News From Cook's Corner 09.09.09

Posted by Steve Cook on 09.09.2009

TNA loses the Love, Khali owns the Show, CM Punk's latest conquest, & Jenna Morasca leaves the memories alone! Help control the pet population and have your pets spayed or neutered.

Hi everybody! I hope you all had a great Labor Day Weekend and are now enjoying the benefits of a short work week. I am especially excited because after this short week I'll be taking a week off from work! I won't be going anywhere fancy, but I will be going to see Metallica in the nasty Nati on Tuesday night and will be heading to Dayton for ROH on Friday. It'll be a fun week, and just so you know in advance…next week's column will probably be light on actual news content.

Note to WWE: Raw needs Bob Barker hosting more often. His threatening to take Chris Jericho over his knee was one of the most hilarious things I've ever heard. Any show with the Bella Twins in a hot tub is something I support. Bob got a little confused as the night got later, but so do most men over eighty. I get the impression that Raw was more popular with people that watched Price Is Right growing up...which means that I feel sorry for my best friend and many of you that weren't as blessed as I was.

I'm not quite sure on whether this cover is safe for work, mostly because I work at a place where I don't have to worry about such things. If you do, go ahead and click the back button and see what Eubanks wrote about yesterday. If not, we'll start the column now…











Welcome to the Corner! It's September 9th, 2009, which means nothing except to people who really like the whole "09.09.09" deal. Alls it means to me is that it's Hump Day and time to report some of the wrestling news...



WWE has added another former ROH Champion to the fold, as Nigel McGuinness has agreed to follow that clam-digger Bryan Danielson to Titan Land. He had not officially signed anything yet as of a few days ago, but one presumes that he will since ROH has announced that he's leaving their promotion effective September 26. I've been a pretty big Nigel fan since the first time I saw him wrestle, which was in 2004 in New Albany, Indiana at an IWA Mid-South show. He started out as a British wrestling type that focused on wristlocks and things of that nature, then once he started wrestling for Pro Wrestling NOAH he became Nigel McLariat. His ability to change his style should serve him well when they expect him to learn the WWE style, and his ability to portray a character that can either get cheered or booed at a drop of a hat should be of service as well. Seeing that WWE isn't exclusively pushing big, untalented lugs at the moment, there's no reason why Nigel can't find a level of success in WWE.

Though…he is coming off of injuries to both biceps and has a history of concussion problems. While injuries do happen pretty regularly in pro wrestling, Nigel seems more injury prone than many of his formerly indy buddies. Danielson also has injury concerns, but Nigel's have been more serious and more publicized. It obviously wasn't that huge a concern to WWE, but I bring it up anyway to present both sides of the issue. We'll have to stay tuned to see when Nigel & the American Dragon will be popping up down in Florida and hopefully improving the quality of the FCW promotion a great deal. Maybe Michael Melchor will come back and recap it.

Big Show & Great Khali had a backstage altercation in Puerto Rico over the weekend while putting together a six-man tag team match. Apparently Show is mad at Khali because Khali uses moves that he feels should be exclusive to him as a giant. First of all, Great Khali is taller than Big Show, so I think Khali has more of a right to call himself a giant. Show can consult Andre v. Studd on the matter, which I think would apply as the precedent for the case. Second of all...Great Khali uses moves? To make the story even funnier, Khali ended up getting the better of the fight, as he blocked a punch from Show and Show ended up tripping over himself, upon which Khali started to ground and pound. Several poor bastards had to break up the fight, which was probably a very fun thing to do.

If the stuff about Show being mad at Khali about wrestling moves is true, that makes him a pretty big douchebag. Also, I would have thought that Show would have had the advantage in a shoot with Khali due to his "boxing experience", but apparently fat does a lot to slow one down in a fight. Who knew?

In case you're keeping track of WWE PPV name changes, their December 13 show is now being called "Tables, Ladders & Chairs". I'll give you three guesses what the stipulation for the main event of that show will be.

There have been rumors that Jim Ross may go to TNA once his WWE contract expires, but everything seems to indicate that they are only rumors. I think there's a greater likelihood of JR's Oklahoma Sooners winning the BCS championship this year, which considering that they lost their first game to BYU over the weekend isn't looking likely. Odds are that JR is using TNA to get a little more money out of WWE, which is straight out of the Hulk Hogan playbook. Well, except for the fact that when Hogan does it, it doesn't work.

Kelly Kelly was spotted at a New York Jets game with former Raw guest host and Summerfest pioneer Jeremy Piven. Let's see…from Test to Batista to Piven…at least Kelly's moving up in the world. I expect her to be dating either Vince Chase or Johnny Drama next week

In what is either a baseless Internet rumor, another conquest for our favorite wrestling man-whore or an attempt to get another Matt Hardy Internet feud started, rumor has it that Lita has been appearing backstage at WWE events lately because she's dating CM Punk. If true, I'm pretty sure this means that Punk has been with every notable TV women's wrestler with the exception of Trish Stratus & Stephanie McMahon. He might want to stay away from Steph if he values his job security, but maybe the Punker can get himself over to Toronto for Raw next week and see if he can cross that one off the list.

Of course, my Spidey sense is going off a little bit because Matt Hardy just started interacting with Punk on television and I certainly wouldn't put it past him to put something like this out there to get some Internet heat on his angle. But the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Both are heavy into the punk music, both enjoy getting lots of tattoos, both like the pro wrestling, and both have reputations as being somewhat whorish, whether they're deserved or not. It also fits in with Edge's promo where he accused Punk of wanting to be just like him. Too bad Lita's not in wrestling anymore...this could make good television.

Oh, and as somebody in the comment section pointed out, Matt Hardy eventually admitted that not everybody on the Internet hates him and his brother. It takes a big man to admit that most people like you.

Lilian Garcia's last night with WWE will be September 21st. At least she'll still be there when Trish Stratus hosts Raw next week...does anybody else remember when the popular Internet rumor was that Trish & Lilian had a lesbian relationship going? That might be my favorite Internet rumor that had no truth to it. If only it did...

Pretty Ricky is still around, as he made an appearance on a WWE.com video. I know all five of you who liked those Smackdown segments will be happy about that.

Batista will be making a career altering announcement on next Monday's Raw. Somehow I doubt he'll be announcing that he'll be challenging Stephen Randle to a Hell in a Cell match. But damn it, I can hope.

As a strange sidenote to the Bob Barker appearance on Raw last night, some people on the Twitter machine thought that "Bob Barker" was one of the top trending topics on Twitter because he had passed away. Fortunately that was not the case.



Lauren "Angelina Love" Williams was released by TNA last week due to concerns with her work visa, specifically that it expired two years ago. Companies generally don't like to employ people who aren't legally in the company…well, unless they're Mexicans who'll work for a nickel on the dollar. The best thing that could happen is that the situation gets worked out and Williams ends up back in TNA. The worst thing that could happen is that she could be stuck in Canada for ten years. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Yay me offending both countries that border mine!

TNA found out about all of this while they were negotiating a new contract with Williams, who was scheduled to appear on TNA's next pay-per-view in a tag team match alongside fellow Beautiful Person Velvet Sky. No word yet on how exactly TNA plans on dealing with this…


















My idea would be to bring in Madison Rayne's tag team partner from her days in SHIMMER, Neveah, and have Velvet Sky be the manager/talker/rope grinder. Rayne & Neveah have good chemistry together as a tag team and would be perfect Knockout tag team champions from where I sit.



































Williams' agent Michael Klyzub issued a statement to the wrestling media on Monday telling the media to stop reporting lies and then explained that the situation was…exactly what was reported. Whoops. I think these guys that say that the wrestling media only reports falsehoods think that the comments on message boards or at the bottom of our columns are reports by those damn Internet wrestling writers. Just because Guest463457457 says that Angelina Love is going to WWE or PunkFan69 says that she can't get a job with WWE because she has too many tattoos and looks like a porn star (Ashley Massaro, anybody?) doesn't mean that the Internet wrestling media is reporting it. Of course, it's not like I'd expect an agent to know the difference, or care.

Would I be piling on if I said that any agent worth his salary would have made sure that his foreign client was legally able to work in this country? What a maroon.

In an interview with SEN Radio down in Australia, Jeff Jarrett said that Kurt Angle was one of his favorite opponents of all time, and went as far to say that Angle may be best ever in pro wrestling from bell to bell. This is a smart move on Jarrett's part, as there's nothing that will end a personal dispute quicker than excessive flattery. Another great way to end a bitter rivalry is to buy your enemy a drink. That's how my enemies get me back on their good side, anyway. Nothing like a Jagerbomb to ease tension and forget about whatever the issue was. This is exactly why President Obama is on the right track with this whole "beer summit" thing.

Bad news for my girl Traci Brooks, as Playboy will not be running her pictorial in the magazine, but will instead feature it on their website. Apparently the editor decided that they didn't want Playboy to be connected with professional wrestling. So I guess sports entertainment was all right, but professional wrestling isn't. Are we sure Vince McMahon isn't editing Playboy?

On a personal note, Playboy has been on my shitlist ever since I found out that Manu Bumb's girlfriend Olivia Munn was appearing in the magazine…with her clothes on. They can't even get some chick that hosts a show on G4 to take their clothes off now? My, how the mighty have fallen. In any event it's bad news for Traci, as wrestling promoters are far more likely to pay big bucks to Playboy cover girls than they are to solid hands that are loyal to the companies they work for.

In other TNA woman-related news, Jenna Morasca has left the company. Boy, TNA sure got their money's worth out of that signing, didn't they? At least we'll have this to remember her by…



Indeed, band who sings that song. Indeed.



The National Wrestling Alliance is bringing back the World Minis Championship, which had been inactive for fifty years. By my calculations, since the NWA was founded in 1948, this means they're bringing back a title that's been inactive since about ten years into the existence of the NWA, that I'm pretty sure didn't even get mentioned in the great book I read about the NWA by Tim Hornbaker. In honor of the return of the World Minis Championship, here's my list of great midgets in wrestling:

1. Little Beaver
2. Taz

Yeah, that's all I got. I guess it does make sense for the NWA from the perspective that they've been running a lot of lucha themed shows lately and Blue Demon Jr. is still running around with their title belt. But if we're being perfectly honest, the last time the NWA made a decision that made any sense was when they selected Masahiro Chono to be their champion in 1992.

ROH is sending Bryan Danielson & Nigel McGuinness off into the sunset on September 26 with a match against each other. It's only fitting since Nigel got on the map with his series against Danielson, and PWG already did the "Danielson wins the title on the last night" gimmick so there's no reason for ROH to have him beat Austin Aries and win the title. Aries, Danielson's previously scheduled opponent for the 26th, will face a wrestler to be named later. They've been doing a program where Aries picks opponents' names out of a hat, so that might be something they choose to do.

If you're looking for tickets to that show at the Manhattan Center, they're sold out. It's a step back from running in the Hammerstein Ballroom, but if what Shane Douglas says is true, the price is probably too high anyway. You know, people are saying that ROH is on it's deathbed, but it's gotta be a good sign for the future of the company that they're selling out this show, and I have reason to believe that the Dayton ticket sales have gone up from usual. I'm sure it mostly has to do with the farewells to Dragon & Nigel, but if the other guys on the card step it up, the people will take notice. Don't count out the Ring of Honor boys just yet.

(Of course, I'll sound like a complete idiot if they fold by the end of the year. Ah, that's all right…I thought Pro Wrestling Guerrilla was going to fold last year and they've probably had their best year ever in 2009. So what the hell do I know? I have no idea why they keep letting me do Buy or Sell, because everything I say about indy wrestling ends up being wrong.)

Fans in the Mount Caramel, Pennsylvania area can expect an interesting sight on Saturday, as Jerry Lawler & Stacy "Miss Kitty" Carter have both been booked for a PCWA show there. One has to wonder if this will still happen once Lawler finds out about this. One also has to wonder how Carter is looking these days.

NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) has announced that Rob Van Dam will be speaking at their 2009 National Conference in San Francisco. Fill in the typical 411 catchphrase here. And no, I don't know if Paul Roma will be introducing him or not.

Former WWE wrestler Sylvester Terkay is now working as a salesman at a Pittsburgh area Toyota dealership. Would you buy a car from this man?



Well, I guess I would. That looks like the kind of man who'd rip your head off without a second thought.

Sid Vicious' 16 year old son Gunner Eudy made his pro wrestling debut over the weekend. Apparently Gunner is close to the same size as his father, so you can pretty much guarantee on seeing him in WWE in the future. We can only hope that Gunner is half as entertaining on the microphone as his father. Sid on the mike in WCW 2000 was utter magnificence. "You're half the man that I am! And I have half the brain that you do!" Ah………tremendous.



Buy or Sell featured Ryan Byers and Your Humble Correspondent talking about Dragon Gate USA, future stars in Ring of Honor, and why there won't be that many IWA Mid-South guys appearing in ROH now that the Rotten family has ceased operations (for now).

I kinda mailed in my portion of the Rs this week, which I justify by saying that WWE mailed in their edition of Superstars. I think it was hard for me to get excited about William Regal vs. Tyler Reks after watching a couple of PWG shows where people are going batshit crazy and losing their minds in the ring.

Rodriguez speaks for the record one last time, and we here at 411 wish him the best in his future endeavors.

The Triple Threat has been around a lot longer than I would have guessed. Hell, by this point I think they've lasted longer than the ECW version did.

Your AJ Grey article of the week features Kelly Brook. I have no idea what Kelly Brook does for a living, but I can think of a couple of things I'd like her to do. Booyakasha.

JP Prag is in tomorrow, and I'll be back here next week with more News From Cook's Corner!