News From Cook's Corner 01.27.10

Posted by Steve Cook on 01.27.2010

We rumble towards a big wrestling weekend by covering all the latest news...including a snake saying goodbye, a new promotion landing some TV stations, and an old Cook favorite wanting to go to TNA. It's Trishellicious, baby!

Hi, hello and welcome to News From Cook's Corner! I'm Steve Cook, and we've got another busy week here in the wonderful world of pro wrestling. A couple of huge indy shows are brewing in Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday, but the spotlight is on WWE's twenty-third annual presentation of the Royal Rumble in Atlanta, GA on Sunday. It should be a huge weekend for our so called sport, and I've got all the mid-week news here for you to look at.

I also have awesome college hockey team entrance videos. This is the best thing to come out of Alaska since Northern Exposure.



Polar Bears in planes blowing stuff up rules! No wonder Colbert always put bears at the top of the threat down…if they ever learn to fly planes we better look the hell out.

And now, the fake news!



Those of you who read my recaps of Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling (and who didn't, that show was awesomeness personified) will recall my love for Trishelle Cannatella, which lasted through the series and ended shortly afterwards when I didn't see her on any other programming. It returned for a few hours when I watched Ninja Cheerleaders, but even that was a bit disappointing because she played a stripper and we never saw her boobies. Not like we've never seen them before, and I'm not allowed to use those pictures for my column. Gotta keep things PG for the kiddies. Anyway, Trishelle stated on the evil Twitter machine that she would love to be a part of TNA, and I support this 150%. If we have to watch Hogan friends like the Nasty Boys and Orlando Jordan every week, why can't he bring in someone that I like looking at? I'd almost forgive him for the whole Awesome Kong debacle if he'd bring in the lovely Trishelle.

It should be noted that Trishelle's CCW career hit the skids when she was too afraid to be involved in a hardcore match with weapons and whatnot. Do we really think that most of the WWE Divas wouldn't have the same reaction to being in a hardcore match? Especially a hardcore match with the likes of Dennis Rodman & Butterbean? Sounds like a pretty rough day at the office to me.

Seriously, if they're talking about bringing in Ashley Massaro why can't Trishelle get a look? Book her Russo! Or Bischoff, or Hogan, or whoever's booking people today.



There is a future WWE Superstar in this picture. And after seeing that hairdo I have to say that explains a lot about him.

It's probably a good thing that WWE didn't run the Royal Rumble against the NFC Championship game like they originally planned. Why? Well, the tilt between the Saints & the Vikings drew an average of 57.9 million viewers, making it the second most viewed NFC Championship game of all time. Yeah, that would have taken a few buys away from the Rumble.

That game ruled, by the way. It doesn't get much better than watching the guy who cost you two fantasy football championships fumble the football all over the field and seeing Brett Favre get pounded into oblivion and throwing bad interceptions. Who Dat, indeed.

Here's your updated Raw guest host list!

* William Shatner - February 1st
* Carl Edwards - February 8th
* Jerry Springer - February 15th
* Cheech and Chong - March 1st
* "Stone Cold" Steve Austin - March 15th

Denny Crane hosting Raw? Hells yeah. This is actually a pretty good list, though one wonders if Springer knows anything about wrestling, and if Cheech & Chong will pass the Wellness test. Should be an interesting few weeks coming up on Raw, though a couple of missing weeks have me worried that they'll bring in more actors from USA shows that I don't watch.

Speaking of Psych, they hyped up John Cena's guest appearance on tonight's show as "their biggest guest star ever". I'm going to guess that they haven't have very many guest stars.

And while we're on this whole guest host thing, Conan O'Brien has been mentioned as a possible future Raw guest host. Conan's had wrestlers on his shows before and has good chemistry with them, but I'd have to wonder if his deal with NBC would allow him to do this. Remember, USA/Raw is part of the NBC Universal family. I don't think NBC would want Conan on one of their channels plugging whatever he'll be doing in the future.

Undertaker missed a house show this weekend to deal with a death in the family. Is it too crass if I point out that they obviously couldn't have buried the family member if there wasn't an Undertaker? I can never tell because death and wrestling don't exactly equal comedy with most people. In other Taker news, the rumors of him being physically worn down and ready to take a long break are coming back again. I wouldn't be surprised if he took a vacation after WrestleMania, as he usually does.

Rumor has it that Edge is healing quickly from his recent knee injury and should be back pretty soon…if not at the Royal Rumble, certainly in time for WrestleMania. There's rumors that Edge would return to Raw, which makes no sense from a storyline perspective since they're apparently building a feud with him and Chris Jericho, who's lost several "loser leaves Raw" matches. Maybe they'll have a match where the winner will get to be on Raw.

CM Punk's "Straight Edge Savior" act has hit the road, as he shaved the heads of at least two people on house shows over the weekend. That doesn't seem like the smartest move in the world to me…I mean, if somebody was going to shave your head for a wrestling angle wouldn't you want it televised? Makes no sense to do it at a house show where there aren't millions of people watching. On the bright side, these guys can use this experience to feed off of Punk's angle while they work in OVW or wherever else they work. This kind of reminds me of one of the original ideas for the Age of the Fall, where they would have different branches in different promotions…it never really caught on, but perhaps this will since Punk has more notoriety with the general wrestling audience.

Tyler Reks appears to be back in the good graces of WWE, as he's working a heel persona on house shows and getting victories over Goldust. OK, so beating Goldust doesn't really mean anything…but it's gotta be a better sign for his future than jobbing to Paul Burchill. The fact that we don't get good reports of these Smackdown/ECW house shows can't be a good sign for their attendance.

Maryse had three broken teeth repaired last week, proving that Diva matches are far more painful to the performers as they are to the people that have to watch them. OK, that's not very nice, but anybody who saw the tag match on last week's Raw would agree that was pretty difficult to watch. And when you consider that poor Maryse broke her teeth in the process, the endeavor was more pointless than a Brett Favre retirement press conference. Thankfully her match with Eve this week was a much better affair with great selling and solid offense.

Yay, more WWE movie news! Big Show's comedy "Knucklehead" is reportedly being pushed back to the fall so they can go ahead and release John Cena's new movie. Other future releases include "Big Red" with Randy Orton, "a thriller featuring Batista", and "Midnight Run", a comedy starring…yup, John Cena. The American Film Institute may want to re-do their 100 Greatest Films of All Time list after watching these.

I may not be too excited about WWE movies, but there is a bit of WWE television news that makes me downright giddy. A sitcom starring Santino Marella, Vlaidmir Kozlov & Beth Phoenix will be debuting on WWE.com in the next few weeks, and they hope to "get it to a network television" in the words of Mr. Marella. I think this is fantastic news because I've felt for awhile now that Santino's humor would be even more enjoyable if I didn't have to watch him wrestle. Kozlov could be a good straight man, and while we know Beth has great chemistry with Santino, I think it'd be better to put somebody who can't wrestle in her spot.

I never really thought about this before, but a great way to keep wrestlers on the downside of their career under the WWE umbrella would be to have them starring in sitcoms or dramas. Wouldn't William Regal be great on Santino's show as a boss or a landlord? Who wouldn't want to see Shawn Michaels starring in a nouveau Walker, Texas Ranger? And shouldn't they have kept Ric Flair around so they could put him in a legal drama? The Nature Boy has to be the Denny Crane of pro wrestling. I think this concept is full of win and WWE needs to get to work on this right away. I might not be a fan of their movies, but I think they might be on the verge of something big here.

And to those of you who will point out that WWE's creative team tends to suck…have you watched network television lately? With a few rare exceptions it's full of complete nonsense. Besides, NBC needs some 10:00 dramas.

The city of Pittsburgh will be tearing down Mellon Arena since they have a new arena opening in the fall. Better known as the Igloo, it will be most remembered for hosting King of the Ring 1998, which featured the Undertaker vs. Mankind Hell in a Cell match that has gone down in history as either one of the most famous or infamous matches of all time, depending on how you look at it.

The finalists for the 2011 edition of WrestleMania are Atlanta & Miami, according to the president of the Atlanta Sports Council. I'd support a WM in Atlanta, which has a great history of professional wrestling…albeit non-WWE wrestling for the most part. It'd be a great opportunity to get some WCW people into the Hall of Fame…there are some left, right?

Not that I'd have a major problem with Miami. But Florida just had a WrestleMania a couple of years ago…and Miami's already hosting the 2010 edition of Survivor Series. Spread the wealth! Though I'd be happier if WM hit Indy…that'd be close enough that I might actually go to it.

And since everybody loves some Twitter news…Manu Bumb told me that Joey Styles' tweets during Raw were a bit out of the ordinary. Here's some of my favorites:

Is anybody else besides me sick of DX?

Maryse would be a gorgeous mute.

It looks like Vince's closet threw up on him.

Is Carlito finally going to win a match?

Oh good. I was in the mood for Korean.

OMG! I would LOVE if Alicia slapped me like that!

My theory is that Joel Gertner stole Joey's phone. This is a step up from Styles' usual rantings consisting of either bitching about who's President or constantly plugging WWE.com. I support Joey making more sexist remarks and complaining about DX.

Finally, there is no room in the WWE Universe for Rob Van Dam. RVD was briefly banned from the WWE fan website because somebody at the office was under the assumption that he has signed with TNA. Fortunately this ban was just a…



I never get tired of that.



The woman who Larry Csonka has referred to as his future second wife has left TNA. Melissa "Alissa Flash" Anderson has opted to leave the company for reasons she has not revealed. There are at least ten possible reasons I can think of off the top of my head why she would leave TNA. From the Home Office in Edgewood, Kentucky…

Top Ten Reasons Why Melissa Anderson Left TNA

10. Finally figured out what Russo was going for with the whole "TNA" name.

9. Flimsy wardrobe she had to keep zipping up.

8. She'll be the Head Cheerleader for the U.S. Soccer Team at the World Cup.

7. Impact got in the way of watching The Office every Thursday night.

6. The one time a month they booked her to wrestle was waaaaaaaaay too much to handle.

5. Wasn't thrilled with plan to re-form the Minnesota Wrecking Crew with Ken Anderson.

4. Fell into deep depression after the Cincinnati Bengals got knocked out of the postseason.

3. Somebody gave Csonka the Impact Zone phone number.

2. They wanted her to move to the X Division after Jay Leno took her spot.

1. Bubba asked her if she wanted to see why they called him the "Love Sponge".

Speaking of Bubba, Awesome Kong has asked for her release, but as of Tuesday she is still listed on the TNA roster, which I would take to mean that they have not released her from the company. The good news is that when this is all revealed as a work as the "everything is a work" crowd promises it will, it'll lead to big money matches between Awesome Kong & Bubba the Love Sponge. Oh yes.

AJ Styles is positive about the regime change, and even had some interesting comments for The Sun in a recent interview:

"All the horror stories I've heard about WWE, there is no reason why I'd want to go…I'm going to tell you what I know as the main difference between the two companies. Desmond and I are going to work together to make this company the best, for everybody. Whereas in the other company they will stab each other in the back to get themselves to the next level. It's not about me. It's about us in TNA."

This is a typical statement you'd expect from the champion of a company. It'd be far more troubling if he took the same tack many in the IWC have and claimed that TNA is on the verge of failure and is falling apart. AJ does have some friends that have worked with WWE, and while some have found great success there, others haven't. And as I've said before, what work environment doesn't feature some good ol' fashioned backstabbing?

Desmond Wolfe was also in the interview and seemed happy to be there.

AJ might be undergoing a bit of a cosmetic change, as creative has debated having him dye his hair blond to go with the whole "Nature Boy 2010" thing. I wasn't sure how to feel about this, so I decided we should take a look into the possible future. How would AJ Styles look with blond hair?



Hmmm. I don't know about you guys, but when I saw that image, the first thing that popped into my mind was this:



I'm not sure that's what TNA wants their world champion to look like. And if they do, I forget if Spike/Viacom/whatever is connected to whoever owns the Jetsons reruns, so I don't know if there'd be a lawsuit for gimmick infringement or not. Hey, I like AJ as much as anybody affiliated with this website, but you gotta admit he'd look kind of goofy.

Expect most future PPVs to be held in the Impact Zone. The latest word is that while Slammiversary & Bound For Glory will likely go on the road, the rest of the PPVs will stay in Orlando for two main reasons…to save money, and so they don't look bad if they don't draw a good crowd somewhere. Both make sense, though I'd point out they'd also save money by not bringing in all of Hulk's buddies. But what the heck do I know.

Vince Russo turned 49 on Sunday, which means that he's too old to have a Facebook page.



Jake "The Snake" Roberts announced his retirement over the weekend and says he will take bookings up until the end of 2010, at which time he hopes to have a backstage role in the industry. Well, TNA will be hiring a new backstage interviewer in the next few weeks from the looks of things.

All kidding aside for a moment, the story of Jake Roberts is a bitter pill for me to swallow.

Maybe I should rephrase that.

The story of Jake Roberts is a sad one for me for one simple reason…The Snake was one of my favorite wrestlers when I first started watching wrestling. Yeah, Hogan was cool brother, and Warrior was far out and hilarious, but there was something about Roberts that drew the attention of six year old moi. Here's a bit I wrote about Roberts in the February 13, 2005 edition of the Corner. At the time he was my twenty-third favorite wrestler of all time.

My first memories of wrestling happened during the buildup for SummerSlam 1990. I don't remember watching before then, but I do remember my taste in wrestlers didn't quite match the mainstream. Two of my earliest wrestling items outside of my WWF bed sheets were a Million Dollar Man Wrestling Buddy and a Jake "The Snake" Roberts school folder and notebook.

Jake seemed so cool to me. Maybe it was the snake that first drew my attention, but even back then I knew that that man knew what he was doing in a wrestling ring. He always managed to outsmart the poor preliminary wrestlers, hit the DDT, and then put his snake on them. I was pissed when Rick Martel sprayed the Arrogance in his eyes, and I still haven't forgiven Rick Martel as a wrestler for it. Even when he turned heel on the Ultimate Warrior, I still thought he was really cool, and as good as it got in a wrestling ring. Then he left WWF and appeared in WCW, attacking Sting. He was on one of the very first WCW shows I watched, and I realized that if Jake Roberts attacked Sting, Sting must be an important guy. Unfortunately Jake didn't last long there. He had some hard times, but then I was excited when he returned to the WWF for the 1996 Royal Rumble.

A month or so afterward I got to see him in the main event at a Monday Night Raw taping. It was my first wrestling show live, and the main event was him & The Undertaker vs. Diesel & Shawn Michaels. UT & Diesel ended up fighting to the back before the match even started. I didn't know what was going to happen since Jake & Shawn were both good guys, but they decided to go at it. I got to see one of my first favorites go up against one of my favorites at that time. I was torn, but mostly I just enjoyed it. Shawn won, but Jake looked good in there, and it seemed like he was on the road back to prominence.

Unfortunately Jake's demons caught up with him, and he has seemingly never really recovered from them. He appeared on Heroes of Wrestling in a pathetic state, then wowed people with his insanity in Beyond the Mat. It was sad to see how far my favorite wrestler at the age of 6 had fallen.

It's still sad. Jake Roberts should have been a lot higher on my list, but with the way he's fallen in recent years, I just can't justify rating him any higher than 23. He was truly one of the greatest wrestlers of his era, but never quite got up to that championship level. In fact, I don't think he ever won a single title in the WWF.

He didn't need to though. Jake "The Snake" was a dangerous man, and the people loved him for it. Sadly, he was too dangerous for his own good.

Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised by the road Jake took. His childhood was nothing resembling normal, his family was a complete mess, and he ended up in a profession that's screwed up countless amounts of people. It would have been more surprising if he didn't flame out on drugs.

Bon voyage, Jake. I hope for your sake that your retirement actually lasts.

It's amazing how much my perspective on pretty much everything has changed since February 2005. Check out what I wrote about Brock Lesnar…

Brock Lesnar has filed a lawsuit against WWE, claiming that the no-compete clause he signed on his way out the door for the NFL prevents him from earning a living. I didn't know there was a provision saying he couldn't flip burgers at McDonald's.

Sorry, I have no sympathy for a man who walked out on a company that bent over backwards to make him a star. Hell, I think it's funny that he signed something that won't allow him to wrestle until 2010. Good job, Brock!

I must have been smoking some pretty good stuff back then. I'm not sure there's one thing in that article that I agree with here in 2010. Good thing nobody reads my articles. Speaking of Brock, he's complaining about Canadian health care to anybody who will listen, but I'm not sure if that's relevant to wrestling fans…and I've heard more than enough about health care for the next ten years.

In other news, a segment for Bob Saget's new show on A & E will feature backyard wrestlers. I thought ABC was still doing the America's Funniest Home Videos show. Saget does have previous experience in the world of professional wrestling, as he was the Commissioner of CHIKARA from 2006-2008 before being replaced by Dave Coulier.

Mistico, who many consider to be the top wrestling star in Mexico right now, created quite the stir by turning rudo during a card at Arena Mexico last Friday. Currently the belief is that he will remain technico in other areas of the country, but will work rudo in Mexico City…depending on how it goes over. Turning your top star heel is a pretty novel idea, and it'll be interesting to see if it fizzles out or ends up working really well. People have been advocating that John Cena turn heel for the last couple of years now, and this might be an interesting example to use as a reason why he should, or if it flops, why he shouldn't.

ROH is introducing a Television Title and will be holding a tournament for the title at the next television tapings. This is a pretty good idea for ROH, as they desperately need a secondary singles title so people like Kenny King have something they can actually challenge for and maybe have a chance of winning. No disrespect to Kenny, but he's not ready for the ROH title yet. He and others like him need a stepping stone, and a TV title can be just that.

Wrestlicious has announced several syndication deals as of late, and are planning on debuting their programming on MAVTV, Bite TV & America One, along with other assorted stations, at the beginning of March. After viewing their video at their website I think it's pretty safe to assume that this is your newest edition of GLOW/WOW, and if that's your sort of thing it might be worth a watch.

I do have to admit their song kinda gets stuck in your head. Oooooh, Wrestlicious baby!

We at the Corner send our best wishes to wrestling legend Gene Kiniski, who was hospitalized last week with pneumonia. Kiniski has also been suffering from lymphoma, so it's been a rough stretch for Canada's Greatest Athlete.

Longtime wrestling media member Georgiann Makropolous died of a heart attack Monday at the age of 67. Many of you probably won't remember that name, but Georgiann published her Wrestling Chatterbox newsletter for over two decades, was a regular ringsider at Madison Square Garden and was the president of fan clubs for wrestlers such as Bruno Sammartino, Bob Orton Sr., Ken Patera & Buddy Rogers. She had a great love and devotion to the wrestling business, and will be missed by the wrestlers and fans that she got to know over the years.

WrestleReunion is coming to Los Angeles this weekend, featuring an ROH show on Friday and a PWG show on Saturday. Rob Van Dam, Jushin Liger, Great Muta and many more will be there to put on one hell of a wrestling show, and pretty much any wrestling legend still alive is listed to appear at the reunion portion of the event. If you're a wrestling fan in the LA area I don't know why you wouldn't go to this. Assuming you have the money, of course…or if you're not too busy drinking appletinis at the bar like Eubanks will be.



The Rs had interesting opinions on the four national TV shows not named Raw or ECW.

Ari talks about how ROH is headed towards a big bang. We can only hope that Diamond Dallas Page is involved.

Or maybe DDP will head to CHIKARA, as there is still a mystery member of the Das Brüderschaft des Kreuzes to be revealed. Unfortunately, Ford did not list DDP as a potential member of the group.

Dunn reviews a show that I was at. No, I only wish I was at some 1992 WCW shows, because most of those were awesome. TFC: Dayton was pretty good though.

Weyer talks about his favorite Royal Rumble. 1990 is a good one, but I don't think you can top the 1992 edition for the cast of characters, Ric Flair's performance and the greatest announcing performance of all time by Gorilla & the Brain.

Eubanks references my love for Angelina...Love.

And in your AJ Grey post of the week, one of the Kardashians met President Obama. It was the first time bush had been back in the White House in a little over a year.

Well, that's all we have time for this week! The honorable JP Prag will be in tomorrow, and I'll be back next week with more News From Cook's Corner. Until then…