about.

Besides, as somebody once reminded me during a conversation where I was questioning my importance to the show, I’m the Steve Cook. I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but it sounded really nice and it’s something I remind myself of when I’m feeling down. That sounds really sappy, but I don’t care. I get a little sappy once a month or so.

I think Steve Cook owes the 411 Community an apology. – Guest#2307

This comment appeared on 411 Friday, and I had no idea what it meant. What in the world had I done to anger the Community? Did I need to apologize to Alison Brie for not recognizing her beauty earlier? I asked my buddies on Facebook and these were some of the answers I got:

Scott Rutherford: Being a drunkard?

I don’t know where people get this idea that I’m a raging alcoholic from. Just because it runs in the family and I often drink a little bourbon or a beer while writing my column or appearing on a podcast doesn’t make me a “drunkard”. I think it makes me a “Kentuckian”.

Dan Papp: You know what you did, mister.

Actually, I didn’t & that’s why I asked. Don’t you hate it when somebody’s mad at you and you ask them why and they won’t tell you? People should really be more upfront about these things, even if it leads to arguments & hurt feelings. Of course, if I was less upfront I’d probably have more friends. Such is life.

Dustin James: Winning the 411 MMA Fact or Fiction tournament? HAYO! 🙂

Oh, we will get to that later, as another thing I didn’t get a chance to do on the show was brag about winning the tournament. Don’t worry, I plan on being completely unbearable about it until the next tournament is held and I have to retain my title. They say it’s harder to stay on top than it is to get there, and I guess I’ll find out if that’s true. Until then, I shall enjoy being The Champ.

Trent Howell: I want to know why you are two of the top five stories on my facebook.

This whole “Facebook changing” thing kind of scares me, and it’s played a role in me taking a more active interest in my Twitter account that I share with Trent. We use it mainly to follow various football people so we can get news for The Offtheteam.com Fantasy Football Podcast. I always thought it was weird when I saw husbands & wives sharing social network accounts, but now I share one with my fantasy football podcasting partner and I don’t think anything of it. I just have to make sure I don’t do anything too silly that can come back to haunt me if Trent & I have a falling-out. You can follow us @OTT_FF…expect me to be plugging all of my stuff there along with intermittent football takes. If this goes well, I may have my own Twitter one of these days. We’ll see.

Chris Remington: Your continued love for U of L sports

I will never apologize for loving the #1 college football program in the Commonwealth.

Justin Christopher Wile: Steve, here is a slight list of things I would like you to apologize for: Carson Palmer not coming back to the Bengals, Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis coming back to the Bengals, The Reds disappointing season, Benoit f’n up the Who killed McMahon angle, 411 posters who say Sami Callihan got surgery to lose all the weight (he lived with me while he lost it, I would know), TNA fans and WWE fans not seeing the good in each others product and focusing on negatives, and you not having me on FoF but letting Kirk have a go… Yeah, and the nation’s deficit woes. Thanks buddy.

I didn’t know people were making those accusations about Sami. I will say that the man was quite obese when I first saw him a few years back, then the next time I saw him he looked like a totally different person. The dude’s definitely dedicated…furthermore, I don’t know why people would think he’d have the money to afford that type of surgery. Indy wrestling doesn’t pay people that well.

I can’t take credit or blame for most of the things you listed except for the Reds’ disappointing season, as my sports teams tend to screw the pooch whenever I say I have high hopes for them. It’s best to keep hopes low so I’ll be pleasantly surprised when they do well, like Louisville men’s basketball last season. I expected nothing from them and they had a quality season up until the Morehead State debacle. Clearly I can’t be blamed for Mike Brown’s insanity.

However, it seems that the people do blame me for the existence of one of the Fact or Fiction competitors last week. To be specific: Wes Kirk. I have addressed this issue in the past and people are not letting it go. He does very good numbers for a weekend column, there’s a high percentage of readers commenting on it and generating more hits, and people won’t stop talking about him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to apologize for here.

The weirdest part of all this is that I’m actually getting complaints about Wes from people in the wrestling business. You’d think they more than anybody would appreciate what he’s trying to do.

Youd think a medic would check on winter when she is spitting up so much blood….but nope we check the person it gets spit on. TNA logic right there. – Guest#7086

I don’t think Winter’s even treatable by normal doctors. After all, she is a time-traveling lesbian vampire.

I don’t mind the Muppets hosting an episode of RAW. If Kermit The Frog, Alex Riley and Mason Ryan team up for a rendition of “It Ain’t Easy Being Green”, consider me sold. – Nick M.

That’s just not nice.

Geez, in my Omega fantasy league we don’t even have points for speeding tickets. My season is tanking because of you Reby! – Guest#9924

I can only assume business picked up later in the week when she complained about the police being mean to her. There’s a column idea in here somewhere…if Grantland can have mock drafts based around bad quarterbacks, surely there can be a mock draft for an Omega fantasy league. You’d get 6 points per arrest, 3 points per car accident, DUI or other automobile-type arrest, 2 points per continuance, 1 point per tweet blaming the dirt sheets or somebody other than them for their problems…and I’m sure that’d be the tip of the iceberg. 10 points per rehab stint? 15 points for leaving early? 5 points per YouTube video? I dunno, but I think there’s potential here.

You forgot to mention that Velvet Sky’s fans are trying to get her on Dancing with the Stars. Has TNA’s approval too, for whatever that is worth. – Guest#8447

I’m sure they would approve, as Velvet appearing on DWTS would be the biggest boon for them since the Hulk Hogan signing. I don’t know if she has much of a chance on making it on the show, but I sure wouldn’t mind if she was. Hey, the chick’s hot.

It’s tough for me to judge who these celebrity shows would be interested in because my idea of a celebrity is way off from everybody else’s. I don’t consider MTV reality show people celebrities, but people do. I don’t consider transgendered sons/daughters of famous people celebrities, but people do. Do most of the people that make up DWTS’s audience know who Velvet Sky is, or anybody else in TNA outside of Hogan or Flair for that matter? Do they know people in WWE outside of John Cena & all the Attitude Era guys? I’m kind of thinking that they don’t, but you guys know by now that my opinions are usually nowhere near the opinions of the American people. I am gloriously out of touch.

There is a reason why I hate Cena winning the title and it has nothing to do with John Cena the person. The WWE wants Cena to be their main superstar, and everybody knows he is. He is this generations Hulk Hogan and that is the problem. I’m not saying Cena can’t hold the title or fight for the title, but it seems like he rarely is out of the world tile scene. I get he wants the title, but he should have more non title feuds. Then in his feuds(title or not) he needs to lose matches. ADR could have gotten a big win over Cena in his 1st PPV title defense and he loses. I’m just sick of seeing him on top all the time, and recently he hasn’t really made his opponents look great in defeat. The WWE needs to know that they need to build up more stars and using Cena in a big feud where he loses would do that. Cena is ALWAYS going to be over and could lose for a month straight and it would do almost no damage to his character. This isn’t an attack on the person because he is a nice guy and does a lot of great charity work. It’s that he wins almost every match and it sucks. I mean could you imagine what would happen to a Swagger or Ziggler or ADR if they could cleanly beat Cena on PPV? That would be huge for their careers. When Cena beats them on PPV clean it doesn’t do much. His big star power needs to help put over new stars, not beat everybody in his way. Especially if something happens to Cena, what do you do? If he has a serious injury and out for 6 months to a year you need new stars to carry the show. – Still Guest#8287

Unfortunately, if Swagger or Zigler managed to beat Cena on PPV, Cena would get the win back either on TV or the next PPV. They don’t seem to like using him to get other people over, to the point where even if he puts somebody like CM Punk or The Miz over it doesn’t give them that big a bump up because people figure Cena will beat them the next time they’re in the ring. The predictability of WWE 95% of the time is a big factor in why they aren’t doing as well as they’d like, but they make things even more predictable when they’re in trouble because they think Cena (and maybe Orton) is the only guy people want to see and they’re obviously tuning out because somebody else is the champion.

The perfect muppets for raw would be the 2 old guy who sat in the theatre balcony and bitched about everything (can’t remember their names right now)…you should at least try to book them for the podcast, Cook. – El Jefe

Waldorf & Statler are their names, and this thing will be a gigantic disappointment if they don’t appear on Raw. No Muppets are more suitable for an appearance on a wrestling show than two grumpy old farts sitting in a balcony and crapping on everybody. I had a pretty awesome idea for Raw a few years back where commentary would be provided by Alan Shore & Denny Crane while sitting in a balcony above the ring. We eventually got Denny on Raw, but sadly Alan wasn’t with him as he’d moved on to trying to complete his life-long goal of running a paper company. It’s important to have goals in life, Jefe.

Linda McMahon=Gatewood Galbraith. – Guest#5559

At least Gatewood has some unique ideas that nobody else in the political arena will take credit for. You don’t see Steve Beshear or David Williams recommending that marijuana be legalized…maybe Williams should because it’s not like his poll numbers could get a whole lot worse at this point. His running mate Richie Farmer picked a fine time to get a divorce, didn’t he? That sort of thing doesn’t play well with the conservative Kentucky voter. Also in Gatewood’s favor over Linda is the fact that he doesn’t flush 40 million dollars down the toilet every time he wants to run for office. But I would agree that they have the same chance of getting elected.

I’m confused…I’ve been seeing Miss Piggy on WWE programming for several years now….Ooooo, wait….that was Vickie Guerrero! – Andre The Midget

Well, you know a Piggy/Vickie segment will be happening. I think Vickie’s character was largely based on Miss Piggy, and there was a time when they were comparable in look, but now that Vickie’s lost 50 pounds and looks stunning, their similarities are limited to their personalities.

Steve Cook, when will people realize that Lucha Libre will NEVER be popular in the United States? Lucha Libres USA will not be successful because American fans just do not care about it. Am I right?

With Jeff Katz, he is already begging his non-existent viewers for $1 donations. Wrestling Revolution will go the way of Wrestling SOciety X…Yeah, I don’t remember them either! – Joey Ramone

What, do you not want them to succeed? You want less wrestling on tv or something? Why exactly are you on a wrestling website if you hate wrestling so much?

I watched LLUSA, and will continue because I enjoy it. I also enjoyed WSX (Hell, I’ve got the DVD set). I’m sure I’ll enjoy Jeff Katz’s thingy. See, I’m a wrestling fan, and as long as the show isn’t annoying or insulting, I’ll be watching. – G-Walla

Yeah, man. Wrestling is wrestling and I’m all for seeing more of it on TV. I just found out the other night that the America One network is airing two wrestling shows I’d never heard of: Showtime All-Star Wrestling & WFX Overload Wrestling. Unfortunately they air these shows from 9-11 PM on Friday night in direct competition with the second hour of Smack Down & the first hour of the 411 on Wrestling, otherwise I would have checked these shows out and saw if they were worth watching. Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but I’m always interested in new wrestling shows.

It also doesn’t bother me whether other people like things that I like or not. But that’s just me.

To clarify the whole “Jeff Katz is taking donations” thing…he already did that. He apparently raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter, which surprised the hell out of me because I didn’t see it going anywhere the first time I saw his video asking for money. But, it got some interest and now they’re making progress towards producing a show very soon. I think that’s pretty damn cool. Will it work? I won’t know until I see the finished product, but I like most of the people they’re bringing in.

As far as www not letting the heel get over I think the reasons are mainly two fold. First www had always been about the dominant face champion defeating all comers going back go hogan and bruno sanmartino that is there preferred method. The problem is with the accelerated pace they end up hotshotting the belt so much that no one cares if censorship loses the belt because they have to book another title match in two weeks. The other main problem as has been documented is they don’t want the fans to get behind the wrestlers but the wwe machine which is why in my opinion they killed punk’s momentum and they have everyone look the same and have bland names and gimmicks. They want the roster to be interchangeable and for no one to really stand out. I mean I can’t imagine an arena full of people chanting Seth rollins while they inevitably give him a powerbomb or supped variation finisher that a million others have used. No credible heels and no incentive to get behind a character and organically make a star have led to a bland repetitive product but they really can only blame themselves. – Dusty

The dominant face champion thing worked wonders for them when it was Bruno or Hogan. Those guys had such a connection with the people that the fans never wanted to see them lose. Madison Square Garden went completely silent when Ivan Koloff beat Bruno for the title at the end of his eight year title reign…they couldn’t believe that their hero had actually lost. Hogan’s popularity is well-known. He had detractors as well, but not nearly as many as our current dominant face champion has. The problem WWE has right now is that John Cena’s fan base isn’t nearly as large or as dedicated as Hogan’s was, and it’s a lower percentage of the fan base. For all the kids that love John Cena and talk about never giving up, there’s a good number of people that have given up on WWE.

It’s tough to argue your points. WWE’s biggest enemy isn’t TNA, UFC or any other form of entertainment…it’s themselves.

Forget the muppets they need to bring in ALF, maybe he can eat one of Teddy Hart’s cats. – Guest#2080

I hope Teddy’s reading, because this is the only thing that could make his idea of cats interfering in wrestling matches even better. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first interaction ALF has had with the world of wrestling…remember those commercials he did for 10-10-220 with Hulk Hogan?

Ah, memories. And now, the fake news!

The preliminary SummerSlam buyrate is in, and WWE has to be hoping that it’s as far off as the Money in the Bank buyrate was (except reverse it from being too high to too low). The number is at 310,000, which would be the second-lowest SummerSlam buyrate in history beating out the 1996 edition that featured Shawn Michaels vs. Vader as the main event and was hampered by the fact that WCW had all the momentum going & WWF looked uber-stale by comparison. PPV buyrates going down are nothing new for WWE, but major shows like SummerSlam had managed to stay close to the same level as recent years until now.

Why did this happen? I think we all know the answer to that, and we all could have seen this coming a mile away…remember how they built this show? Or, how they didn’t build this show? Most of the attention was on the CM Punk angle, which people were already saying had lost steam by having him come back too soon to pop a SummerSlam buyrate. Considering that it didn’t even do that, WWE’s decision seems even sillier almost two months after the fact. They built Cena vs. Punk, booked Christian vs. Orton, and then there wasn’t a whole lot else they were focusing on. A Divas match & Sheamus vs. Mark Henry if I remember correctly. I like those people as much as anybody, but this was literally all they were hyping up for this PPV.

They expected people to buy it in droves because it was SummerSlam. At least, I think that was the reasoning here. The Punk angle was pretty hot at the time, but you have to keep in mind that angle was hot with the type of people that could find ways to watch the show without paying for it. I went to Buffalo Wild Wings. Others probably illegally downloaded it. Not to mention the people who’d already given up on the angle after he came back and it became business as usual. I wasn’t one of them, but I heard from plenty of you that were.

Ted DiBiase is looking for a posse. He’s gone to YouTube requesting that WWE fans take up a tradition that’s very popular among football fans…tailgating! If you don’t know what that is, basically people show up in the parking lot hours before a football game with tons of food to grill & adult beverages to drink. People take it very seriously. He’s enticing people by announcing that he will give 4 WrestleMania tickets to the best members of the DiBiase Posse. I think this is a really cool idea on a couple of levels….for one thing, anybody who’s gone to a football game and showed up early for the tailgating knows that tailgating is usually almost as fun as the football game itself. I knew some people in college that just went to the tailgating and didn’t bother with the game. WWE could use just about anything to boost attendance for their shows, so making them into more of a party-type atmosphere by encouraging people to tailgate seems like an interesting idea.

Will it work? I don’t know. It might not do well on Mondays & Tuesdays, but having gone to a Saturday night house show where I stood outside in a ling forever, I know I wouldn’t have minded scarfing down other peoples’ food & beer. Hell, tailgating at Louisville Cardinal football games fed most of us poor students for at least a week. It’s at least worth a shot though, as it’s part of the football experience that makes that sport so popular.

Also, it gives Teddy DiBiase a chance to showcase his personality. The main complaint we all seem to have with him is that he comes off as being very bland. Whether that’s because he is bland or it’s because the writers don’t know how to utilize him in an original way that showcases his strengths & minimizes his weaknesses, I’m not sure. So what’s wrong with letting him do this DiBiase Posse thing and see if it catches on like Zack Ryder’s online stuff has? Nothing, and I hope it works out for him.

Rey Mysterio may need another surgery on his knee. He tweeted that doctors might need to go back in and reinforce the PCL. He hopes it won’t be too bad, but the fact that they think he needs another surgery really doesn’t bode well for his comeback. Rey can still perform at a high level, but one has to wonder if he should get out now while he should still be able to walk. With all these knee surgeries it’s a miracle he isn’t already in a wheelchair or using a cane full time.

Mark Henry was very upset last Monday after Jerry Lawler was legitimately hurt after taking the World’s Strongest Slam through a non-gimmicked table. Vince McMahon & WWE Creative had a tough time figuring out whether they wanted Henry to put Lawler through the table or not, and plans changed several times before it was finally decided to have Lawler go through the table. Unfortunately, the staff didn’t get enough time to set up the table so it could break easily, and Lawler ended up getting shook up. He apparently was well enough to go to an Indians game the next day, but both he & Mark were very angry about the situation backstage.

They probably weren’t as angry as Vince was, reportedly Vince was even crazier than usual during Monday’s show. I’m sure this had nothing to do with his wife deciding to run for Senate again and flushing $40,000,000 down the toilet. Vince was apparently set off when Alberto Del Rio mentioned his name during an interview, as he felt it gave away the eventual endgame of the Triple H/CM Punk/Johnny Ace angle…Vince’s big comeback! I don’t know why he’d be mad at Alberto, as I doubt the man was shooting.

WWE Superstars is no longer airing on WWE’s website or on their YouTube site due to low traffic. I assume you’ll still be able to find it somewhere online if you really want to watch it, but I haven’t seen it in months, and whether I see it again or not will depend on if I get the WWE Network or not.

Speaking of the WWE Network, there was an interesting survey that 411 was the first to report on thanks to an intrepid reader sending me a heads-up. This is the first story I’ve helped break in the seven-plus years I’ve been doing this stuff, so it’s kind of funny to hear about other websites yelling at Larry for stealing it from them when he posted it the day before he did. Good ol’ PWDouchebags.com. I bet they’d like 2 CDs. Anywho, the most interesting part of this survey was this:

Additionally, this network would include WWE’s “classic big 4” pay-per-view events including WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series and Royal Rumble to the lineup at no additional cost. Rather than having to pay for them, they would now be specials with the same match quality you’re used to seeing on pay-per-view for no additional cost. These 4 events would only be available on The WWE Network.

It struck me as odd that WWE would take their four biggest events off of PPV & put them on their own network. I can only assume that they hope this would persuade the cable & satellite companies to pick up their channel more than anything else. Certainly wrestling fans would demand that their TV service provider pick up the channel so they could watch these shows. But yeah…I’m not sure if it’s worth taking WrestleMania off of PPV. If nothing else, that show still seems to be a gold mine. It’ll be interesting to see if they go through with this or not.

Also of note was the statement that the channel would have two original in-ring shows (in all likelihood NXT & Superstars), a daily studio show similar to SportsCenter, and it’d be part of a 30-channel package with channels like the NFL Network & NBA TV. The NFL Network is a damn fine piece of business and I’m hoping that I don’t lose it when Time Warner officially buys out my cable provider. If I do, I will be a sad panda.

Chris Jericho had an interesting interview where he called out people for using his gimmicks:

“There seems to be a lack of respect for the forefathers who came in and did it first and it’s not just [CM] Punk, it’s a whole litany of guys from Miz to Cody Rhodes to Mason Ryan to Sin Cara to Kelly Kelly, everybody is stealing moves, looks, ideas. Brian Pillman once told me if you want to make it in wrestling you have to do something that nobody has done before and nobody is doing that and they are coming off as second rate copies of Chris Jericho and that’s maybe why these guys aren’t striking and I watch it and think, “Seriously, again?”

“A couple of years ago you had ‘Miz 4, John Cena 0”, where did that come from? Conspiracy Theory, where did that come from? Best in the World, where did that come from? Wearing suits, talking slow, using big words, using certain moves, you know Miz used the word “troglodyte” a few weeks ago and I’m like seriously? If there ever was a word associated with Chris Jericho that would be it. These guys have to start thinking of their own stuff and some times I see some of them and I’m like oh come on. It’s not like it’s influenced. At least give credit where credit is due.”

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I love Chris Jericho and think he’s totally awesome & all that. But this is a guy who once called himself the “Living Legend”. Reeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllll original. Not to mention that his other catchphrase at the time was ripped from a Backstreet Boys song. Listen, stealing moves & gimmicks is nothing new. Wrestlers have been doing that ever since the days of Ed “The Strangler” Lewis. I seriously doubt that Chris Jericho was the first to call himself the Best in the World. Hell, there’s a guy on the WWE roster right now that was doing that back in 2006 in Ring of Honor. And I’m sure he wasn’t the first one to do it.

I will admit that there are too many guys wearing suits & talking slowly in wrestling now, but Jericho really shouldn’t be offended by it. If anything, he should be flattered. I know I’m flattered when other wrestling news websites take news that I got from readers & claim it as their own. I’m also flattered when Tony Acero rocks his “I’m A Steve Cook Guy” t-shirt at the clubs when he’s macking on the mamacitas. Hey, whatever people gotta do to get some action is ok with me.

-No Lawler this week. I think Andy Critchell just jizzed himself.

-The fans seem torn on whether firing Miz & R-Truth was a good idea.

-He’s fining Mark Henry? This seems like a very bad idea.

-Dolph!

-Cody!

-Christian!

-These guys should watch out, Triple H fired the last heels that kept interrupting him.

-Is “One More Match” Christian’s new catchphrase?

-RYDER FOR US CHAMP!

-Cody’s defending the IC title in a battle royal? OUTRAGEOUS!

-Nice to see some different faces mixed into the opening segment, and all the bad guys played their role very well.

-Hey, it’s Drew McIntyre! Well, he was in the match anyway.

-If one Sin Cara gets tossed out, does that mean both are eliminated? I guess so.

-Cone on Cody! He is against Sheamus though…this doesn’t bode well.

-CODY WINS CODY WINS CODY WINS

-Put your mask back on, son!

-Christian interfering with Sheamus may not bode well for his match with John Cena later tonight.

-The AZN informs me that Cody Rhodes is trending worldwide on Twitter. Woot!

-Divas!

-Hey, Beth actually beat Kelly! When did Buffalo become the city of winners?

-MIZARK!

-Vs. Great Khali? I like a good big man vs. big man match, but this probably won’t be one of them.

-Well, the match didn’t even start. This was probably the best-case scenario.

-Cena talked. I didn’t pay attention. It’s nothing personal, I’ve just got a column to write.

-CM Punk brings back the announcing jacket!

-I think ADR just destroyed everybody’s headsets! That may be for the best.

-Damn, Cole’s survived.

-WOO WOO WOO YOU KNOW IT

-A random explosion leads to Air Boom running down and saving Zack Ryder from a beat down by Ziggler & Swagger. That was odd.

-And now Teddy Long’s making matches on Raw again! I guess I’ll go along with it because it should be a fun match.

-I guess Ziggler & Swagger have no other friends. You’d think some lower-card heel would run out there just to get some TV time on Raw. Tyler Reks, where are you? Curt Hawkins, anyone?

-Hey, it’s Mason Ryan! Well, that’d be a solid addition to Vickie’s stable.

-Poetry in Motion? Great, now we’re going to get Matt Hardy tweeting about how people are stealing his moves. Do they let people watch wrestling in rehab?

-Well, I guess Mason doesn’t know who’s on his team! That, or he wants to be Broski of the Week!

-Ryder pins Ziggler two weeks in a row! I believe that solidifies his status as #1 Contender to the US Championship! Perhaps a Ryder reign is what we need to make the economy rebound. We were coming out of that recession when Bryan was champion, but now things have gone downhill again.

-How about David Otunga being the man to lead the conversation in the heel lockerroom? Maybe he’s going to put that legal knowledge he acquired at Harvard Law School to good use.

-WHAT A RIDE FOR DEL RIO!

-Punk & Del Rio having a solid match. By the way, I think it deserves noting that the JR/Cole/Booker announce team seems to have really good chemistry.

-And the cell comes down! Poor Ricardo.

-Well, if we use the theory of “The Man Standing Tall At The End Of Raw Before The PPV Never Wins”…it’s not looking good for ADR on Sunday.

It turns out that Ric Flair’s injury from his match with Sting on Impact was worse than originally reported. Flair suffered a torn left triceps during the match, and is expected to undergo surgery this week. He should be out 4-6 months, though would any of us be surprised if he tried to come back earlier? Don’t worry, it was still worth it because Impact’s ratings got bumped up a decimal point or two.

Flair made some appearances on ESPN this week, which I can only assume was part of some agreement where he wouldn’t sue Grantland for their article.

The woman in the tattoo parlor who knocked out Anarquia was Christina Von Eerie, who is currently attached to Ink Inc. member Jesse Neal in “real life”. I expect we’ll be seeing more of her on Impact, and I am in full support of this even though that segment was abysmal. Ink Inc. could use a little something extra to get over more, and what better than a hot chick with a bunch of tattoos & spiked hair?

Apparently Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff’s contracts expire in a couple weeks. That sounds about right since last week I re-posted my piece on them entering TNA. It is currently unknown whether they will re-sign. Does Hulk see enough potential in Micro Championship Wrestling to walk away from TNA? I have no idea, and if I was a betting man I’d wager that both Hogan & Bischoff will stick around, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens here.

Ring of Honor returned to television over the weekend on various Sinclair Broadcasting Group stations. We didn’t have a recap because…

….

….

Well, I don’t really have a good answer for you. Since 411 has not posted a recap, I figured the least I could do is talk a little bit about the show in the column. So here are some Random ROH Thoughts. I may make this a regular feature, I may not. It all depends on what kind of mood I’m in…

-The first match on the show was FutureShock (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly) vs. The Bravado Brothers. I thought the match was a pretty good showcase for what ROH has been about over the years…some people like the spotastic tag team matches and some don’t, but it’s always been one of ROH’s things. I thought it was a better introduction to ROH than their first match on HDNet, which was Jerry Lynn vs. Delirious. It was a decent outing for the young guys here, though I would have avoided having the Bravados cutting a promo.

-Granted, I’m not sure who on the ROH roster should be cutting promos, as there just aren’t that many guys that can do it. Kevin Steen is great, the Briscoes are awesome if you like redneck promos (I do), Jiimmy Jacobs & Steve Corino are both excellent…but most of the roster is made up of guys who aren’t good at that aspect of the pro wrestling. They might want to shy away from that until they get more guys that are good at it. Davey Richards is not.

-Speaking of which, is “Team Richards” a new thing or have they been doing that for awhile? And who is part of it? They might want to explain it further.

-I thought Kevin Kelly & Nigel McGuinness were fine on commentary. They weren’t too distracting like most TV announcers these days, and Kelly is the best play by play guy ROH has had during their existence. Some are saying he was on the show a little too much, and they could probably use somebody else to interview the guys, but the dude’s the host of the show so I was ok with it. Nigel is a little better as a heel, but I think it’s best early on for him to play it straight so he can help get over the ROH storylines & their way of doing things.

-I wasn’t a fan of the graphics, and the new logo is pretty awful. The one thing I really liked was the Tale of the Tape, and they should do that for every match as it adds to the “realism” aspect that they’re shooting for. The non-HDness is kind of depressing.

-The main event pitting Wrestling’s Greatest Tag Team against the Kings of Wrestling was really great. I hope Chris Hero hurries up and gets signed by WWE because him & Claudio are a truly awesome tag team. I would have had them put over somebody else in their final match because Haas & Benjamin don’t need the rub. Maybe FutureShock or the All-Night Express would have been a better choice? It was still a damn good match, though I’m not sure they did enough to build the importance of the Kings & I don’t remember them mentioning this would be their final match with the promotion.

So those are my thoughts on ROH’s first show on the Sinclair Broadcasting Group. I read some other pro wrestling Internet writer saying that the show needed “sex appeal”. I have no idea what the man was talking about…Sara Del Rey was on the show!

Lucha Libre USA is returning to MTV2 this Saturday morning at 10AM. I have no idea what to expect because the show took place like nine months ago, so this should be fun to watch.

Kenny King has been getting some mainstream publicity for reasons you may not expect. Or maybe you do, as it made perfect sense when I hard about it. ESPN interviewed him last week about being a wrestler & a Chippendales’ dancer. I was made aware of this a couple of weeks ago when Terra Calaway mentioned in the Greg DeMarco Show chat room that Kenny was a Chippendales’ dancer, and had won the “Dancer of the Year” title in 2010. She denied the accusation that she met Kenny at Chippendales‘, but I still have my suspicions…

Speaking of Ms. Calaway, she posted a statement yesterday on her & Vintage Dragon’s departure from LuchaPro. Those of you that follow @TerraCalaway on Twitter know that they’ve been having tons of issues with certain people affiliated with that company, and this weekend was the last straw. I’m pleased that they’ll be moving out to bigger & better things. If one positive thing has come from this, it’s that people on Twitter love Terra ranting about rats and it’s gained her some new fans. You always have to look at the positives.

Don’t forget to check out the Greg DeMarco Show tonight! Last week’s was quite interesting, as a couple of indy wrestlers yelled & screamed at each other. The phrase “dwarf-f*cking pussy” was uttered at one point. Good times. We have not had anything like this happen on the 411 on Wrestling yet, but I imagine it will at some point.

Spencer Baum finishes up his book One Fall with an ending that would never, ever happen in real life. Believe me, I know.

Bazar presents the top 10 opponents that didn’t click together. Number 1? Ric Flair & Ricky Steamboat. I’m kidding. Or am I?

Reid presents the Hot or Not. What’s rugby?

Ari brings the Honor as always.

The Finals of the MMA Fact or Fiction Tournament of Great Significance took place last week. This tournament involved a vast number of writers with considerable experience in writing about MMA for 411Mania & other noted MMA sites…and your humble correspondent, who’s experience in MMA writing is limited at best. Mind you, I’ve watched the sport for most of its existence and have seen most of the biggest shows to take place in the history of mixed martial-arts…but I’m a wrestling writer. I specialize in the fake stuff, man. People like me shouldn’t be allowed to write about the real stuff, or so people would have you believe.

My entry in this tournament was disputed from the beginning, with commenters whining about how I liked soccer kicks, with my opponents in every round bitching and moaning about how they were robbed because I was just a phony wrestling writer, or how I missed a show airing on Versus to watch a wrestling PPV. Despite all the Haterade being consumed by the MMA elite, I went into the Finals and took on two of the finest MMA writers on the Interweb. Dan Plunkett is a 411 veteran that has won more editions of Fact or Fiction than anybody that doesn’t run the MMA Zone. Jeremy Lambert wrote here for some time then made his way over to 5ozsofpain.com where he now makes Internet videos after losing Twitter bets. The smart money was on one of these two men taking the championship & the title belt that comes with it.

But they didn’t. Instead it was the man that Todd Bergman dubbed “Juvi Juice”, Steve Cook. (I’m still not sure why he calls me that.) If you read the article you’ll see it was the obvious choice, as I out-wrote them like Hunter S. Thompson going up against anybody else trying to do the Gonzo Journalism gimmick. Not only that, but the results of UFC 135 proved me right:

1. Jon Jones vs. Rampage Jackson went to the championship rounds, ending in the 4th round. My opponents bought into the myth of Rampage being a knockout artist, but we know that he really isn’t, and Jones ended up choking him out.

2. My opponents insisted that Nate Diaz could not make Takanori Gomi submit, even though Gomi’s known for submitting & Diaz is known for making people submit. Honestly, folks. It really shouldn’t be that simple, but the numbers never lie, and they didn’t lie in this fight either as Diaz made Gomi submit in the first round, just as I said he would. Well, I didn’t specify which round, but I definitely said he’d tap out.

So what have we learned from all this? Well, not only am I extremely knowledgeable in pro wrestling & fantasy football, but I also know more about MMA than anybody would ever give me credit for. Triple Threat, baby.

Ladies…I am single. *wink*

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! Join Nick Marsico tomorrow for the Wednesday Wire, and I’ll be back next week with more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…