News From Cook's Corner 10.14.09

Posted by Steve Cook on 10.14.2009

Steve Cook discusses The Midnight Express & Jim Cornette 25th Anniversary Scrapbook, Jillian Hall as the Divas Champion, Ozzy hosting Raw, Kurt Angle’s legal issues, Captain Louis Albano and more!

You know, there's nothing I hate more than wrestling news reporters who complain about slow news weeks. Why can't these good for nothing sacks of crap get off their asses and find something worth talking about? There's always something worth talking about when it comes to the pro wrestling, right?

For example, I've spent the last couple of days paging through The Midnight Express & Jim Cornette 25th Anniversary Scrapbook. Let me tell you guys something, if you have any interest at all in the MX or Corny, if you like wrestling pre-1998 or if you're just interested in looking at cool pictures and learning something along the way, this book is well worth your time and money. Sure, $25 is a little steep for any book in this economy, but I don't regret dropping the bucks for a minute. Heck, I was just going to use it at the bar anyway. Anyway, it's a good piece of business and I give it my highest recommendation. I just wish the editor or Corny would have used the spell check and figured out how to spell "Cincinnati". I know it's tough to spell, and I don't even particularly like the city, but bad spelling is one of my pet peeves especially when it's a word that comes up fifty times in a book. It's a small complaint, though. You can get the book through Cornette's website, his buddy Kenny Bolin, or other means.

I'm also watching WWE's Roddy Piper DVD, which I found at an FYE in Danville for ten bucks. The feature was all right, but the extras are what I'm looking forward to, particularly the interviews and Piper's Pit segments. Why do I get the feeling that Piper's interviews wouldn't quite be the same if he arrived in WWE in 2004 instead of 1984? Two guesses:

-The writers
-Tougher drug policy

Ah, how I yearn for the good ol' days. But then again, the current days aren't too bad either, especially when your two fantasy football teams lead their respective leagues and your Bengals lead the AFC North. Honestly, this is what has been on my mind the last few days and is the biggest reason for this column being what it is. With that ringing endorsement, let's get on with the show…



If you're scoring at home (or even if you're alone), Jillian Hall is the first Northern Wrestling Federation alumnus to win championship gold in WWE…unless I'm totally missing somebody. I'm pretty sure Braden Walker didn't get it done. Anyway, the NWF is running at Shimmers Tavern in Ft. Wright, Kentucky on Saturday night and I will more than likely be there since Louisville plays at noon. I don't do public appearances very often, but I will sign autographs if asked. I like to give back to the people when I can.



Jeff Hardy cut his hair for the first time in ten years. OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit. His DVD is still planned to come out in December, which is kind of interesting since he probably won't be coming back anytime soon. I guess they had enough time to shoot a "Self-Destruction" style documentary if they wanted to go that route.

In Diva news, Maryse should be returning to wrestling very soon. Unlike 50% of the Diva roster, she was not recovering from a ruptured breast implant. She will be facing new opposition upon her return to Raw, as Melina, Eve & the Bella Twins are now on the Raw roster while Mickie James, Beth Phoenix & Rosa Mendes are not. The women divisions on Raw & Smackdown could certainly use some switching up, as neither one was doing a whole lot to entertain me or most other people. It has to say something when Maria Menounos isn't the worst worker in her first ever wrestling match.

Ozzy Osbourne will be hosting an upcoming edition of Raw. My question is this: who will make more sense, Ozzy or Santino Marella? Could be a tossup. Andy Samberg will not be hosting Raw, which means I looked him up on Wikipedia last week for absolutely no reason. Thanks a lot!

The most recent polls in the Memphis mayoral election show Jerry Lawler plugging along at 4%. That is good enough to tie for fifth place, while the front-running candidate is at 53%. It ain't looking good for the King, hopefully his wearing a campaign t-shirt on Raw will help his cause.

The biggest news this week for 411 commenters was probably the online feud between Ted DiBiase Sr. and…you guessed it, Paul Roma! Roma was appearing on an Internet radio show and DiBiase's name came up, which was enough for Roma to go off on a rant…

"You mentioned (Ted) DiBiase and his son and all that. I guess probably like ten years ago, I had spoken to DiBiase, he was out of wrestling, and he became this reverend or whatever he became. So I called him up and we were talking and he goes, 'Yeah. Listen. I found a good place.' He says, 'I was a bad person when I was with Vince (McMahon). I'll never go back to that again. He's evil. Blah, blah, blah.' And then, the next thing I know, this guy is working for Vince again. Like, you know, so at the end of the day it doesn't matter - wait let me rephrase that. At the end of the day, for Ted DiBiase, he can preach all he wants. He can talk about God all he wants. Bu his God is spelled M-O-N-E-Y."

James laughs and says that was always part of The Million Dollar Man's gimmick, but Paul points out that his decision flies in the face of selling anything.

"If he really believes and wanted to sell me what he was trying to sell me, he wouldn't be back with Vince. He wouldn't be back with the devil."

Guttman compares this to Billy Graham's up and down feelings for Vince and WWE. He's gone from hating them to loving them to hating them again. It seems like some legends should pick a side and stick to it because going back and forth does nothing for their own credibility. Paul agrees and explains to ClubWWI.com listeners that the financial reward isn't even that great.

"If DiBiase went and sat at ringside or, you know, Vince gave him um-teen thousand dollars and he said, 'OK. I'll go back in the ring and do this.' And he needed the payday, that's fine. Go do it. But you're working for him on a consistent basis. Again, I don't know what peo ple's financial situations are and, again, if you want to go and do that one shot deal and get a payday, great. But to go sit at ringside and have Vince pay you 500 bucks is a slap in your face. Do you really need $500 that bad? Really? That's what they're getting to sit at ringside when he was bringing in legends and sit them there. That's what he's getting. So you want to turn around and he wants to put you in the ring with somebody to do a legends match or a legend against some newbie and you want to do a job, that's your call. He wants to put you over, that's your call too. But at the end of the day, make it worth your while."

I'm assuming Roma asked somebody who had appeared with WWE what the payment was…or maybe that was what they offered him. In any event, Ted Sr. had a response.

In response to Paul Roma,

I told many people about the wrong things I did, I even wrote a book about it. That's something everybody knows. I also have been very vocal about a lot of the WWE programming in the past. And, yes, when I went back to work for them, they were well aware of my objections to some of the programming. But what I realized as a Christian is this, if I'm genuinely going to make a difference in the world and try to impact others with what I've found in Christ, then I can't do it sitting in church praying about it. I have to be visible in the market place. I went back to the WWE to show them the difference in who I am now and to try to make a difference. You can't promote change standing on the sidelines. So I went back. The truth is, the WWE has changed incredibly since my wrestling days. The work schedule is not as demanding overall, and the compensation is much better. Also, a state of the art drug testing policy brings accountability into the business that wasn't there before. People getting into the WWE now, know that there is zero tolerance for steroid and drug abuse. If I hadn't seen the changes I would never have given my son my blessing to go into the business. The programming, by the way, is once again, totally PG rated.

The truth is, I'm still very much sold out to Jesus Christ. I don't think Vince McMahon is evil or the devil. I think he's a very shrewd business man. He's also the guy responsible for the unbelievable fan base that professional wrestling enjoys today on a world wide scale.

Please tell Paul Roma that's he's got it wrong all the way around, including how much I'm paid for going back and making an appearance. And the Million Dollar Man, well, that would be my son in the not so distant future!!

It doesn't surprise me that they'd offer DiBiase more to come back than what they'd offer Roma. I mean, outside of 411 commenters Roma doesn't have that much of an appeal to the current fanbase. I enjoyed Roma's appearance on the Four Horsemen DVD, but to put him in the same league as the Million Dollar Man would be lunacy.

I am not going to comment on the religion aspect of the debate that came up in one of the comment threads. Absolutely not. I will say that I've seen Ted Sr. speak on religion when he made an appearance at my university a few years ago, and I believe that he is a devout Christian. I refuse to get into it any more than that.



Trenesha "Rhaka Khan" Biggers did not show up in court yesterday for a hearing for a case where she accused Kurt Angle of harassment. She will be given one more chance to appear, but all indications are that the legal matters between Biggers & Angle are over, or will be as soon as they both actually show up in a courtroom.

To clear up a recent rumor, Traci Brooks was actually never supposed to be on the cover of Playboy. She did a shoot for Playboy, which appeared on the website, but the cover talk was purely speculation. Of course, I think it's safe to say that Playboy has officially jumped the shark with their covergirl being Marge Simpson this month.

I'm not a big fan of the phrase "jumping the shark"…personally, I think we could replace it with "won the Nobel Peace Prize". But now I'm going off on a political tangent…

Continuing with the Knockout news, word has it that ODB may be on her way out of the company. She's apparently posted some messages on her Facebook indicating as such, which makes me think that she's pulling a Matt Hardy or a Sunny, or that somebody's pulling something out of their ass. I don't see ODB catching on with WWE because her look certainly isn't something they'd be interested in, and her character probably wouldn't fit into their PG scheme of things.

Apparently Rob Van Dam was talking on his Internet radio show asking people whether he should go to WWE or TNA the other night. I dismissed this as potential news because I didn't expect RVD to be showing up anywhere anytime soon. But I did see an interesting little newsbite…a reader of another wrestling website called the show, and told the call screener that he would be suggesting that RVD go to WWE. The screener replied with "Ok, well I will put you through anyway". That seems to indicate that RVD or somebody was hoping for more TNA calls to push him towards TNA.

I'll say this…if Rob Van Dam really needs the fans to help him decide whether he should go to WWE, TNA or stay out of the business…well, he should stay out of the business.



In the "Some People Never Learn Anything Ever" file, Ric Flair is apparently engaged yet again. This would be his fourth wife overall and his third in the past decade. I suppose he hasn't given enough of his money to the last two wives…if nothing else Flair is certainly a charitable fellow. Seriously though, I don't understand why Flair wants to keep getting married. Then again, I don't know why anybody wants to get married. Whenever I talk about gay marriage with people, I always ask why they'd want to get married. I'd think that'd be one of the perks of being gay, not having to get married.

Speaking of ol' Naitch, the bidding on his old NWA title belt is down to three bidders. Inside sources tell me that the three bidders are Huey, Dewey & Louie.

Captain Louis Albano is currently under hospice care, which I'm told is usually not a good thing. I always liked Lou…I found out later through shoot interviews that some didn't think much of his work, but how can you not like somebody with rubberbands and fish hooks sticking out of their face? Not to mention the fact that he was freaking Super Mario. Godspeed, Captain Lou.

UPDATE: Captain Lou passed away after the posting of this column, we all send our best wishes to his family during this tough time.

Kevin Steen is said to have suffered a knee injury over the weekend, but considering that he's been wearing a large knee brace for the past year or so, it's tough to tell. Not exactly surprising that a man at Steen's weight at his height would suffer knee problems. And yes, that's the pot calling the kettle black. I do think Steen has a good fifty pounds on me, but still.

Torrie Wilson was in the emergency room a couple of nights ago after a bad reaction to some medication. Having been through something similar in recent months, I know that isn't any fun and hope Torrie is feeling better now. For me, it was a mixture of flu medications that I shouldn't have mixed together that resulted in my vomiting through half a night and being unable to sleep a whole weekend. Good times. That was right around the first swine flu craze, which made me extra paranoid and a whole lot of fun to be around.

Cook vs. Randle

This week marks the latest installment in the long-rinning feud between your humble correspondent and 411's Monday wrestling news columnist, Stephen Randle. I don't really remember how it all started…I think he got mad at me because I accused him of being a WWE homer, or I got mad at him because our mentor Josh Grut always preferred him over me.

(Speaking of Grut, did you know he's back doing the wrestling news report thing? I didn't until last week…I'd link you here but I'm pretty sure that sort of thing is forbidden by management.)

Or maybe it's because we share the same first name and we're territorial about that sort of thing. In any event, there's always been a good amount of hate between us. It's cooled off over the last year or so, as I haven't been around here too much and he's found other worthy adversaries to feud with, such as the English language. This week, however, is different, as we are facing off in the 411 staff's fantasy football league. In case you're wondering how things are going in the league, allow me to present a partial list of the standings:

1. SLAP THE PORPOISE~! (me) 5-0

(all the other teams)

16. Canadian Threatdown! (Randle) 1-4

Indeed, much like real life I am on top and Randle is on the bottom. That doesn't sound right. Nevertheless, I am currently projected as a thirty point favorite over Randle. One would say that as the favorite and current league leader, I should do very little to raise the ire of my feeble competition, in the event that I may motivate them to overachieve and somehow pull off the stunning upset.

Instead, I would like to welcome multi-time world wrestling champion Randy "Macho Man" Savage, as he sings lyrics I have penned to the tune of his mega-hit "Be A Man". Take it, Macho!



Huh Steve Randle, Hollywood Randster,
whatever they call you, I'm comin after you, you coward

Hot diggity damn Steve I'm glad you set it off (set if off)
Used to be hard Steve now ya done turned soft
Doin' telephone commercials I seen ya
Dancin' in tights as a ballerina
I knew all along you had those tendencies
Cuz you've been runnin' from Cookie like I got a disease
Dude please your pay per view event was a joke
You're avoidin' the Cookster cuz you know you'll get smoked
Come on that phony fight the Zonk spanked you fast
But when I challenged Randle to a real fight he passed
I called him out but the punk was scared to go
It was a charity event but the Rand didn't show
Hollywood Randle you're at the end of your rope
And I'm a kick ya in the butt and wash your mouth out with soap
Cuz like Rodney Dangerfield you gets' no respect
So come on Steve let's wreck so I can put you in check

Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
Your runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Come on don't be a chump
I never thought Steve would go out like a punk
Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
You're runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Boy you's a chump
Cuz Steve Randle is a real big punk

They call you Hollywood (hugh hugh) don't make me laugh
Cuz your writing and your actin' skills are both trash
Your columns straight to the dump the readership can't stand
While I am known all around as the Main Attraction
Ya hidin' man but when I find you it's on
And when I slam ya to the dirt you'll wish you's never born
I smell a coward mmmm is that you Randle?
Cookie's gonna kick ya butt is the slogan
You try to ignore me thinkin' I'll go away
But I'm a keep on messin' wit ya dude day after day
And once you step to Cookie you're through
The joke's on you so Steve what you gonna do
Probably nothing cuz you're a real big punk
You called your mom up on the phone man you's a chump
Cuz if you really got static take it up with me
And I'll punk ya butt out for the world to see

Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
Your runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Come on don't be a chump
I never thought Steve would go out like a punk
Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
You're runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Boy you's a chump
Cuz Steve Randle is a real big punk

Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
Your runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Come on don't be a chump
I never thought Steve would go out like a punk
Be a man Steve! Come on don't be scared
You're runnin' from Cookie that's what I heard
Be a man Randle! Boy you's a chump
Cuz Steve Randle is a real big punk

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww hell yeah somebody got dizzissed!



Gerretsen talks about Jimmy Jacobs and one of the angles that made Ring of Honor what it was.

Eubanks yaps with the people.

Byers snorts crack and then reviews wrestling shows.

The Rs featured Csonka's thoughts on Hell in a Cell. As you can tell, he really liked the show. For the record, just because I rate Superstars higher than Hubbard rates ROH doesn't mean that Superstars was better than ROH. It may mean that I'm a more lenient grader than Hubbard is, or that Hubbard & I have different opinions on the pro wrestling. The writers in the R column do not get together to rate the shows…at least as far as I know. For all I know, the rest of them do and just leave me to the wolves. I liked the Honor Rumble better than he did and thought less of Sonjay vs. Delirious than he did, so I'm guessing that we just don't have similar tastes.

I link this AJ Grey article to ask a question…how does a girl "get curvy & busty"? I'd figure that either they are or they aren't.

Well, that's all we have time for this week. JP Prag will unfortunately not be with us tomorrow, but his fill-in should be a more than suitable replacement. Fuckers.That's a hint. I'll be back next week, until then…WHODEY!