News From Cook’s Corner 09.30.09

Welcome to the Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and I hope the end of September is going as well for you as it is for me. My various football teams went 3-1 this weekend…it started out rough on Saturday with my Louisville Cardinals getting their butts handed to them by Utah, but both of my fantasy teams got victories and much more important than that…

From the banks of the Ohio comes that orange and black machine
They’re the Cincinnati Bengals The finest ever seen
With stripes upon their helmets and fire in their eyes
They’ll take the field they will not yield
They’re strong and tough and wise

Who Dey.Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals

Hear that Bengal growling, mean and angry
See that Bengal prowling, lean and hungry
An offensive brute, run, pass, or boot
And defensively, he’s rough errrr tough errrr
Cincinnati Bengals that’s the team were gonna cheer to victory
Touchdown Bengals!!

Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals
Who Dey, Who Dey, Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals

Noooooobodyyyyy!

OK, I think that’s all out of my system now. Beating the Steelers ranks somewhere between sex and beating Kentucky in things that make me feel good. You know what else makes me feel good?

They do. This week we’ve got a look at the Smackdown roster and all the news you can shake a stick at…which really isn’t that much this week. You know how sometimes you just look at the 411 Newswire and say “Damn, none of this interests me”? That’s been the last couple of days for me. But enough excuse-making for me, time to get down to business…

Let’s start by debunking some rumors. Yesterday’s story in Jeff Small’s column about Ayoko Hamada & Yoshi Tatsu was pure fiction. I don’t know where Small picked up the story, so I don’t know if we can give him credit for fooling people or if it was somebody else.

There have been some rumblings about Bret Hart coming back to WWE as an on-screen character. I have no idea whether any of this is true or not, but I’d advise that you don’t get your hopes up for Bret being named President of WWE or anything like that. He might come back to be a Raw guest host or something, but that’s the most I’d expect. The most interesting thing I’ve heard during all of this was that the original idea for Backlash 2006 was the McMahons vs. Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart instead of God…under the assumption that they could have gotten Bret to do stuff after being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Considering I was in attendance for Backlash 2006, the thought that I could have seen HBK & Bret instead of HBK & God is a little too much for me to handle.

Jerry Lawler’s mayoral campaign doesn’t seem to be going too well. He was left out of a televised debate over the weekend because he did not place in the top four candidates in recent polling. Unfortunately for the King, so far it seems that while Memphis really likes him and thinks he’s good people, they don’t think he has the political chops to be an effective mayor. And I can’t say I disagree with them.

Let’s face it, back when Jesse Ventura got elected governor of Minnesota, things were a lot better in America. The economy was booming, we weren’t in any wars, terrorists were just something people overseas had to deal with, we’d only had one Bush as President…it was a different time. We could be riskier with our political choices. Now, with most cities in America facing great economic difficulties, we want people in charge with experience in handling such things. Most of us don’t like politicians, but at least they know how to do the job. As much as we all like Jerry Lawler, is he mayor material? I don’t know.

In his defense, his wrestling territory, which he had a huge hand in running, outlasted every other wrestling territory of its kind. He stayed in business against Vince McMahon longer than any of his contemporaries, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at. Whether that can translate to running a city or not, I’m not sure. But I don’t fault Lawler for trying this out, and I’d be happy if the polls ended up being wrong and he went on to win the election.

Guest stars appearing on Smackdown X this week include The Rock (via promo) & Vickie Guerrero. Apparently she will not be reprising her heel character, but will be doing a speech to pay tribute to Eddie Guerrero. Assuming the fans don’t shit on her, it sounds like a good idea to me.

Atlanta, GA is hoping to get WrestleMania in 2011. It’s amazing how much things change, isn’t it? The article on it from the Atlanta Business Chronicle claims that the event could bring 100,000 fans to the Georgia Dome, which is probably the funniest thing I’ve heard this week. Unless the new Stone Cold & Rock rise from the ashes, that’s not gonna happen.

Jeff Hardy is in court today. Yippee.

Finally, Ben Rothelisburger will be guest hosting Raw next week. Hey Ben, I got two words for ya………WHO DEY~!

Yeah, I probably won’t be watching much of Raw next week.

After making all sorts of news last week, things are pretty quiet on the TNA front this week. That happens when they aren’t taping television shows. The thing that really tees me off this week is that Spike will no longer be showing the Impact replay on Saturday mornings. Since I usually plan on catching the parts of Impact I miss while watching Office, football and other things on Saturday mornings while recovering from Friday night, this doesn’t make me very happy.

Here are your Bound For Glory matches so far…

TNA champion AJ Styles vs. Sting – I like Sting as much as anybody else does, and think he doesn’t get nearly enough credit from some people. But if he wins the title at BFG yet again, as Tracy Smothers would say…EVERYBODY DIES!

Kurt Angle vs. Matt Morgan – Even though these guys have been wrestling each other for what seems like months, it hasn’t actually been in a one on one situation, so it’s fresh. That’s a nice change of pace for TNA, who usually likes to have singles matches on TV and multi-man clusterfucks on PPV.

Samoa Joe vs. Bobby Lashley – If this were Samoa Joe circa 2005, I’d really be looking forward to this match. Since it isn’t…

Mick Foley vs. Abyss (possibly a monsters ball match with other competitors) – My mother always told me if you have nothing nice to say about something, don’t say anything at all. And since I like both of these people…at least there will be plenty of blood for you anti-PG people.

TNA Knockout Tag Team champions Sarita and Taylor Wilde vs. The Beautiful People – I wonder which combination of Beautiful People it will be. Oh, I hope that doesn’t spoil anything for anybody…

Chris Hero has not signed with WWE, but reportedly there is interest on WWE’s side. Hero has been adjusting his wardrobe and physique over the last year or so to be more WWE-friendly, much like how CM Punk spent more time in the gym and started wrestling in trunks instead of basketball shorts just before signing with WWE.

Before

After

There was a time period where he was wearing a weird onesie, but I didn’t find any pictures of that. I can’t really say how Hero would do in WWE…he’s one of those guys who everybody has an opinion on, whether it’s really good or really bad. Me, I think he’d be better than a lot of people currently in developmental, but I’m not sure if he’d fit the “WWE Style”, especially since he’s currently been specializing in hitting people hard. However, like his top indy peers, Hero has proven capable of changing his style to fit a situation, so I think he could also fit in with WWE. Assuming, of course, that would be something he would be interested in. I don’t know the man…you’ll have to ask Ari Berenstein what he might be thinking.

Jim Cornette has made his way back to Ring of Honor, where he will be appearing on television as the “Executive Producer”. As much of a Cornette fan as I am, I gotta admit that his ROH run had its downsides, particularly his 15 minute promos he cut every show he was at that took time away from the wrestling and didn’t always produce something worth watching. Hopefully they’ll be able to condense his role into something that doesn’t take up too much television time, but gives him more time than he had on TNA television, which was about an average of 30 seconds.

Oh, and if he’d like to help with the booking that’d be snazzy too.

Hulk Hogan and his girlfriend got tattoos. Does anybody care? Didn’t think so. I must admit to being amused by this whole thing where he called one of his daughter’s boyfriends and threatened him by saying he’d have a Hell’s Angel come and beat him up. I’d never heard of the boyfriend before and his name doesn’t really matter. What mattered was that Hogan apologized to the Hell’s Angels a few days afterwards for any undue publicity they might have received. I guess Hogan read Hunter S. Thompson’s book on the Hell’s Angels and realized those aren’t the kind of people he needs to be provoking to do anything. I guess Hell’s Angels are more fearsome than the Bobby Heenan Family.

Speaking of the Hulkster, his boy Danny Bonaduce will not be participating in the upcoming Hulkamania tour. Bonaduce’s reasoning was that they didn’t offer him enough money. Yes, they didn’t offer Danny Bonaduce enough money to perform. This boggles my mind. I can only hope they offered Trishelle enough money to participate.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson appeared on a WXW show in Mineola, Florida to put over the upcoming debut of Jimmy Snuka’s daughter, Sarona Snuka. Well, it wouldn’t take much for her to be better than Deuce. Good God, that guy was awful.

Highspots.com will be auctioning off Ric Flair’s NWA title belt on Ebay starting on Monday. This is apparently the belt worn by Jack Brisco, Dusty Rhodes, Harley Race, Terry Funk, and yes, Ric Flair. I’m not a belt mark by any stretch of the imagination, but that’d be a really cool piece of merchandise to have. Assuming, of course, that it’s real. What, you think I trust Ric Flair’s word at this point? Come on, man.

To follow up on something spoken about in a recent edition of the column, Shane Douglas’s planned ECW reunion show for November has officially been postponed indefinitely. No surprise there, as they had no venue to run the show in.

Smackdown is critically acclaimed as the best wrestling show on television today. Will their Superstars fare better than Raw’s did under the microscope?

Charlie Haas – Wow, here’s somebody who’s completely fallen off the map. Haas has shown potential in the past, specifically in his tag team with Shelton Benjamin, but it seems that WWE has no interest in doing anything with him at all. The guy’s got talent, but he’s missing something.

Chris Jericho – Jericho had a great 2008 after a slow start to his comeback run, and is continuing the awesomeness in 2009. But it doesn’t really matter what I think because I’m just a myopic sycophant. Easily one of the best entertainers in WWE.

CM Punk – WWE knows they have something in Punk, and have used him to the best of his ability since he got there. He hasn’t won every single match he’s been in, which pisses off his hordes of Internet fans, but he’s won a crapload of titles and always seems to be involved in something of importance. I think he’s gotten a lot better since entering WWE, which is not something that most indy guys can accomplish.

Curt Hawkins – Is he still alive? Amazing how Zack Ryder has gone on to being an entertaining character on ECW while Hawkins entered the witness protection program.

David Hart Smith – I see a lot of potential in Smith. I don’t think he’ll be as strong as his father (mainly due to the Wellness policy), but he could be a better in-ring performer. He’s a kid to keep an eye on.

Dolph Ziggler – I’ve talked about Dolph a lot in the Rs, and stand by my claim that he reminds me a lot of a young Billy Gunn. Billy had a lot of potential back in the day, and accomplished a lot of good things, but never quite made it to the main event level. I have a feeling that a similar fate may befall Dolph, who also has one of the worst names in the wrestling business.

Drew McIntyre – I really haven’t seen enough of McIntyre to judge him…I like what he’s been doing lately, but it’s too soon to tell what he’ll end up being.

Edge – He’ll be back at some point, I think. It took a long time for me to jump onto the Edge bandwagon, but eventually he became one of the top heels in WWE, albeit by process of elimination.

Eve – I’ve talked about Eve in the column before…she has a lot of potential and seems like she’s interested in being a competent wrestler. Why she isn’t on television more, I’m not really sure.

Finlay – The comeback of Finlay has been one of the more remarkable events in pro wrestling during this decade. The run with Hornswoggle wasn’t my cup of tea, but he managed to get the crap over somehow.

Jesse – How come they don’t list him as Slam Master J? J’s been entertaining in the stuff I’ve seen, but it doesn’t seem like they’re interested in using him as something other than a minor character.

Jim Ross – JR has seemed refocused and reenergized since his move to SmackDown, which is ironic considering how much he complained about being moved there. He & Todd Grisham make a pretty good team, and it can only help Grisham to have arguably the best play by play wrestling announcer of all time sitting next to him.

Jimmy Wang Yang – Funny character, good wrestler, going nowhere. At least he has good entrance music.

John Morrison – He’s got the athletic ability to be a big star. The question is if he can connect with the people…I think he can. It takes time, though. The vigor with which some of our staff praises him makes me want to turn against him, but I can’t just yet.

JTG – Cryme Tyme has grown on me since their debut, I gotta say. I wouldn’t rank them in my top five tag teams currently in wrestling, but they’ve gotten better and their skits aren’t as horrible now.

Kane – He gets points for being politically active, but his storylines are usually so awful that I can’t get interested in anything that he does.

Kung Fu Naki – When’s the last time Funaki was on television? Was it in 2009? I’m just proud of the guy for remaining employed all these years.

Layla – She’s never really done much to impress me, but the divas tag team match with her on Superstars actually wasn’t bad. So I’ll assume she’s actually improving.

Maria – Her offense isn’t anything to write home about, but she’s very good at selling and making you feel sorry for her. I definitely feel sorry for her taste in men.

Matt Hardy – Decent mid-card attraction. I don’t see him ever being more than that, which pisses off Hardy fans to no end, but it is what it is.

Melina – Better as a babyface than I expected. I’m not sure she cuts it as a top babyface in the division, though.

Michelle McCool – Despite everybody’s problems with her, McCool is actually gaining ground in my book. She does have the coolest last name of all time, so it’ll be a shame if she marries Undertaker and takes his name. Hell, if I married her I’d take her name…Steve McCool has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Maybe she has a cute younger sister.

Mike Knox – Knox is a decent wrestler that’s getting better, but none of that matters because his beard rules everything. If he ever shaves it I will be a sad panda.

Natalya – Sometimes people tell me that Natalya isn’t exactly Diva material in the looks department. I tell them that considering who her parents are, it’s a minor miracle she’s remotely attractive. Heck, I don’t think she looks bad at all. Darn good wrestler, too, and pretty effective in the valet role.

R-Truth – Truth was pretty cool in the early days of TNA. I don’t think he’s done a whole lot since 2003…he at least seems motivated in WWE, but I don’t see him being a top guy on Smackdown.

Ranjin Singh – I don’t think he’ll be doing anything with Great Khali on the shelf, but Singh was pretty effective in getting Khali over as a babyface with the Khali Kiss Cam stuff. I avoided most of the Kane/Khali feud so I don’t know how well he did with that stuff, but I think Singh has been a decent manager since he started in the role.

Rey Mysterio – Rey will be back soon, which is a good thing because he was having a very good 2009 and has been one of Smackdown’s top stars for most of the past several years. Yeah, I think he’s pretty good.

Shad – See JTG.

The Great Khali – I don’t have much use for Khali’s matches, but the Kiss Cam was good stuff.

Todd Grisham – Nobody liked Grisham when he started, but he’s developing into a pretty good sports entertainment announcer. You won’t confuse him with Gordon Solie or anything, but I can see Todd hanging with WWE for a long time.

Tyson Kidd – This guy has a world of potential. I really have no complaints about him except his haircut, which I maintain looks absolutely ridiculous and needs to go. Apparently some of the Rs readers liked the look…go figure.

Undertaker – Taker’s had one of the stranger career paths I can recall, oddly reminiscent of fellow Texan Roger Clemens, who also peaked later in his career. I don’t think Clemens & Taker got to that point exactly the same way, but Taker’s best in-ring work has been during the last five years or so of his career. It certainly looks like he’s nearing the end of a Hall of Fame career, hopefully his run with CM Punk and whoever might be next on the agenda will be quality stuff.

It’s amazing how much dead weight is on the Smackdown roster, actually. Luckily they have enough good people there so the dead weight never appears on television. Interesting how that works. Next time we’ll take a look at ECW!

The Rs features me talking about the worst edition of Superstars yet.

I participated in the Buy or Sell Rountable on the departure of Danielson & McGuinness to WWE. My prediction ended up being wrong, but what else is new?

The Triple Threat talk about AJ Styles, Bret Hart & Al Sharpton. That’d be an interesting lunch table, wouldn’t it?

Gun might change lives, but I save lives.

Geoff needs to learn RESPECK.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! JP Prag is in tomorrow and I’ll be back next week…unless my Bengals lose to the lowly Browns, in which case you may never see me again. Toodles!