News From Cook’s Corner 03.06.12

Cook have you noticed that the top three wrestlemania matches are pinnacles of three main aspects of modern professional wrestling. For example the hell in a cell match is the ultimate in brutality in the WWE, two hell in the cell innovators through the last 15 years battling it out. The main event is the pinnacle in spectacle in the WWE, two of the biggest mainstream personalities in the WWE battling with fanbases, promos, social media, and Jericho/Punk, the pinnacle of wrestling in the WWE, two of the most accomplished ring workers in the WWE with similar storied backgrounds setting out to make the best pure wrestling match at WM in order to label themselves as the best.

It’s pretty sweet that those three matches are equally some of the best built wm matches ever, this could be one amazing card. – gooched

If each of those matches delivers, WrestleMania XXVIII could end up being one of the greatest WrestleManias of all time. It’s kind of hard for WWE fans not to be interested in Rock vs. Cena, HHH vs. Undertaker & Punk vs. Jericho, and odds are that there isn’t a WWE fan alive that isn’t looking forward to at least one of those matches. The Sheamus vs. Bryan match could use a little more build and the undercard is still taking shape, but I’d be surprised if this year’s WM isn’t remarkably better than last year’s. If it’s not, it’ll be a tremendous disappointment.

Hell yes, Cena is a whiny bitch. You hit the nail on the head. Rock is going over on 4/1/12, and I, for one, can’t wait. The business is already down. Who cares if someone who “hasn’t been there for a year who said he was ‘coming home'” is going over on the biggest ppv of the year? Cena is a mega bitch in this feud, and the people that turned off wwf/e in 03 due to HHH jobbing guys out, and rock, stone cold, foley etc. leaving can shut the hell up. The Rock puts asses in seats. That arena in Portland wouldn’t have been half as full, had the Rock not been there tonight. That is a fact. Look at the attendance figures from the shows the Rock has been at LIVE in the last year, to the shows he hasn’t been at.

The Rock draws, and missing balls Cena couldn’t draw flys to shit. – Nick

Cena burned the Rock in 2 minutes.
Rock spent 20 minutes spinning his wheels ranting and making his usual homophobic jokes about Cena.

I like how we’re supposed to be pro-Rock and anti-Cena but the Rock is coming off as some huge douche. I’m tired of Cena just like everyone….but he’s killed the Rock on the mic two weeks in a row now and I expect that to carry further now that Dwayne will be going back to Hollywood. – Nick

A good sign that the Rock vs. Cena feud is working is that people are actually taking sides and being serious about it. You just don’t see that very often in pro wrestling these days. I’m solidly behind Rock, and it seems like there’s a decent section of support for both guys among the readership. That’s a good thing, and WWE has to hope it continues.

AND let’s not forget that it cost us a chance to see the post-victory Rosa Dance which is enough of a reason to always root for Epico and Primo to win. – Hercules Strongs

I think that’s what really set me off. There can not be enough Rosa Dancing on WWE television. I used to be one of those people wondering why they kept her around, and I’m sure glad they finally figured out what she’s good at. Spanish promos & dancing. Good stuff.

Man, I hate Pete Weber. Yeah, I’m a bowler. He reminds me of that kid that screamed at you for talking and causing him to die while playing video games. He got all pissed because someone in the audience moved while he was on his approach…and when someone booed him. – Rick

I get why bowling people wouldn’t like a guy that usually makes a mockery of himself, especially a guy that’s won 5 US Open titles and is the son of arguably the greatest bowler of all time. I respect that take, but at the same time I’m far more likely to pay attention to bowling if PDW’s on there doing crotch chops. A little personality goes a long way with casual viewers, even if it pisses off fellow bowlers & hardcore fans.

instead of the pointlessly thrown together kingston/truth tag team, why don’t they use road dogg/truth team? a) they have history as a team and b) road dogg was so over at the rumble that they could get uso’s and primo/epico over effectively as heels by simply facing them…tag team tlc at ‘mania, think about it people. – aftershock

I’m surprised I didn’t think of this, as it’s a pretty damn good idea. Road Dogg does still have goodwill with a large percentage of the audience, and if he’s in good enough shape to do tag team matches I see nothing wrong with having him face the young tag teams. As long as they don’t bring back the “Get Rowdy” song I’d be behind a Road Dogg/R-Truth tag team reunion.

With regard to the WWE roster situation, I expect to see the brand split end sometime soon. Smackdown guys are already on Raw. There will soon be a single general manager and we’ve seen the two champions go head to head three shows running. I think at some point in the near future we will see an undisputed champion, and the split will simply no longer be acknowledged. There isn’t much depth to the roster because it is spread so thinly. – Tom

I wrote something along those lines a few weeks ago, and even though I’ve appreciated the brand split more than most of my fellow wrestling writers, I’m not sure they can keep it up much longer. Like you say, the depth to the roster is so thin. All of the top Smackdown people are already appearing on Raw every week because of the Raw Supershow gimmick, and recently we’ve seen some Raw folks on SD as well. There is hope for the continuation of the brand split, and it’s in Florida. FCW does seem to have quite a few people that people think are ready to be called up. It should only be a matter of time before Dean Ambrose is on WWE television. Guys like Seth Rollins, Ritchie Steamboat, Damien Sandow & Antonio Cesaro should also be ready soon, and I hope that Kassius Ohno won’t be too far behind them. There’s also Bo Rotundo, Husky Harris, and probably other people that I’m forgetting. For the sake of WWE’s depth, it’s important that a few of these guys catch on and at least become reliable mid-card talent. It’s also important that they don’t get devoured by the WWE machine.

As a diehard Bret Hart fan who hated Shawn Michaels from pretty much WrestleMania 12 on, simply because of the Bret feud, I’ll say this: I still think Shawn was a total asshole for doing it, and even moreso for lying about it for 5 years. However, watching them hug on Raw, I hate to say, melted my heart a little bit. Watching the Greatest Rivalries interview kinda mellowed me out a bit, too. I was always able to enjoy Shawn Michaels matches, because I’d just root against him as hard as humanly possible, and either be let down and watch a great match, or be entertained and still enjoy a great match. Like, say, when I watched Angle make him tap live at Mania 21. My favorite live experience ever, and it was ONLY because it was Michaels tapping.

In closing- I still feel resentment toward the jerk, but I’d have to be one hell of a crybaby to still hate a guy that the dude I’m “repping” seems to be cool with. – Dino Zucconi

Those of you familiar with Dino’s work for this website may remember that he didn’t like HBK at all. I remember one column where he insisted that Marty Jannetty was the better Rocker. He may still feel this way (and hell, who knows how Marty would have turned out if he didn‘t have demons), but it’s good to see that there’s been some healing.

And now, the fake news!

The latest launch date for WWE Network is the November sweeps period, but recent news concerning WWE’s project has not been good. The New York Post had a story on WWE Network last week with some interesting information. Apparently WWE has yet to sign a deal with a single cable or satellite provider to carry WWE Network. No wonder they pushed back the launch date, it’s pretty tough to have a network when nobody can watch it. Some are even saying that the network might not launch at all.

A large part of WWE Network’s problem with the cable executives is perception. Even though they’ve toned down their content (much to the dismay of some viewers), WWE still has the perception within the television business of producing raunchy programming full of middle fingers, crotch chops & profanity. It’s going to take a long time for them to overcome that perception, and as long as it’s out there it’s going to be hard to sell cable executives on the WWE Network. It seems like a dream concept to wrestling fans…but for everybody else it’s a head-scratcher.

Since WWE is throwing a lot into the WWE Network bucket, they better hope they get some of these cable & satellite companies to carry it. It’s going to take some time, and people are going to jump to conclusions early because that’s what they do. Hopefully WWE will have the patience to stick with it. Yes, I’m aware that WWE’s not exactly known for showing patience. Who is these days?

Wade Barrett received some really bad news this week, as he found out he’ll be out for three to four months with his dislocated elbow and will not be able to compete on the WrestleMania XXVIII card. Barrett was in line to appear on the show, though exactly what he was going to do has been disputed. There was a report that he was going to win a Money in the Bank match, but that’s been denied by people in the company. MITB will be its own pay-per-view event again this year, and the show scheduled for July 15 has been moved from Las Vegas to Phoenix. I was hoping they would move it back to WrestleMania to keep the gimmick from becoming more watered down. Barring that, perhaps they can have one MITB match on the show this year instead of two.

WWE is considering the use of a modified Hell in a Cell structure for the Triple H vs. Undertaker match at WrestleMania. I hope this is outdated news and they’ve already figured out how they’re going to rig the Cell up. It’d be pretty damning if they’re a month away from the show and they still don’t know how they’re going to do it. It’s a shame we haven’t developed the technology to teleport things yet.

Alberto Del Rio made his in-ring return at a Smackdown house show in Albany, Georgia on Saturday night, wrestling Sheamus. Reports are that the match was good and Del Rio appeared to be in great shape. What else would you expect from the Essence of Excellence?

Triple H is being advertised as wrestling at WWE’s show at Madison Square Garden on March 18. He hasn’t been in the ring since December 18 when he defeated Kevin Nash in a Sledgehammer Ladder Match. They don’t mention who he’s wrestling, but the top heel they have listed appearing on the show that isn‘t already in a match is Cody Rhodes. That’ll be my guess for that. Also advertised for the show is Zack Ryder, which seems like a pretty quick return from the various injuries he’s suffered at the hands of Kane. He’ll be wrestling Jack Swagger, so perhaps the rumor of them teaming with Divas at WrestleMania will come to pass.

Speaking of Cody, he’s been the Intercontinental Champion for 211 days now, which puts him past Randy Orton’s lengthy IC title run in 2003-04 that established him as a future main eventer. It’s the longest reign since Shelton Benjamin held the strap for 244 days in 2004-05. It’s great that Cody’s held on to the title for this long, but it seems a bit hollow to me. Cody hasn’t really had any challengers lately. He feuded with Randy Orton and lost the feud, but Orton didn’t even want to challenge for the title. Guys like Booker T & Sheamus challenged for it months ago, but lately Cody’s been busy challenging for the World title and getting pinned by guys like Santino Marella & Great Khali. I’d like to see Cody step up his defense schedule and become more of a fighting champion than he’s been lately…he’s got the Big Show at WrestleMania and a win over him would be a pretty big deal, even bigger than his win over Rey Mysterio at last year’s WrestleMania. Here’s hoping Cody gets it done.

He just needs two hundred & forty-three more days to pass the Honky Tonk Man as the longest-reigning Intercontinental Champion of all time! Come on Cody! You can do it!

Jim Ross says that he’s currently not scheduled to commentate at WrestleMania. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise because JR hasn’t been on TV for quite some time and WWE has decided that Michael Cole needs to be on every show ever. I can live without JR on the show as long as Cole’s not in a match.

I thought the CM Punk/Chris Brown thing had died off, but Shawne Merriman, who is a friend of Chris Brown’s and somebody who had a run-in with CM Punk in the past, decided to get some stuff off his chest on Twitter.

Fuck C.M. Punk, he’s still a punk forever in my book. I’m sure my supporters feel the same way… And WWE, I ain’t hosting y’all new network until somebody whoop C.M. Punk cuz he’s a p$ssy.

And WWE, I ain’t hoting sh#t until C.M. is dethroned… I ain’t a hater at all, but if you like dudes tanning by the pool (in) a thong that’s cool. I think he had pillows under his stomach.

Back in February 2011, Punk made fun of Merriman for striking out with the WWE Divas when he & WWE talent were staying at the same hotel in Costa Rica. Merriman was a guy that a lot of people thought would become the best linebacker in the NFL until injuries and off-field issues got in the way. Now he’s a guy that tries to leech off of Chris Brown to be famous. It’s kind of sad, really.

OK, not really.

Brian Kendrick is expected to return to WWE to be part of the Cruiserweight-oriented show that’s being planned for the WWE Network. Kendrick was released from TNA after he asked to be let go, as he wanted more work and TNA wouldn’t give it to him. He’s been telling people that he’s kicked his marijuana habit and is ready to come back to WWE. Kendrick wasn’t especially impressive during his time away from WWE, but when he’s on his A game he can be a very solid performer. If they actually get this project off the ground he’d be a good person to have as a part of it.

Natalya’s farting gimmick has led to a face turn. It may have turned her face in the eyes of the Internet wrestling fan, but I’m not sure how it’s going to win casual fans over. Maybe they can relate to people that fart? Hey, I’m all for Natalya getting some kind of push, but I still don’t think the farting stuff does anything for anybody over the age of ten. I could be wrong.

Brodus “The Funkasaurus” Clay worked WWE house shows this weekend, getting victories over Michael McGillicutty. Funny you don’t hear people clamoring for McGillicutty’s return to TV.

This may or may not be a spoiler, but if you’re like me you pretty much guessed it right after Drew McIntyre got fired on last week’s SmackDown. Drew’s expected to come back on this week’s episode after John Laurinitas, who is running SmackDown this week, re-hires him. He didn’t even miss any shows, as he appeared on this weekend’s SmackDown house shows despite being fired. This is the worst firing since the time John Cena got fired and he didn’t miss any shows. Hell, this firing’s worse because at least Cena didn’t have matches while he was unemployed. His cousin Juan filled in on house shows if I remember correctly.

I’d expect Drew to be part of the inevitable Team Excitement vs. Team Holla Holla Holla match at WrestleMania. Or since it’s been reported online he’ll be left off the card and banished to Superstars for the next few months. Or worse. He tweeted on Monday that he has 73 days until the United States tries to deport him. That’s right, if Drew McIntyre gets fired or deported anytime soon we can blame the Internet. We blame it for everything anyway.

-Shawn Michaels comes out to stop the show before it even starts.

-HBK claims that Triple H is a man of honor & integrity. What happened to the Triple H I’ve been watching wrestle the past fifteen years?

-The worst thing that anybody could say to Triple H is that HBK is better than him! You know, Larry Csonka & I have a similar relationship.

-Shawn says he knows who will win, and he’ll be right, just like he was last year. And the reason he knows is he’s been made the special guest referee!

I’m not sure about a referee that already knows who’s going to win before the match happens. Sounds like a Big East referee to me.

-How about Teddy Long using his power to get his buddy Santino a US title shot? At least it gets Swagger on the show.

-Santino kicks out of the Doctor Bomb!

-Teddy’s wearing his red Raw power suit. Yes, he and Johnny are at ringside. At least it’s not the World title match this time, just a US title match.

-Kofi Kingston now appears to be part of Team Teddy, though WWE Creative’s Twitter account speculates that Vince thought he was sending Ezekiel Jackson out there.

-FAIRLY LEGAL GIRL

-Ziggler takes an awesome bump off the apron from the Cobra Strike. He’s too good for this show.

-Santino wins the US title! Hey, maybe it’ll get defended on Raw now!

-I’m pretty sure Big Johnny doesn’t have the power to overturn this, but I’ve been wrong before.

-Hey, if Otunga’s getting kicked out of the arena, does this mean we won’t have to sit through Otunga vs. Khali later? I was not looking forward to that.

-I dig the Sheamus K-mart commercial. He comes off well on those types of things.

-The Rock will be presenting a series of history lessons for John Cena! He promises a Rock Revolution and throws some John Cena merchandise into Boston Harbor! So that’s who’s buying all his stuff!

-He also throws in an IHOP plug! Now this is more like The Rock I know & love.

-Kelly Kelly announces during an Eve vs. Alicia Fox match. That lasted about as long as I would with Eve.

-Zack Ryder returns with a cane and a new t-shirt! He tells Eve “Broskis before Hoeskis”. And that’s his return.

-Eve makes out with Zack backstage. He liked it! Well, who wouldn’t?

-I wonder if Cena’s got anything written on that hat.

-Cena bringing the seriousness. It’s the biggest match of his life! Rock should be all about the hilarity while Cena treats it like it’s the biggest match of his life. It’s a good contrast.

-Punk/Sheamus vs. Bryan/Jericho. Four of my favorite wrestlers going at it…how can I choose a side here?

-I bet Sheamus loves it in Boston. Lots of drunks ready for a fight!

-YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! WORLD! HEAVYWEIGHT! CHAMPION!

-It is so weird seeing Bryan all tanned out. I remember when he was about as white as Sheamus. There were a couple of ROH shows where he wrestled with a farmer’s tan. Good times.

-Jericho gets the pin on Punk and poses with the title belt. This would be better if Dolph Ziggler hadn’t done it several weeks ago.

-Rock tells us about Paul Revere & smacks down a John Cena cardboard cutout. I want Rock to invent this time machine he’s talking about.

-Rock stuck a feather up his ass and called him a jabroni!

-See, I’ve always loved the ridiculousness of Rock’s threats. Most of the objects he said he’d stick up people’s rear ends couldn’t possibly fit up there. As far as I know.

-William Regal is not happy with Rock’s Brit-bashing! Maybe he’s the guy who’s been complaining to the dirt sheets? I wouldn’t figure Sir William for that kind of fella.

-Miz takes on Big Show. I don’t like Miz’s chances of getting things back on track.

-All right, time for Cody to present another embarrassing Big Show WrestleMania moment! We see Big Show eating at WWF New York during WrestleMania X8! Remember when WWF New York was a thing?

-Look on the bright side, Miz fans. Miz took a nice bump off the WMD!

-Rock promises to overthrow John Cena and make it to the arena tonight. At least it’s dark where he is now.

-Undertaker will respond to Shawn Michaels next week!

-R-Truth appears to be motioning towards an invisible person. Well, he’s about to get demolished by Kane, so that invisible person better become visible real quick.

-The Yuengling is starting to kick in. Had a couple Bocks & a couple Black & Tans. Oh yes, it’s good times tonight at the Cook House.

-R-Truth manages to create enough of a distraction for Randy Orton to RKO Kane!

-Cena compares The Rock to The Situation. I assume that would be funny if I had ever watched Jersey Shore.

-Cena bashes his own wardrobe. I have wondered why nobody ever mocks Cena for wearing kneepads 24/7.

-Rock in the hizzle!

-Rock says that Cena will always go down in history as being the Rock’s bitch.

-Who had the advantage tonight? Rock’s pre-recorded stuff was solid, but Cena does seem to work better in front of his people. That’s right, I’m saying the Boston crowd helped Cena win. Why not?

Ric Flair has not been granted permission by TNA to attend the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony on WrestleMania weekend, but Flair has told people that he plans on going anyway. I would be shocked if Flair didn’t go, and I’d be more shocked if TNA punished Flair for going. Besides, what could they do to punish him? He already has to be at ringside to watch Garett Bischoff matches. Seriously though, I still think the idea of WWE bringing in a TNA employee to get inducted into their Hall of Fame for the second time is a bit odd. Maybe they wanted to give Flair another HOF ring so he could sell it, but it’s not like they couldn’t have inducted the Four Horsemen along with Flair when he was still with the company, or at least not with a competing one. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think WWE’s just doing this to stick it to TNA a little bit, or to see how much they can get away with.

Vince Russo made a statement to PWInsider.com stating that he was not fired, released or let go by TNA, in fact it was his decision to leave the company. The statement indicated that Russo left because he was not going to be used to his capability or capacity, basically meaning that since he wasn’t the head writer anymore & his ideas weren’t getting used it was time to leave. Nothing real surprising here…it’ll be interesting to see if Russo resurfaces in wrestling in the future. I hope he does, as it’s been fun to have him around so people can blame him for everything wrong in wrestling.

Russo will be doing a “You Shoot: LIVE” taping in June. I assume they’ll have Jim Cornette send in a question like he did when Dixie Carter did one of those tapings. That could be fun.

Mr. Anderson tweeted that he’ll be returning to Impact next Friday. (If a wrestler says it, it doesn’t count as a spoiler) Anderson hasn’t been on TV since November…part of it was because TNA decided in January not to use wrestlers they didn’t have storylines for, but apparently he also took two months off for “personal reasons”. That one kind of flew under the radar, didn’t it? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t writing anything about that a few months ago.

Shannon Moore is taking a break from wrestling to focus on opening a second tattoo shop & spending time with his family. Moore hadn’t done a whole lot in TNA since his Ink Inc. tag team partner Jesse Neal left the company a couple of months ago, and had announced last month that he was taking indy bookings. Moore indicated that he wasn’t having a whole lot of fun wrestling at the moment, which will happen when you’re not being used very much.

The latest update on Jesse Sorensen is that he’ll be out for up to a year due to the injury he suffered at the Against All Odds PPV. Zema Ion has been getting a bit of a push out of the situation, which I guess is TNA trying to make chicken salad out of chicken excrement. Hopefully Ion will be able to keep the heat going until Sorensen comes back, then you could have an X Division feud that might generate some interest.

Chris Masters tweeted last week about wanting to be in Impact Wrestling sometime this year. Masters has been part of the Ring Ka King project, where he goes by “The American Adonis” and does Adonislock Challenges. I wonder where they came up with that idea. Masters says that TNA has a lot of guys he’d like to work, and I think he could be a pretty good fit there. He was really good for the last couple years of his WWE stint, though nobody saw it since it was on Superstars.

Dixie Carter tweeted her excitement over which market the Slammiversary PPV would be in, indicating that the show will not be in Orlando. And I thought Dwight Howard didn’t want to be there…

There were reports that Ring of Honor had kept Adam Cole & the Briscoe Brothers from signing contracts with World Wrestling Entertainment. Jay Briscoe denied these rumors pretty much how you’d expect him to:

Just to set shit straight, ROH didnt block us from gettin signed to the WWE. The internet is fucking stupid

Jay & Mark Briscoe discussed their WWE experience in a promo late last year…basically, they weren’t cosmetically pleasing enough to sign with WWE. But who am I to speak for the Briscoes?

I don’t know if Adam Cole had a similar problem, but considering he got the pinfall over Davey Richards in the main event of ROH’s 10th Anniversary Show, they seem to have some plans for him. Cole has been good in the ring, but from what I’ve seen of him in ROH he hasn’t had much of a chance to showcase his personality. I don’t think ROH needs to be pushing more people with more personality, so hopefully he’ll be able to show some during this push.

Matt Hardy and Sid Vicious will have a match Friday night at the Pro Wrestling Syndicate show in Rahway, New Jersey. I really think this could have been a pretty fun match in 1997. Hell, they might have had it back in 97, since Matt was doing the jobber thing at that point and Sid was squashing jobbers on a regular basis. I don’t have the same hopes for it in 2012. It’s actually a pretty loaded show, as you’re getting appearances from Abdullah the Butcher, Papa Shango, Colt Cabana, Necro Butcher, the Powers of Pain, the motherfreaking Shockmaster and many other folks. They’ve even got Reby Sky on the show! I still haven’t seen her wrestle, though I have seen her box.

Thank you! I’ll be here all week!

El Generico won the WXW 16 Carat Gold Tournament in Germany over the weekend. He’ll be returning to ROH on March 30 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to take on Kevin Steen, and he’ll be debuting for EVOLVE on April 13 in Toronto. Even if he hasn’t signed an ROH contract, Generico is keeping himself busy across the world.

Former 411 writer Terra Calaway announced on Monday night that she’ll be making her WSU debut on June 16. WSU is a Northeast women’s wrestling promotion that features many of the top female wrestlers in the indies, so this is a pretty big deal for our girl. She really is making it the Year of the Terradactyl.

Doug Furnas passed away on Friday at the age of fifty. Furnas got his start in Tennessee, where he was always popular with the fans due to his time on the University of Tennessee football team. Furnas broke two dozen world records in power lifting. He gained his most worldwide fame as part of the Can-Am Express alongside Dan Kroffat. They held All Japan’s All Asia Tag Team Championships on five occasions and were one of AJPW’s top tag teams for a good portion of the 1990s. They spent some time in ECW before arriving in the WWF in 1996, where they failed to catch on with crowds in spite of their wrestling ability. Furnas & Kroffat (known under his real name Phil LaFon during this time) spent a year or so in the WWF before returning to ECW briefly. Furnas had to retire in 2000 due to Parkinson’s Disease, and battled that for the rest of his life before passing away in his sleep last Friday.

I realize that many of you might not remember Furnas too well, which is understandable since he retired twelve years ago and that’s probably before some of you started watching wrestling. Heck, there might be a few readers out there that weren’t born yet when Furnas retired. If you’re unfamiliar with Furnas, YouTube is your friend. I’ve found a couple of matches for you guys to get a closer look at what Furnas brought to the table.

First, we take a trip to All Japan Pro Wrestling, as Furnas & Kroffat take on Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. This was voted the Wrestling Observer Match of the Year in 1992…I’m not sure I’d rate it with Bret vs. Bulldog at SummerSlam, but it’s pretty damn great. Furnas is the one with the tan and ponytail.

I’m not one of those guys that spends a lot of time watching the Japanese wrestling, but it’s always fun to see the crowd not be as silent as wrestlers always claim that it is. They say that to cover up the fact that the fans weren’t buying what they were selling. Furnas & Kroffat were very effective in their AJPW run and still hold the record for most reigns with the All-Asia Tag Team Titles.

Here’s a match from his WWF days. Furnas & LaFon taking on the New Blackjacks…nope, JBL hasn’t destroyed all the New Blackjacks footage yet.

The WWF was in a really weird place at that point. You had awesome stuff like the Hart Foundation & Stone Cold…and you had stuff like the New Blackjacks, which probably would have been a good team if they weren’t called the New Blackjacks and weren’t dressing like the Blackjacks. Furnas & LaFon got the dreaded “boring” push, which to date still hasn’t gotten anybody over on a major level. They weren’t known for outstanding promos, but they were great in the ring. The WWF probably wasn’t the right place for them, but they still had successful careers and deserve some consideration when ranking great tag teams of the 1990s.

Saturday night was a huge night for mixed martial arts. To be more specific, it was a huge night for women’s mixed martial arts. StrikeForce held an event in Columbus, Ohio featuring a main event with Miesha Tate defending the StrikeForce women’s bantamweight title against “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey.

No, I’m not talking about this just because Ronda uses Roddy Piper’s nickname.

StrikeForce put on a heck of a show, and most of it had to do with woman MMA fighters. Earlier in the evening, Sarah Kaufman defeated Alexis Davis to become the number one contender to the bantamweight championship in a bloody brawl that had both girls wearing the proverbial crimson mask. The main event would only last one round, but it was an exciting round that featured Rousey basically removing Tate’s left arm from her body. That was what it took, as Tate somehow survived one arm bar that seemed like it’d end the fight, and then lasted in another one for way longer than she should have. She did not want to give up that title, but she had no other choice.

It was great television. Great television always gets people thinking, and sure enough I started to think after watching the show. What did I think about? The same thing I usually end up thinking about late at night…woman wrestlers.

OK, that sounded way less creepy in my head.

Anyway, I was wondering why women’s MMA could be taken seriously enough to main event on a major card like the one StrikeForce had on Saturday night, while women’s wrestling seems doomed to sideshow status in the main wrestling companies. After thinking about it for awhile, I’ve come up with what I think are the main differences between the two sports that hold women back in wrestling but raise them up in MMA (sometimes).

Perception: I find myself talking about perception an awful lot in these columns…it doesn’t always equal reality, but it might as well. StrikeForce builds their women up the same way they do the men, with videos of them talking about their background and how they got there. The Rousey video on Saturday’s show was a really good piece of business with Ronda talking about how her parents motivated her to become a fighter. It helped you relate with her more and want her to succeed.

Do you think you would ever see a five minute video on WWE television talking about a Diva’s journey to make it to WWE and challenge for the Divas title? No.

One of the main complaints about women’s MMA is the fact that the talent pool is so shallow. Once you get past the women that appear on StrikeForce the quality can be questionable, but StrikeForce is lucky in that they’ve managed to get the best women under contract and have avoided having dreadful women’s fights on their shows. As long as MMA fans aren’t exposed to the worst women fighters, it’ll keep them from having too negative a view of it.

This, of course, is the opposite of how women’s wrestling works, as the largest possible audience for their craft is often exposed to brutal women’s matches. It’s tough to overcome that.

MMA vs. Wrestling: MMA fights & pro wrestling matches are very different things. A great MMA fight has two fighters beating the living hell out of each other, and usually not in a visually appealing way. Kaufman vs. Davis was a great fight because they punched each other’s faces into hamburger meat. Tate vs. Rousey was a great fight because Rousey tried to rip Tate’s arm right out of its socket. The men’s fights on the show were largely forgettable, with the exception of Randy Couture showing the potential to be a great fighter like his dad was. A great MMA fight is a great MMA fight, and MMA fans don’t seem to care about the gender. Certainly, the fans in attendance and the fans tuning in on ShowTime didn’t care about the gender.

Your goal in an MMA fight is to obliterate your opponent. Your goal in a wrestling match is to have a good wrestling match. These are incredibly different goals, and that fact leads into my next point.

Working Together vs. Working Against Each Other: There’s an old saying, I forget who coined it, but the saying goes like this:

“All women secretly hate each other.”

I used to buy into this when I was younger, but the more people I meet, the more I see the flaw in the quote. “All” needs to be replaced with “Most”. I’ve tried to get ladies like Taeler Hendrix & Kristin Astara to throw people under the bus and have been terribly unsuccessful. There’s always the possibility that Taeler & Kristin are the exception to the rule, and the main thing keeping some women from having quality wrestling matches is the fact that they just don’t like the people they’re working with. Why do you think Fabulous Moolah’s matches haven’t aged very well? She wanted to remain on top of the women’s division for eternity and didn’t exactly go out of her way to make her opponents look good. As much as it’s been reported that various Divas & Knockouts & woman wrestlers don’t like each other, and when you realize that there are only so many spots for women in the major companies, can you really expect them to do their best to make each other look good?

Women MMA fights don’t need to worry about this. Hell, the fights are better when they hate each other! Tate & Rousey made their hate for each other crystal clear, and it made the fight more interesting. The best fights aren’t the ones with the prettiest submissions and the most precise striking and the best defense…nah, they’re the ones where fists are flying and suckers are getting knocked out and tapped out.

It’s statements like that that make the MMA Zone readers hate me.

Reason They’re There: We all know why WWE Divas are WWE Divas. They look good. Sure, it’s nice if they can put on a match every once in awhile, but looks are the first priority for WWE. They hired Kharma last year, and she’s the exception to the rule, but it remains to be seen if they’ll continue hiring people like her, or if they’ll keep hiring models and hope they can train them well enough to become wrestlers in FCW. TNA seems to be a bit fairer in this area, but looks matter for them as well. There are places like SHIMMER & WSU that don’t care as much about the looks, but these are promotions that don’t cater to the mainstream audience.

Women’s MMA fighters are there because they can fight. Now, there are ladies like Gina Carano that get pushed up to the big promotions because they look good, but they also have to be able to back it up in the cage. Otherwise, they’re no longer marketable. People will tune in once to see a hot chick fight, but if she doesn’t do well they’ll lose interest. Also, their face won’t be as appealing if it gets pounded into hamburger meat.

MMA does have women that are just there to look good. They hold up cards with the round number on them. This works. People generally wouldn’t want to see Arianny Celeste fighting Brittney Palmer, but they don’t mind them holding up cards between rounds.

Can women’s wrestling rise up to the point where it can main event major shows and people won’t bat an eye? Things would need to change drastically in the mainstream promotions for it to happen, and I don’t think it will be anytime soon. Can it happen in our lifetime? Sure, if the ladies that are learning their craft now step their game up and overcome perception. I’m really hoping that they do, as it’d definitely make wrestling more interesting.

I’m hopeful there will be a 411 on Wrestling this week, but keep an eye on this website to make sure that there is!

This week’s Greg DeMarco Show will feature all sorts of folks, including Serenity, a lady from Resistance Pro Wrestling. Will Greg find himself another DeMarcette? Will I appear earlier than I did last week? Stay tuned.

Fact or Fiction had Sean Kelly taking on 411 reader Gillan Borum in a battle of Fact or Fiction first-timers! We’ll have one more first-timer this week.

Speaking of Kelly, his column taught me that the WWE Sign Guy has his own t-shirt. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that people shouldn’t have their own t-shirts unless they do something to deserve one. I’m sure the guy puts a lot of work into his signs, but I don’t think that qualifies.

Don‘t get me wrong, I like Acero, but I’m starting to think that there’s a little too much on his plate. Between the Truth column, recapping NXT, doing some Rs, writing poetry that gets published & stuff, school, hanging out with his buddies & stalking Terra Calaway, I’m not sure how he finds the time to sleep.

Wright ranks the heels.

Renken talks Eddie Gilbert vs. Cactus Jack.

Rutherford has a sandwich.

Frame loves wrestling.

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