News From Cook’s Corner 11.13.05
Posted by Steve Cook on 11.13.2005
The Genesis Edition…plus some stuff about wrestling too.
Hi everybody! It’s Genesis Sunday here at the Mania, which means it’s time to lay down some 411 for you to mull over while waiting with anticipation for Larry’s live coverage later tonight. Since it is Genesis Sunday, I thought it would be fun to do a little something special this week…throughout the column you’ll be seeing lyrics from various Genesis songs over the years as a tribute to tonight’s show.
What, you don’t like Genesis? Blame TNA for naming a show after the band.
The Bengals are on a bye week, next week they’ll be home against the Indianapolis Colts, who should be undefeated unless the Houston Texans bring some machine guns onto the field today. In fantasy news, my teams both have winning records despite having numerous flaws. And I bet all you suckers who didn’t draft Larry Johnson to go along with Priest Holmes are feeling like dopes right now…thank goodness I was wise enough to do that in the league where Yahoo did my first two picks and got me Holmes and Deuce McAlister. Damn Yahoo.
Fantasy football is quite the addiction…if you’re not in it now I would advise never getting into it. It shall consume your life.
Time for some News From Cook’s Corner…
WWE news
I must've dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
I can hear the marching feet
They're moving into the street.
Now did you read the news today
They say the danger's gone away
But I can see the fire's still alight
Burning into the night.
Too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can't you see
This is a land of confusion.
-Land of Confusion (1986)
The biggest news this week in WWE Land was Batista suffering a torn right latissimus dorsi muscle at the Smackdown tapings Tuesday night. He is expected to be out for three months with the injury, and there is no official word on what WWE plans on doing with his World title. Considering the world champions in WWE only defend their title once every couple of months or so, it could be possible that he could keep the title and nobody would notice too much.
If this were a real sport, Batista could use the precedent of Trish Stratus keeping her title while being out of action for 6 months to say that he should be allowed to keep his title. I’d buy that argument. Instead, it seems like the title will be going to either Eddie Guerrero or Randy Orton, since they’ll be facing Batista for the title on Smackdown this week. My guess is they’ll put it on Eddie because nobody wants to see Orton defending the title against Undertaker in a Buried Alive match.
At least, I hope nobody wants to see that.
As reported in this very column about five years ago (at least it seems that long), TSN will be picking up Monday Night Football for the 2006 season. Raw will air at 12:30 A.M. after the game and on Tuesday nights at 9 PM. So they get Smackdown a day earlier than us and we will get Raw a few hours earlier than them…sounds pretty fair to me. And seriously, any network with a choice between showing wrestling and the NFL doesn’t really have a choice.
You know how sometimes wrestling web sites report stuff that you think you already know somehow? That happened to me this week when every site was confirming that Kurt Angle had separated with his wife like he said in his promo on Raw. But I could have sworn I had heard that before somewhere. And now it’s bothering me because I don’t remember where I could have heard it. I know it wasn’t during one of my weekly phone conversations with Mr. Angle.
And yes, those are the ones I imagine. I’m a pretty sick puppy.
Some interesting news from Byte This…apparently Michael Cole & Tazz’s appearance on Byte This was not scheduled, which is why it has been removed from the replay available on WWE.com. They decided to make an appearance since they were at the studio doing voiceovers for Smackdown and had a few things on their minds. Apparently the idea of Cole & Tazz talking about how the Smackdown brand gets no thought or respect from WWE creatively or otherwise wasn’t something WWE was cool with.
But I thought Vince McMahon abhorred censorship! I’m so confused.
The Big Show is getting new theme music by Brand New Sin. I love the Big Show’s entrance theme, so I think this is ridiculous. It will be on the Forceable Entry 2 CD next year, which still sounds like a fancy term for rape to me. Oddly enough, after listening to the first Forceable Entry CD I felt like I had been forceably entered.
Not that I’ve ever been entered…what?
Stacy Keibler fans rejoice…your girl will be in a couple movies in 2006, including “Manhunt in the Carribean” and the sequel to “Big Momma’s House”. I assume that in the Manhunt thing she’ll be the pretty girl who gets killed, or at least one of them. Good times!
Chris Masters has been added to the Raw vs. Smackdown Survivor Series match. In other news, Chris Masters still sucks ass.
Bad news for John Cena…only two of his items made the WWE Shop Top 10 this week, the highest being at number seven. Apparently the fans are starting to see that he’ll probably lose the title at Survivor Series and are getting off the bandwagon. Or they’re saving their money for the Christmas season…who knows.
I have a bone to pick with the WWE.com readers again…look at this poll result:
Who is the next RAW Diva you would like to see pose for Playboy?
Ashley 16.89 % 52405 Votes
Lilian 6.45 % 20026 Votes
Lita 8.65 % 26835 Votes
Maria 20.30 % 62971 Votes
Mickie 7.70 % 23884 Votes
Trish 34.17 % 105996 Votes
Victoria 5.80 % 18002 Votes
There’s only one possible explanation for Victoria being in last place in this poll…people are afraid of Mathew Sforcina. I don’t blame them, considering he’s like 6’9 and 300 pounds.
TNA news
Ocean of motion
Squirming around and up and down
Pushing together
Scattering mountains all around you
That is the sound of a new born world
And the light from a curious sky
It has begun
You're in the hands of destiny
-In the Beginning (1969)
“Christian is gone, at least until he gets paid. He is reportedly in talks with TNA, but will probably wait to hear back from WWE to see if he can get a better offer. Sounds like the Matt Hardy strategy to me…it seemed to work for him, so we’ll see how the Peepmaster does with it.”
That’s what I said last week in this very column…so even your humble correspondent gets it all wrong every once in awhile. All signs point towards Christian making his TNA debut tonight at Genesis. If utilized properly, Christian will be a great addition to the TNA roster and should make things very interesting. Basically what they should do is whatever it was WWE didn’t do. Maybe have him win more than a couple matches a year, put him in some kind of contention for a title…something like that could be good.
Just don’t make him Jeff Jarrett’s new best friend. We’ve seen that before multiple times and don’t need to see it again.
By the way…in case this “major acquisition” doesn’t end up being Christian, blame Dave Meltzer. We all leech our news from him anyway…don’t blame us for lack of resources if it ends up being wrong.
Bret Hart met with TNA officials last week in New York while making a personal appearance to discuss working for TNA in the future. You know, if Scott D’Amore can somehow get Bret to do something for TNA, I wouldn’t care if he booked himself on every segment and made himself the World Champion.
Midway will be making a TNA video game to come out in 2007. Boy, I hope they’re still in business by then. If this game is anything like the NFL Blitz series it should be pretty fun. Too bad the most current video game system I own is a Nintendo 64, otherwise I could be looking forward to leading Christopher Daniels to the NWA World Heaviweight Title or creating a Chris Jericho to kick some ass…more on that later.
Frankie Kazarian might be back in TNA at some point, but the word is that TNA wants to focus on people who stayed loyal and didn’t leave to pursue interests elsewhere. That makes sense…loyalty is a trait that should be rewarded. In related news, I turned down an offer to write for WWETNA316420news.com. Their health plan didn’t jibe with what I was looking for.
I don't really know her, I only know her name
But she crawls under your skin, you're never quite the same, and now I know
She's got something you just can't trust
It's something mysterious
And now it seems I'm falling, falling for her.
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
She reaches in, grabs right hold of your heart
She seems to have an invisible touch yeah
It takes control and slowly tears you apart.
-Invisible Touch (1986)
For a guy not currently in wrestling, Chris Jericho sure seems to get a lot of attention. He did some more TNA advertising on his website and had some interesting comments on the Between The Ropes radio show last week. Check them out here if you haven’t already…it’s a good interview.
How come we never do those?
Lance Storm will be appearing at the Ring of Honor show in Manhattan on December 3rd to sign autographs and do a shoot interview for their Straight Shootin series. According to Larry Csonka, this is the best ROH news ever and he will buy 25,000 Storm shoot interviews.
Finally, I gotta include this…recently Sid Vicious did an interview with Voice of Wrestling where he proceeded to defy any bit of wrestling logic I’ve ever heard.
Sid didn't give complete details of the actual return "angle" that he has worked on for over 10 years, but it does involve him regaining the title for a lengthy run on top and then putting over the "future of the company" on his way out when the time is right. "It's really elaborate," he explained, "but to me, from anything I've seen so far and it hasn't been much, I don't think there's anything they could do or do any better". Sid said that if he got the chance to put this over to Vince McMahon, he's confident that he could sell the idea. However, he is willing to listen to their ideas. He just doesn't think they'll be able to top his with anything.
I think they could top that with having Viscera as a long term World Champion. Other highlights include Sid ripping on TNA and saying he was the second biggest draw during his era next to Hulk Hogan. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Somebody get big Sid his Geritol. And how does it take somebody 10 years to come up with an idea where he gets the title for a long time?
Who Owned Last Week?
He climbs inside the looking glass
And points at anything he hates
He calls to you "Hey look out son
That's a gun they're pointing at your pretty face"
And the heads they are a rolling
Cause the conqueror is on his way
And the justice day is coming
For the conqueror is on his way
-The Conquerer (1969)
Who conquered last week? Let’s find out…
Big Show & Kane - They beat the holy hell out of Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch, then went to Smackdown and laid some smackdown on Batista. You can’t argue with that kind of effort…whatever happened to Kane’s broken back anyway?
Candice Michelle - Her Playboy pictorial was made official and she showed some ass on Raw. No complaints here.
Chris Sabin - Sabin might have taken the pinfall in Impact’s main event, but the casual observer would note that Sabin almost pinned the NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett, and it took interference and a Stroke off the middle rope for Jarrett to beat Sabin. Might Chris Sabin be getting some kind of a push? We can hope!
Daivari - No more Hassan, but Daviari seems to be on Kurt Angle’s good side, which is a good place to be on Raw these days. It’ll be interesting to see where this man goes in coming weeks…hopefully he won’t get squashed off TV by John Cena but you never know about these things.
Kurt Angle - While it wasn’t the greatest promo of all time like some people would have you believe, it was pretty cool. It also looks like he’ll be WWE Champion in a couple weeks unless somebody in WWE thinks something stupid. The momentum is with Angle, and he should be a good new champion until Triple H decides he needs to be champion again.
What?
Yeah, I didn’t watch Smackdown this week…other things going on during a Friday night for once. Craziness!
This Week in Wrestling History
November 17, 1998 – With Jay Chris Tienn Cage Reso being all over the news this week, I thought it would be appropriate to look back at a moment involving him. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good one, because he lost the WWF Light Heavyweight title to Duane Gill on this night at a Raw Is War taping in Columbus, Ohio.
Whoops.
Gill had returned to the WWF earlier in the week at the Survivor Series, giving Mankind a hell of a fight before losing in about 30 seconds. After defeating Christian for the Light Heavyweight title, he assumed the persona of Gillberg, who instead of asking “Who’s Next?” asked “Who’s First?” I thought it was hilarious and marked out when he came back at the Rock Concert 2…sue me. He held the belt until February 10, 2000 mostly because the WWF forgot about the division and he left the company with the belt and defended it on the indies for awhile.
Christian continued with the Brood until late 1999, then he and Edge split from Gangrel and won several tag team titles before splitting up. Then he did some other stuff and left WWE in November 2005…where he’ll pop up next nobody knows.
Or do they?
Plugs
Last week I forgot to mention that I was doing the What We’re Watching column over in the Movies/TV Zone. Good people over in the Movies/TV Zone, go check them out. I was supposed to be appearing in something in the Sports Zone last week, but apparently somebody over there has their head up their ass. I don’t know who, so I’m not going to name any names, but something over there is fucked up. All I know is that I used time I could have been using on my research papers for school to do something for them, and the powers that be over there decided not to use it for whatever insignificant reason was floating around in their little minds. So fuck them.
I shouldn’t be so pissy…not like anybody was going to read something in the Sports Zone anyway. Oh yeah…that’s not a nice thing to say, and I’ll probably get some complaints about it from management, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
On to stuff worth reading…Fact or Fiction featured two newbies fighting for the glory of a plug! It’s a tough call, both John Meehan and Steve Sullivan present interesting arguments. But at the end of the day my bias towards Kentucky means Sullivan gets the win and the plug. I’m a homer…what of it? Meehan will get his time next week, don’t you worry.
Larry barely had more articles than Sullivan did last week. Slacker!
Gamble bows down to the greatness of the Louisville Cardinals.
Hopefully Sforcina’s first match went well. If he gets put out of commission, that means no more Victoria pictures. And we certainly can’t have that.
More newbies…James Clark does Old School 101. I’m sure his comment that 5 star matches don’t involve fat Samoans or guys with Pepsi logo tattoos went over very well with our indy fans. Old school reviews…I can dig it.
I dare Domingo to find 25 midgets to list in his next column. And no…Rey Rey doesn’t count!
Not only does Boman have great taste in writers, he is wise when he says that entrance music can make or break a performer. With that being said, some guys in TNA have really awful theme music and need it changed.
My favorite new theme song? MISTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR KENNEDYYYYYY!
KENNEDYYYYY!
Carapola talks about nepotism. I hope he didn’t get too much hate mail for daring to say something remotely good about Jeff Jarrett.
Finally, JT brings the Byte This report. I have no witty remarks to add other than love and wrestling doesn’t mix. It’s true!
Final Thought
Another time it might have been so different
if only we could do it all again
but now it's just another fading memory
out of focus, though the outline still remains
Far away, away, fading distant lights
leaving us all behind, lost in a changing world
and you know that these are the days of our lives
remember
-Fading Lights (1991)
One month from now, and all this school crap will be over with. Between now and then I will complete five papers, do two presentations, take four tests, and go completely insane. It’s strange how much things can change in a month, isn’t it?
But one thing is for certain…one month from now it still won’t be Christmas. Which gets me to something that’s been bugging me for the past few days…why do people start with the Christmas crap earlier and earlier every year?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Scrooge…Christmas is one of my favorite days of the year. Presents, birth of Jesus, snow, family, its fun stuff. But not in November! I can understand getting a little excited about it after Thanksgiving, but now is wayyyyyyyyy too early.
Is anybody really in the Christmas spirit this early? I think it’s all a scam by Corporate America because the Christmas season is when people buy the most stuff…therefore, if they make the Christmas season longer, people will buy even more stuff!
It’s utterly ridiculous, I say. As far as I’m concerned, I’m not in any kind of Christmas spirit until I’m out of classes. So around December 12th, I’ll be ready for this hullabaloo. Until then, keep it out of my face!
