News From Cook’s Corner 03.20.12: RAW Thoughts & More

OK, I’ll settle down about the college basketball stuff, but that’s basically what I spent Thursday-Sunday doing. I heard something about a PPV event that ended with a wrestler in his fifties delivering his finishing move to the world champion, but losing because he knocked himself out by falling on a steel chair. I don’t know, I got enough stuff on my plate without thinking about bad wrestling. Let’s get things started!

Wait a minute, people are saying Rock kissed the Cleveland crowds’ ass too much. Didn’t Cena come out in a Cavaliers Mark Price jersey for his rap? Hmmm…. – Guest#5282

Rock & Cena are both trying to be the mega-face in this feud, so I see no problem with them kissing up to the town they’re performing in. I prefer Rock when he’s burying crowds like he was during the Hollywood Rock run in 2003 (which rates as one of my favorite wrestling things ever), but I don’t fault him or Cena for going to the Mick Foley playbook and sucking up to the crowd to get cheap pops.

I think the most damage done to the Divas division was done by Alicia Foxx when they asked if she was training for WM and she said “No, I’m shopping for the right outfit.” – Masked LLama

Alicia’s done a lot of damage to the Divas division during her time with the company.

Jerry Lynn and CM Punk have both ben ROH and ECW Champion…..granted ur probably talking about the orginal ECW but just had to throw that out there – ur wrong…

Yeah, Punk’s ECW title reign in WWE totally slipped my mind. I could be one of those people that are like “OMG WWE ECW CHAMPS DON’T COUNT AS MUCH AS ORIGINAL ECW CHAMPS”, and there was definitely a difference between the two products, but the fact is that I forgot Punk was ECW champion.

Major difference between Jerry Lynn and Randy the Ram? Jerry actually has a house, is on good terms with his daughter, doesn’t do drugs (steroids included), and is decent at karaoke (okay, admittedly there wasn’t karaoke in The Wrestler, but what the hell, random observations). I’ve spent a little time with the guy – not like we’re friends or anything, just hung out with some other workers after a show he did in Colorado. Even played a few rounds of Rock Band, though we were both inebriated, so I’m not sure that it really should count. Either way, sure, Randy the Ram’s look definitely seems modeled after Jerry Lynn, as well as their in-ring styles, but other than that? Not really. – Nick V

I could have phrased it better…Lynn wasn’t the inspiration for the personality of the character in the movie, but he certainly was the inspiration for the look. I assume that Mickey Rourke came in to the audition with that long blonde hair and once they decided to use him since his life story went well with Randy the Ram’s, they based the in-ring stuff off of Jerry Lynn since he looks like Mickey Rourke. I imagine if they’d gone with Nick Cage they would have gone in a different direction. If they’d used Hulk Hogan like he says they wanted to, they’d have to change the whole ending of the movie cause there’s no way the Hulkster was climbing up top. Brother.

You’re a grade A hater if you didn’t find Rock’s concert funny and/or entertaining. Damn, I was laughing my ass off along with Lawler and Cole. Wins or losses don’t matter. Cena may have “won”, but Rock had me and everyone in that arena at least, laughing our asses off. Can’t put a price on these things.

Also, explanation for why Rock got 20 mins: He hasn’t been touring with WWE and visiting Cleveland every year for the past 8 of them. Stupid people who STILL don’t realize Rock is an attraction. – Candy Bottocks

Sometimes you have to do things that please your audience. The online crowd might not always like it, but the people that are in those sell-out crowds on Raw are there mostly because Rock’s there. I was with Rock until that Queen nonsense…it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

You know I have to admit Rock mentioning Cena’s wife raises an odd issue. Lots of times wrestlers get involved in kayfabe romances and sometimes WWE or TNA are inconsistent in portraying whether or not wrestlers’ spouses exist in kayfabe or not. – Guest#0291

It should be easy enough to keep the love life of a wrestler & their character separate, but the line between a wrestler and their character is often blurry. It’s usually easier to put wrestlers that are dating in real life together in storyline, since it’s more likely that they’ll have good chemistry if they’re really into each other. Most of them aren’t good enough actors to portray the boy/girlfriend of somebody they don‘t have those types of feelings for. There are exceptions, of course, but they’re few & far between. Sometimes you get two people that originally don’t like each other like that becoming a couple since they‘re together all the time, and you end up having Triple H controlling the future of the wrestling business. I guess we’ll find out in the next few decades if that’s enough reason to abandon the practice entirely.

Come to think of it, isn’t that how Chris Ben-oh wait I don’t think I’m allowed to mention that LET’S MOVE ON SHALL WE

I don’t remember if John Cena’s marriage was ever acknowledged on television, but he’s in the public eye enough that everybody knows his business whether they need to or not. Add in the fact that from most accounts there’s a pretty thin line between John Cena the person & John Cena the wrestler, and it’ll raise people’s eyebrows when he’s on TV getting kissed by a Diva. If nobody knew Cena’s business, nobody would care, but since they do people get all like “huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. Which is kind of odd because people don’t have that reaction when there’s kissing on other television shows, but since wrestlers want you to think their stuff is real, that bleeds into stuff like John Cena kissing Divas that aren’t his wife. In a way, it’s silly for these things to matter. But they do.

Remember when Diamond Dallas Page debuted in WWF by stalking Undertaker’s wife? Everybody knew from his WCW days that he was married to Nitro Girl Kimberly, who was considered by most people to be more attractive than Undertaker’s then-wife Sara. Not only was making DDP a stalker a gross misuse of his abilities when he was supposed to be one of the key cogs in the WCW machine during the Invasion, but nobody bought into him wanting to be with Sara instead of Kimberly. Eventually they turned it into “mind games”, but the damage was already done and UT treating DDP like a joke didn’t help matters. None of these marriages worked out, which usually happens when they’re played out on television.

How can someone do a Sid impression? He was a bland monster, for pete’s sake! – Guest#8308

I disagree with the classification of Sid as a bland monster. People forget now because the IWC talking point on Sid is that he was rubbish in the ring and on the microphone, but he never had a problem getting a good reaction out of a crowd. I’m not saying he was a 5 star worker, but the guy had the choke slam, he had the power bomb, and people liked it. He was over everywhere he went, even in ECW where the fans proclaimed to hate the “boring sports entertainers” in the big two companies. Sid walked through the door and they pissed themselves with joy. Dude had a certain charisma about him. Check out this promo he did in 1996 a month or so before he won the WWF title from Shawn Michaels…people will tell you that the reaction in MSG being pro-Sid & anti-Shawn was weird, but it actually wasn’t because people were conditioned to like the big guy.

He wasn’t the most verbose man of all time, but he got his point across and the fans loved it. Then he went to WCW and fell into the vortex of suck that promotion was in its dying days…

But that’ll happen. All I’m saying is that Sid was very good at what he did during his time in the major companies. If nothing else, we should be happy he was around because of the various urban legends that he spawned involving squeegees, squirrels & softball.

And now, the fake news!

WWE avoided disaster on Monday when John Cena was uninjured after being involved in a automobile accident on his way to a media appearance in Philadelphia. Cena’s SUV was struck by a Honda Civc that was rear-ended by a tractor trailer. Nobody in the accident was reported injured, and Cena will be able to continue his road to WrestleMania. It pretty much goes without saying that WrestleMania XXVIII would be screwed if something were to happen to either of the competitors in the Cena/Rock showdown, so WWE has to be feeling tremendously lucky that things didn’t end up worse.

I’m sure they weren’t surprised though. This is the part where you can insert your favorite joke about Cena no-selling the car accident or the other drivers not being able to see Cena. I’m sure they’ve all been used by this point.

Here’s an interesting story. Matthew Bloom, known as Giant Bernard in Japan & Prince Albert/Albert/A-Train during his time in WWE, posted a tweet denying rumors that he had re-signed with WWE. This was the first I’d heard of these reports, and then the big news sites came out after Bloom’s tweet with information about how he’s set for a big push upon his return as henchman for John Laurinaitis, several WWE sources have said that he’s returning, and WWE talent was talking about his return backstage at a show in Montreal after being informed of the news. They also said he may be feuding with John Cena since Cena doesn’t have a post-WrestleMania feud set in stone. All this info came out after Bloom’s tweet, but he maintains that the rumors are comical.

So of course he appeared in a vignette last night on Raw. Lord Tensai shall be his name, which is a step up from Albert & Prince Albert and roughly equal to A-Train. I will hold out hope that his tag team partner in Japan, Karl “Machine Gun” Anderson will join him in WWE someday so I can tell people I saw a WWE Superstar wrestle in a flea market.

I do know that Maria Menounos will be part of WrestleMania. An appearance by Kelly Kelly, Eve & Beth Phoenix on Extra last week led to a tag team match pitting Maria & Kelly against Eve & Beth at WrestleMania. There has been talk of adding other Divas to the match to get more of them on the show, but it remains a tag team match for now. Maria will not be appearing live on Raw leading into the show due to the fact she’ll also be appearing on Dancing With The Stars. WWE has to be hoping she’ll still be on the show by then so they can get some mentions.

Maria is very popular with WWE officials, which is understandable as I’ve had a crush on her ever since I was in high school and she was hosting Channel One News. By senior year we’d turn the show off if she wasn’t on it. Many people in WWE consider her better looking than just about all of the Divas, and I find that hard to disagree with. There’s a very good chance she’ll be on top of the 411 Wrestling Hot 100 if I end up doing the feature again this year. I haven’t decided yet.

If Maria doesn’t get the top slot in the potential feature, there’s a good chance it’ll be Brie Bella. Why? Well, Brie & Nikki filled out their NCAA Tournament brackets last week, and Brie reminded me of why she’s the superior Bella Twin by having Louisville in her Final 4. I only had them in the Sweet 16, so her enthusiasm towards my team, city, mascot or whatever her criteria was is impressive. Maybe she’s a Rick Pitino fan…nah, we better not head down that road. In any event, on behalf of Louisville Cardinal fans everywhere I thank Brie for her support.

If you’re scoring at home (or even if you’re alone), Brie has Syracuse beating Kentucky in the finals while Nikki has Michigan State beating Florida State. One of these things could still happen.

Evan Bourne’s Wellness suspension has ended, and he is eligible to return at anytime. Now, things aren’t going to be easy for Evan…he will be facing stringent drug testing, with a minimum of twelve drug tests in one year. If he fails another drug test, he’ll at least be suspended for a year, but more than likely will be fired. The last talk was that he would feud with Jack Swagger, which I assume would mostly take place on Superstars.

Warwick Davis is unhappy about WWE Films remaking the cult classic Leprechaun. I’m unhappy about it too, since it means we’ll be stuck with Hornswoggle for at least a couple more years. Davis’ comments about this were rather interesting…

“I pitched the ‘Lep vs. Pirates’ idea to Johnny Depp while we were shooting ‘Life’s Too Short.’ He didn’t say much.”

Gee, I wonder why. Probably because Colonel Depp isn’t a freaking moron.

There is so much potential for the character. I think a road movie would be fun. The Lep is best when encountering different types of people. I’d also like to see a female Leprechaun – she’s even meaner though and makes the original leprechaun seem soft. I’d love to play her too!”

The man wants to be a female leprechaun. I think we’ve heard about enough from this guy. He’s almost as nonsensical as a Marty Jannetty rant.

WWE cameras were with CM Punk filming for his upcoming DVD. Judging from his Twitter account, adventures included on the disc will be Punk’s trip to the WWE warehouse where they keep all their assorted props from over the years and Punk playing video games with Kofi Kingston. That alone makes it seem worth a watch.

Shane Douglas was kicked out of Raw last night after he tried to start up an ECW chant at ringside. Fifteen years ago people would have thought this was really cool and been all about the Franchise. Now, most of us just look at him and think “Dude, it’s over.” I guess you give him points for trying to promote the Extreme Reunion show he has coming up, and he did trend on Twitter so maybe WWE or TNA will sign him now, but isn’t he a little old to be trying to invade wrestling shows?

I think my favorite invasion of a wrestling show would be the time that XPW tried to invade an ECW PPV held in Los Angeles. That resulted in the entire ECW locker room running out and beating the crap out of the XPW people. Good times. Well, not so much for the XPW people, but they deserved it because of some of those horrible shows they put on DVD that set wrestling back several decades.

In some news that broke just after this column was originally posted, Florida Championship Wrestling is closing its doors and WWE will be moving its developmental wrestlers up to Connecticut until they figure out what to do with their developmental system. Word is that they will do their main developmental territory in Connecticut and open another one somewhere else. Some pretty surprising news here, as Jim Ross had just been down there last week and didn’t seem to indicate anything was out of the ordinary. I think my Facebook friend Harry Broadhurst is on to something, as he points out that if they plan on making the developmental show part of the WWE Network, it’d be cheaper to have them at the studios in Connecticut.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that I was one of the people that said they never should have moved developmental out of OVW…what?

-CM Punk informs us that Chris Jericho isn’t here tonight. Did Fozzy have a gig?

-When did the Punker get all motivational on us? This must be how he got the SES & Nexus on his side.

-Jericho brings it Live Via Satellite!

-Jericho ups the ante by bringing Punk’s sister into things. Punk responds with something that USA didn’t want us to hear!

-Jericho’s also growing a goatee. Remember the awesome goatee he had around 2002-03?

-I grew one of my own around the same time. It wouldn’t be the last time I patterned my look after a wrestler, as right now I have the Arn Anderson hair/beard combo going. Not on purpose.

-Kane enters during commercial? My, how his star has fallen.

-Kane wrestles Big Show with Cody Rhodes at ringside. Cole said Cody was supposed to be on commentary, but I wouldn’t have anything to say to Cole & Lawler either if I was him.

-Kane wins the match thanks to a Cody distraction. Cody then handcuffs Show to the ropes and works him over with boxing gloves like he’s Floyd Mayweather. OK, Money May’s probably a bit better at the boxing thing.

-Either way, Cody gets some good heat here and comes off as a threat to the world’s largest athlete.

-Cody has joined D-Bry in the Top 10 on Facebook gimmick, as he made a list of 10 People Big Show Can Beat At WrestleMania:

Barry Horowitz
Brooklyn Brawler
Jim Powers
NWO fake Sting
The Mulkeys (counts as two)
Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker
Alex Wright
High Voltage
Vito

-Tough to argue any of those picks, and now we can look forward to Vito bitching and moaning about WWE burying him!

-Chris Masters “complaining” on the Greg DeMarco Show about David Otunga stealing his posing gimmick was pretty funny. And now Otunga’s doing some cape thing with it too.

-Santino doesn’t have a bad physique either. He’s not as Well as Otunga though.

-Santino stomps on Johnny’s smartphone, but still gets planted by Otunga.

-Teddy can run pretty fast when he’s running for his life. And now he dances! Ah, good times.

-Hey, it’s the guy that swore he wasn’t going back to WWE! Nobody saw that coming, right?

-18,088 in Philly tonight! I think SmackDown tapings get that in a month’s time.

-Rock looks at the Rocky statue in a call back to his 2001 return.

-Rock threatens to shove a cheesesteak up Cena’s ass. Well, if Cena eats one it’d exit through there.

-The fans are impressed by the Rock, but not by Daniel Bryan!

-Bryan vs. Ryder should explode the Interweb.

-Not sure how well the Statue of Broski shirt would sell in Philly. They’re not high on NY stuff there.

-Dolph Ziggler & Jack Swagger were added to Team Johnny on WWE.com. It’s a good sign when your joining the team doesn’t make TV, right?

-D-Bry uses the Decapitator. I guess Lord Tensai won’t be using that one.

-How come D-Bry hasn’t worked I HAVE TIL FIVE REFEREE into his act yet?

-D-Bry makes Ryder tap in relatively quick fashion. Hey, he is the WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, and Ryder’s recovering from a broken back & broken heart.

-Wow, that sounded cheesy.

-Flo Rida will “star” at WrestleMania. Hopefully that’s different from performing, as I have no desire to sit through Flo Rida.

-Time to find out what’s tougher to survive: a car accident or wrestling Mark Henry.

-And now my cable company decides to be a bitch again. They were bought out by Time Warner recently, and over the last couple days they’ve been having issues. Insight Communications used to have this commercial about how people didn’t like their satellite companies because they would cut out during basketball games, so it was kind of funny when they started cutting out during the NCAA Tournament. So basically, Time Warner can kiss my ass.

-It’s back on for now, while Henry splashes Cena for a two count.

-Well, it’s a good thing they rebuilt Mark Henry for one week so he could be a competent jobber to John Cena.

-THE ROCK! Will he come to the aid of his former ally in the Nation of Domination? No, he comes down to deliver a Rock Bottom to him! Well, Mizark & D-Lo Brown did turn against Rock to end the Nation.

-Flo Rida tweets that he’ll be performing two songs. Hope Bryan & Sheamus can have a good 5 minute match!

-I love how Eve is supposedly Beth’s sidekick in this Extra clip when she’s doing all the talking.

-Hey, Miz still has a job.

-Miz, I knew King Kong Bundy. King Kong Bundy was a friend of mine. Miz, you are no King Kong Bundy!

-Bundy appeared on Married With Children and was the inspiration for the Bundy family name. That trumps any MTV show Miz was on.

-Miz issues an open challenge, which is never a good idea on a wrestling show. At least this isn’t ECW and New Jack’s not coming out to hit him with all sorts of plunder.

-Miz isn’t too bad at being a jobber to the stars. I’d be perfectly happy if he stayed in this role forever.

-Sheamus kicks Miz’s head off. As he should.

-Randy Orton says some stuff about Kane. I’m sorry, but with Louisville in the Sweet 16 I can’t be bothered to care about Orton/Kane. I gotta have my priorities!

-I do like that they brought back the old-school interview stage for it. They need to do that more often.

-Big Show, David Otunga & Stephanie McMahon. Who’s getting kicked out of the hot tub, Wilbon?

-Aksana & Vickie Guerrero nearly have a catfight. Another ECW tribute cast aside!

-Swagger & Ziggler sure seem to have problems getting on the same page.

-Ziggler ends with the Fameasser. But he’s not anything like Billy Gunn, we swear!

-CATFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT! CATFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!

-I wouldn’t like Vickie’s chances against Aksana in a shoot.

-So Triple H used Undertaker’s Tombstone to finish off Ziggler at MSG on Sunday. I don’t see Undertaker using H’s Pedigree anytime soon,.

-Certainly not if he doesn’t use it at WrestleMania.

-Rock & Cena will be in Atlanta next week! Lots of pressure on Hotlanta to continue Raw’s sellout streak.

-HBK does some talking, and here comes the Dead Man!

-Why doesn’t UT wear that hat he wore in his most recent picture leaked online? Looks more badass than the hood.

-You can tell Triple H means business tonight since he isn’t wearing his COO suit. Probably so he wouldn’t spit water on it.

-Raw really has become the wrestling show that the South Park kids put on a few years ago.

-HHH promises to give Taker the end that he deserves. Taker reiterates that Shawn is better than HHH. This gets Shawn a death stare from HHH as Taker leaves. They awkwardly look around as we fade to black.

-Not a whole lot in-ring to write home about, but this time of year is all about building towards WrestleMania, and they did a pretty good job of that. Rock did lay the smack down on somebody, but there’s still HHH, Taker & HBK standing around and staring at each other. I get keeping them from fighting until WM, but it kind of kills the aura of dislike when they can spend several minutes in the same ring every week without getting the urge to tear each others’ throats out. I think I’m alone on this, as even Larry Csonka seems to like it.

If you’re one of those people that hates it when wrestling shows constantly feature Twitter, you’re not going to be too happy with TNA. The company has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, as the announcers mentioned it tirelessly during the matches & Jeremy Borash even asked TNA wrestlers questions from people on Twitter before their matches. Apparently the wrestlers didn’t really answer the questions, but the thought was there.

I’m not surprised to see this with Dave Lagana gaining creative power, as Lagana has used social networking to further his reputation as a creative genius since he was fired by WWE. It’ll be interesting to see if the online critics that are against WWE mentioning Twitter every other minute will continue this stance, or if they’ll like TNA doing it because their favorite writer thinks it’s a good idea. It’ll also be interesting to see if the WWE/Twitter critics in the comment section will also bash TNA for doing it.

I just like people to be consistent, that’s all. I have no issue with Twitter. Heck, I have a Twitter account that’s almost up to 60 followers. My goal is to get to 65 by my birthday in May.

Eric Bischoff also has no issue with social networking, and even though it seems like it’s either a woot or a shork, he had a nice drunken Facebook post the other night:

“Just had a beer here in Nashville. Bartender asked me I worked for the boss ‘Jeremy Borash.’ When I asked ‘WTF’ that was supposed to mean, I was told emphatically that Jeremy has represented himself as an ‘owner’ of TNA. Jeremy is a low rent bit player who should be fortunate he has a job.”

Some people got offended because Borash has been a key cog in the TNA machine since before the company started, but isn’t this the type of behavior we expect from Bischoff?

And if you’re still mad, you can nod along with Jim Ross’s feelings towards Eric Bischoff displayed in the video below:

Rob Van Dam is expected to re-sign with Impact Wrestling. This is an about-face from previous rumors that RVD was expected to leave the company, but things probably changed once he realized WWE still has a Wellness policy and a brutal road schedule. Those two things are major obstacles to RVD returning to that company. He could be back with TNA as early as this week.

Repo Games star Josh Lewis will be appearing at the Impact tapings this week. Lewis is a life-long wrestling fan and he would love the chance to wrestle full time. I’ve never watched the show, but judging from pictures he has a look of a guy that might try wrestling on for size. If nothing else, there are probably some vehicles in the parking lot of the Impact Zone that are up for repossession.

Robbie E is blaming Brooke Hogan for his losing the TV title to Devon at Victory Road. So not only do we have a Borash/Bischoff feud, now people are feuding with Brooke Hogan? I guess I’m just surprised it took this long. How long until Brooke’s in a storyline romance with Garett Bischoff, and what are the odds that Hulk & Eric have tried to hook them up in real life?

Slammiversary will be held in Arlington, Texas, which is just outside of Dallas. Texas has traditionally been a pretty good territory for wrestling, I don’t know how well TNA typically does there, but maybe they’ll take a liking to James Storm since he’s a Cowboy.

Ring of Honor appears to be starting up some sort of angle involving Russian aggression. They posted something on their website saying that a large amount of the dislikes on their YouTube videos are coming from Russia, and they want fans to get the word out about the YouTube page to combat the negativity coming from Mother Russia. A Cold War angle coming from ROH’s creative team wouldn’t surprise me since they seem somewhat behind the times these days, but I’m guessing this is leading to Alex Koslov re-entering the promotion as a Russian nationalistic heel. Koslov was released from his WWE developmental contract not too long ago, and ROH fans seemed to like him during his limited appearances with the company in 2009-10.

I guess it could also lead to Vladimir Koslov making his ROH debut, which wouldn’t go over nearly as well with their fanbase.

Rhino will be returning to ROH at the April 7 TV tapings in Baltimore, Maryland. He’ll be in a Proving Ground match against the ROH Champion, where if he wins the match or lasts 15 minutes he’ll earn a title shot. He’ll resume his role as part of the Embassy with Prince Nana, R.D. Evans, Mia Yim & Tommasso Ciampa. Gotta love a faction that has more managers than wrestlers.

Kevin Steen won the PWG championship back from El Generico on Saturday night in Reseda, California in a triple threat match also featuring Eddie Edwards. Steen was originally scheduled to wrestle in a four-team match with his PWG Tag Team Championship partner Super Dragon, but Dragon was forced to miss the show due to injury & Steen ended up insinuating himself in the main event title match. I wonder if people are complaining that Steen’s getting a push because he’s buddies with The Rock.

Kevin Nash might not be done with wrestling after all. In an interview with The Sun, Nash talked about how he’d be willing to come back to WWE to work with CM Punk (it was originally supposed to be Nash vs. Punk but he got spun into a Triple H feud), and even said he’d be willing to go back to TNA since it’s just down the road and he’s starting to get bored. It seems like the main reason people don’t retire is either money or boredom. I expect him to be back someday because nobody ever leaves wrestling for good and this would only be Nash’s fifteenth comeback.

The 411 on Wrestling featured Larry Csonka & your humble correspondent talking about the latest wrestling news, how WWE is afraid to get behind new stars, and the usual stuff you expect from us. We should be back Wednesday night at 9 or 10, but check the newswire on Wednesday to be sure!

Did you guys check out my March Madness Podcast with the Voodoo Penguin over at offtheteam.com? If you didn’t, you missed out on us pretty much predicting the whole tournament wrong. It’s weird, we probably watch more college basketball than anything, but we don’t have a damn clue about what’s going to happen. The hour & forty-five minute mark is a good point to listen to, and thanks to our poor technology you can’t hear me laughing my ass off after I insist that Georgetown beating Rutgers was a good win. It’s outdated, but if you want two hours of me proving that I’m an idiot it’s good times.

Last week’s Greg DeMarco Show featured Chris Masters & Gregory Iron. They’ll be back Tuesday night at 10:30 with more guests, more wrestling insight & MOAR BUGGY.

Hell, even Stephen Randle is getting in on the podcast fun…in his own words: “If Cook can do it, why can’t I?” That’s a damn good point.

Fact or Fiction has Gavin Napier & Jeremy Thomas talking about various wrestling issues & Hulk Hogan’s sex tape.

Byers lists the eight worst WrestleMania win-loss records. He’s lucky his readers don’t read the beginning of his columns, if they did he’d have far less comments.

Weyer talks about wrestling documentaries.

Sometimes I feel like I‘m getting old. I just need to remind myself that Rutherford has been watching wrestling just about as long as I’ve been alive.

Reid lists the hottest & coldest WrestleMania moments. I don’t know how the Miller Lite Catfight Girls didn’t make the hot list.

Good times.

Furious recaps UWF Blackjack Brawl! I’ve seen some UWF on ESPN Classic, and it’s a shame this show didn’t make their airwaves.

The Truth gang talks about announcers. Speaking of announcers, I heard that Jim Ross & William Regal did some announcing for an upcoming FCW episode. Why they’re not the announce team on Raw or SmackDown, I have no earthly idea. Whether anybody wants to admit it or not, JR is still the best play by play announcer in wrestling, and the little I’ve heard of Regal is better than any of the guys currently on those shows. I guess we’re still hung up on what announcers look like, which is a shame because Ross & Regal might actually help some people on the WWE roster get over unlike how the announcers currently on the shows do whatever they can to make sure nobody gets over.

Actually, Regal’s a sexy beast so I don’t know what their excuse is for him not being on Raw or SmackDown. Too British would be my guess.

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