News From Cook’s Corner 08.07.12

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and I’m here to present you some wrestling news! Along the way there will hopefully be some hilarity & some good times, along with some nonsense, some shenanigans and perhaps some tomfoolery. That’s what we’re all about here at the Corner, which has been around for quite some time in case you haven’t noticed.

In fact, next Tuesday will mark the eighth anniversary of when I started writing for 411wrestling.com. Eight years, yo! That’s a long time to be sitting around and writing about wrestling, but I still have as much fun with it today as I did when I started. I still haven’t decided on whether or not I’ll do something special for it…I probably should have made a decision on that by now, but those of you that have been around for awhile know that I suck at making decisions. So this is perfectly in character for me.

Cody Rhodes denied accusations that he had failed a Wellness test. I guess I can’t blame people for being suspicious because he is a Rhodes and Rhodes family members typically don’t have fantastic bodies, but I believe Cody when he says that he’s never failed a test and he never will. As long as I can believe in Cody Rhodes, I can believe in professional wrestling.

So if Rock wins at the Rumble and goes on to face Cena in a re-match at Mania, which I’m fine with I think they should have one, where does that leave Punk? I know the popular theory is Stone Cold, but I’m not buying that, especially given Austin’s recent surgery. If it is Austin, great! I’d love to see it. But it would be a shame for Punk to have to be regulated to a match with Kane or some other sort of nonsense after the run he’s had this year with the title. – Andre the Midget

Punk definitely deserves a big match at the Show of Shows, but if Internet speculation is right the WrestleMania main events will feature Cena, Rock, Undertaker & Brock Lesnar. Without Brock in the picture, I think the best option would be for Punk to be the next man to take a shot at Undertaker’s streak. If he was able to hold on to the WWE title until the Royal Rumble, he would have lasted fourteen months as champion. You would hope that’d be enough to build him up as a serious threat to the streak, and it’d make sense for him to come out after losing the belt at the Rumble and saying that if he couldn’t challenge for the WWE title he’d make history by ending Undertaker’s streak. I don’t see the Austin thing happening, and I would use Brock against somebody that needs a little something extra to get over the hump, and maybe could even use the rub to become a guy that’s thought of as a top draw. Sheamus would be a good opponent for Brock.

I think that Bruce Prichard is a scumbag for what he is doing as it relates to the contracts and trying to play hardball with the talent and their pay. I hope TNA’s lawsuit with WWE gets resolved so that Prichard’s actions can come back to bite on his fat ass. – Guest#2251

I don’t think Prichard makes the decision to play hardball with talent. TNA has been trying to spend less money for the past couple of years now, ever since Dixie Carter’s mother Janice started overseeing the spending in late 2010. You’ve probably noticed that they haven’t brought in every single person to leave WWE lately, and that’s a large reason why. Sure, they still spend money on stuff like the Hogan family, but that money has to come from somewhere. Unfortunately for TNA talent it seems to be coming from some of them. Bruce has received a lot of heat during his time in the offices of WWE & TNA, but I think a lot of that comes from him doing his job.

That all being said, you gotta feel bad for talent that’s getting their pay cut or their contracts restructured and have no option of employment with WWE. It’s a crappy situation and TNA deserves to get some flack for that. The pro-TNA folks will argue that it’s WWE’s fault that they signed Brian Wittenstein and he gave them “insider information”, but they relieved him of his duties after he did that. They haven’t signed anybody thanks to whatever information Wittenstein gave them, and it seems like they’re ok with finding talent on the indy scene & other places without dealing with TNA drama. The only people getting squeezed here are TNA talent.

Regardless of what anyone says it was refreshing to read a well constructed, thoughtful and punctuated post by Kyle O’Reilly. Normally wrestlers seem to post the most inane and completely baffling rubbish with no punctuation whatsoever that then comes off as if it’s written by a 10 year old. There’s 2 sides to every story but simply by the amount of effort put into it I’m more inclined to believe the ROH guys, and this comes from someone who isn’t a big fan of Richards or O’Reilly at all. – Col

It’s not that I think O’Reilly or Davey Richards are lying. I don’t think either of them have said anything that they don’t believe is 100% fact. I just question the logic behind their actions. Plus, they admitted that they stole the money from the promoter, so it’s not like they said they did nothing wrong…they just didn’t think it was wrong.

I’ll be boycotting any material that has any of these three fucks in it. Big time wrestling wont survive if indy wrestling doesn’t survive, and indy wrestling wont survive if we let Davey and crew get away with this crap. For instance, I love PWG, but if they put Davey on another card in the future (might not even at this point anyway) it will be the first of their DVDs that I haven’t bought in two years. I’m serious about this statement and I hope a few people join me in sending a message the only way we can, with our money. – Chuck Guerrera

Comments like this are probably why Richards & O’Reilly returned the money to the promoter. They certainly seemed to think what they did was totally badass, but after seeing the backlash from fans and realizing that stuff like that wouldn’t help them get booked by other promoters, they decided to send the money back. Richards seems intent on leaving wrestling soon (though he’s said it before so I’ll believe it when I see it) & Tony Kozina’s getting up there in age, but O’Reilly theoretically has his best wrestling years in front of him. He stands to lose the most from this whole controversy, so it was smart on his part to try & justify his actions.

Was it too little, too late? O’Reilly & Kozina have already lost at least one booking from this whole debacle, as their scheduled match at the Ring of Honor TV tapings this past weekend was cancelled. No word on whether or not they’ll be brought back, and there are conflicting reports on Richards’ future with the company. Until then, Richards & Kozina will try & use the controversy to get themselves some attention, as they used the NWA Smoky Mountain show this past weekend to gloss themselves as “Wrestling’s Most Wanted”:

We’ll see how it works out for them.

It’s funny that people bash the model divas like Kelly for “not having passion” when it’s mostly them who get fed up with WWE paying them to do nothing and choose to take action by leaving while the Beths and the Natalyas seemingly have no qualms with just collecting a paycheck as long as WWE is willing to pay them. – Guest#0174

Sometimes you love the business so much that you’ll accept being treated like crap. Perhaps that’s another reason why WWE is looking for more people that love the business. If you’re a model and you didn’t grow up being a huge WWE fan, you’re not going to put up with as much BS. I don’t really blame Kelly Kelly for not really caring about being on Raw since it was probably a throwaway segment anyway, but at the same time if I was WWE I would want to dedicate time to people that care about being on the show instead of those that don’t.

For the record, I wouldn’t complain at all if Drew became jobber to the stars. He has already been jobbed into irrelevance before, and I never saw his upside anyway. – Jason Douglas

I shouldn’t have included Drew McIntyre in that group of people that fans might complain about getting jobbed out, simply because Heath Slater’s role would be a pretty big step up from what Drew’s been doing lately.

Surely you know that Johnny Gargano stayed with DGUSA because nobody else wanted him. If WWE, TNA or ROH had offered him a deal Johnny would be out of DGUSA . This deal about wanting to be an indy wrestler is just a work to put the struggling DGUSA promotion over as big time. – Mark

There were rumors about WWE being interested in Gargano, but I can’t really say what the level of interest was. Gargano does work a bunch of different places on the indy circuit, I don’t know what the pay scales are in DGUSA/EVOLVE & ROH, but I would guess that they aren’t too far apart so that may be a lateral move. Sometimes guys like hanging around in the indies. Bryan Danielson did that for a long time, and eventually he decided it was time to be a WWE Superstar. I wouldn’t rate Gargano on Danielson’s level, not even close, but he may have a similar outlook. Maybe he’s having fun doing what he’s doing…and if he is, it’s tough to blame him for not wanting to move on.

who’s the hot chick in blue – ojmendez818

That was Cheerleader Melissa, another of the women that TNA couldn’t figure out how to utilize.

I don’t think the Hebner tweet was about a BJ… he says “blow” which, in my neck of the woods, is cocaine. I highly doubt any of the knockouts are blowing this guy. I should know, I’m Bonerfied. – Bonerfied

Bonerfied is the official TNA Knockout expert, and he is also bonerfied. So I’ll take his word for it.

And now, the fake news!

There was a rumor circulating on Facebook & Twitter last week about the Undertaker being dead. I didn’t believe this for a minute, mostly because Undertaker’s been dead for 22 years. Well, there was a brief period between 2000-2003 where he wasn’t dead, but he’s been dead for most of his WWE stint.

We’re still getting reports that WWE is planning on revamping their tag team division. They’ve been building up the Prime Time Players & Epico & Primo, and Kofi Kingston & R-Truth are still the Tag Team Champions. Word is that they plan on bringing in a tag team from developmental, which would either be the partying duo of Corey Graves & Jake Carter, or the Ascension (Conor O’Brian & Kenneth Cameron) since those are the two tag teams on NXT that aren’t on WWE television. It’s tough to get your hopes up too much since WWE has tried to reboot the tag teams several times over the years and it never seems to take. I mean, it’d be nice if they had a nice little tag team division with some great teams, but I don’t really expect it to happen.

Fozzy is no longer scheduled to perform on August 19 at the Rockstar Uproar Festival in Maryland Heights, Missouri. I suppose they were scheduled to at some point. In any event, Chris Jericho will not be busy on that evening.

The Great Khali was released from the hospital and is back home in Texas. WWE hopes that he will be back in time for the Survivor Series. I spoke with Khali on Thursday night and he seemed to be in great spirits. He’s a huge football fan and is looking forward to The Ocho going all fantasy football all the time on August 16. Now, some have speculated that The Great Khali that appears in our podcast chatrooms from time to time is not in fact Great Khali, but a former 411 writer that had the Tuesday news gig for a few years. I don’t know about all that, but I do know that Khali is a beloved figure and hopefully he’ll be able to continue his life & career without complication.

Speaking of wrestlers of Indian heritage, WWE officials are very high on Jinder Mahal, feeling that he has the potential to be one of their top heels of the future. This is why he’s working a feud with Ryback and has been prominently featured on the NXT show as well. Mahal has the look that WWE desires in their Superstars, no doubt about it. It hasn’t really clicked in the ring for him yet, but it should be noted that Mahal is only twenty-six years old and has a lot of years in front of him. The idea of him being a top heel may seem a bit silly now, and I’ve laughed at the idea myself, but there’s a chance I could end up eating my words.

Will there be a Saturday morning wrestling show produced by WWE? WWE sent out a survey to fans over the weekend asking if that’s something they would be interested in, and asked them to comment on some show names. The show would basically be a recap of Raw & SmackDown with one previously unaired match. I said it when TNA tried to do Rewind, and I’ll say it here too…recap shows are pointless in 2012. With the power of DVR & YouTube, people can watch the wrestling whenever they want to. If they watched it once they’re not going to spend an hour watching it again. I like the idea of wrestling on Saturday mornings, but that should have been what NXT or SuperStars was used for.

Sometimes it seems like WWE likes to serve up the same thing over and over again, and they hope that people won’t notice that the only thing that changes is the label.

Randy Orton will star in an upcoming WWE Studios production entitled 12 Rounds: Reloaded. It’ll be the sequel to the movie that John Cena starred in back in 2009. Orton will play the role of an EMT that gets caught in a 12-round game of cat & mouse with somebody tied to his past and his wife’s life in the balance. I understand this is very similar to the original movie.

Orton was originally supposed to be in the next Marine movie, but was removed once the military found out about it. He should be ok for this one, as I don’t recall him having any incidents with EMTs. I don’t think he punted any of them over the years, and he wasn’t around when B.B. was, so he couldn’t have done anything with her bag.

WWE is scouting talent at the Olympics. Considering that Senior Director of Talent Development has a beach volleyball background, hopefully he’s been checking out some of the ladies in that particular sport. I’ve been seeing a lot of good talent there, even though the weather has led to some interesting wardrobe decisions. Can’t say I’m a fan of the sports bra over shirt look.

Vince McMahon hopes to make an announcement concerning the WWE Network sometime during the next quarter. He said this at the WWE conference call talking about their second quarter financial stuff. He also said this at the WWE conference call talking about their first quarter financial stuff. I’m noticing a trend here.

John Bradshaw Layfield teased returning to SmackDown as a commentator on his Twittah Machine. Unfortunately he was just being a tease and we’ll probably have to put up with Michael Cole & Josh Mathews for the foreseeable future.

There were lots of rumors surrounding Rosa Mendes on Monday, but the truth seems a bit sadder than fiction. Rosa was allegedly assaulted by her fiance, who wrestled briefly in WWE as Jackson Andrews (he was Tyson Kidd’s bodyguard for two weeks, if you blinked you missed him) in their home in Las Vegas. She then flew to San Antonio for Raw, but was found crying in a bathroom at the airport by police. The police report noted that she was fearful that her fiance would try to kill her & was under the influence of alcohol. WWE representatives said that WWE would support Rosa during this time.

For the record, any dudes out there that think it’s cool to abuse women can get bent. That’s not a controversial statement, is it?

-I do enjoy a show open that doesn’t involve Nickelback.

-Wasn’t CM Punk supposed to have a new hairstyle? I guess he was too lazy to slick it back one day and people got excited.

-CM Punk apologizes for not showing AJ the proper respect. Good man.

-He then requests that she cancel the Triple Threat match at SummerSlam, as it was obviously a huge mistake. AJ disagrees.

-John Cena comes out to complain about Punk becoming one of those guys that demands respect.

-He tells AJ that she smells great. Alan Shore did pretty well with a variation of that line back in the day. Only Larry Csonka will know what I’m referencing here.

-Thankfully AJ cuts everybody off before Big Show says anything.

-The WWE Universe will get to pick CM Punk’s opponent tonight! They get to pick between Miz, Kane & Rey Mysterio, and the match will be next. If Twitter picks Miz I’ll shave my head.

-Brock Lesnar & Triple H are actually here tonight! Good, this means we’ll have new recap videos next week.

-Twitter picks Rey, to the surprise of nobody with a brain.

-Punk defeats Rey in a match that left most people wondering what happened to Rey Mysterio’s body. Come on, you don’t think he’s going to risk getting suspended again, do you?

-Wade Barrett has apparently gone back to bare-knuckle fighting. The Barrage has just begun!

-Unfortunately for ADR & RR, AJ understands Spanish.

-Was Alberto wearing his wrestling tights under his suit? I wonder how many wrestlers do that.

-Alberto takes on Christian. Remember when this was a main event? OK, it was a main event on the SmackDown brand, but that still counts for something. I think.

-ADR whacks Christian with his boot! That leads to the ol’ cross-arm breaker. His night goes downhill when Sheamus steals his car. OK, he doesn’t steal it, he takes it for a joyride.

-You may be wondering why faces always steal heels’ cars. Simple…the fans like it. So it’s more a reflection on the fans thinking that grand theft auto is cool than anything else.

-Randy Orton vs. Big Show gets the 9:00 slot. If I remember correctly, the last time Orton & Show wrestled was when Orton suffered a concussion during a Raw match back in February. Hopefully this match goes a little better for him.

-The way Orton keeps landing on his shoulder outside it almost seems like he’s trying to injure it for the 32nd time.

-Show spears Orton outside, but doesn’t get back in the ring in time to prevent the double countout. This is what happens when you book a match with two people you don’t want to lose. This is also why you don’t book a match with two people you don’t want to lose.

-OK, Ryback needs to stop putting his fingers in his eye. Also, why does he shoot off pyro that nobody watching the show at home sees? I fail to see the point.

-Hawkins & Reks have been tag-teaming for awhile, but I dispute Cole’s assertion that it’s gone extremely well.

-All World Promotions is faring a bit better. Well, a little bit.

-Ah, they give AW a microphone so he can call the match for DY & Titus. I’m sure there are quieter ways to accomplish this.

-Epico & Primo win after a Backstabber. Their dancing is not as fun as Rosa’s.

-As for #DemBoys, the Briscoes do need to show up here and start cleaning house. It’d be interesting to see how WWE fans would react to them.

-Damien Sandow attacks the Funkasaurus during his entrance. I’m not sure who has the worse attire: Funkasaurus’s green entrance gear or Sandow’s pink tights & purple kneepads. Neither is an especially great look.

-AJ informs D-Bry that he has a match with Kane at SummerSlam.

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

YES

NO

-This reminds me of a couple of my previous relationships. I assume we’ll see Charlie Sheen show up and cost D-Bry the match with Kane. Sheen is good people, just this past weekend he donated $50,000 to the Reds Community Fund. He also said he would run for Mayor of Cincinnati the next time there was an election…he’d probably get some votes so he might not want to actually run.

-And if you’re thinking that I cut Charlie Sheen some slack because he’s a fellow Reds fan…you’re absolutely right.

-Hey, it’s Kelly Kelly! A Divas match? Stop the presses!

-Eve! Even better!

-Looks like the girls are trying to prove something tonight. I dig it.

-Kelly gets the win. Say what you will about the girl, but it’s not like I’m going to complain if they book her. Hope her heart’s into it and they do some more stuff with the ladies currently there while bringing in some new ones.

-See what happens when they book one Divas match on Raw? I get all excited. I’m silly like that.

-They’re in San Antonio, so here’s Shawn Michaels! Makes sense, right?

-Shawn’s blown up from his entrance. Gotta love it!

-Apparently people want to know HBK’s opinion on HHH vs. Brock at SummerSlam. Apparently Brock Lesnar & Paul Heyman would like to know it as well!

-Apparently Brock & Paul turned Triple H into somebody Shawn doesn’t recognize anymore. After all these years? I find that very, very hard to believe.

-Shawn is picking Triple H, and says he’ll be in his corner at SummerSlam!

-Triple H is out in his Triple H attire. No COO suit, no DX gear, it’s all about The Game!

-Brock says that he’ll see Triple H at SummerSlam…but he’ll see HBK before then. Interesting.

-I would have laughed my ass off if Heyman tripped while backing up the ramp.

-Sheamus knowing the battle cry of Texas is pretty badass. How can anybody not like this guy? I’ve ranted about this on countless podcasts & and in various columns, but I’ve never received an answer other than “durr he’s HHH’s friend”.

-An Alex Riley sighting! I wasn’t sure he was still employed.

-Chris Jericho becomes the best commentator on this show by a mile.

-Nice Rude Awakening by Ziggler. Another addition to the moveset!

-A-Ry scores the upset with the schoolboy! As Jericho said, Ziggler took the man lightly!

-Alex Riley & A-Ry were trending worldwide! Jericho did a damn good job putting the man over on commentary, and Ziggler put him over in the ring. Let’s see if this leads to something for him.

-John Cena wearing a suit on the B.A. Star commercial. Holy crap.

-Tony Chimel still has the best introduction of The Miz. Though I also liked Bret Hart’s introduction of him.

-I assume Kane is not challenging for the Intercontinental Title, though they do have more respect for that belt than the United States Title.

-Kane chokeslams Miz and wins. Guess that answers my question.

-How come Kane doesn’t light the ring posts on fire after victory anymore? That was always fun.

-See, Sheamus returned the car! He’s a nice fella.

-Chris Jericho will bring back the Highlight Reel on this week’s SmackDown, and his guests will be Dolph & Vickie. I’m sure this will end well.

-Tom Arnold is Touting about Raw. Has he done anything since he was on the Best Damn Sports Show Period? That show wasn’t great, but they had a TNA show, one or two UFC specials, and it’s the first place I remember seeing Charissa Thompson. So it wasn’t all bad.

-D-Bry yells “NO NO NO” and the fans start with “YES YES YES”. Awesome.

-As somebody that’s watched Bryan for many years, seeing him main event Raw with Cena is the best thing ever. I never thought I’d see it. I am marking out. Sorry to those of you that don’t like writers marking out, but I am marking out.

-After a series of submission attempts, Cena reverses into an AA for the 1-2-3. What a match.

-Punk lays Cena & Show out and starts bragging about it. So of course he gets knocked out by Big Show, and Show ends up being the last man standing. Whoops.

-I thought this was about as good a three-hour Raw as you can hope for. I still don’t love the idea and I hope we’ll be back to two hours in a few months, but there was a lot of stuff going on here and not too much downtime. Good matches, nothing too ridiculous…there just isn’t a whole lot to complain about.

-Sorry.

Velvet Sky may not be gone from TNA after all. Shortly after she was released, she got a call from Dixie Carter asking what it would take for her to come back. People within the company were very upset about Velvet’s departure since they had put a lot of time & effort into her character and got her featured in a recent Montgomery Gentry video. Somebody maybe should have thought about that before she left instead of just casting her aside like yesterday’s news. If this ends with Velvet getting herself a nice raise that’s a good thing, but TNA needs to keep stuff like this from happening to stop people from calling them a second-class organization.

Bully Ray & Devon are still negotiating new deals with TNA. Their current deals are said to be expiring in about three weeks, and the scuttlebutt around the campfire is that talks aren’t going very well. I would have not thought I would have said this a year or two ago, but it would behoove TNA to re-sign both of these men. Bully Ray has been on fire as a heel for quite awhile now, and it’d be kind of embarrassing to let your Television Champion’s contract expire. They can ask Ring of Honor how well letting a Tag Team Champion’s contract expire worked out for them.

I mean, I guess they could have Devon lose the title, but that would require having him wrestle on TV.

AAA held the twentieth annual edition of TripleMania on Sunday night, and it was a very good night to be a technico. The main event featured Dr. Wagner Jr. (my favorite luchador) defeating Mascara Ano 2000 Jr. in a mask vs. mask match. Wagner had to overcome his brother Silver King turning against him for approximately the 4363278658th time, but when you’re Dr. Wagner Jr. things like that are just minor inconveniences. In TNA-related news, Jeff Jarrett & Kurt Angle lost to L.A. Park & Electroshock in a match where the Roldan (ruling family of AAA that has been constantly bickering since Antonio Pena died) in the corner of the loser would get their head shaved. So of course the winning Roldan got their head shaved after some shenanigans. El Mesias retained the AAA Mega Championship after some interference from Hector Garza helped him defeat Perro Aguayo Jr.. Unfortunately for AAA fans, the show was not made available on PPV. It will air in a few weeks in Mexico, and presumably at some point in the U.S., but I’d be lying if I said I knew when.

Business in CMLL has been picking up lately, largely due to the emergence of a new Mistico. Unlike American fans that largely reject the new version of old gimmicks, Mexican fans apparently love them. New Mistico debuted on Friday night in Arena Mexico and drew one of the biggest crowds that has been there in quite awhile, including the boys from Metallica! OK, that was more of a coincidence than anything else, but I take any chance that I get to make a Metallica reference in this column.

Crossfire Entertainment announced that they will begin doing national TV tapings in November. Crossfire is the newest wrestling promotion to base itself out of the Nashville Fairgrounds and has been holding shows there once every couple of months since January 2011. They appear to be moving to a one show a month schedule in the coming months, and will apparently be doing TV tapings for an unknown network. PWInsider says that the word backstage was that the show would be on a subsidiary network run by Paramount. You always have to be wary when wrestling promotions announce they’re doing national TV tapings (most of them either don’t happen or end up on channels that nobody get), but at least these guys have been doing shows for a year & a half, bring in some big names and seem to draw well enough in Nashville. Tough to say if it’ll lead to anything big, but it might be worth keeping an eye on.

There’s been quite a bit of drama involving Kamala over the past week. He posted a video on YouTube last Tuesday denouncing two groups that had been claiming to raise money on his behalf, but according to him had not sent any his way. The Millennium Wrestling Federation based in Boston & the Wrestlers’ Rescue foundation run by Dawn Marie were the targets of Kamala’s wrath, and both parties have responded to Kamala’s statements with pictures of checks & whatnot. It seems to me that the best way to donate to Kamala, if you’d like to do so, is to PayPal him at [email protected], which is his actual address. That way there’s no middleman. I pass no judgment on those that have apparently tried to help him, since it’s a he said/she said deal and I’m a writer in Kentucky, but that seems to be how he wants things done.

Sid Vicious’s son Frank is part of the cast of this season’s Big Brother. You can hear Larry Csonka & Andy Critchell talking about it every Monday (and I think they talk some wrestling too). I’ve never been a huge fan of the show, but I did like the clip I saw of Sid’s appearance on the show last week:

Like most wrestlers that had children, Sid expresses some regret about not being there more for Frank, and they do have a bit of a strained relationship due to Frank not wanting to play sports in college. He came off pretty likeable on the show and it was cool to see him rooting on his son. I don’t plan on watching the show, but let’s hope that Sid’s kid gets the win!

Jack in the Box has an Ultimate Cheeseburger, and the person behind their Facebook page thought that the Ultimate Warrior would be the perfect spokesperson for it. Many of Jack’s followers on Facebook told him is was a bad idea since Warrior is not very trustworthy. I mention this only because I looooooooooove Jack in the Box. I got hooked during my trip to the Royal Rumble with Mr. & Mrs. Penguin, and the fact that there’s a location opening not too far from one of my workplaces makes me a very happy fatboy.

Basically, any story that combines the two things that have made me a social outcast over the years needs to be mentioned in this column. You gotta admit Ultimate Warrior doing Jack in the Box commercials would be pretty cool, right?

Busy podcasting week. I joined Jeremy Lambert on Tuesday night for Episode 84 of the Man Cave Podcast. We talked about the MLB trade deadline, the Cincinnati Reds, Olympics, wrestling & attractive ladies in the sports media field. It’s always a good time in the Man Cave.

Then on Thursday night Trent Howell & I did Episode 12 of the Ocho. We talked Olympics, baseball, NFL & our top five sports that should be in the Olympics. By the way, the next edition of The Ocho is something that you will absolutely want to tune into. Trent Howell himself says it’s something that will change the face of sportscasting. Who am I to argue?

Finally, Larry Csonka & I did Episode Whatever of the 411 on Wrestling! We talked about Impact, SmackDown, Team Ambition & some other stuff.

Fact or Fiction featured MMA writers Jeffrey Harris & Todd Bergman talking about a real sport!

Csonka’s DGUSA review in the Rs got some interesting feedback.

Byers presents pictures of wrestlers outside the ring.

Weyer talks about names.

Napier presents the top wrestling madmen.

DeMarco put Reby Sky in the Vs. a couple of days before her birthday. A nice present from him, though she has some tough competition. Tessie will be tough to beat.

Well, that’s all 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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