News From Cook’s Corner 06.12.12

Go ahead with all of your “LOL internet wrestling writer spending all of his time in a basement” jokes. I’ll wait.

We’re back on the wrestling news beat this week, with all of the latest & greatest wrestling news & some Raw Thoughts! It was a three hour show, so there were a lot of things to think about. Actually, it was longer than three hours, which made my joining in the 411 on Wrestling podcast Monday night a bit problematic. Anyway, enough small talk, let’s get to business.

The reaction to the 2012 411 Wrestling Hot 100 exceeded my expectations by a large margin. Comments were through the roof, Twitter was going crazy, and I don’t think the rest of my 411 articles combined have had as many Facebook likes. Some think the Hot 100 is just an exercise to get 411 a ton of hits, and while it does that job very well the reason I started doing the feature back in 2010 was simply to give the women of wrestling some love. I don’t think they get enough appreciation for what they do from fans, critics or promoters, and the list is my way of giving them some admiration in a fun way that will hopefully generate more discussion about them & what they do. The fun part for me as a wrestling fan that enjoys watching these women perform was seeing response on it from various ladies on the list linking it on their Facebook & Twitter pages. With a notable exception or two, most of the ladies that acknowledged the list seemed happy to be recognized and didn’t get mad about their spot or who was rated ahead of them on the list. If people are mad about their spot or their lack of one, I hope they use it as motivation to work even harder at what they do so people like me don’t sell them short.

Next year’s Hot 100 will be even bigger & even better. After last year’s list and the site difficulties that led to the pictures being deleted just a couple of weeks after posting, I wasn’t sure I was going to bother with it in 2012. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I decided for sure I’d do it again. The response this year has convinced me that the feature needs to continue as long as I’m here. (I’m sure that 411 will find somebody else to do it if I’m not here.) What can you expect in 2013 when we present the fourth annual 411 Wrestling Hot 100?

-The release date will be moved to July, as it’s a quieter time in the sports calendar and I’ll have more time to add stylistic touches to it. July’s hotter than June anyway.

-There will be multiple parts. While it’s great to have a column that’s just 100 pictures of beautiful women, it can be tough on some readers from a bandwidth perspective, and it makes more sense to spread out the drama of the list over multiple editions. We can even add in some wrestling talk for the lady readers out there that might not be so interested in the countdown.

-There will be longer write-ups. It’s tough to cover a person’s year in just a couple of sentences, and important stuff gets left out. As I put even more work into the feature next year I’ll have more information to work with and more to say about each of the ladies making the list. It’ll make for a more complete read and maybe even explain some of the rankings.

Thanks to everybody that checked out last week’s Hot 100 and made it the biggest thing I’ve produced in my nearly eight years of writing & talking about pro wrestling. I have every intention of topping it next year, and hopefully you all will be along for the ride! There were a couple of comments from the 05.29.12 edition of the Corner that I wanted to respond to, then we’ll do a couple of comments from the Hot 100.

Hey Yo, Steve Cook, I got a question: I heard your homegirl Michelle Beadle is leaving ESPN and is gonna start working for NBC Sport Network or something. Your thoughts? – The Good Guy

Beadle is joining NBC Sports & Access Hollywood. She’ll be a big part of NBC’s Olympics & Triple Crown coverage, there will be some sort of programming on the NBC Sports Network developed for her, and she’ll be a regular on the Access Hollywood TV show. It’s a step up from SportsNation for sure. She was one of my favorite ESPN personalities, but fortunately they have enough talented women on staff to make up for losing her. I’m more than okay with Charissa Thompsion replacing her on SportsNation, and if the rumors are true about Colin Cowherd leaving the show and one of the top candidates to replace him being Jonathan Coachman, well that’d be some damn good times. (The Coach has been killing it on ESPN & ESPN Radio, proving that there is in fact life after wrestling.)

The big question for the purposes of readers of this column is if Beadle will appear on WWE television since she is now under the NBC Universal banner. That could be interesting, but we’ll have to wait & see on that. As a Beadle fan boy I’d be bout it bout it.

I disagree with your take on the crossover MMA/wrestling fans.

I believe Brock could be a catalyst to bring in new fans, but if UFC/lapsed wrestling fans flip over and see it’s the same boring shit they stopped watching, they’re not sticking around or buying a PPV. – Yogi

I haven’t seen the survey Lance is talking about, but it wouldn’t surprise me if a good percentage of WCW fans became UFC fans. Back in the day WCW fans would build up their company by talking about how it wasn’t as cartoonish as the WWF was. WCW action was often more fast paced, more brutal and more real than what you’d see on WWF television. WCW was World Championship Wrestling, you’d never hear the phrase “sports entertainment” on their show. Towards the end WCW tried to be more like the WWF and copy what made that company successful, and most of the old school WCW fans that had been around since the days of the National Wrestling Alliance, which was totally promoted around having the best in-ring action of any wrestling group, tuned out. They didn’t want to watch the WWF, they wanted their pro wrestling the way it had always been. WCW had left them behind, and once it went away for good they weren’t going to support the rival company that they’d hated for years and had no interest in giving a chance.

Then UFC came along, and it was better than WCW in presenting a gritty, real product that was easy to understand and wasn’t a joke. It was exactly the type of show that would appeal to the people that liked wrestling better when it wasn’t sports entertainment. Add in the fact that it was real, and I’m sure that drew in a lot of WCW fans that weren’t buying what the WWF was selling. The same probably went for ECW fans, many of who already thought that ECW was real anyway.

“The Greg DeMarco Show Starlet recently left the show to move on to bigger & better things”

Shocking! Never would have guessed… – DumbMarko Blows

Very first comment. If I know Greg he was bragging about this to anybody that would listen. Once he got done with that he made this pretty fun banner for the Hot 100 that was a lot better than the one I made about 5 minutes before the feature got posted:

I have a feeling Scarlett Bordeaux (the lady pictured here) is going to be a bit higher in next year’s edition.

I complain about both Tara and Shazza being that low. But I can tell Shazza about it and thus I’d watch your back Cook. – mlsq42

Shazza McKenzie had one of my favorite reactions to the feature. Jessie McKay posted a link to the article on her Facebook page (which was enough to make the whole thing worthwhile in my book as I am a big fan of hers), and Shazza responded to it saying “It was close Jessie you only just beat me, but Saturday will be different”. I can’t say I expected anybody to use the Hot 100 to build an upcoming match, so that was pretty awesome. One thing is for sure: I need to be keeping a closer eye on the Australian wrestling scene. They got some nice looking women there that can work a good wrestling match. And Massive Q, who I still say is a loon for obsessing over Tara when he’s got such great talent around him.

Lita. – MBD

You left off Trish you idiot, she shoule be number one. – Guest#5298

how did Stacy Kiebler not make the list AT ALL? – Anthonio

I guess you three missed the fact that this is for women CURRENTLY in the business. Cook even mentions how Maryse and the Bellas will likely be off of it next year for that very reason. They’re gone, get over it. – Guest#5685

Women that haven’t done anything in wrestling during the past year don’t make the list. That’s why Trish Stratus didn’t make the cut. She was in a couple of backstage segments, but she had no matches or angles during the time period. Stacy hasn’t been involved in wrestling in years, so she isn’t in consideration. Some of you asked about Daffney, and I couldn’t find any evidence of her working during the time period. Girls like April Hunter & Lizzy Valentine weren’t active for most of it.

I will say that out of all the people that were asked about in the comment section Jennifer Blake stood out as one that probably should have made the cut. I didn’t see a lot of her last year, but she’s an attractive lady and does good work in the ring. There were a few others like Leah Von Dutch & Candice LaRae that would have benefited from reader support before I posted the column, but Jennifer is the person I most regret leaving off the list.

Steve Cook, you rated Mickie James higher than Naomi and Cameron? What is wrong with you man? Naomi and Cameron are so beautiful they make Mickie James looks like trailer trash. Cook, since you decided to judge these women on their credentials as apart of your criteria, its clouded your judgment. – WrestlingFanSince1985

I know, man! I believe that credentials need to be an important part of the rankings, if for no other reason than to make me feel like less of a pervert while making the list. I try to combine different elements of wrestling to make a more complete list. Some peoples’ lists are purely based on workrate, and some are purely based on looks. Trying to judge the whole package is more difficult and makes things more interesting & less predictable. It also ensures that nobody will ever agree with numbers 1-100, which is important.

Great list and I doubt you will make it to this comment but maybe you could explain to me why the IWC gives Velvet Sky a pass on her wrestling ability but bags on Kelly Kelly? I’m watching Impact and Velvet makes KK look like Lou Thesz. – The Big Fat F*g

People are entranced by Velvet’s entrance. In all seriousness, I think Velvet gets less criticism than Kelly for her wrestling because she has more charisma and plays her character a lot better than Kelly does. If you have enough charisma you can get by on not doing as much in the ring as other people do. Kelly has charisma too, but it’s pretty much all based on her looks. Her wrestling is better than her acting, and we know how much some people complain about her wrestling.

And now, the fake news!

Alberto Del Rio did not compete on WWE house shows this weekend due to a concussion he suffered on Tuesday’s SmackDown taping, and he has been ruled out of Sunday’s No Way Out PPV. ADR was scheduled to have a match with Sheamu for the World title, and Dolph Ziggler was tapped to replace him. It’s bad timing for Del Rio to get injured, and now he seems to be getting a reputation as a guy that can’t be pushed at a major level because he can’t stay healthy. Ask Mr. Kennedy/Anderson how well that worked out for him.

WWE is suffering through something of a talent shortage these days. Well, let me rephrase that. It’s not so much a talent shortage as it is a lack of people that fans are willing to take seriously. If you’re wondering why you’re seeing so many squash matches on TV with the same guys every week (Ryback, Funkasaurus, now Sin Cara), the answer is pretty simple…they need to get people over! This is why I’m not spending a lot of time talking about the reports that people within WWE want to fire Randy Orton. I’m sure that there are people there that would like to see him gone, but can they really afford to fire him? The guy fills a role that they don’t have anybody ready to fill. Same goes for Rey Mysterio. Obviously there are people in WWE against him as well, but whenever he comes back they’re going to have to feature him on television in a big way. Why? They don’t have anybody to fill Rey’s shoes! They’re hoping & praying that Sin Cara can do it, and maybe he can take that torch someday, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Back on the Orton front real quick…I don’t buy the reports that John Cena is pushing for him to be fired (come on, they’re based off of an ex-WWE employee tweeting about how much Cena hated Orton back in the day), but wouldn’t it be interesting if it was true? It’s not likely to happen though, especially considering other reports that WWE is trying not to fire people during Linda McMahon’s Senate campaign. Linda is being pushed as a job creator, and WWE laying people off would make her look bad. Listen, I’m not any happier about WWE’s business policy being dictated by the owner’s wife running for public office than you are, but this actually isn’t a bad thing unless you’re one of those people that gets off on other people losing their jobs. If WWE wants to keep all of their wrestlers employed until their contracts expire, I got no issue with that.

CM Punk is filling in on SmackDown house shows with Randy Orton being out of action. Assuming that John Cena is the person drawing people to Raw house shows, you might as well send Punk to where he’s needed more. Of course they just moved Daniel Bryan to the Raw house show circuit, but I assume that they would move the Punk/Bryan matches to the SD shows. That, or they book Punk vs. Kane on the SD shows and let Bryan squash somebody on the Raw shows. I nominate Zack Ryder.

Kelly Kelly has been granted some time off by WWE. She’s been on the road with the company since 2006 and wants to spend some time with her family & friends while recharging her batteries. Of course, while she’s doing that she’s also accepting bookings outside of WWE, which alarmed WWE enough to offer her a contract extension & pay raise. They don’t want her to leave because she’s the most marketable Diva and gets a larger reaction from the crowds than any of their other female wrestlers. Honestly, I don’t blame Kelly for at least wanting some time off, and it’d be understandable if she wanted out. Six years is a long time on the road as a WWE Diva.

WWE Tag Team Champion R-Truth reportedly injured his foot last week in Spain and had to miss the rest of the tour. Kofi Kingston teamed with the likes of Zack Ryder & Brodus Clay instead. Yes, Brodus is now exclusively a SmackDown talent, but it was ok since the Spaniards hadn’t seen that episode of SmackDown yet. I would want to avoid being Kofi’s tag team partner if I was a WWE Superstar, as that doesn’t seem to end well for anybody. It’s probably a worse curse than CM Punk being your WrestleMania opponent…Punk’s victims just get suspended, Kingston’s victims get their feet destroyed.

WWE has purchased the Mid-South Wrestling tape library from the family of Bill Watts’ ex-wife Ene. Mid-South was one of the more interesting indy promotions of the 1980s and WWE is apparently going to use the footage for DVDs on people like Ted DiBiase, Junkyard Dog & Hacksaw Jim Duggan, along with a documentary on the promotion. They will also likely use it for the eventual WWE Network. WWE has been trying to purchase this tape library for quite awhile now, and most of us territorial wrestling nerds are happy that the footage will see more exposure through WWE than it would have sitting in Bill Watts’ ex-wife’s garage.

Another good thing about it, though on a much smaller level: Maybe it’ll convince my fellow writers to vote Bill Watts into the 411 Wrestling Hall of Fame on the next go-around. Interesting how we vote in Watts disciples like Jim Ross & Jim Cornette, but Watts won’t get votes from those people. Makes no sense.

Jerry Lawler noted during a Q & A session on Sunday that Vince McMahon was not happy about their Top 50 Greatest Superstars of All Time DVD. Not for a reason you’d expect though. Lawler said that Vince didn’t want to rank the stars and he…

Get ready for this…

He wanted to avoid upsetting people.

Vince McMahon wanted to avoid upsetting people? I find this tremendously hard to believe. The man’s almost made a billion dollars by upsetting people! I can’t think of a reason that Lawler would make something like this up though, so I guess it falls into the “You learn something new every day” category. Of course, this was the list that had Hulk Hogan in the 20s & Ric Flair & Dusty Rhodes tied at 17, so if I was him I would have been upset about it too.

The kinda funny thing tying into this is that now WWE.com is making all sorts of lists. Smart on their part, as we here at 411 know all about lists drawing hits & complaints! They made a list of wrestling families recently, and Cody Rhodes tweeted his dismay about the Rhodes family not being higher on the list. I would mock him for this except for two things:

-He’s Cody Rhodes and is awesome
-He name-dropped Thunderbolt Patterson while mocking WWE.com’s list making abilities

Really, what’s not to like about Cody Rhodes? Give him Del Rio’s slot!

News reports surfaced Sunday claiming that Vince McMahon may be trying to drive Vickie Guerrero out of WWE. This would be due to jokes about her weight that have been told over the years. Honestly, I’m not sure this isn‘t something that somebody was waiting to post on a slow news weekend to get hits. Vickie Guerrero is a heel manager. Making fun of heel managers for their perceived shortcomings is a tradition that goes back to the first heel manager.

Who was the first heel manager? I have no idea. Somebody Ask 411!

Vince McMahon was trending on Twitter after the Manny Pacquiao/Timothy Bradley fight. Apparently people thought he booked it. I saw the fight through completely legal means, and while I’ve never fancied myself as a boxing expert I don’t know how two judges ended up giving the fight to Bradley. Pacquaio’s had better performances and I didn’t like how he would basically do nothing for the first minute of each & every round, but he controlled the fight & landed better punches. Bradley never really had an advantage & didn’t land much of anything that was serious…I would have given him two rounds out of twelve, and I was kinda being generous. The major problem with Pacquiao’s fight was he didn’t knock Bradley out, and when you leave it in the hands of the judges you’re playing a dangerous game.

It’ll be interesting to see how many people fork out money for the rematch. I have a feeling that a lot will, but the bigger problem facing boxing is that their money match of Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather keeps getting pushed down the line and by the time it happens (if it happens) both guys will be out of their prime fighting years. They’re both already trending downward, which doesn’t mean they suck, but they’re not the guys that we wanted to see fight five years ago. Also, Mayweather now has a legitimate reason to not fight Pacquiao since the guy lost a fight. He can find somebody else with a better winning streak that won’t be as big of a threat to his perfect record.

And that was your 411 Boxing content for 2012. Hope you enjoyed it!

John Bradshaw Layfield is attempting to climb seven of the tallest mountains on Earth, a quest which will culminate with a climb of Mount Everest in 2014. He’s doing it for charity, and WWE has agreed to donate money while publicizing his mountain climbing exploits. Fun times. I couldn’t imagine what JBL’s about to try…I tried walking down the block this weekend and my back & legs nearly went out on me. Yeah, taking a few months off from long walks is a baaaaaaaaaad idea.

-I didn’t talk about Raw in last week’s column, which was fine with me because the show seemed rather uninspired. I liked the stuff with Punk, Bryan, AJ & Kane, but everything else ranged from forgettable to bad. As far as the main event of John Cena vs. Michael Cole went, that did nothing for me. It doesn’t matter who was involved, and I’m not one of those guys that uses WWE’s anti-bullying campaign to question why they do certain things on their programming…I just didn’t need to see Cole in his underwear covered in barbecue sauce.

-But that was last week. This week we’ve got three hours! It’ll be a good indicator of what things are going to be like in a little over a month when they try to fill three hours every single week. I’m not really optimistic about it, but you know I’m going to give them a chance. I am a glutton for many things, including punishment.

-We start things with Big Johnny talking. Always a good way to start a show, right?

-Never mind, Vince cuts him off. I do love that walk of his.

-Vince is influenced by all the greats. He took his walk from Buddy Rodgers, and he uses the phrase “pencil neck” like he’s Fred Blassie.

-Vince brings up the time Johnny hired the wrong one-legged wrestler! Tremendous.

-He also mentions how Big Show hasn’t been effective since 1999 and talks about how nobody can understand Johnny. Now this is a guy I can support!

-Is it just me or was Sheamus kind of swaying his arms like Vince there?

-Johnny’s upset! He doesn’t even take his Rascal to the back. Vince doesn’t mind driving it though, and he pushes it off the side of the stage!

-Johnny books Sheamus against Tensai. Oh God tell me this isn’t going to be ADR’s replacement.

-Sheamus cleanly pins Tensai after a Brogue Kick after about 10 minutes or so. Vince declares it Strike One.

-I thought for sure that Teddy Long would reply with “TAG TEAM MATCH PLAYA!” when Big Johnny asked him for a match idea.

-Tensai abuses Sakamoto. Since nobody knows anything about the guy it’s tough to generate much response.

-Indeed, when I think of memorable Raw moments I think of the time Seth Green was on the show. If they wanted somebody from Family Guy they should have got Mila Kunis.

-I forgot just how small he is. Dude’s the size of Triple H’s arm!

-Well that’s one way to take R-Truth out of action.

-Ricardo Rodriguez & Beth Phoenix are quite the tag team. It’s like something you make up in a video game to amuse yourself.

-Ricardo running headfirst into the ring post to avoid the Cobra is pretty tremendous. Hope he didn’t give himself a concussion!

-Beth pins Layla because what other heel Diva is going to challenge for the title right now?

-Did Ricardo borrow that Bieber shirt from his baby sister?

-Big Johnny books Kofi vs. Big Show in a steel cage. Well, if we yell at TNA for having cage matches on TV before Lockdown, we should yell at WWE for doing it before No Way Out.

-Daniel Bryan mocks Kane & CM Punk for being obsessed with a woman that is still in love with Daniel Bryan.

-“Once you go Bryan, there’s no point in tryin’! OH YEAH!”

-Daniel Bryan as a ladies’ man is always great comedy.

-The crowd disagrees with Bryan’s assertion that he will win the WWE title. What do they know?

-Bryan calls out CM Punk on his pandering and claims the fans are voiceless because they have nothing to say.

-Isn’t it funny how the vanilla midgets from ROH are the most interesting talkers in WWE these days?

-“Goat Face” seems to be catching on with the fans. Bryan’s next t-shirt?

-Kane brings up some of his more interesting moments over the years. His pipe bombs are actually pipe bombs!

-AJ comes out to make some sense of the situ-yeah that’s not happening.

-She’s insane. Kane does not have a heart!

-Big Johnny books Bryan & Kane against Punk & AJ! Now that’s a match I could see Teddy Long making!

-Tony Acero is worried about his dear AJ, but something tells me that she’s dreamed about being in a physical situation with Bryan, Kane & Punk before.

-Lawler’s ordering pizza from ringside! He’s still adjusting to Raw starting earlier.

-Shocked they didn’t mention Christian’s Slammiversary appearance last night.

-OK, not really.

-Oh, so this is an elimination match? For a second there I thought that Christian, Swagger & Ziggler were all going to wrestle Sheamus at No Way Out.

-Ziggler pins Swagger after the Killswitch. I’m not sure I would go with that strategy, but who am I to doubt the Show Off?

-Tough to complain about either Christian or Ziggler getting a match with Sheamus on the PPV. I don’t think either guy moves the needle, but they’re both deserving of the spot.

-As Ryan Byers points out on Twitter, Christian is wrestling like a man that doesn’t want to go back to where he went last night.

-Dolph Ziggler gets the title shot! Can people forget that he recently lost to Sheamus at least twice? (I remember two times and I can’t rule out them having another TV match.)

-Vince has likely had that face many a time after talking to a Hart family member.

-Well, it’s been a couple of years since Vince danced with some Divas.

-Vince just used Zack Ryder’s catchphrase on Raw one more time than Ryder has in the last couple of months.

-Willard Fillmore & Rutherford P.S. Hayes take on Ryback. Wow.

-That goes about as you’d expect.

-Feed that man more! What’s next, is he going to take on three small dudes?

-Remember when JR got all offended about Ed Ferrara making fun of his Bell’s Palsy? How about now that Hornswoggle & Vince McMahon are doing it?

-I wasn’t really paying attention to Cena & Vince talking, but I popped for the William Regal cameo.

-Big Show beats up Kofi Kingston and yells a lot. I’m still on the “don’t really care about all this Cena/Show stuff” bandwagon.

-Show wins. Kofi…well, yeah, who knows what he’ll do now. Find another tag team partner to curse?

-Still not a fan of Sin Cara’s mood lighting, but Curt Hawkins’ tights look pretty snazzy.

-This decision isn’t nearly as interesting as LeBron’s decision was.

-#ThunderUp

-Vince claims that he’s never finished anything in 18 seconds. I wonder what Linda would have to say about that.

-They are still advertising Punk vs. Bryan for the July 30 Raw in Cincy. That is really tempting.

-Don’t think I’ve mentioned this before…it really sucks that they’re blurring out the old block logo.

-A former Raw main eventer is taking on Heath Slater. Did William Shatner main event?

-Well, we get VADER~!

-Vader is most remembered for his feud with Sting in WCW & his appearances on Boy Meets World. He had a WWF stint too, but I try to forget most of it.

-The crowd says that Vader still has it. I’m not seeing him Vadersaulting anybody anytime soon.

-They want a Vader Bomb!

-They get it!

-Hell fire, I don’t think I’d want Vader on the show every single week, but that was some damn good times!

-The fun thing about WWE’s Twitter feed during the shows is you find out which of their wrestlers are not on Twitter. I for one am sad that neither Kane or Great Khali are tweeting their thoughts to the world. Kane’s would be especially interesting.

-Did Lawler ever get his pizza? That’d be counterproductive advertising for Domino’s if he didn’t.

-I dunno, I find Daniel Bryan & Kane to be a weirder tag team than CM Punk & AJ.

-Bryan punctuating his kicks with YES is the best thing ever. Well, since Vader squashed Heath Slater last segment.

-If anything deserves an OH MY GOD!, it’s AJ kissing Kane. Or a YES YES YES for that matter.

-Kane tags Bryan and leaves. Bryan jobs to the flying elbow from Punk. I think Bryan jobbed to confusion more than the elbow.

-After one week of action, AJ is the clubhouse leader in the 2013 411 Wrestling Hot 100.

-MILLIONS OF DOLLARS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

-Damn, it was Big Show saying it instead of DY & Titus.

-Cena needs something else to call Big Show instead of “sellout”. Daniel Bryan already called CM Punk that!

-We get a scrum at the end that results in Big Show knocking out Vince! I guess we’ll never know Vince’s Decision! Boy, I hope people weren’t waiting with bated breath for that!

TNA was thrilled with the Slammiversary event on Sunday night. It drew the largest attendance of any of their PPV events, the crowd was hot and the matches for the most part went well. I will go ahead and admit that I did not see the show, and I was a bit pessimistic about it in the Roundtable, but it sounds like they delivered a really good show that made the fans happy. That’s a good thing. But, they need to keep it up. I’ve been following this promotion since it started, and they’ve done an exceptionally poor job of keeping the momentum going. It’d be awesome if they kept it up. Will they? Well, you know I’ll be around to find out…

Sting was announced as the first inductee into the TNA Hall of Fame at Slammiversary. I would have gone with Jeff Jarrett since he founded the company and was its top star for a good percentage of its existence, but it’s not like the Stinger is a terrible choice. Apparently there will be a ceremony at Bound For Glory. Two questions immediately came to mind when I heard about this…

-Is this Sting’s last year with TNA?
-Is this Sting’s last year in pro wrestling?

Sting is 53 years old as I write this. I know some people think that means he has a few good in-ring years left, but the truth is that he probably doesn’t. He may have some good matches left in him, enough to come back every once in awhile as a special attraction, but if I was a betting man I would put my money on Sting not having anything resembling a full-time schedule in 2013 & beyond. Expect this to be discussed endlessly for the next few months. Also, expect people to speculate on whether or not he’ll go to WWE. I’m not sure what it says about the wrestling business that Sting is the guy that most people talk about going to WWE.

For what it’s worth, Sting tweeted last night that he doesn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. Most wrestlers would just say that for the sake of saying it, but Sting’s always seemed like the kind of guy that means it when he says he’s not going anywhere.

Christian showed up at TNA’s Slammiversary event Sunday night to introduce the #1 moment in TNA history. This was how WWE compensated TNA for allowing Ric Flair to appear at their Hall of Fame event. Yeah, it’s not a whole lot in return, but it’s better than the absolutely nothing I figured they would get. Christian was friendly to everybody and easy to work with on Sunday night, but the word going around is that he was not happy that he was selected to make the appearance. I get that. It’s like when you go back to your old high school to visit after you graduated…it’s fun to see your old teachers and some of the underclassmen you befriended, but after a few minutes you start thinking “What the heck am I doing here? Haven’t I moved on with my life?”.

And then you never go back to your old high school.

Miss Tessmacher had to trade her first name for the Knockouts Championship. Eh, it seems like a fair deal to me.

The people behind the Extreme Reunion Rising promotion have announced that Sabu has checked into a rehab facility on the west coast. You may remember that the last time we talked about Sabu in this column was when he was found passed out in his hotel room and had to be hospitalized on the day he was scheduled to perform in the main event of the first Extreme Reunion show. It’s a good thing that Sabu’s getting some help, and they hope he’ll be involved in the promotion in the future.

Speaking of Extreme Rising, I hear that Shane Douglas will be appearing on the Greg DeMarco Show tonight. That’s a pretty big get for Greg & Phil O’Dowd, and hopefully they’ll be able to get some good information out of him about the future of the company he’s trying to build.

Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of “Other Wrestling News” this week, but I wanted to include a Shazza McKenzie pic in this week’s column. What about it?

The 411 on Wrestling featured Larry Csonka & your humble correspondent talking SmackDown, Impact, Slammiversary, our Top 5 WCW wrestlers, and tons more. I listened to part of this show and was disgusted with the number of times I used the phrase “you know”. The key is not to use it at all, because if you use it once you want to use it during every verbal pause, you know?

I joined Jeremy Lambert for Episode 61 of Thoughts From The Man Cave to talk about the 411 Wrestling Hot 100, Reds baseball, Thunder basketball & the feud between Erin Andrews & Michelle Beadle.

Episode 5 of The Ocho had Trent Howell & I talking some NBA Playoffs, NHL Stanley Cup, Tiger Woods & our top 5 hot female athletes. My number one choice Maria Sharapova went on to win the French Open a couple of days afterwards. In spite of what some of you may believe, I know how to pick them.

Fact or Fiction pitted Tony Acero against Dimitri Dorlis in a battle of wrestling banter.

Rutherford presents a sandwich that includes wrestling discussion.

TJ Hawke presents Hidden in Plain Sight, a monthly column covering some of the best indy wrestling promotions out there! Pretty good stuff covering some good wrestling you might not know about.

Weyer talks some 2005 TNA. I remember being very positive about TNA back in these days. Shocking, I know!

Napier presents the top 10 WCW Great American Bash matches of all time. Remember when WWE brought that name back and proceeded to have a series of bad editions of the event? I’d hate to think what they would have done to Starrcade.

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…