News From Cook’s Corner 07.17.12

Me? Well, I must say that mine has been quite eventful. I went to my first Reds game of the season on Saturday and had the pleasure of being joined by some 411 peeps! MMA writers Jeremy Lambert & Todd Bergman came into town to see their favorite team in action against the hated St. Louis Cardinals, and I was pleased as punch to join them. The weird thing about being an internet writing dude is that you never get to meet most of the people that you interact with. I’ll never meet 99% of the people that read this column, or even 99% of the people that also write on this website. I got along with Jeremy well enough to appear on a couple of his Thoughts From The Man Cave podcasts, and T-Berg has called in on a couple of 411 on Wrestling shows & let me win the MMA Fact or Fiction Tournament of Great Significance, so when I heard they were coming to town I absolutely had to be there. They turned out to be fine people in real life as well, and the game was absolutely tremendous. Nothing like a walk-off homer in the 10th inning to send the fans home happy. Lots of good times and great memories there. The Reds ended up winning three straight games against the hated Cardinals, and life was good.

So, of course Joey Votto will be out 3-4 weeks recovering from a torn meniscus. The schedule coming up was looking a little soft, but without their best offensive player it’s going to be very tough. Hopefully they’ll survive this stretch still in contention and he’ll come back strong in a few weeks. That’s sports for you…there’s always a bump in the road when you least expect it.

Who are all the ladies this week? – Guest#9283

Last week we had the following:

WWE News: Paige & Sofia Cortez
Raw Thought: Eve Torres & AJ
TNA News: Madison Rayne
Other Wrestling News: Christy Hemme
Plugs: Taeler Hendrix

This week we’ve got Paige, AJ, Gail Kim & Ms. Tessmacher, Rain, and Kaitlyn & Natalya. Good times indeed.

As a lifelong wrestling fan, I am relieved that TNA has officially thrown in the towel on trying to be a mainstream company that draws casual fans like WWE.

We wish to welcome you to Munchkinland.” – Dick McDickerson

You kind of had to figure the negativity would come out against TNA World Champion Austin Aries. Whenever somebody new wins a major title, especially somebody that’s popular among Internet fans, you can expect the following to happen:

-Dude wins
-All his fans go crazy
-Day or so passes
-All the people that don’t like him talk about how he’s terrible

There are some exceptions. I don’t remember many people other than Jeff Small going crazy over Great Khali winning the World Championship. Anyway, the main complaint against Aries isn’t his wrestling ability, his moveset, his promo style or his personality. No, the thing that people believe will keep Austin Aries from being a successful champion is that he’s too short. Sadly, unlike the other things I listed, there’s nothing Aries can do about his height. I don’t think lifts are going to help him that much. Maybe TNA can find a bunch of wrestlers smaller than Aries to make him look bigger? Hulk Hogan does have that Micro Championship Wrestling thing going on, maybe they could bring in some of those guys to challenge Aries. Nah.

I think Aries is just going to have to try his best even though some fans might not be happy with his height. There’s no guarantee that Aries as champion will work, but I’ll give TNA credit for at least trying something different with him. I mean, they could have just said “Dude, you’re too short” and thrown the title on somebody of a more acceptable size. Somebody like Rob Terry or Mr. Anderson might be a more acceptable champion to the Aries-haters out there, but TNA has decided to go a different direction. It’s an interesting experiment, if nothing else.

(And if we’re being honest, most people reading this column don’t think anybody as TNA champion would make a difference in the company‘s fate. They’ll complain about whoever’s on top.)

I don’t know about you guys but I was shocked that TNA would let Aries appear on Raw last night so he could be revealed as the Anonymous GM. – Guest#2440

Now that’s a funny Austin Aries is Short joke. Topical, too. The simple jokes work best for me, but I’m a simple kind of man.

I see nothing wrong with Austin Aries, and I’m sick of the “vanilla midget” talk. Since when does a wrestler have to be a flamboyant character to get over? Sure, lots of guys do get over that way, but there’s nothing wrong with being a simple, dedicated worker, either. In most cases, I find I -prefer- a wrestler who’s just that. I don’t need a fancy character or gimmick to make me interested in someone; it’s their in-ring performance that interests me. And while I admit I’ve not watched TNA every week the last few months, I will say from what I’ve seen that Aries interests me more than most of the WWE roster right now, simply because he’s dedicated to what he does and he knows what the hell he’s doing in the ring (or, at the very least, knows how to make it -look- like he knows what he’s doing, which is more than I can say for Cena). – Kamen Rider Gumo

Aries isn’t some no-frills technical wrestler. He calls himself “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” and wears a cape to the ring. There’s some flamboyance there, but when he gets in the ring he gets the job done. I don’t get the argument for Aries being vanilla, but maybe he looks at it the same way Taeler Hendrix does: Vanilla is his favorite and it’s delicious.

It’s obvious that TNA has given up on Storm as a top guy. It’s a mistake and they should have finished his feud with Roode win, lose or draw. Storm is being phased out and Aries has been given the chance to take the top babyface slot, but TNA has not built any heels for him to work with as he has already beat Bully Ray and Samoa Joe on successive PPV’s, so it seems apparent that Roode will be champ again in the rematch. It’s just dumb to give Aries the title for a few weeks, only to take it right back, unless they had milked the Roode buildup for longer than a few weeks. – Guest#3533

I’ve been doing some thinking on this whole James Storm thing. It definitely seems like TNA fans aren’t reacting to him the way they were before Lockdown, and I think it comes down to what happened after he came up short against Bobby Roode in the cage.

Now, I’m not saying that James Storm is going to end up being as popular or successful as Stone Cold Steve Austin was in his prime (very few men can say that they were), but I think if he’s going to be a top guy he’s going to have a lot of the elements that made Stone Cold the hottest thing to hit the WWF since Hulk Hogan. Storm’s character of “beer-guzzling redneck that likes to fight people” fits in pretty well with what Austin did, right? Remember when Stone Cold broke his neck at SummerSlam 1997 in a match against Owen Hart right as he was becoming the top good guy in the WWF? It would have been easy for Austin to go sit at home and recuperate, and in hindsight that might have been the best thing for his health long-term, but he refused to go away. He showed up every week at Raw to talk & deliver the occasional Stunner to an authority figure even though he couldn’t wrestle, and that kept him fresh in the minds of the fans. The fans were dying for Stone Cold to return to active competition and start opening cans of whoopass on their least favorite wrestlers again. Austin made it clear that he wanted to be in the ring doing his job, and the fans loved him for it.

James Storm got depressed after losing a match to Bobby Roode. He went home for awhile to think things over. I know that Steve Austin went home for real in 2002 (and he was being phased out as the top guy by that point anyway), but do you think fans getting into Stone Cold’s act back in 1997-98 would have continued supporting him in the manner that they did if he went home after losing a match? As Austin himself would say, Hell No! Austin wouldn’t even stay home when Mr. McMahon tried to fire him. He only took time off in 1999-2000 after Rikishi hit him with a car! You had to nearly kill the guy to keep him away, and that’s why wrestling fans believed in him. No matter the odds, Stone Cold would overcome them. You could say the same thing about Hulk Hogan back in the day, and you can say the same thing about John Cena right now.

Your top face needs to be a guy that isn’t going to wilt under pressure. When James Storm went away after Lockdown, it was obvious that the pressure had gotten to him and he wasn’t going to be the guy for the job of beating the big bad anytime soon. So, the fans moved on. He’s still salvageable, but the opportunity for TNA to build up a guy that could be a draw for their company for years to come has at least been hindered. Losing the match itself wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Roode kind of fluked into victory and had Storm reacted in a way where he immediately promised vengeance, the fans would have bought into it. Instead, he walked away. Now he needs to re-prove himself to the fans. Winning the Bound For Glory Series would go a long way in doing that. Will it be enough? Time will tell…

Here’s some helpful free advice for the WWE – bring Sara Del Rey in for a match against one of the generic Divas; have Cole do his usual rant against her; and the following week, have SDR come out to the ring, state that she heard Cole’s remarks, and let her drag him into the ring for the vicious beating that Cole has long deserved.

(Of course, knowing how the WWE works, she’ll get the Molly Holly treatment and end up jobbing to a returning Kelly Kelly…) – Torgo

Kharma entering the Royal Rumble right after Michael Cole did got one of the bigger reactions of the night. Partially because it was Kharma’s return, and partially because we were hoping she would kill Michael Cole. I think SDR destroying the dude would get a similar reaction.

Did you notice that Daniel Bryan did the Anderson Silva running knee to the solar plexus on Punk? Sonnen better stay away from D-Bry if he comes to the WWE! – Baron Skinny

Pretty good stuff. Plus, Punk being on his knees made sure that Bryan wouldn’t knee him in the head and make people wonder if it was illegal.

I agree with your assessment about ROH’s talent pool shriveling up. Do you think the solution is to keep pushing lesser named stars and hope to catch lightning in a bottle again like they did with Punk, Bryan, etc. and repeat that process over and over or is there an opportunity to try to entice former WWE stars who they may have “missed the boat on” (i.e. Brent Albright) that possibly don’t have the same opportunity to jump back into WWE? Is ROH okay with being a feeder league into the WWE/TNA? Better question is can they survive in that role? – realcheeser

ROH has been at its best when they’ve pushed lesser known stars and have utilized guys that WWE missed the boat on at the same time. 2005 is considered one of the best years in their history, and one of the key components of making that year great was a revitalized Jamie Noble (James Gibson in ROH) having superb matches almost every time out. They’ve had some success with ex-WWE guys, including Albright’s run in 2006-08. Brian Kendrick’s had success in his various stints with the company. They got boosts in business when AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels were allowed to return while still with TNA. Very early in their existence they had Raven around to help establish CM Punk as one of their top guys. Constantly pushing unknowns sounds really nice on paper, but the fact is that there’s not always going to be a next CM Punk, a next Bryan Danielson, or a next Samoa Joe out there. Guys like that don’t come along every single year, and when you take a look at the indy scene right now you don’t see a ton of guys like them that a vast majority of indy fans believe would be stars in the major companies if given a chance.

Plus, there’s the fact that it’s easier to get wrestling fans to attend shows with people they’ve heard of than shows with people that they haven’t. That’s why guys like Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the Honky Tonk Man and other 80s wrestlers can still work lots of indy events, they have fans that still remember & appreciate them and will be willing to come out and see them. Hopefully they’ll find something else they like on the show and come back again. I’m not saying HTM or Hacksaw would fit in with ROH, but guys like Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin have fans too.

Is ROH happy with being a feeder league for WWE & TNA? It doesn‘t appear so, as Cary Silkin sold the company to Sinclair for financial reasons & they sign people under contracts in hopes that they won’t leave. Can they survive? I would say no since I‘ve seen nothing from the new ownership that indicates they can survive in the long-term, but even if they were to go out of business this year for some reason, they’ve still had a ten year run. That’s not a bad run for a wrestling company not named WWE.

I’m glad your foot surgery failed since you’re such an asshole to foot fetishists. Everyone has a fetish. Everyone. You are not above anyone. It’s the most common fetish for males by the way. I’ve always hated this column and you. Now I have a good reason. Sorry I don’t have a breast fetish. Sorry the world treats foot fetishists like genocidal maniacs. I would rather be creepy and true to myself than lie to complete standards of someone like you who, honestly doesn’t sound like you get out much. Perhaps when you rub your two brain cells together and leave moms attic you will understand. – Mystery

If I wrote something like that I’d want my name to be a mystery too.

And now, the fake news!

An odd story broke late last week that I was hoping would get straightened out before I had to write about it, but no such luck. Kharma’s profile was moved to the WWE Alumni section on Thursday, and this started the speculation on her future with the company. Last we heard, Kharma was getting ready to come back but there was word that the WWE creative team had nothing to do with her. Everybody thought she would come back to kill the Bella Twins dead, but either she wasn’t ready to come back or WWE saw that people were predicting it and switched it to Layla to catch people by surprise. Depends who you ask. Dave Meltzer then said that they were planning on releasing her at the end of the week, but somebody at WWE.com moved her over to the alumni section a day early, WWE got all scared that the info got out early, and now they might keep her around.

The bottom line is that Kharma is still with WWE as I write this. I guess we can hope for her to come back soon just so WWE can prove Dave Meltzer wrong. They seem to enjoy doing that.

Word on the street is that Sara Del Rey will be assisting with the training of the Divas once she enters the company. That would make a lot more sense than training her in the WWE Diva style. The reason WWE’s bringing in folks like Del Rey and probably some other female indy wrestlers (Mercedes Martinez is also rumored to be signing with the company soon) is that they’re getting tired of this thing where the swimsuit models get frustrated with their role in WWE & life on the road and quit. I would suggest that if WWE doesn’t want people to get frustrated, they should give them something to do. If SDR ends up wrestling thirty-second eight Diva tag team matches every week like the girls that left were doing, she’ll probably get frustrated too. I suppose the theory would be that girls like her will love the business too much to want to leave WWE. It’s worth a shot.

Raw will become a three hour weekly show starting next week, and many people within the company are as positive about that development as most of us Internet critics are. Most figure that the show will go back to two hours by the end of the year anyway, and it’s believed that the extra hour will not allow for more wrestling or storyline development, but more time for Twitter plugs & Tout videos. Seems like an awfully negative way to look at things, but judging from recent show content it appears to be a safe assumption.

WWE has formed a partnership with Tout, which is a website where you can use your smartphone to upload 15 second videos. It seems like fun, but for somebody like me that can’t do a podcast under two hours it might not be the best form of expression. Nevertheless, WWE has big plans for Tout, including “Tout Tuesdays” where fans will be encouraged to use the service to respond to the previous night’s edition of Raw. I would expect something similar for SmackDown, and that would work even better since WWE’s creative team puts about 15 seconds worth of thought into that show.

WWE is encouraging wrestlers to do the Tout thing. John Cena & Zack Ryder are doing their thing, and Alex Riley made a video asking people how he should beat Cody Rhodes. I would suggest an RKO since that usually seemed to work for Randy Orton.

Charlie Sheen has quit Twitter. That would ordinarily not warrant mention in this column, but Sheen had agreed to be the “Social Media Ambassador” for the 1000th episode of Raw. That basically meant that he would do what most of us reading this that have Twitter do and tweet while watching Raw. It would have been interesting to see at what point in the show Sheen stopped caring and went off message. Maybe he would have made fun of CM Punk for being straight edge, or talked about which Divas he’d had sexual relations with, or made a few jokes about Vince. The world will never know.

No word yet on who will be replacing Sheen in this vitally important role. Perhaps Justin Bieber? Lady GaGa would be quite the get. And if all else fails they can hit up Cranky Vince.

Zack Ryder, Dolph Ziggler & Justin Roberts were involved in a car accident while leaving San Diego’s ComicCon event. Nobody was seriously injured and all three skipped out on going to the hospital. Ryder should keep the kayfabe gods from getting mad about faces & heels riding together since he mentioned in his interview with wwe.com that the car ride had been quiet since he & Dolph don’t get along.

Mick Foley mentioned that WWE cameras would be shooting his stand-up shows on Long Island this Wednesday & Thursday. Either they’ll be shooting stuff for an upcoming DVD, or perhaps somebody will be showing up to start a feud. Hey, we can still hope that Foley vs. Dean Ambrose happens, right?

-Is it just me or does CM Punk get happier every week? I think he wears yellow tights because smiley faces are yellow.

-Punk says that nobody that looks & talks like him would have been on the first episode. Who was on the first episode of Raw?

-Yokozuna
-Koko B. Ware
-Rick & Scott Steiner
-The Executioners
-Shawn Michaels
-Max Moon
-Undertaker
-Damien Demento

-I was going to say he could have been in the Max Moon costume, but that thing only fit Konnan & Paul Diamond. He’d have to put on a few pounds.

-While I was looking that up Big Show came out and blabbered on about Big Show stuff.

-The crowd cheers when Punk mentions he’s WWE Champion. See, titles still matter!

-King suggests we go watch the first Raw right now. Do they plan on this show being so bad we’ll want to watch something else?

-You can tell King’s not an Internet guy because he has no idea how to read a website address. My grandfather was the same way. Of course, he was 85.

-Hey, this show is in Las Vegas. Why can haz no Raw Roulette?

-WWE will allow us to decide whether the US, IC or Diva championship will be defended next week on Raw. Can we get a list of contenders too? If I vote for the IC title and get Christian vs. Jinder Mahal I’m not going to be very happy.

-Kofi & R-Truth take on the PTPers for the tag team titles. Young & O’Neil lost to the Colons last night, so obviously they’re deserving contenders.

-AW’s headset deal might be interesting if he had something to say most of the time. Last night he had a good line about Rosa Mendes & Taco Bell, but that was it.

-AW’s referee distraction did absolutely no good for his boys. R-Truth & Kofi still champs yo.

-Eve will have a mystery partner to take on D-Bry & AJ! Apparently Bryan still wants to get back with AJ even though he lost the match against Punk. Well, it’s not like I can blame him for wanting to get back with #2.

-Oh, and I don’t know if this means anything or not, but AJ was sane in that segment. I presume she’ll be back on the insane kick later in the show.

-Zack Ryder has a match! With ADR! ADR’s more aggressive now, so I don’t think this bodes well for Young Zack Ryder.

-At least Ryder has gotten some offense in. But yeah, this was destined to be a slaughter.

-ADR attacks after the bell…and here comes Rey Mysterio! I know Rey vs. ADR has been done before, but the dude did put Rey out for a year. Kinda have to address that.

-Heath Slater presents his favorte Raw moments…which feature him getting punked out. Dude’s a bit masochistic.

-Don’t worry, masochists. I’m keeping my mouth shut.

-Heath Slater’s opponent this week…Rikishi! Old Wrestling Fan Alert: I saw one of his dark matches as Rikishi before he got on the main roster. SmackDown taping in Cincinnati circa November 1999. I did not think a fat dude in a thong would be so popular, but in my defense he wasn’t dancing. It wasn’t until he got with Too Cool that he became Rikishi Phatu and got all awesome.

-The good thing about Rikishi coming back older is that it doesn’t matter what kind of shape he’s in. Honestly, he should be fatter!

-Rikishi wins, and he dances with his sons, Jimmy & Jey Uso! Nice!

-Eve…good God words do not do that woman justice.

-OK, Miz didn’t pop into my mind until about five seconds before he came out, but it makes sense. He & D-Bry certainly have no love lost.

-I kinda like that he’s finally ditched the faux-hawk nonsense.

-The Vegas fans are treating D-Bry as a face. Well why wouldn’t they?

-AJ & Eve are way too interesting for the Diva division.

-D-Bry takes advantage of Miz distracting the ref to reverse the small package and help AJ get the win!

-D-Bry pops the question again. For the right reasons this time, he swears!

-Come on AJ, #Raw1000 needs a wedding to put it over the top!

-YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

-And indeed, they will be getting married next week on the 1000th episode of Raw! Andy Critchell still doesn’t want to go. He is a heathen.

-Jack Swagger is on a losing streak. He’s facing The Ryback tonight. I don’t like his chances.

-Feed Ryback more!

-Vickie looking good as always. I know some of you are afraid to admit that cougars are good looking, but…it is what it is.

-Chris Jericho interrupts Dolph Ziggler? I am intrigued.

-Dolph talking shit on Jericho is so fantastic. Awesome.

-I think Dolph said Chris was losing his touch one too many times.

-God that match is gonna be so awesome at SummerSlam. Could steal the show.

-The more I think about it, the more I’m looking forward to Raw going 3 hours. More drinking & more wrestling can only make for a more interesting News From Cook’s Corner.

-Christian will be defending the Intercontinental Championship next week on Raw! Layla & the Divas title got 34%, and poor Santino & his US strap got 30%. At least it was close.

-JTG is now wearing tights! He’s on Raw and he’s wearing tights. And he’s getting killed by the Funkasaurus.

-SOMEBODY CALL HIS MOMMA

-Donald Trump’s favorite Raw moment is the time Vince McMahon came out after WrestleMania 23 bald. Makes sense for him. BTW, I think WM 23 is very underrated. Lashley vs. Umaga was a great match!

-Hey, CM Punk is in the main event! Sure, it’s just Raw, but it’s something!

-Big Show called somebody “Fat Boy”. OK then.

-Brie Bella is staking a claim on her man on Twitter. Have I mentioned lately that Daniel Bryan has the greatest life ever?

-Holy crap, it’s 11:01 and John Cena still hasn’t made his big announcement.

-Punk with his foot on the ropes after the chokeslam! His refusal to die has been more noticeable lately.

-And there’s the lame disqualification.

-And there’s John Cena’s music! He’s got the briefcase!

-Big Show tries to taunt him into cashing in. Those people don’t respect anything, including themselves! Well, this is Las Vegas.

-It’ll be Punk vs. Cena next week at #Raw1000!

-Well, I would have expected that for SummerSlam. But what the hell? If they want to give me Punk vs. Cena next week, who am I to complain?

-I think next week’s Raw will be pretty good. As for the ones afterward…your guess is as good as mine.

The big Impact Wrestling news this week doesn’t involve anything in the ring, or anything that’s on their television show. It involves Viacom & DirecTV not being able to agree to terms and Viacom programming being pulled off of the satellite carrier. DirecTV is the second most popular television service in the United States and serves 20 million subscribers. That’s 20 million homes that Impact Wrestling has no access to at the moment, and we learned last week that about 300,000 of Impact’s regular viewers have DirecTV since that’s how far their ratings went down.

I’m never really sure who to support in these disputes. There’s always a certain amount of spin coming from both sides, but as a cheap SOB I never like it when people increase my bills for no reason. Obviously the extra money Viacom’s asking for is going to come from DirecTV subscribers. You can’t blame the TNA wrestlers for going on Twitter and telling their fans to call DirecTV and get Impact Wrestling back on the air (especially when most of them tweeted the exact same thing) since their paychecks are reliant on Spike TV being in the highest number of homes possible. Hopefully for both sides they’ll make a deal soon and it won’t be too much of a kick in the knickers for DirecTV subscribers.

Kurt Angle was pretty unhappy this weekend. See, he had originally agreed to appear at the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa to accept an award, but then he pulled out a couple of weeks ago. His story to the HOF people was that he was doing an autograph signing for Direct Auto Insurance. They were not too happy with him pulling out under relatively short notice, and Gerald Brisco had a little fun with it by auctioning off the plaque. (Brisco had a pretty fun evening, as he also took advantage of JBL leaving his phone on the table to do his HOF induction speech and made some tweets on his behalf. All in good fun though, Gerald’s done a lot of work for these people and everybody involved loves him.) The “winner” was a man closely affiliated with the HOF, and the plaque will continue to be hosted there. Angle got all upset about this and tweeted his dismay towards Brisco while claiming he had wedding obligations, which is a different story from what the HOF people heard.

I know, it’s hard to believe Kurt Angle would lie to somebody. Right?

Are there more Knockouts on their way out of TNA? The WSU Wrestling Twitter account claimed that two Knockouts asked for their release last week. Angelina Love left the company not long ago, and there are a number of Knockouts on the roster that haven’t appeared on Impact in awhile. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the girls that have been there for awhile that aren’t doing anything take their leave while new girls take their place. The main problem with the Knockouts Division right now seems to be that their tag team champions can’t appear on TV since Eric Young tapes his fishing show on Thursdays. Of course, Eric Young being one-half of the Knockout tag team champions in the first place is a pretty big problem.

Remember when Dixie Carter didn’t really want to be on television? She may be a star on a show that isn’t Impact Wrestling very soon…the people who produce the “Real Housewives” shows are doing one based in Nashville, and they want her to be on the show. It makes sense. Dixie has certainly proven that she isn’t an actress over the past couple of years, and they don’t like to have actresses on reality shows.

In your Bound For Glory rumor of the week, Hulk Hogan & Sting are rumored to be teaming up to take on whoever ends up being part of the Aces & Eights faction that keep attacking Sting & attacked Hogan last week on Impact. Of course, there are also rumors going around that they had Hogan get attacked so he could have yet another back surgery. So I’m not really sure what to believe here, but I do know that I have zero interest in watching Hulk Hogan trying to wrestle in 2012. It’s not that I hate the Hulkster, brother, I just don’t want to see him trying to put on a wrestling match at this point in his life. Sting is barely watchable himself. At some point you’ve just got to let it go. We all reach our sell-by date.

Many of the top independent wrestling promotions will be getting together for the first ever WrestleCon on April 5-7. It’ll be held at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, which is three miles from where WWE will be holding WrestleMania 29 on the same weekend. Friday will feature shows from EVOLVE & CZW, Saturday will have SHIMMER, CHIKARA & Dragon Gate USA putting on a triple header, and the event will end with a Dragon Gate USA show on Sunday afternoon. There will be a WrestleExpo going on throughout Saturday & Sunday. Add in WrestleMania 29 & an ROH show at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and pretty much any wrestling fan with a pulse should have something to look forward to that weekend.

Dara Singh passed away last Thursday at the age of 83. From the Indian province of Punjab, Singh was the most popular wrestler in the history of India by a pretty wide margin. His feud with King Kong (a wrestler, not the huge gorilla) was one of India’s biggest draws. His well-received matches with Lou Thesz never resulted in Singh winning the NWA Title, but Thesz helped him get booked all across the world, including Canada where he became a star. He also became a movie actor like many famous wrestlers and was the first big-time Bollywood action hero. I can’t say I’ve seen…well, any of his matches, but Singh is obviously an important figure in wrestling history.

Tammy Sytch, who has had an interesting few weeks, has entered rehab. I have avoided most of the recent Tammy news simply because it’s been silly stuff like complaining about AJ kissing men on TV while acting like she didn’t know her name, getting into a social media flame war with Reby Sky over the subject of Sid Vicious no-showing some indy events, randomly taking off her underwear at an indy event, and some other stuff that I’ve mercifully forgotten about. This certainly would explain why Tammy’s been involved in so much nonsense as of late. She was sent to the hospital on Friday night after consuming two gallons of vodka. After she took part in a shoot interview on Sunday, phone calls were made and WWE agreed to send her to rehab and pay for it. Hopefully it’ll take this time.

Absolute Intense Wrestling out of the Cleveland area is bringing in Sara Del Rey for one of her “last scheduled appearances this summer” on August 4 for Girls’ Night Out 7. She’ll be facing Hailey Hatred in a no time limit match. Hatred is no slouch in the ring either and has been very successful over in Japan during the last couple of years, so this should be quite the battle. At least for one day not everything in Cleveland will suck.

Vin Gerard, a former indy wrestler that appeared mainly in CHIKARA, was talking on Twitter about how he was a better bowler than the people he was watching on television and he wanted to challenge them to a hair vs. hair match. The Professional Bowlers’ Association picked up on this and asked on their Facebook page if they should take him up on the challenge. With all due respect to Mr. Gerard, I have a feeling that the result of his challenge would go something like this:

He don’t want none of PDW.

Fact or Fiction featured Andy Critchell & Sean Kelly in wrestling discussion combat! Lots of disagreement between the two, which I always enjoy.

The Ocho featured Trent Howell & your humble correspondent talking about the All-Star Game, the ESPYs, NBA trade/free agency news, a baseball mid-season recap, and a visit from Jeremy Lambert to talk about how he was whooping Todd Bergman at NCAA Football ‘12!

Csonka reviewed Destination X!

Weyer is changing his tune on TNA.

Rutherford discusses whether or not putting the title on Austin Aries was the right thing to do.

The Triumvirate debates over who should be Undertaker’s WrestleMania opponent.

Hawke presents the second edition of Hidden in Plain Sight.

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