News From Cook’s Corner 07.10.05
Posted by Steve Cook on 07.10.2005
If I ever really get fired, expect "TNA News from Cook’s Crackpipe" to appear on TNA’s site soon afterwards.
Hi everybody! It’s been a wild and crazy week in the world of professional wrestling, and once again there’s no pay per view tonight. That never ceases to amaze me. I’m Steve Cook, and most of this week’s column is way below my standards.
I’ve always believed that honesty is the best policy, so I’m just going to come right out and say it. I wasn’t feeling it this week. With stuff away from the computer keeping me busy, new video games that required my attention, the new Road Warriors DVD I got used for $15, and all of the bullshit that’s gone on in the world and WWE this week, I just haven’t been in much of a mood to write about professional wrestling. I apologize to you for not being up to par this week, but have faith that I will turn it around by next week.
I’m already in a far better mood concerning wrestling after yesterday (Saturday). I went down to the flea market and saw some good NWF action (the review’s coming soon guys…don’t kill me!) and then watched the TNA’s Bloodiest Brawls DVD and a Roddy Piper tape from 1985. In case you’ve never seen the Shane Douglas vs. Raven Hair vs. Hair match in September 2003…you gotta see it! It is quite simply the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of disgusting stuff.
I’ll try not to spoil the match in case you haven’t seen it…but there are two words I would use to describe it…
-Vomit
-Haircut
Too bad I wrote a lot of this column before seeing that…I could have been in a much better mood. Oh well.
Time for some News from Cook’s Corner…
WWE news
Last week was not a good week to be a WWE employee who’s not a regular main eventer. A grand total of nineteen people were either released or fired last week. Even though other people have already done this sort of thing, I’m still going to give my take on each of these dismissals.
Bubba Ray, D-Von & Spike Dudley - The Dudleys have been pretty stale for the last couple of years, but Bubba & D-Von looked in pretty good shape at One Night Stand. Spike’s been injured, but he’s one of my personal favorites because of all he’s accomplished with only being 5’5 and 155 pounds. I expect the Dudleys to land on their feet somewhere…if they have any luck it’ll be far away from New Jack, who is now licking his lips in anticipation of getting the chance to fuck up Bubba & D-Von at some indy show. Bubba & D-Von will be able to keep their ring names…no word on whether Spike can keep his but it’d be really lame if he couldn’t.
Joy Giovanni - Umm……who? She was in what, one storyline? I’m amazed they even bothered hiring her to begin with.
Kenzo Suzuki & Hiroko - I liked Kenzo singing Frank Sinatra songs. Unfortunately he sucked ass in the ring. Hopefully they didn’t sell the house in Japan.
Matt Morgan - This release actually surprised me. Morgan’s really big and actually has a lot of potential. If Jamal and A-Train can become big stars in Japan, Morgan can become a god there. I’ve heard some people say TNA might want him…while that wouldn’t be a terrible idea, it would really suck for AJ Styles when they threw him in there against a guy that’s about a foot and a half taller than him. Japan is the place I see Morgan making a name for himself.
Charlie Haas - This was the first release to really get under my skin. Haas is a guy with a hell of a lot of potential and was having good matches teaming with Hardcore Holly against MNM. The knock on Haas is his lack of charisma, but there are plenty of guys in WWE without charisma that still have jobs. I expect Haas to either catch on with TNA or ROH and make a pretty good living for himself on the indies like James Gibson.
Jackie Gayda - Charlie’s significant other wasn’t doing a whole hell of a lot. Outside her brief run managing Rico and Haas, she was never really that useful in WWE. She could go along with Charlie on the indies, or she could move on to other things.
Marty Jannetty - I was looking forward to the Rockers reunion tour, but unfortunately Marty ran into some legal problems along the way. He wasn’t back long enough to be missed, but at least he got to have that good match with Kurt Angle on Smackdown before WrestleMania.
Dawn Marie - Firing a pregnant woman is usually not a good thing. I know some people have defended it with the fact that they bought out her contract and she got the money, but it’s still pretty lame in my book. WWE’s a big company…it’s not like she was going to be this big financial drain on them. Hopefully she’ll be able to support her child with the money and get work later.
Mark Jindrak - No, I won’t be missing Jindrak at all. He was big, and could jump pretty high, but that was all he ever had going for him. What kept him around so long?
Maven - Another great example of how Tough Enough improved WWE. I’m being sarcastic. Maven was never better than average in the ring, and there was no worse time of the year than when he got his annual push to the top of the card that nobody was begging for. I don’t become overjoyed by people getting fired, but I will not miss Maven. TNA, stay away. I’m begging you!
Shannon Moore - I’m a little surprised the Mfer didn’t get the boot a little sooner than this. He was doing nothing in WWE, but maybe he’ll get to follow Matt around the indies and have some fun.
Akio - I demand that TNA reform the Flying Elvises pronto. Not like they’ve got Sonny Siaki doing anything better.
Gangrel - So they brought back Gangrel and Viscera at about the same time…how the hell do they manage to find something for Viscera to do and nothing for Gangrel? It boggles the mind.
Billy Kidman - I’m in shock that they fired Mr. Torrie Wilson. I guess she didn’t mind too much, or she’s on her way out too. We shall see…
Kevin Fertig - Good riddance…Mordecai was crap and Fertig really couldn’t do that much in the ring.
If those were all the releases, I wouldn’t have given WWE too much of a hard time over it. While releasing Dawn seemed a bit callous, business is down and they gotta do what they gotta do. But on Friday they crossed the fucking line…
Jim Cornette - In the interest of full disclosure I should say that for nine months of the year I live in Louisville, Kentucky, where Ohio Valley Wrestling makes its home. Cornette is a local boy, and I’ve looked up to him ever since I read about his rise to prominence as manager of the Midnight Express and saw him in Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the WWF cutting awesome promos and being a great heel manager. I’ve heard his shoot interviews and heard him doing commentary on the Wrestling Gold DVDs with Dave Meltzer. In my opinion he has one of the greatest wrestling minds that I’ve ever seen. The man has forgotten more about what works in the wrestling business than most of us will ever know.
So I might be a little biased here.
Cornette was fired for slapping a young wrestler by the name of Johnny Geo Basco. Basco had ruined an angle for WWE developmental talent Marty Wright by laughing at him while he was trying to be a monster heel in front of the crowd. Cornette is an old school kind of guy, so he takes that stuff very seriously. He was already on thin ice with WWE due to other tantrums he had thrown in recent months, and it was known that Johnny Ace was definitely not a fan of Cornette and was looking for any excuse to fire him. So this was the final straw.
Part of me can understand this. But the other part of me sees this as bullshit. So a guy got slapped around a little bit. Boo freaking hoo. There’s a lot worse that can happen to you in the wrestling business than getting slapped around by a guy who made his living in wrestling as a manager. Jim Cornette is a lot of things, but athletic isn’t one of them. If you can’t handle getting slapped by him, how the hell do you plan on surviving in the ring? Word is that this kid called the WWE offices and bitched and moaned and threatened to sue them. I can’t be the only one goddamn sick and tired of these bitches who sue somebody every time something bad happens to them. Hey jabroni, how about settling your business like a man, sucking it up and not being a little bitch?
Jim Cornette had one of the more important jobs in WWE. He was entrusted with developing the future stars of WWE, along with trainer Danny Davis and the other people in OVW. John Cena…Brock Lesnar…Dave Batista…those three names alone indicate that Corny was doing a pretty damn good job. He also managed to make a wrestling TV show with a bunch of greenhorns damn compelling. You know the Heart Throbs? They actually ruled in OVW as the Heart Breakers. Cornette booked their gimmick to perfection, which is something WWE hasn’t come close to doing since they called them up way too soon.
When Cornette was suspended a little over a month or so ago, Tommy Dreamer, Al Snow and others tried to fill his shoes. What came out of that was some of the most godawful wrestling television ever seen in the city of Louisville. I respect those guys, but they have no idea how to book a wrestling show, or how to make young talent better. Dreamer might have had a hand in booking ECW, but OVW is not ECW. They didn’t know what they were doing, and everybody in Kentuckiana was more than pleased when Cornette finally got his show back.
And now they’ve taken it away from him. I think this might be the last straw for OVW, as WWE’s been trying to get this Deep South territory started, and one really wonders if WWE needs two developmental promotions. If my suspicions are true, I will certainly not be a happy camper. Though I guess I’d rather see OVW close than have to watch a neutered version of Jim Cornette’s baby.
I personally wish Cornette the best of luck in his future endeavors and issue a hearty “Fuck you” to WWE on behalf of us OVW fans who actually like having a good wrestling show to watch every Saturday night. Yeah, I’m biased. So what?
There were two other main stories in WWE this week…WWE.com has been making a big deal about talks going on between Brock Lesnar and Vince McMahon, which pretty much means that sooner or later the Next Big Thing is going to be back in WWE. And that is a very good thing. Lesnar was one of WWE’s biggest stars when he left, and he’d only been there for about two years. He’s still got his best years ahead of him, and once the ring rust shakes off he’s going to be a hell of a hand.
Hopefully on Smackdown, where he’ll be able to challenge Batista for the World title. That’s as close to a WWE dream match that I can think of these days. Forget Cena vs. Hogan, Brock vs. Batista should be able to deliver what Brock vs. Goldberg didn’t…a damn good slobberknocker with the fans really into it. It’s pretty much a license to print money, so hopefully WWE won’t screw this up. I would be surprised if Lesnar isn’t back on WWE television by Summerslam, or making his return at WWE’s second biggest show of the year. There’s too much money to be made here for WWE not to bring him back.
Finally, the talk of the wrestling world since Thursday has been the angle on Smackdown featuring Muhammad Hassan and the Undertaker. For those of you who had better things to do than watch Smackdown, Davari was pretty much sacrificed to Undertaker, then Hassan brought down these guys in black ski masks and cammo pants who beat down the Undertaker and choked him with piano wire. Then Hassan put the Camel Clutch on UT while the masked men appeared to be praying.
I’m not a person who’s easily offended, so I thought it was just a fucking stupid angle that contradicted what Hassan’s character was supposed to be about. Muhammad Hassan was an Arab-American who’s goal was to overcome the prejudice of WWE and wrestling fans and make a name for himself as a wrestler. He wasn’t anti-American, he just wanted better treatment than he was receiving. He and Davari were heels because they complained a lot and never shut up. They weren’t terrorists.
But now they have guys in ski masks running down and beating up their opposition. I guess it’s some kind of last resort because WWE has already screwed the pooch with these guys by jobbing them out to Hulk Hogan and having John Cena destroy Hassan in about 2 minutes. I feel sorry for Hassan because this shit isn’t going to get him back as over as he was a few months ago. And I’d like to see him succeed because he’s a good talker and has potential in the ring. Davari’s another one of my favorites, and it sucks that he’s been doomed to this fate as well.
As for whether it was offensive or not…since the angle was taped on Monday we know that WWE wasn’t trying to capitalize off of the attacks in London. I doubt they have the power to see into the future. They tried to do the right thing by not airing the angle in Great Britain, but somebody at their website fucked up and put the whole video up there so all the British fans could see it and get pissed off anyway. Apparently they had already sent the tape in to UPN, so it was up to UPN whether they wanted to air the segment or not.
As far as I’m concerned, WWE wasn’t trying to be morally offensive or piss off their fanbase with this angle. They just didn’t realize that nobody would want to see the shit they were putting on TV. I was more offended because it was a stupid angle that made Hassan look weak than I was over any mentions of “martyrs” or anything like that. As long as WWE Creative continues to be mostly incompetent and write an Arab-American character, dumb shit like this is going to happen. It’s going to be up to the fans whether they want to watch it or not.
And if you are offended…don’t tune in this week. Because that’s what they want you to do…they want you to get worked up into watching their crap. And you shouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I really despise when people act all offended about something WWE does and bashes them all to hell for it, and then tune in next week so they can complain even more. If you are really offended, the best thing you could do is not watch their show. Because only when the ratings, PPV buyrates, show attendance and merchandise sales go down is when they will realize that they’re doing something wrong.
I’ll be tuning in because if I don’t watch all the wrestling I possibly can Randle will have a good excuse to fire my ass. We have some damn good show recappers here…I’m not advocating a boycott…I’m just saying that people should back up their words with actions.
Is that too much to ask?
TNA news
There wasn’t a whole lot I saw going on in TNA last week…except that Rhyno announced on a radio show that he will be at the No Surrender PPV next week and Matt Hardy strongly hinted that he will be appearing in TNA very soon in his latest online commentary.
I’ve always liked Rhyno as a wrestler. He’s not a guy that’s going to draw a lot of money, but he’s a good solid worker that will have good matches and make the overall show better. Rhyno vs. Samoa Joe sounds like it has a lot of potential. Hardy…well, the only real downside is that him coming in will also mean that his brother will be back on TV. I’d prefer not to see his brother again, but what can you do. I’d rate him close to Rhyno…he’s a little better draw than Rhyno but Rhyno’s a better wrestler than him in my opinion. He won’t be a main eventer, or shouldn’t be anyway, but he will also make the overall show better and have solid matches. Both of these guys will be good additions to TNA.
Unfortunately that was all TNA had going on last week. There was news about lots of people using Real Player to download their show and some new producer dude, but that doesn’t really concern me too much.
Other wrestling news
The short-lived XWF is releasing DVDs of their shows that took place sometime in 2001. They had quite the talent roster, so I guess it could be worth watching. Possibly. As long as it isn’t too damn expensive.
Kenta Kobashi has signed with Ring of Honor to work their October 1st show. It will be part of Kobashi’s first tour of the U.S., which Japanese wrestling fans tell me is a big deal. I’ve never seen him work, but have heard good things about him from people in the business and out. So hopefully this will be cool.
Since I forgot to mention it earlier, you can watch the Hogan reality show on VH1 tonight at 10:00. I’ll probably watch it for the train wreck factor…you know it’s terrible but yet you can’t look away from it. It doesn’t hurt that Brooke is quite hot. Brother.
Who Owned Last Week?
Wow…this is going to be a tough section of the column to fill this week.
blue World order - I’m not a big fan of WWE bringing in Blue Meanie mostly to keep him from suing them and JBL, but the reunion of the bWo is a great thing for Stevie Richards and Hollywood Nova. Richards actually gets something to do now, and we no longer have to sit through that Simon Dean bullshit. So as far as I’m concerned, this is a very good thing. Also, Richards’ chairshot on JBL was easily one of the highlights of WWE television last week.
Carlito - Yeah, it sucks that Hulk Hogan got to squash him in last Monday’s main event. But unlike Hassan & Davari, I don’t see this hurting Carlito one bit. In case you haven’t noticed, dude is hella charismatic. The Cabana is owning the Highlight Reel, and one little loss isn’t going to hurt Carlito that much. Though it would have been much cooler if HBK had superkicked Hogan before the end of the match and Carlito pinned Hogan…Carlito would have been bragging about it for months, and that would most definitely have been cool.
Shawn Michaels - As bad as most of Raw was, Michaels nearly saved the show with one of the best heel turns ever at the end of the show. And it actually worked on that audience, who for some reason was cheering Hulk Hogan. I for one was ecstatic about the whole thing. I don’t know why Raw needs another heel, but hopefully they’ll find something cool for HBK to do once he’s done with Hogan.
Alex Shelley - I was one of the harsher critics of Shelley’s first run in TNA, which was doomed to failure due to the lame “Baby Bear” gimmick and Goldylocks. Not to mention his excessive use of wristlocks. Luckily he’s getting more of a chance to be himself this time around, and it’s working well so far. Even though he got his nose broken against AJ Styles, he toughed it out and still put on one of the better matches I’ve personally seen him in. If Shelley continues in this direction, he won’t have to worry about me kicking him around anymore.
This Week in Wrestling History
July 13, 1997 – Before we get to the event that happened on this date, I’d like to tell a little story. It’s a story about a young, up and coming star that made a really big mistake in his personal life. See, this guy made one of the cardinal sins of breaking up another man’s marriage.
I don’t know about you, but personally I think one of the worst things a person could possibly do is break up a bond made before God. I know that I would never allow myself to get into a situation where I would make another man miserable like that. But I also know that mistakes happen, and nobody’s perfect. So when stuff like that happens, I try to forgive them but still recognize their douchebaggery.
The couple that this guy broke up was actually a couple with both participants involved in wrestling. Again, this is pretty common because from what I understand, the only people who can really understand what wrestlers go through are in fact wrestlers. So they tend to gravitate towards each other…it’s perfectly natural.
The guy breaking up the relationship was seen to be a hell of a lot more talented than the ex at this point in his career. The ex had seen far better days, but was still very over with the wrestling audience. It might have been based on things that had happened in the past, but the guy could still go in the ring when he was given the opportunity. It wasn’t all that often though.
The promotion wasn’t big enough for these two anymore. One had to go, and unfortunately morals have no real place in business. The new guy got the girl, and the old guy was doomed to remembering things the way they used to be.
Chris Benoit defeated Kevin Sullivan in a “retirement match” at Bash at the Beach in Daytona Beach, Florida on July 13, 1997. Despite the obvious personal differences between them at this point, they still had several classic matches and combined for one of the best feuds in 1997. It was the real first opportunity for Benoit to shine against a big name in the wrestling business like Kevin Sullivan was in his prime. After this feud, Benoit would still struggle to get to the top of the card, but he became a big cult hero on the Internet, where people worshipped his every move.
Everybody seemed to forget about the whole taking Woman away from Kevin Sullivan thing. Although the Net loved digging into wrestler’s personal lives and making judgments of people based on what they did outside the ring, Chris Benoit never faced such critiques from these fans.
Frankly, I agree with them. I’m the kind of guy who cares more about what goes on in the ring and on TV than what goes on behind the curtain. So I respect Benoit for being a great wrestler and don’t care much about things that he has done in his personal life.
But I can’t help but notice that there’s a bit of a double standard…as we all know one of the biggest stories in wrestling this year has been the whole Edge/Matt/Lita thing. Edge stole Lita from Matt Hardy like Benoit stole Woman from Sullivan…….except it wasn’t quite the same because Lita & Matt weren’t married while Woman & Sullivan were.
So why does Edge get hate for what he did when Benoit didn’t? I could understand if he was a shitty wrestler, but when Edge is healthy he can be a pretty good wrestler. Not great, but good enough. Few would argue that Matt Hardy is more talented in the ring than Edge. Just like few would have argued that Sullivan was more talented than Benoit.
But there’s a difference between Sullivan & Hardy…Sullivan was a huge regional star in his prime. He drew record crowds in Florida by doing crazy shit to Dusty Rhodes. He was past his prime by the time the mid-90s rolled around, but he still cut great promos against Hulk Hogan and led the memorable Dungeon of Doom group. For about fifteen years or so, Kevin Sullivan was a talented wrestler who could draw fans in any territory he went to, whether it was in America, Puerto Rico, or wherever.
Matt Hardy was one half of a very popular tag team for about four years. While his in-ring work was ok, nobody was buying tickets to WWF/E shows because of something Matt Hardy said on television. He was a perpetual mid-carder who never could be seen as a really dangerous man like Sullivan was for years. Matt still might have a long career ahead of him, but at this point he’s no Kevin Sullivan.
So why does Edge get vilified and Matt Hardy get respected when the exact opposite happened about eight years ago?
Maybe if Matt books some really bad TV ten years from now, people will vilify him. We’ll see.
My Top 25 Favorite Wrestlers of All Time
As a few of you might know, Larry Csonka is doing this deal in his Tuesday news column where he lists the Top 25 Favorite Wrestlers as voted by his readers. Since my column is not established enough yet to do contests or to have regular readers, I thought it would be fun if I went over the ballot I cast for Csonka’s contest one by one each week, to compare my votes to the votes of his public.
Number 4 was the Rabid Wolverine Chris Benoit. I’ll be talking about him next week, so no reason for me to waste time on him now. My number 4 came in at number 6 on the fans’ list, which doesn’t surprise me because of his less than positive reputation with Internet fans over the years.
When the Rockers broke up, a seven year old by the name of Steve Cook didn’t think that Shawn Michaels was going to be a big deal. He thought that Michaels might get up to the level Rick Martel was used at in the WWF, but certainly not any higher than that. He was wrong. By the time Cook was ten years old, he was one of the biggest Shawn Michaels fans there was. Michaels was having great matches with anything that had a pulse at this point. I will argue that from 1994-1998, nobody had as many great matches as Shawn Michaels, nobody in the WWF drew as much money as Shawn Michaels, and nobody was more popular with the fans (as a face or heel) than Shawn Michaels.
I didn’t know much about backstage stuff back then, as my only wrestling exposure on the Internet was the WWF site on AOL, but apparently there was this thing going on during that time period called the “Clique”. Apparently this “Clique” held people down and drove people out of the WWF and things like that. Luckily I didn’t know anything about that…all I knew was that Shawn Michaels was a great wrestler.
Unfortunately he had to retire in 1998 after a back injury. At that point everybody thought Michaels’ career was over. And it was…for a little over four years, which is one of the longer wrestling retirements I’ve seen. He came back at Summerslam 2002, and since then has had great matches with Chris Jericho, Triple H, Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle. His two matches with Angle are considered among the best of 2005, and his triple threat match with Benoit and Triple H at Wrestlemania XX was considered by many to be the Match of the Year in 2004. Needless to say, the return has gone over pretty well.
No further evidence is needed than last Monday night, when a shitty night of wrestling was almost erased from the minds of the viewers by a superkick by HBK on Hulk Hogan. That was pretty freaking sweet. Any list of great wrestlers without Shawn Michaels in the top 5 isn’t very much of a list to me. Quite simply, he’s one of the best in-ring performers I’ve ever seen.
Next week…number 3!
Plugs
No Fact or Fiction this week…I guess Csonka and Randle were busy. Don’t forget to read Prag’s column soon after you’re done here though, because I think he’s using my idea for his column. Woot!
Csonka wrote a few columns about the roster cuts. Read the 3 Rs. I’m not plugging his 16 other articles last week cause that takes a lot of work on my part.
Napier talks about this stuff he does that’s called work. Never heard of it.
Hamflett rags on HBK. Bet he disagrees with what I had to say on him.
Sforcina talks more about L.A. Park. I think it went pretty well for something I pitched mostly as a joke in the writer’s forum. Not that I’m one to take credit for other people’s success though…
Except for my boy JT, of course. We had a little spat over the Cornette firing, but we’re still cool. At least until he realizes I’m one of those “smarks” that will mark out when Brock Lesnar comes back.
Put the women and children to bed, Rutherford’s brought the Entertainment Guide out of retirement! The pictures rule, but his glorification of Ashlee Simpson makes me scratch my head.
Boman talks about the motherfucking man, Harley Race. I got nothing but love for the Midwest, so go check that out.
Finally, for those of you who were living under a rock last week, go read Jason Easley’s piece on the attacks in London. My thoughts and prayers are with the fine people of Great Britain during this time.
Final Thought
I need a new beer.
The beer of choice in my house is Bud Light, because my dad likes it. It’s not bad, but the few beers I’ve had that weren’t Bud Lights were better. I guess he likes it because it’s cheap, which makes sense.
But I’d really like a beer to call my own, you know? The tough part is that there’s not really any way for me to know what kind I would like unless I try a lot of them. And in case you haven’t noticed, beer costs a lot of money.
So that’s where you guys come in…I’d like to know what kind of beer the Sunday 411 audience is hung over on. Tell me your favorite beer and describe why I would like it better than any other. Hopefully it will help me decide on a beer of my own, and when I decide on one, I will report it right here in this column.
Because this Bud Light just isn’t cutting it for me.
And for those of you who don’t drink beer and want to chew me out for doing so, feel free to do that as well. That would be quite cool.
Randle’s in tomorrow, and I’ll be back next week…maybe sooner with something fresh and exciting. Stay tuned…
