News From Cook’s Corner 03.03.10

Hi, hello and welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and we’ve entered the month of March, a month that I’ve often found quite maddening. Madness is par for the course in the world of professional wrestling, and there’s plenty of it to discuss in the column this week!

In addition to all of the latest news in the world of wrestling, we’re bringing back an old favorite from the first NFCC era…the Tale of the Tape! Since Raw & Smackdown both have evil blonde women champions, and AAA happens to have one of their own as well, we need to decide which one is the best and shall have the support of the Corner. Well, they all have the support of the Corner because we’re nice guys that fall for bad girls. But only one can reign supreme and be the dominant female of the wrestling universe. And thank goodness ICON mentioned Sexy Star in the Smackdown recap thread or I might have forgotten about her and have been sued for discrimination.

If there was late breaking news on Tuesday night, I missed it because I was too busy watching Louisville basketball and getting terribly drunk. This 9:30 tipoff thing isn’t conductive to getting to work on time, I’ll tell you that much.

And now, the fake news!

What will happen with our beloved Katie Lea Burchill? Her storyline brother Paul was fired by WWE over the weekend, and now we must sit and wait, wondering whether WWE will find something for her to do, keep doing nothing with her like they have been since she entered the company, or send her back across the pond. With all due respect to the United Kingdom, we can’t have any of that. So I petition WWE to do something with the lovely Katie Lea, and soon!

Do they listen to petitions?

As I indicated in the opening, WWE Roster Cuts ‘10 is in full effect! So far there are five casualties, with more sure to come. Since us Intranet rasslin’ news reporters are expected to comment on every firing the WWE makes, here’s my take on the Fired Five…

Gregory Helms – We all saw this one coming, right? I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner, and it’s a shame it didn’t happen before he got Chris Jericho into trouble with the Erlanger PD. That’s only a little bit of sarcasm on my part. I’m sure Helms will land on his feet either with TNA and the rest of the Carolina Clique, or with Ring of Honor and other independent groups. But yeah, out of all of these Helms was the least surprising dismissal.

I don’t hate the Hurricane. One of my favorite WWE moments in the 2000s was when the Rock told police officers to arrest Hurricane because “he’s guilty of shoving chicken mcnuggets up his ass”. I was laughing about that one hours later.

Paul Burchill – One can assume creative had nothing for Mr. Burchill to do, since he hadn’t done much of anything in years. I see him landing in either TNA or Japan, since both places have use for big guys that have been in WWE. The sad thing about Burchill & Helms both getting released is that WWE missed the opportunity to have them both lose their Loser Leaves ECW match a few months ago. Has a Loser Leaves *fill in the blank* match ever ended with a no contest or a double countout or something that resulted in both people leaving? That would have been awesome, and I wouldn’t have felt guilty about it since they were both getting fired anyway.

Maria – Dave Meltzer said that she was let go in advance of Celebrity Apprentice because people within WWE were afraid that she would get a big head like Stacy Keibler allegedly did when she started getting outside offers. Since WWE seems to really not like it when their Divas want to do things outside of WWE, one wonders why they let them do things like appear on Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars and other shows in the first place. The phrase “self-fulfilling prophecy” comes to mind. Anyway, Maria seemed to be making a transition towards other things before getting fired, so I wouldn’t expect her to pop up in wrestling on a full-time basis anytime soon.

Scott Armstrong – Out of all the dismissals, Armstrong had most recently been involved in a main event level program. Scott was reportedly well liked backstage and did a pretty good job at something that doesn’t pay a whole heck of a lot with not many great up and comers. A friend of mine pointed out that this would free him up to team with his brothers and his father (who is still active from time to time and still not somebody I’d want to mess with) in various Southern independent promotions, and that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Charlie Haas – I remember somebody telling me that WWE wanted to keep Haas employed so he wouldn’t go to TNA and do something there. Or I reported it once and forgot about it afterwards. Either way, Haas was doing barely more than Burchill so it’s no surprise that he’s gone…and at 38 years old he’s probably on the downside of his wrestling career. Kinda dick on WWE’s part to release the guy right after he announced his wife was expecting another baby in June. Hopefully he’s saved his money…but did I read a 411 commenter say that he saw Haas selling WWE stuff at an indy show? That may explain it if it’s true.

That commenter also said that the main event at said indy show was Tommy Dreamer vs. Shane Douglas. That might have been fun fifteen years ago…today? Not so much.

WWE isn’t just about firing people these days. They sent a letter to all former contracted talents offering them free rehab if they need it for any personal issues developed during their time in pro wrestling. Apparently they do this once a year and sometimes they get taken up on it.

Since the world needs more Colons, Orlando Colon has been signed by WWE. He is the cousin of Carlito & Primo Colon, and predictably has spent most of his career in Puerto Rico’s WWC. Too bad they already split up Primo & Carlito, because we could have had the first Hispanic three-man family team working the US since the glory days of Chavo, Hector & Mondo Guerrero.

Will Steve Austin be the final Raw guest host? It seems possible since nobody has been announced for the March 15 show in San Diego and the original plan was for the guest host gimmick to end after WrestleMania. This may change due to TNA moving Impact to Mondays, or due to WWE liking having guest hosts on Raw.

I’m probably higher on the whole guest host concept than most of you are. I think the whole “heel authority figure” thing is terribly played out, and having different people there each week doing things keeps it fresh. I wouldn’t want to see Cheech & Chong on Raw every week, but one time doesn’t hurt.

Not too much, anyway.

Gail Kim got hurt during the pajama pillow fight on Raw. I was too busy thinking about how sad it is that the most revealing things Divas are allowed to wear these days are pajamas to notice how it happened. Manu Bumb, who thought enough of Eve’s performance during that train wreck of a match to deem her “better than Maryse” might be able to tell you how it happened.

We’re pretty light on actual TNA news this week, as most of it consists of Hulk Hogan interviews, Eric Bischoff answering questions on Facebook, and Ric Flair 911 tapes. You probably know where to find all of those things.

Awesome Kong may finally be gone from TNA. She posted a tweet on Monday thanking Dixie Carter and the rest of TNA in wishing her well in her future endeavors. Kong filed a lawsuit last week against Bubba the Love Sponge, accusing him of threatening her life over the telephone while using racial slurs. Bubba has denied this vehemently and declared that he is done with TNA. You know, you gotta take the good with the bad sometimes.

What I don’t get is why this has taken so long. Sure, TNA might not want Kong to go somewhere else like WWE where she could make an impact (pun kind of intended), but why keep somebody around that really doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t fit in with what you’re doing? It only leads to bad vibes from my experience in the workplace.

The new regime didn’t seem to have huge plans for Kong before the Bubba drama began, and the Knockouts have been getting less and less TV time over the past few months anyway. If you’re not going to use her, let her go and use that money for something you think will be worthwhile. Of course, us wrestling fans lose out in the deal because they’d likely sign Brutus Beefcake with the money.

TNA is on the lookout for new talent! They have formed a relationship with Mach-1 Wrestling, a wrestling school/promotion run by Joey Ryan & Johnny Goodtime in southern California, and Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff visited the Knokx Wrestling School in Burbank last week. Knokx is run by Rikishi, Gangrel, Orlando Jordan & Black Pearl. I don’t know who Black Pearl is, so there’s slim hope that somebody there can teach people how to wrestle.

Lacey Von Erich will be training at the Mach-1 wrestling school, showing which school out of those two TNA trusts. Speaking of Lacey…

That is Christina Von Eerie. She will be appearing at AAA’s Rey de Reyes show in a six woman match, teaming with Sexy Star & Rain. Why do I point this out? Well, AAA’s website originally reported that Lacey Von Erich would be in the match. How one confuses Lacey Von Erich with Christina Von Eerie boggles my mind. Other than the word “Von” being part of their names, I can’t imagine they have much in common other than being in the wrestling business. Fortunately for AAA, Christina is reportedly a far superior worker to Lacey…but then again, who isn’t?

That’s a rhetorical question. Hypothetically, I’d be smart enough to know that, but fortunately my readers don’t consume as much bourbon on a given night as I do.

Also appearing at Rey de Reyes will be none other than Mr. Anderson, who will be in a four-way challenging for the Heavyweight title. One would assume that he wouldn’t be winning, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected while watching AAA. I wouldn’t have expected Cibernetico to get drowned in a mudhole and his dog being placed in a cooler and thrown over a fence either, but these things happen in Mexico.

In case you were wondering what Eddie “Umaga” Fatu died of, the official cause of death was acute toxicity due to combined effects of hydrocodone (a painkiller), carisoprodol (muscle relaxer/soma), and diazepam (valium). Mixing drugs is bad, kids.

Ring of Honor invited Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen to their WrestleMania weekend shows free of charge after he complained on the twitter machine about Mania tickets being too expensive. I have a hard time believing that Jeff Small can afford WrestleMania tickets and Ozzie Guillen can’t. Ozzie really needs to fire his agent.

When asked whether he’d be going to WrestleMania or not, Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker asked: “Is Freddie Blassie gonna be on the card?”

Hustler Magazine’s attempt to get a lawsuit filed against them by the family of Nancy Benoit dismissed has been denied. Hustler published nude pictures of Nancy after her untimely demise (well, the pictures had been taken twenty years before her death, not after…), and her family has accused Hustler of exploiting the murders of Nancy and her son Daniel. Well, I have to admit that I didn’t even know Hustler published these pictures until her family began complaining about it. So who’s exploiting who?

You know the best way to not have nude pictures of yourself pop up after your death?

Don’t pose for them!

Nancy made the decision to pose nude, and while it might not have been something the family agreed with, they don’t really have the right to keep the owner of said pictures from publishing them. At least, not from where I sit. There are many reasons I didn’t go to law school. I’m not saying I would have done the same thing that Hustler did here, but there are also reasons I didn’t go into the pornography business. It’s unseemly, sure, but porn is usually pretty dang unseemly. And Hustler’s not exactly one of your classier porn magazines anyway, or so I’m told.

I don’t agree with Hustler publishing the pictures, but they had the right to do so. People have the right to not read their magazine. That’s one of the great things about America.

You also have the right to watch shows like this…

Last week I covered the debut of WWE NXT, and I was very impressed. It actually lived up to its billing of being the “next evolution of sports entertainment”, and I look forward to watching upcoming episodes of the show…just not when they’re up against my beloved Louisville Cardinals vs. the despised Marquette Golden Eagles like they were this week.

Or a concert like the one I’ll be going to next Tuesday.

Thank goodness for Hulu!

Anywho, I thought I would continue the trend of covering debuting wrestling shows…mostly because one was debuting this week. So I went on the Internet and found me some Wrestlicious Takedown! I don’t get MAV TV or America One or whatever other goofy channels the show is airing on, so once again the Internet helps me out where television won’t.

What did I say about Wrestlicious the last time the topic came up in the column?

“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 was right on the money, and the greatest disappointment I have with this show is that it doesn’t have much in the way of original ideas. Yes, I realize that nothing is original anymore, but I think if you looked at the scripts for Wrestlicious’ skits you would have seen the word “GLOW” crossed out along with the names of the characters on that show, and have “Wrestlicious” and the characters on this show written above. The content wasn’t all that great back then, and it’s even worse now. For heaven’s sake, it’s the kind of stuff that makes you wonder why WWE Creative doesn’t win Emmys for their work.

Not only were the skits frighteningly unoriginal, but they spent a good bit of time hyping up this 20 woman battle royal set for some later date. Of course, they didn’t mention when it would be. It’s also quite reminiscent of the battle royal that Powerful Women of Wrestling (POWW, David McLaine‘s women wrestling show after GLOW and before WOW) hyped for weeks before finally airing. I was starting to wonder if there were any original ideas coming from the brain trust of this show, and…well…I’m still wondering.

The show started off with several minutes of complete nonsense, including my beloved Lizzy Valentine from Wrestling Society X working a lip synching singer gimmick as “Kandi Kisses”. If they play that Wrestlicious rap that was on YouTube for the past year every week to open the show…in the words of Tracy Smothers, SOMEBODY’S GONNA DIE! I didn’t think they could find a worse musical act to open a show than Nickelback or whoever does ROH’s opening song, but there you have it.

Eventually we had a match, though it wasn’t much of a match. Toni the Top, working a mafia gimmick and coming out to the Mamalukes’ old theme music, squashed Maui the Island Girl in something I would not classify as a good squash match like Luke Gallows vs. Sylas Young on Superstars. Untrained models taking Michinoku Drivers just isn’t a good idea unless you’re looking for lawsuits.

After more bad skits and website plugs, we finally got to something worth watching. The six woman tag team match wasn’t remotely as bad as I was expecting, but at the time I didn’t know that Amber O’Neal, Lorelei Lee, Rain & Mercedes Martinez were going to be in the match. Yeah, they have different gimmicks that date back to the GLOW era, but I do like Rain’s character of “Felony”, a convicted felon that occasionally tries to run away from Officer Bubba. It’s certainly a step up from “Peyton Banks”. So I liked one gimmick on the show. The match got good once the two random models got out of the ring. After a horrendous start, Wrestlicious ended with something that was actually worth watching. Though I think the nameless announcer guy did a lot more to try and kill the match than Michael Cole did during Chris Jericho vs. Daniel Bryan.

All in all though, I wish Paul Heyman had gotten into Jay Vargas’ ear instead of Jimmy Hart. The people supporting this show would tell you not to take it seriously, that it’s entertainment and meant to be funny. Fair enough, but apparently my definition of funny and theirs isn’t the same. I do hope that the girls on the show find success and make lots and lots of money off of Wrestlicious…sadly, if the first episode’s any indication I don’t see it happening.

North American women’s wrestling has recently seen two types of champions emerge. In TNA & SHIMMER you have dark-haired ladies with renowned mean streaks that remain popular due to their general friendliness with wrestling fans. On WWE’s Raw & Smackdown, and in the AAA promotion in Mexico, blondes are having more fun. Their bad attitudes don’t endear them to the unwashed masses, but some of us red-blooded males find ourselves inexplicably drawn to beautiful blondes with bad attitudes. They may treat us with outright hostility and think of us as ignorant fools, but that just makes them even more attractive. I’m not a psychologist, so I’m not going to explain it.

Raw has its Divas Champion, Maryse. Smackdown recently saw Michelle McCool regain the Women’s Championship from the darker haired and friendlier Mickie James. In AAA, Sexy Star reigns as the Reina de Reinas. Three beautiful blondes with three ugly attitudes…but who among them shall serve as Queen Bee?

The Tale of the Tape will be ranking the three beauties in each category, with the first woman scoring twenty points being declared the victor. Three points for first, two points for second, and one point for third. Pretty easy, right?

Match Quality:
1. Sexy Star
2. Michelle McCool
3. Maryse

Sexy was involved in the best women’s matches I saw last year along with Faby Apache…it’s tough to pick a favorite, but the Bull Terrier match on 9/26/09 where Sexy won the title and the Mascara contra Cabellera match at the Gerrra de Titanes show were really good. She’s mainly involved in six-woman matches or mixed tag matches on TV, and they’re usually better than Diva matches. McCool has had a couple of good matches with Melina and her series with Mickie James has had moments. Workrate is not Maryse’s forte, but she’s still in the learning process.

Charisma:
1. Maryse
2. Sexy Star
3. Michelle McCool

Maryse may not be the best in-ring performer, but she is pretty darn good at talking to the people in two languages and doing great poses. Sexy’s poses are good, but not as good as Maryse, and I can’t think of any good poses Michelle does. I can’t speak on Sexy’s promo ability, but it seems that she connects with the crowd better than Michelle.

Male Associates:
1. Michelle McCool
2. Maryse
3. Sexy Star

If we can rate men by the kind of women they attract, surely we can do the same for women. McCool has been rumored to be with Undertaker for quite awhile now, and Maryse relationship rumors have centered around the Miz. I like Miz, but he’s no Undertaker. I don’t know who Sexy’s with in real life, but in AAA she’s with Billy Boy, who doesn’t seem to do much other than feud with Apaches (He’s married to Faby and often wrestles against her…yeah, it’s kinda weird) and get busted for using drugs.

Accomplishments:
1. Michelle McCool
2. Maryse
3. Sexy Star

Michelle has held both the Women’s and the Divas title, for a combined total of 381 days. Maryse has been Divas champion on two occasions, for a combined total of 226 days, while Sexy Star has been Reina de Reinas for 156 days.

Future Outlook as Champ:
1. Sexy Star
2. Maryse
3. Michelle McCool

McCool has by far the toughest road ahead as champion, mostly because Beth Phoenix is on Smackdown and seems to be next in line for a title shot once Mickie James is out of the way. Maryse will be dealing with the likes of Eve Torres, Kelly Kelly & Gail Kim…so she should be safe until Melina makes her return. Of course, this all could change whenever WWE has their Draft. Sexy Star has little to worry about because AAA doesn’t seem to make their champions defend their titles very often. Plus, once you get past Faby Apache there aren’t a whole lot of other threats to Sexy’s reign. They seem to be pushing Cinthia Moreno towards title contention, but I don’t see her being too much trouble for Sexy.

Entrance Music:

1. Maryse

2. Sexy Star

3. Michelle McCool

The best part about Maryse’s theme is the lyrics. Since this is a family column I won’t reprint them here, but let’s just say that they aren’t very PG if you’re capable of speaking French. Sexy’s is catchy, and I don’t really care for Michelle’s. Besides, it was originally Torrie Wilson’s theme so points have to be taken away for that.

Finishing Move:
1. Maryse’s French Kiss
2. Michelle McCool’s Faith Breaker
3. Sexy Star’s…um…rollup? OK, sit out power bomb

Sexy Star doesn’t usually win matches with something other than rollups and chicanery. That’s kind of how it goes south of the border. McCool’s move is all right even if she did jack it from AJ Styles, but Maryse’s DDT is pretty cool and she does the best cover in the business.

Hometown:
1. Michelle McCool: Palatka, Florida
2. Maryse: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3. Sexy Star: Mexico

I’ve heard Montreal is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but Michelle gets the win for two reasons:
1. USA > Canada no matter what the final score of the hockey game was
2. Maryse actually lives in Florida now

If you can’t beat us in a sport that matters, join us. People tell me that parts of Mexico are nice, but I’m not sure they even had a Winter Olympic team.

Fashion:
1. Sexy Star
2. Maryse
3. Michelle McCool

Anybody wearing a mask has an unfair advantage when it comes to fashion, and Sexy’s cool winged entrance attire ensures her victory in this category. Maryse’s long cool coats give her second place, and Michelle really needs some funky entrance attire. Though I do like most of her ring attire, I don’t like it quite as much as Sexy’s or Maryse’s.

Final Score:
Maryse: 20
Michelle McCool: 18
Sexy Star: 18

Well, there you have it. As a friendly reminder, the News From Cook’s Corner Editorial Board is 100% fair and balanced when judging the Tale of the Tape and would never fix the scoring system or categories to get the result they want.

Indeed.

The Rs needs a harsher Impact reviewer. Guy’s way too nice to the show, don’t you think?

Hubbard ranks the top ten Undertaker WrestleMania matches. Aaron’s a good kid but I don’t understand his beef with Sid Vicious. Yeah, I liked the big guy when I was a young wrestling fan, and I stand by it. He had a couple of cool MOVEZ, he had hilarious promos, and you could believe him kicking the crap out of people. Add in all the tremendous urban legends about Sid and what’s not to like?

Chambers brings back the Wacky Wrestling Theory, to the shock and awe of 411’s readers.

Weyer talks about how everybody has baggage.

Sarnecky is doing a tournament to determine the best WrestleMania match of all time. The one thing I have to argue with is Savage vs. Steamboat not being a #1 seed.

The Triple Threat talks about John Cena. Heaven knows the kid needs the publicity.

And your AJ Grey post of the week features Amanda Bynes. Good times.

One final note…411Mania.com celebrates its seventh anniversary of Mania today. It was on March 3, 2003 that 411Wrestling.com embraced the Mania and introduced all sorts of funky new zones and whatnot. A lot of people have come, and a lot of people have gone, but seven years later we’re bigger than ever and there’s no sign that we’re slowing down. On behalf of everybody here at 411, I’d like to thank all of the readers, commenters, and Forumers that frequent this web site and give people like me the opportunity to write about complete and utter nonsense for one of the biggest wrestling (and other things) web sites on Planet Earth.

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the last five and a half years of this craziness, and here’s hoping the next five and a half are even better than the last five and a half have been. Big ups to the bosses for not firing me (yet), and to all the other writers, past and present, that have helped make 411wrestling.com what it is today. Yes, all of them. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet folks, because we’re only going to get bigger, badder and all sorts of other B wordsier.

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…