wrestling / Columns

News From Cook’s Corner 04.17.12

April 17, 2012 | Posted by Steve Cook

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and I hope you all are having a wonderful Tuesday! We’ve got a column full of wrestling news, views, thoughts, comments, and…uh…yeah.

Some weeks I can come up with an intro to this column pretty easy. This isn’t one of them. I could rant about any number of things, like the Reds not living up to expectations so far and everybody (myself included) freaking out over it. I could complain about my motor vehicle keeping me from attending wrestling shows. That was a bummer. I could even go on for a bit about the Boy Meets World DVD set I’ve spent most of the last couple of weeks watching. But I think we’d all be better off if I put the ixnay on all of that and just got to the wrestling. That is what you kind folks are here for, right?

Wrestling! Yay!

I thought the opening to Raw was fantastic. The segment showed how effective pull-apart brawls and the use of real blood can be when they are used sparingly. If we saw blood every week, then Brock busting Cena open wouldn’t have been nearly as awesome.

I also liked that there were some big stars out there trying to separate Cena and Lesnar–that made the segment seem more important than the typical pull-apart brawl featuring our favorite jobbers and road agents. The only problem I had with the segment was that you had people like Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus out there. Del Rio should be above that, Sheamus is the world champ, and the two are feuding. While the two are clearly lower than Cena and Lesnar in the pecking order, it didn’t make much sense for folks like them to be out there.JDW

The best idea I could come up with for guys like ADR & Sheamus to help break them up is that they want Cena vs. Lesnar to happen on the PPV so the show will get more buys, generate more interest and help their careers as well. Yup, it tramples all over kayfabe, but that’s the best I could come up with. It helps explain why guys like Sheamus would break that up and not be worried about Chris Jericho beating the crap out of CM Punk.

Sean Hayes and his SEVEN consecutive Emmy nomoinations (1 win), SIX consectutive Screen Actors guild nominations (3 wins), and FIVE consectutive Golden Globe nominations means more people will forget him than EVER know who the fuck you are, mark Net writer.Guest#7579

Thanks for reading, Sean! I’ve never watched a single episode of Will & Grace, but I hear you were great in it.

Tonight would be a really good night to get some of Ambrose on TV, he just had the confrontation with Foley, and thats all he talks about on his twitter. He doesn’t need promo vids to get over, a guy like him needs to be in somebodys face right away telling people what he thinks, then going out there and having the kind of match he is capable of with a solid midcard guy. I guess we will see tonight. middy

I was thinking we might see Dean Ambrose last week on SmackDown, but they did a Twitter angle where Mick Foley got him sent home from the arena. They’re cooking something up with these two and I’m very interested to see where it goes. If Foley’s in game shape this could be the kind of thing that establishes Ambrose right off the bat.

Brock Lesnar beats and takes out Cena at Extreme Rules, Cena gets his long awaited Vacation.. Lesnar rules raw till around Royal Rumble (might even become champ).. cena comes back to challenge him.. he wins fluke win with interference by the rock~ cena gets put over and battles for wwe belt fued for mania, brock vs rock at wrestlemania~

BOOM, your whole year is done.wylun

A couple of issues:

-There’s no way they’d keep Cena out that long unless he was injured. Cena’s the one guy they’ve established as a consistent draw over the past several years, and I’m not sure who steps into his role if he’s not there.

-Cena getting a fluke win with help from Rock does the opposite of putting him over.

That being said, WWE doing a variation of this is certainly possible.

The Bellas should bow out gracefully. It’s the right call.Hannah and Holly

For those of you that aren‘t too familiar with the indy stuff, Hannah & Holly Blossom are twin lady wrestlers from the United Kingdom. They’ve spent quite a bit of time in Ohio Valley Wrestling over the past couple of years and are currently wrestling in their native country. They could be the biggest beneficiaries if the Bella Twins leave WWE, as either WWE might sign them to replace the Bellas or TNA could beat them to the punch. I’d give Brie & Nikki the edge in the looks department, but Hannah & Holly are probably superior in the ring and it’s not like they’re horrible on the eyes.


Yeah, you’ll probably be seeing more of these two.

I kinda agree with a lot of the other comments about more Divas jumping ship. All that travel they do has got to wear on you after awhile. It would be one thing if your a major star in a major program but WWE really doesn’t seem to care at all about the Divas division so why go through all that hassle when you’re only featured on TV for under 2 minutes every week if at all?Andre the Midget

That’s the $64,000 question. One of the things that draws me to the women in wrestling (other than the superficial reasons), is a curiosity about why they get into the business. Let’s face it, as much as we all love pro wrestling it can be a very cruel mistress. There are easier ways to make a living. OK, not as many as there used to be thanks to the economy, but still. I think the answer to the Diva question is that being a WWE Diva means a lot more than just the stuff you do in the ring. WWE exposes these ladies to a wide audience and gives them opportunities to do things that they wouldn’t get to do otherwise. The Divas are always prominently involved in WWE’s charity work & other events. I’m sure that they would love to have more time to be featured on Raw & SmackDown, and they keep working hard in hope that eventually WWE will reward them with more opportunities & exposure. The ladies trying to become Divas believe that they’ll be able to change things and make the Divas division a bigger deal. If they don’t believe that, they’ll never make it.

That all being said, the business wears on you. You guys might remember that we interviewed Kristin Astata/Krissy Vaine a few months back on the 411 on Wrestling. She spent the better part of ten years wrestling across the country and had a cup of coffee with WWE after spending some time in their developmental system. The last time I talked to her, she said that she’d moved on from wrestling and now she’s modeling & working full time. She’s happy about it, as she likes getting paid to stand around and look pretty better than wrestling & getting hurt. Not everybody gets to have that choice, but generally if you’re cosmetically appealing enough to make it into WWE you’ll have that option. If the Bellas or other lady wrestlers choose to go down that road, or do something else that interests them, it’s tough for me to blame them.

I’m happy colt won the NWA belt, although Chance is a pretty cool dude and think those two would be a VERY good battle in my opinion. Chance was pretty cool to hang with when he came to support my friends’ wrestling promotion a few years ago. I think if WWE needs to shape up some of the high flyers, they ought to check out my friend Aski Palomino, seriously, he really could be Rey’s identical twin brother minus the tat’s. Heck of a performer, and just became a triple crown winner over this last weekend. OCW belt along with his other 2 belts he holds. I promise you Cook, if you check out this Aski guy, or maybe Midnight Rose another wrestler/mgr I know you wouldn’t be sorry. Excellent entertainers.LitasRevenge

I love it when people recommend new wrestlers to me. There are few things better than discovering somebody before the rest of the world does, and I’ve had the good luck of finding good talent and promoting them in this column on several occasions. That’s why I love indy wrestling, and why I still love watching indy wrestling from the early to mid 2000s. It’s insane how much good talent there was during that time period. Now we’re trying to find the next wave.

Aski’s almost way too much like Rey from the clips I’ve seen. Dude’s got the mask & the pants like Rey, and I saw him do a 619 & several Rey spots. That being said, there are few wrestlers that are better to emulate than Rey Mysterio, and I bet he gets really over at small indy shows with kids that worship Rey. Check out his YouTube channel and see what you think. I’m not sure if his style would translate well to the major indies where the fans focus on workrate, he might have to switch up his game and add some stuff or he’d get some backlash for being too much like Rey.

And go ahead and search “Midnight Rose wrestling” too. It’s a guy in a mask wearing a suit that seems to be connected with the WrestleCrap folks. That’s all I need in order to know that it’s quality.

Well, I’m one person who would have an easier time picking cook out of a lineup than whoever the hell Sean Hayes is. But I have a penis, thus don’t pay attention to celebrities.G-Walla

Yeah, I’d be the guy with the Reds hat covering my receding hairline and wearing a bourbon soaked black t-shirt. OK, so now I’ve described most of the men in the Greater Cincinnati area.

And now, the fake news!

Undertaker may have ended an era at WrestleMania 28, but don’t think you’ve seen the last of him in a WWE ring. He’s expected to be back for WrestleMania 29 and word is that he was in better shape after his match this year than he has been in previous years. 20-0 would have been a nice round number to end things on, but I don’t think we’re ready for WrestleMania without Undertaker just yet. Whether he continues the streak or it finally comes to an end, it’s a major drawing card for WrestleMania that WWE hasn’t run into the ground yet. Some say that WrestleMania the brand is what draws, but Undertaker’s streak is a huge part of that brand. Not to mention that his matches have been the highlight of the show each of the last four years, and maybe even further back than that depending on how you rated his matches with Edge & Batista.

Will he be back in the ring before WrestleMania? If I was a betting man I would put my money on no. Even though he might help ratings temporarily, Undertaker’s worth more wrestling one time a year than he is working every week or once a month. It’s tough to have “special attraction” wrestlers in this day and age because there’s live TV every single week, but Undertaker has become just that.

Speaking of WrestleMania, WWE is estimating the total number of buys for this year’s edition at around 1.3 million. This would break the record previously set by WrestleMania 26. This isn’t the 1.9 million that some goof from ESPN reported a couple of days after the show, but anytime you can set a record for most buys you can’t be too disappointed about it. Most of WWE’s financial news this year hasn’t been too great, but WrestleMania 28 will go down in history as quite the cash cow. The show had a total gross sales figure of $67 million. $67 million! Good Lord, that’s a lot of money! This type of success for one show is pretty insane for an industry that’s not exactly in a boom period. It’s the largest grossing event in wrestling history by a wide margin…at least until next year.

I’m not a financial expert by any means, but they had to make a ton of jack on that show unless those trees they built were really expensive.

The Mick Foley/Dean Ambrose issue had been continuing on Twitter throughout the week, but yesterday Foley posted a blog entry that indicated that he wouldn’t be going through with the feud with one of FCW’s top prospects. He said that Ambrose had gone against his wishes by mentioning his kids in a tweet, therefore he feels he can’t trust the man to not take liberties in the ring since he couldn’t abide by his one request in this online portion of the feud. I’m 95% sure that this is part of the work and we will end up seeing Foley & Ambrose across the ring from each other, but the 5% of me that isn’t sure makes this whole thing interesting.

Pac was backstage at Raw in London last night. Pac, known as “The Man Gravity Forgot”, is one of the indy wrestling scene’s more exciting wrestlers and mainly competes for Dragon Gate in Japan. I wouldn’t read too much into him visiting, but WWE is reportedly interested and they do have a couple of openings for aerial artists right now with Evan Bourne & Sin Cara out of action for quite some time & Rey Mysterio maybe hopefully back soon. I’d like to see him in WWE…I have no idea if he can talk or not, but dude is a hell of a talent in the ring and is one of those guys who could get over with the WWE audience just based on cool flips.

Damien Sandow will be in London for the SmackDown tapings on Tuesday. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins & Antonio Cesaro are also reportedly in London for the tapings. Ambrose appeared in a dark match with Alex Riley on the Raw tapings, we’ll have to wait and see if the others appear on SD or not.

Brock Lesnar will have new ring gear for his WWE return. That in itself isn’t very notable except for the fact that he’s the first person in WWE history to have sponsors on his shorts. I think more people should have sponsors, and I’m trying to get some sponsors for this column to make things easier on me. Unfortunately I haven’t heard back from Yuengling, Samuel Adams or any of the other beer companies I regularly mention. Nor have I heard from Jim Beam or Jack Daniel’s. It’s very disappointing.

The Bella Twins were supposed to be in London for the Raw taping, but did not appear in any capacity on the show, not even for a Superstars match or a dark match. They have not been appearing on other events on this tour but were supposed to be there for TV tapings.

Natalya seems to have a feud going with Lilian Garcia on the European tour. I can’t decide what’s better: feuding with a ring announcer or doing a farting gimmick. Natalya’s best bet is to get fired after choking Lilian and then create a public outcry for her return. Hey, it worked for Daniel Bryan.

Rima Fakih is denying reports that she signed with WWE. These reports started after she told a German gossip site that she would definitely be part of WWE. Not that German gossip sites would ever lie about anything…right?

-Is it CLOBBERIN’ TIME, or time for somebody to get their ass kicked & wig split?

-I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see Mizark’s entrance.

-Lots of Punk fans in the UK.

-Damn, Henry just flings Punk into the barricade! Nice.

-The Yeses are back in full force this week!

-Elbow drop with the chair! Punk wins a pretty darn good match against Mizark. Not sure I liked it as much as their first affair, but these guys do some good work together.

-Chris Jericho announces that he & Punk will have a Chicago Street Fight at Extreme Rules for the WWE title. Makes sense.

-CM Punk went to a pub today! Just before noon! That’s early even by my standards!

-The crowd chants “fish & chips” in support of the Punker’s alibi.

-R-Truth is dressed as Sherlock Holmes.

-Santino with some soccer-based humor that I’m sure would be hilarious if I understood the Premier League.

-Hey, a Facebook plug! Are WWE & Twitter on the outs?

-Jeez, Santino & Otunga just had the most awkward foot on the ropes moment ever. Otunga had no idea where he was supposed to be to make that work. Not that Otunga not knowing where he’s supposed to be in the ring is news.

-Lord Tensai speaks! Something tells me Brock’s “Controversial Words” will be more interesting.

-Brock is tired of John Cena’s bullcrap! A man after our hearts.

-Very effective video package establishing Brock’s persona.

-An Extreme Rules Match! Didn’t ECW have one Extreme Rules Match a week during part of its run?

-Ah, we’re back to Kane vs. Zack Ryder. Hope Ryder at least gets to throw a punch in this time.

-Turns out he doesn’t.

-Did Randy Orton get injured just so he wouldn’t have to go overseas? People have differing thoughts on the overseas trips, but that would be one of my favorite parts of the job if I was a WWE Superstar. I went to Europe once and it was easily one of the top highlights of my life thus far.

-What’s with Kofi trying to move in on Bryan’s ex-girlfriend?

-Who did Gene Lebell ever beat? YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

-That was a lot of Yeses.

-John Cena says his era may have ended at WrestleMania. The fans respond with “YES YES YES”, of course.

-Cena says he will fight Brock Lesnar even if he gets his ass kicked. Good to know.

-BIG JOHNNY! His entrance music is EPIC and overtakes everything in this segment.

-R-Truth & Hornswoggle are up to something. I’m sure it’s hilarious.

-Daniel Bryan is back to being over. All is right with the world. While I’m thinking about it, people being all like “Duh, Bryan’s not over” since he didn’t get any love from last week’s Raw crowd were ignoring the fact that crowd wasn’t giving anybody any love.

-Lawler is full of all sorts of information tonight. He knows about Gene LeBell & the people he beat, all the English soccer teams…dude did his homework tonight! Or somebody did it for him, either way.

-Good match here with Bryan & Kofi. Give these guys a little time and they can put on a show.

-Kofi taps to the newly-named YES Lock! The LeBell Lock was a fine name, bur adding the Yes gimmick to the move makes it more over. I dig it.

-FUNKASAURUS! SOMEBODY CALL MY MOMMA!

-Dolph Ziggler tries his luck with the Funkasaurus. Sorry Dolph, but there are some things even you can’t handle.

-We get a Chief Jay Strongbow tribute video.

-Any product that uses Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” in their commercial is worth a look.

-Sherlock R-Truth suggests that Teddy Long become the General Manager of SmackDown. He’s a bit confused, but what else is new?

-Great Khali & Big Show vs. Epico & Primo. Can anything good come of a Khali/Show tag team? I’m looking for a silver lining here, but it’s tough.

-Not even Dancing Rosa can get me excited for this one…then again, maybe she can. Ahem.

-Abraham Washington is out there for some reason. This reminds me of early TNA Impact when they would build feuds by having people wander out onto the stage. Sometimes the announcers wouldn’t even notice them. Good times.

-John Cena’s mystery opponent is Lord Tensai! I’m sure Cena & Albert had a match at some point back in the day on SmackDown.

-Pretty one-sided thus far. Todd Bergman will be happy with Tensai’s usage of a nerve hold.

-Is Lawler comparing Cena’s recent issues to Tiger Woods’s issues? Maybe that thing he had with Eve Torres went deeper than we knew…

-Tensai’s actually trying to cover Cena in this match. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t bothered with that until this point.

-GREEN MIST! Tensai beats Cena with the Baldo Bomb. Cena complains about being unable to see, and washes his eyes out with water while Tensai poses.

-Decent show this week with some solid matches. Punk vs. Henry & Bryan vs. Kofi were fun, and I think Brock stole the show with his segment. Cena did a pretty good job establishing Brock as a threat while he seems to be heading downhill…could he in fact be heading on vacation soon? Hmmm.

If it’s a major TNA PPV, you can count on there being news that the result of the main event was changed during the last couple of weeks. I’m sure you all remember how Bobby Roode was supposed to win the TNA title from Kurt Angle at Bound For Glory, only to have it changed by Hulk Hogan because Roode “wasn’t the guy, brother”. Roode became the guy a couple of weeks later at a TV taping, which was somewhat kinda maybe justifiable because they used it to have him turn heel on James Storm and set the tone for his title reign. Most seem to think that Roode’s done a good job with the strap and waiting to put the title on him didn’t hurt anything except TNA fans’ desire to buy PPVs, which was already in the toilet anyway.

So if you’re asking me if I’m surprised that James Storm was supposed to win the title at Lockdown only to have the decision changed shortly before the show, I have to say that I’m not. Everybody was talking about how Storm had to win the title at Lockdown, so TNA decided “Nah.” That’s what they’ve always done with their championship, even going back to 2003 when everybody thought that Raven was going to win it from Jeff Jarrett. This was back in the Nashville days…Jarrett was allegedly the face in the feud, but pretty much everybody in the Asylum wanted Raven to win the title. This became a trend that would continue with guys like Monty Brown in 2004. Sometimes they wait too long to put the belt on somebody, like Samoa Joe. It took so long for him to win it that most people didn’t care when it finally happened. Things like that don’t seem to deter TNA from their plans.

Put it this way…I would have been more surprised if Storm actually won. Not only was TNA’s traditional booking strategy going against him, but he was also the hometown boy. Hometown wrestlers have actually done pretty well lately, but it’s not like Storm was CM Punk in Chicago at Money in the Bank or The Rock in Miami at WrestleMania. Actually, I can see TNA management using the Lockdown attendance that looked low on TV as an argument against Storm being champion since he was the hometown guy and was heavily pushed heading into the show. Something to keep an eye on.

The crowd reaction, or lack thereof, was a major talking point after Sunday night’s show. As somebody that was recently at a show with a crowd that got complained about even though they sounded all right in person, I thought it’d be interesting to get some perspective from somebody who was there. So I contacted 411 reader Brach, who was in Nashville for Lockdown, and here’s what he had to say when I asked him about the crowd:

My section was really into it. I was sitting in the section with the hard camera shining on it. I don’t know if you could see them on tv but I was sitting next to the long row of guys in ref shirts four rows up off the floor. Those guys were really into it. There was a lady strongly behind Storm during his match near me and some of the people commented that she was going to be disappointed if he lost. It seems like everyone should have been disappointed that he lost. Everyone was booing Roode and cheering Storm throughout the match, but there wasn’t much of a fuss at the end of the match. Everyone just got up and left without complaining too much. There was a kid, maybe 6 or 7, next to us that was crying at the end. Crowd seemed fine, but maybe they weren’t miced up as well as they are in Orlando. The only thing that really surprised me was the lack of reaction at the swervey ending.

I’ve been to quite a few wrestling shows, and I usually feel like the crowd reaction is fair based on the show that is being put on. Crowd was hot for Angle v. Hardy. Dead for Morgan v. Crimson. Into Roode v. Storm, but not really treating it like a blow off match. Again, I was shocked at the reaction of the crowd for the ending of the last match. If they insisted on Roode winning, it should have been in a more heelish chicken shit sort of way. Not the same way Steve Austin won at St. Valentines’ Day Massacre.

At this point I asked him how many people were in attendance.

I am not that good with estimations. Probably 3,500-4,000. Oh yeah, a yes chant broke out before the show. That may have come across on the pre-show. The crowd was way into AJ Styles. I think they were a bit let down that he didn’t have a bigger role in the Lethal Lockdown match though. Everyone in my section was shitting on Garrett. They were booing when he asked to start the match and laughed when he commented that he was going to get his butt kicked. My section was hot of a crowd as you could ask for. A lot of the card was underwhelming, but they were all drinking and jacked up for the good stuff.

There you have it, some first-hand experience from Lockdown! I think the reason they didn’t really react to the ending was that they’re used to screwy finishes from TNA since the company held most of its early shows there. Certainly they weren’t surprised that TNA would go with the finish that people weren’t predicting.

Storm still may end up getting the title sooner rather than later, but another name mentioned as a potential champion is none other than Bully Ray. Many people feel that Ray is one of the best heels in wrestling today, including people on the TNA creative team. Bully’s really stepped his game up since Team 3D split and I’d say that right now he’s the best that he’s ever been. He’d be a deserving champion. And no, I didn’t expect to be saying this back when he & Devon split, but the dude has been impressive.

Expect lots of changes to the Impact Wrestling show over the coming weeks. Dixie Carter spoke with Greg DeMarco’s friends at f4wonline.com last week and talked about how there would be “format changes and new elements” soon. Hopefully this is something a bit bigger than a new slogan. Remember when they had to ditch “Wrestling Matters” after everybody noted that they had less wrestling on the show than before they started the ad campaign? Whatever it is, expect Spike TV executives to have a major say in it since they had this meeting just after extending their contract to air the show. They must have something in mind.

Carter also says that the company is going to focus on young talent. She’s said this before and it never seems to last, but I believe her this time. Garett Bischoff counts as “young talent”, right?

In the “We All Saw This Coming” news department, Kurt Angle pulled out of the U.S. Olympic Trials, citing his hamstring & knee injuries. Of course they didn’t stop him from competing at Lockdown, because he’s Kurt Angle. Kurt said on Twitter that he would be taking a little break from TNA, but not too long since he’ll be on the next PPV.

Chris Harris was spotted in attendance at Lockdown, and was said to be trying to get attention from people. Harris has wanted to get back with TNA ever since his ill-fated WWE stint, and this seems to be another attempt to do so. Fortunately they didn’t have him cost James Storm the main event, as that’s probably the one thing that would have gotten an even worse reaction than the finish they went with.

Traci Brooks has been released from TNA. She hadn’t been on television since January, and she confirmed her departure from the company via Twitter on Monday night. Traci’s most recent TNA run was a brief one…she came back full time in July and began trying to reclaim her previous role as the Knockouts Law, but once that position was given to Karen Jarrett she became her assistant. That lasted a couple of months before Karen left, and Traci then became a face for a few weeks before disappearing in January. She wishes TNA luck, and will still be watching her husband Kazarian on the shows.

Speaking of which, what was Kazarian thinking with that hair cut? Not good.

John Morrison probably got more mainstream publicity last week than he ever did in WWE thanks to being in some sort of commercial with Jessica Alba. And now I debate with myself whether or not Jessica Alba is now eligible for the 411 Wrestling Hot 100 since she was in a wrestling ring beating a wrestler up. These are the things I spend my days worrying about.

Ring of Honor is featuring matches from their Showdown in the Sun iPPV events on their television show. Mike Bennett vs. Lance Storm & Kevin Steen vs. El Generico from Day 1 aired pretty much in their entirety on last week’s show, and next week’s show will feature a couple of matches from Day 2. I got an e-mail from an ROH fan complaining about this since he had purchased the iPPV event and now he felt like it was a waste of money. I don’t think this is something that ROH should make a habit out of doing (even though I really enjoyed getting to see Steen vs. Generico on TV), but I think it makes sense in this instance due to the technical difficulties and mixed reviews the shows got due to the production. Showing some of the higher profile matches on the card is a good way of showing the casual viewer that these iPPV events have some good stuff going on, and hopefully it’ll increase business for their next event in July.

The question is if the people that did go to the trouble of purchasing the shows the first time will return for the next show, or decide not to bother with it and expect to see some of the matches on TV anyway. I think it’s worth the risk to try and expose more people to the product and hope they start paying for it, but it very well could backfire on them if they can’t convince people that the shows are worth purchasing.

EVOLVE’s iPPV in Toronto over the weekend didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. The biggest problem facing Gabe Sapolsky’s show was the inability of several wrestlers to make it across the border. Scott Reed, AR Fox, Bobby Fish & Cheech were unable to make the show, so several changes had to be made to the card. On the bright side, it gave opportunities to Adam Page, Mike Rollins, Jake Manning, Drew Gulak, Ashley Sixx, and M.K. McKinnan, all of who appeared on the card unadvertised. Sapolsky was really unhappy about this because the wrestlers didn’t make it into the country because they didn’t listen to instructions. It wasn’t like they were felons or anything, they just didn’t have the right paperwork.

Gabe might blame the wrestlers, but I blame Canada.

Larry Dallas is heading to Japan to tour with Dragon Gate for three months. He’ll be managing a faction called “Mad Blankey”, which I really hope has a blanket as a mascot. I remember when Dallas was a dude that people said was only getting booked on shows because he was friends with a girl. Now he’s going all international and stuff while the girl is now the one that people say gets booked (or not booked, as the case may be) because of who she’s friends with. I wouldn’t have predicted that one a couple of years ago, but here we are.

WrestleReunion announced on Monday night that they will not be running future events at this time. Attendance for their events in Los Angeles & Toronto was not up to the expectations they set, and while they haven’t closed operations for good, they’re going to step back and let the market correct itself. I guess this is something else we can blame on Canada, along with the liberals in Hollywood. Yes, that’s the ticket!

Fact or Fiction featured Dustin James & Michael Ornelas talking some pro wrestling & shenanigans.

The Greg DeMarco Show will return tonight at 10:30. Last week’s show had so many guests that I don’t even know where to start. People like appearing on his show.

The 411 on Wrestling will apparently be back on Friday night. As usual, keep an eye on the newswire for further information!

Rutherford calls his wife “Mrs. Wrestling Sandwich”. It’s shocking enough that Internet wrestling writers get married, but you gotta wonder how they stay married with pet names like that.

Jordan Garretson makes his 411 debut with “Three Up, Three Down”. I like baseball references, so this has potential.

The Triumvirate talks some MMA. Why not?

Byers lists the best musical performances by wrestlers. I assume it’s the best because Bret Hart’s “There’s Never A Right Time To Say Goodbye” is on the list. If there’s one song that sums up the life of Steve Cook, it’s a tossup between that & George Thorogood’s “I Drink Alone”.

Weyer talks about wrestling fans feeling entitled. Who doesn’t feel entitled these days?

TJ Hawke ranks the ten best matches of WrestleMania Weekend. Tough for me to judge since I haven’t seen most of them. That Richards/Elgin match sounds all sorts of divisive.

Ornelas ranks the top ten thrown-together tag teams of all time. Aren’t most tag teams thrown together? Hell, you could say the Midnight Express was thrown together…it wasn’t like Dennis Condrey & Bobby Eaton had a hell of a lot in common.

Maffew Gregg presents some British Optimism and a review of CZW Best of the Best XI.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! Nick Marsico will be in tomorrow with the Wed Wi, and I’ll be back next week with more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…

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