News From Cook’s Corner 09.11.05
Posted by Steve Cook on 09.11.2005
I’m waiting for WWE to order me to stop using my “Impact Playa" nickname.
Hi everybody! It’s Unbreakable Sunday here at the Mania, which means it’s time for me to entertain you before the live PPV coverage tonight. Today we’ve got the latest news, a look at the recent history of the WWE Women’s Division, and I talk a little about the indy wrestling shows I went to this week and meeting royalty!
But first…
WWE Fantasy Update: Despite having to radically change my roster due to speculation about there not being two hours of Smackdown for scoring purposes, my Classic Colt Cabanas still lead the 411 Staff league by 100 points going into the 14th and final week. My overall ranking has fallen to 1381, which is disappointing because I was hoping to get into the top thousand, but barring something crazy happening I will be celebrating my league championship after next Sunday’s PPV. Rock on!
Today is a very important day here in America because it’s the beginning of the NFL season. Yeah, there was a game on Thursday…but who cares about the Patriots and Raiders? My Cincinnati Bengals are up against the despised Cleveland Browns today…while the Browns are despised they certainly aren’t very good. The Bengals ought to be 1-0 after this week…if they aren’t by the next time I appear on this site, heads are gonna roll.
By the way, the baseball season ended months ago. Allegedly there’s still games going on, but I’ve seen nothing in Cincinnati that resembles baseball. Hell, it’s been a decade since I saw anything in Cincinnati resembling baseball.
Time for some News from Cook’s Corner…
WWE news
The October 3rd edition of Raw, which marks WWE’s return to the USA network, will apparently be a night of champions, lasting three hours long and featuring the returns of several former WWE Champions. You know, I hate to be a negative nelly, but I really hope they don’t plan on regularly having three hour editions of Raw because the show’s bad enough at two hours. It just screams “Nitro” to me, you know? WCW couldn’t put on a three hour show, and it was part of what led to their downfall. I’m not saying WWE’s going out of business, but I will say that a three hour wrestling show every week isn’t going to work very well no matter who’s running it.
The most talked about news in WWE this week has been the legal department going on a rampage and threatening anybody outside of WWE who used to be in WWE with a lawsuit. To be specific, all three Dudleys have been told to stop using their names and WWE is claiming rights to their catchphrases and costumes. Costumes? Justin Credible has been told to stop using his ring name despite WWE not having it trademarked since 2003, and Billy Kidman has also been told not to use his name despite them having nothing to do with developing his character. They even sent a legal letter to the webmaster of bigvanvader.com asking for him to give the domain name to them, despite having no rights to the name “Vader”, “Big Van Vader”, or really anything else connected to him. Leon White is signed to some sort of WWE Legend deal, but he never used the “Big Van Vader” name while working for the WWF. So I have no idea what they’re trying to accomplish there.
Their targeting the Dudleys & Kidman is a bit more explainable though…with TNA moving to Spike and having the potential to present some competition to WWE, WWE doesn’t want TNA to make money off of what they see as WWE creations, even though the Dudleys gimmick was actually a Raven creation if I remember correctly, and Kidman was a WCW creation. And the Justin Credible stuff is part of an attempt to shut down the “Hardcore Homecoming” shows…this I don’t really understand at all.
Basically WWE’s really paranoid these days and anybody trying to make any sort of money in wrestling will be in the sights of WWE’s legal team that apparently doesn’t have anything else to do but make other people’s lives a living hell. It’s all sorts of messed up, but so is everything else in law these days. And people wonder why I don’t want to be a lawyer.
WWE Creative team member Rudy Fischamann was fired last week for yelling at Torrie Wilson and Ashley Massaro about their match on Raw after Vince McMahon and other agents told them the match was OK. The match sucked donkey turds, but I can understand the concept that writers shouldn’t be telling wrestlers how to do their jobs. It’s tough for me to feel sorry for any member of the pathetic WWE creative team being fired, so let’s hope he finds a good job writing some crappy sitcom for the WB network or something. Besides, the dude was only around 8 weeks…if you think he has any right to be telling people how to do their job you’re crazy.
There’s some good news for John Cena…after a slow week in merchandise sales, five of his items have climbed into the WWE Shop Top Ten. Thank goodness, because I was so close to jumping on the anti-Cena bandwagon and demanding he drop the title. I’m still mad about people buying those lame rubber bracelets…maybe I just don’t understand the appeal.
Speaking of the WWE website, I’ve found their most recent poll to be very interesting…as Newton Gimmick reported yesterday, the question is “Which former WWE Champion are most excited to see return to RAW on Oct. 3?” Gimmick reported that Hulk Hogan was on top of the poll and his official take on it was “Duh!”
Unfortunately, there’s something amiss with his take that I have to point out as a “news reporter”. In case you don’t know, you can vote on WWE’s polls as many times as you want to. I’ve voted about 8 times myself while checking on the poll results, splitting my votes between Steve Austin and Mick Foley because those are the returns I want to see. The voting has fluctuated several times, mostly in the bottom three slots. Here were the results at 10:39 PM Saturday night, the last time I checked it…
Hulk Hogan 27.24 % 107998 Votes
Mick Foley 14.86 % 58922 Votes
Stone Cold 33.39 % 132366 Votes
Triple H 24.48 % 97066 Votes
Total Votes: 396352
There has been one common theme each time I have checked the poll…every time I’ve checked it, Stone Cold Steve Austin has been on top of the poll. Foley was in 2nd the first time I checked it, then Hogan was for awhile. Triple H has not gotten above third in the poll from what I’ve seen. But each time, Austin has been on top. So you can see why I was a little surprised to see the poll results in the Professor’s column.
Well, now that I see that Gimmick got his news from Pdub Insida, I can no longer accuse him of voting multiple times to advance his pro-Hogan agenda. Dang. All I got now is that he should do his research before reporting these things…which isn’t nearly as fun to write about.
TNA news
Unbreakable is tonight! Check out the Roundtable for picks from myself and other 411 writers, and then check out the live coverage tonight right here at 411! And don’t forget to send Larry your hate mail!
Shocker will not be appearing on the show due to travel problems. Oddly enough this makes the show look even better, as his scheduled opponent Chris Sabin will be taking on Petey Williams instead. Williams was originally scheduled to take on Austin Aries, so Aries will be facing fellow TNA newcomer Roderick Strong instead. So instead of seeing two matches that might not be good due to the wrestlers not working together too much, we’ll get two matches where the combatants could probably wrestle each other blindfolded. Not a bad trade at all.
The biggest news coming out of TNA this week was the announcement that Japanese wrestling legend Jushin “Thunder” Liger will be appearing at TNA’s Bound For Glory PPV on October 23rd. It will be Liger’s first appearance in the U.S. since ROH’s Weekend of Thunder last year and his first appearance on PPV since Starrcade 1996 where he faced Rey Mysterio. Why haven’t I seen that match? I’m hoping for Liger to face either Christoper Daniels or A.J. Styles…either of those matches would most likely rule the universe. I could see them doing a Styles/Liger vs. Daniels/Samoa Joe match, which would also be pretty cool. No matter what, it’ll be great to see Liger back in the USA for one night only.
The Ultimo Dragon negotiations continue…Dragon would like to be in TNA full-time while TNA would prefer to use him as a special attraction. I can see TNA’s point of view on this, as they already have a lot of people on their roster and only an hour of TV time each week to use them in. Dragon’s a great talent, but it’s tough to use him the way he needs to be used…see his stint in WWE for proof of this. Hopefully he’ll appear in TNA in some capacity soon.
Word has it that Matt Bentley has signed a new deal and should be returning very soon. This is very good news for two reasons…
1. Bentley’s a good wrestler and is great to have on your roster.
2. I was going into Traci withdrawal.
No man should have to go through such a thing, you know.
Scott D’Amore is running a Border City Wrestling show on September 15th in Windsor, Ontario that is pretty much being considered a test run for possible TNA house shows. Raven vs. Jeff Jarrett is the main event, and other matches include Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Sabin, Petey Williams vs. Jerry Lynn, and Bobby Roode vs. Abyss. If this show does well, we could expect to see more TNA house shows, which could help them make more money. Of course, house shows lose money for some wrestling companies, which is why I am emphasizing “could”.
Other wrestling news
The Extremely Hardcore Wrestling PPV scheduled to air last week was cancelled by InDemand and replaced by a Best of Steve Austin show. This was the show being announced by Joey Styles until WWE decided not to let him do it…apparently they were still using his name in advertising and that’s why it was pulled. Well, these things happen…I hope that Mikey Whipwreck at least got his payment in Doritos.
Not a lot of “other” wrestling news worth talking about this week from what I saw…there’s plenty of other stuff to talk about anyway so let’s get to it.
Who Owned Last Week?
Because you demand the knowledge!
Paul Burchill - I finally got to see this guy for the first time on the 1st hour of Smackdown over on WWE.com…it was cool to see him work over Scotty 2 Hotty’s arm the whole match and then finish with something that targeted the arm. It was like ring psychology, which is something you don’t see out of a lot of WWE rookies. He also cut a nice little promo before the match. Keep an eye on this guy…he could be something big.
Eddie Guerrero - He finally beat Rey Mysterio! Thank God! I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed that Eddie & Rey’s big cage match took place in the same city where Tommy Rich & Buzz Sawyer settled their feud in one of the damndest cage matches of all time, Atlanta, GA. I wonder if that was on purpose, or if I’m just reading too much into things.
Mr. Kennedy…Kennedy - This guy is freaking awesome. His match with Paul London was an exhibition of intensity…his punches and kicks looked good and his finisher is probably the best in WWE right now. His charisma is off the charts, and it’s good to see WWE giving him the role he’s getting on SmackDown right now. Could we see Kennedy wearing U.S. title gold very soon? It’s a possibility.
Jerry Lawler - Is it possible for a man in his 50s to throw the best punches in the business? Apparently so, if what I saw Wednesday night in Lexington is any indication. Seriously, a lot of the current guys in WWE need to be asking him how he does that so their punches don’t look like crap. I got to meet the King briefly when he was signing autographs and whatnot…oddly enough he didn’t recognize me. Seemed like a nice guy though, and it was cool to actually see him wrestle in person. There will be more about this later…
This Week in Wrestling History
September 15, 1998 – After almost three years of inactivity, the WWF Women’s Title was revived and put on the line in a match pitting Sable against Jacquelyn. The title had previously been held by Alundra “Madusa” Blayze, but when Madusa left for WCW and dropped the Women’s title into a garbage can on a live episode of Nitro, the WWF had nobody to build the divison around and stopped doing women’s matches for awhile. I guess the demand for Bertha Faye matches wasn’t very high. Eventually women like Sunny, Marlena and Sable were brought into the WWF for T & A purposes. Sunny was very popular at one point, but she would be surpassed by Sable soon enough. Sable, wife of Marc Mero, was brought in to accompany her husband to ringside, but soon enough her popularity would far exceed Mero’s. Eventually Sable & Mero split up on-screen and Mero brought in Jacquelyn as a replacement. Jacquelyn was an accomplished woman wrestler who had even been rated in the PWI 500 in the past due to victories over male wrestlers. The feud convinced WWF bookers that the time was right to bring back the Women’s Title. Jacquelyn won the belt on this night, but Sable would get her revenge when she won the title two months later.
Was bringing back the Women’s Title the right move? It depends on who’s running the show, really. Once Sable left in the middle of 1999, the title was dominated by Ivory, a veteran of the ring wars. She lost the belt twice during 1999…once to the octogenerian Fabulous Moolah and another time to the Kat in an Evening Gown Swimming Pool match. It seemed like the women were always wrestling in some kind of sticky substance during this era, and the title was even held at one point by Harvey Wippleman. Stephanie McMahon won the title in March 2000 and did absolutely nothing with it for months. Lita defeated her for the belt, but she’s never realized her full potential in the ring due to various injuries. Chyna coming in and winning the title in April 2001 was supposed to legitimize the division, but she would leave without even losing the title.
The Women’s Division reached its peak from an in-ring perspective in 2002. Trish Stratus had become a very solid wrestler, and other wrestlers like Jazz, Molly Holly and Victoria were around to be good foils for her. Of course there were also mud matches, usually involving Stacy Keibler, but those had their bright spots as well. Hopefully I won’t need to explain what those were. Things started to go downhill in 2003 when Molly Holly held the Women’s title for several months and nobody noticed or cared. Not her fault, she just didn’t get to do a whole heck of a lot. She lost the title and her hair to Victoria in 2004. Victoria was a favorite performer of mine, but when Lita returned from injury most of the attention went to her. Also hurting matters in 2004 was the release of most of the females who could wrestle…eventually the Women’s Division was left with 4 wrestlers: Victoria, Lita, Trish, and Molly. Molly left soon after that, Lita was injured during a title match, Victoria did a whole lot of nothing, and Trish ended up defending the title against Christy Hemme. Once Trish got injured, the Women’s title pretty much disappeared. Trish is expected back soon, but who knows if the title will be coming back with her…there aren’t really any good people for her to defend it against except Victoria and maybe Lita.
I have always been a fan of women’s wrestling, which sets me apart from most of the people I’ve talked to about it on the Internet. Most of the non-Internet people I talk to seem to like it for the T & A if nothing else. Some people might allege that I am somewhat biased in the area of women’s wrestling…I’m not aware of where they come up with these accusations. I’ve always believed that there’s a place on a wrestling show for a good women’s match, and I would even watch a women’s wrestling show as long as it wasn’t booked by that David McLaine guy from GLOW and WOW. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
Indy Thoughts
On Wednesday night I went over to Lexington, KY and attended a Mountain Wrestling Association show featuring Jerry “The King” Lawler and “Wildcat” Chris Harris as a tag team in one of the main events, along with several other stars recognizable from TNA and other promotions. Let’s take a look at the card, shall we?
Chad Allegra b. Cassidy Riley
Allegra working as a babyface? I couldn’t believe it. Good match, though I think there were too many arm drags and that lost the crowd a bit.
Tuffy & Country Cousin Jeffro d. Larry D & the Spoiler w/ Lady Spade
Tuffy & Jethro came out to that Big n’ Rich song about riding a cowboy or something…we were disgusted but the Lexington crowd seemed to love it. I guess we’re not the MWA’s target audience. The crowd was interested in the local boys, so while the match wasn’t anything to write home about, it worked well. Oh, and the women on this show got a lot of heat from women in the crowd. Both of them were attacked on a couple of occasions…I guess there must be some local rivalries going on that I don’t know about. Maybe somebody slept with somebody’s husband or something.
The Patriot d. "Showtime" Eric Young w/ "Gentleman" Jim Chadwick
I think it was Tom Brandi under the mask. It certainly wasn’t Del Willkes, because he was shorter than Eric Young. The crowd didn’t respect the playing of the Canadian national anthem, which angered me since I am an icon to many Canadians and I respect their country. Chadwick looked like he got his clothes out of Liberace’s closet. Young should have won.
Lord Humongous d. Abyss & "Lone Wolf" Bobby Blade
Humongous is actually Trytan under a mask. The mask had no visible eyeholes, which is why we were confused when Blade tried to throw salt into his eyes. And why does Abyss need a partner to beat Trytan? The whole thing made little sense to me, but damn, Trytan and Abyss are both friggin huge.
Jerry "the King" Lawler & "Wildcat" Chris Harris d. "Dirty" Chris Hayes & "Playboy" Scott Hayes
This was obviously the match people came to see…Lawler’s pop pretty much blew away anybody there to the surprise of nobody. Keep in mind, this is the South, and Lawler is a Wrestling God down here. Harris handled the getting beat up part and the Hayes brothers were good chickenshit heels. Chris is a veteran and competed a lot in the NWF back in the day…some of the stuff he was doing in this match reminded me of the stuff Allegra does at the flea market, which probably means that Hayes had a hand in his training or Allegra watched a lot of his stuff. Good Southern style tag team match here, and the crowd loved every minute of it.
Then there was a nice long intermission so people could meet Lawler. Unfortunately the match after this had a tough act to follow, and most of the crowd had already left after seeing the King…these things happen though.
Honestly Smooth ("Honest" Donnie Green & Chucky Smooth) + Ray "the Bear" Steele d. Done Deal ("Dirty" Dick Dalton & "Mr. Unbelievable" Kasey Kaos) + Justen Idol w/ "Mr Everything" Maxx Sledd & Ms. Bunny Love.
It didn’t help matters that the match was a pretty big clusterfuck. There was another incident with the female valet nearly getting attacked by some female fans. Jeez, I hope Traci doesn’t get this kind of treatment at indy shows. Of course, she’d beat them up, so maybe she doesn’t.
The ring announcer was Slick Rick, just like it is at every other show in Kentucky that isn’t OVW. The guy gets around, but he still jobbed to me in a woo-off. Kirk Sheppard and the NWF crew were also there, apparently helping with production and whatnot. It was either that or part of Sheppard’s secret plan to take over every independent promotion in the Kentucky area. I’m really not sure, but I won’t piss him off just in case that is his plan. I wonder if the stuff with the HWA is part of that plan…
The show was pretty solid overall, and worth the trip to visit with a friend and eat Mexican food. Unfortunately the venue for this show might be closing down pretty soon. Bummer. On Saturday we attended the monthly NWF show at the Richwood Flea Market. Some MWA guys made the trip up as well, which was pretty cool to see. Maybe it was part of the deal for the NWF crew producing video for them. Here’s a look at their show…
TNT defeated Weird Science
I love the Weird Science gimmick…too bad they rarely win any matches. Maybe they can take solace in people still remembering stuff they say hours afterward. TNT consisted of Tiny Tim & Tony Bryant, both of whom have singles titles. It was a pretty good opener.
The Zodiac & Ice defeated T-Money & Nasty Russ Meyers
Neither of these tag teams work together regularly, so it wasn’t quite as good as the opening match. It was nice to see Ice change things up from his old wifebeater/blue jeans combo though.
Pompano Joe defeated "The Playboy" Scott Hayes
The MWA main eventer came up to work with Pampano…I know his brother has quite the history up here but I’m not sure if he’s been in the NWF very much. Nice match, but I was disappointed that Hayes didn’t use the “Wanderer” song for his entrance that he uses in the MWA.
Jeremy Hyde defeated Roger Ruffen when Jesse Hyde interfered
This match bothered me because of the ending…the referee saw Hyde’s brother interfere, but he still counted the pinfall like nothing happened. Ruffen’s the promoter and the Man, so why didn’t he just fire the referee? And where were the Protected Ones…shouldn’t they have had his back here? The Protected Ones shirt looked pretty cool though.
Chad 2 Badd Allegra & Dead Sexy Matt Parks defeated Dustin Lillard and Justen Idol
NWF Champion Allegra pinned MWA Champion Idol in this one…does this entitle Allegra to a title shot in the MWA? Allegra’s a much better wrestler as a heel, and he and Parks both had tremendous charisma. Good match here, the Dead Sexy Choo Choo worked very well together.
The American Eagle defeated Ryan Stone to regain his mask!
American Eagle came out in a black mask, which wasn’t his red, white and blue mask that Stone stole from him. Some dangerous stuff in this match, especially the German suplex off the top rope where Stone almost landed right on his head. After some shenanigans involving local favorite Jay Donaldson, the Eagle got his mask back and everybody lived happily ever after.
Stay tuned next month, when I go back to the flea market. I don’t know of many other wrestling events I can easily go to until then…well, except for the OVW shows here in Louisville. Maybe I’ll go to one of those eventually.
Plugs
Round 2 of Rant Wars is up for your voting pleasure…you’ve got till midnight Tuesday, so make your voice heard! I have yet to pick a favorite…bribes will be accepted.
Fact or Fiction featured another perfect score…this is probably why we’re doing the Rant War competition, because everybody’s starting to sound the same. No winner this week, and I think Ashish is a lunatic for even making the suggestion of Ultimate Warrior in TNA.
Byers is giving away a video…I tried a contest once at TWTF and it failed so miserably that I haven’t considered doing another one. That, and I’m a greedy bastard who wouldn’t dare give away any of my precious wrestling footage. At least I’m honest about it, right?
Prag moves his legal show to Wednesdays, but you’ll still see him on Sundays here with JT. They’re kinda like Bert & Ernie…I’ll let them decide which is which.
Larry does the Rs, but he refuses to explain why when you ask him about it.
JT shows some love to Christian and Stacy, then has a hissy fit when he sees himself being compared to a couple of Muppets.
Final Thought
Recently I’ve noticed that I spend more time talking and writing about wrestling than I do on just about anything else these days. Including schoolwork, which probably isn’t a good thing. From the Home Office in Edgewood, Kentucky…
Top 10 Signs You Might Be Spending Too Much Time Thinking About Pro Wrestling
10. Instead of Christmas presents, you can’t wait for the Best of Raw special later that night.
9. When you get pizza for lunch you expect Big Sal to come out and eat it
8. Your stereo blares Stone Cold Steve Austin’s theme song while you drive your truck around your place of employment
7. You tell your barber to give you “the Vince look”
6. You accidentally call your girlfriend “Traci”
5. You tell people that the Super Bowl would be better if Tom Brady got hit with a folding chair
4. You do the Ric Flair strut around campus
3. You regularly consider putting people that piss you off through tables
2. You have ever referred to yourself with a nickname you heard on a wrestling show
1. When you first heard about a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast you thought it meant Shane Helms was drunk again
You don’t even wanna know how many of those I’ve actually done.
Randle will be making his big return tomorrow, and I’ll be back here next week.
