News From Cook's Corner 01.12.05
Posted by Steve Cook on 01.12.2006
No sex here, which probably means low ratings.
So I watched Mr. Smith Goes To Washington yesterday. It reminds me a lot of myself…except that I'm not tall and handsome like Jimmy Stewart, I haven't been appointed to the U.S. Senate, and Jean Arthur doesn't have the hots for me. Other than that, it's my exact life story.
Opening Thoughts
Remember back when people were complaining that titles were changing hands way too often? Now we have the same guys holding the WWE & World titles for nine months and Jeff Jarrett with a stranglehold on the NWA title. It's strange how wrestling can change over a short period of time. In one year I expect to complain about how Triple H broke Ric Flair's record of 16 world title reigns by winning it 5 times in a month. Against 5 different opponents.
Live Sex = Ratings. I'm not sure that speaks well of us as a society, but don't be surprised when Raw starts ending every week with somebody getting it on. The whole thing will "jump the shark" when Mae Young gets involved in it. Raw's ratings were high this week, and Impact tied its highest rating. So things are actually going pretty well for wrestling right now. That's different.
I had no idea Edge had so many fans on the Internet. They sure were quiet when the whole Hardy business was going down, but you hear a lot from them now that their boy is champ. I also liked signing into MSN Messenger on Tuesday and seeing some of those pro-Edge display names from Monday changed to stuff bashing WWE. I love flip-floppers.
I'm stoked that WWE's using "Big Time" by Peter Gabriel as the theme music for WrestleMania 22. Some of you might remember the Genesis Edition of this column, which I still consider to be one of the better news reports I've done. More Genesis and people associated with Genesis is a good thing in my book. I'm probably in a minority on this, but I'm used to that by now.
I have no beef with Samuel Alito. He's very qualified for the job of Supreme Court justice and has fared well in the hearings so far. But I have a feeling I'll regret his appointment to the Supreme Court at some point. Some of those conservatives are sneaky like that…they make themselves out to be nice guys, but when you least expect it they stick the dagger in your back.
And some of them are actually pretty good people, which surprises a lot of people at my school.
WWE news
Former World champion Batista is having surgery to repair his torn right tricep in Birmingham, Alabama tomorrow. He injured it in a match with Mark Henry on a Smackdown house show Sunday night. As shocking as somebody getting injured in a match with Mark Henry is, we can't really blame the big lug for it. Who deserves the blame? Batista gets a lot of it for continuing to work while hurt…he had to know something like this was going to happen. Also, whoever had the bright idea of booking Batista against Henry gets the blame. You try to protect guys who are hurt by putting them against somebody who works safe. Mark Henry is not one of those people.
And apparently Batista wanted to work through this injury too. Either he's really tough, really loyal, or really stupid. I'm sure it's a mixture of the three. He won't be back until after WrestleMania, which likely sends that card into more chaos than it already was.
There is a new World Champion. I'm torn on whether I should say who it is or not because some people really hate spoilers. But everybody else has already spoiled it, including WWE.com. So I'll just say this…
The new World Champion is not Paul London. I apologize to Paul London's five fans.
There are still no plans to bring back Eric Bischoff anytime soon. Three Minute Warning makes an appearance on WWE Heat this week, meaning that about as many American wrestling fans are seeing Jamal's WWE matches as were seeing his work in All Japan Pro Wrestling. No word on whether Coach calls his move "The Flying Sausage".
Given the current state of affairs in WWE, that just might become Jamal's nickname.
Kid Kash broke his arm at the Deep South Wrestling show last Thursday night. Luckily he doesn't have to worry about losing his Cruiserweight title, because the writers have already forgot that he has it.
Vince McMahon is not happy with the job Joey Styles is doing on Monday Night Raw. Apparently Vince isn't happy with Joey calling those pesky wrestling moves and whatnot. It doesn't help Styles' cause that it took him about six hours to do the voiceover work for the Raw from Afghanistan. Personally, I think Styles is a step up from the Coach/Lawler team, and better than Jim Ross at this point. But what do I know, I just like wrestling announcers that talk about wrestling. A novel concept, I'm sure.
Bob Orton Jr. has been off the road since Armageddon recovering from hepatitis. Juventud was fired from WWE last week. I wonder if there's a connection there since they were traveling partners. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Congratulations to Triple H & Stephanie McMahon on their expecting a baby. I don't do baby jokes, and I'm certainly not bringing up the topic of abortion. They talk enough about that during the Supreme Court hearings.
Speaking of babies, the Torch reports that former WWE Diva Dawn Marie has filed a complaint against WWE with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), claiming wrongful termination. Dawn Marie claims she was released from her contract because she became pregnant, and wants to be paid for the remainder of her WWE contract, which had less than one year remaining on it at the time she was released in July of 2005. The reason given for her release from WWE management was, "Creative had no ideas for her." Dawn Marie had been in good standing with the company with a track record of always being on time and fulfilling whatever duties they asked her to do.
TNA news
Sting was said to be very sociable at the Impact tapings back on January 3rd. He is apparently excited to be there and open to putting people over. An older wrestler putting people over is about as rare as a good idea from George W. Bush.
Sorry, since I'm back in school it's only natural that I go with the crappy political humor. Damn Political Science.
Anyway, Sting wants to do whatever he can to help TNA be competition to WWE. Which is a good thing in my book, because it's better to have two big wrestling companies than just one. I don't understand these people that just want WWE to be big, or just want TNA to replace WWE completely. Two big companies means more wrestling on TV, more jobs for wrestlers, and incentive for the companies to be the best by putting on better shows than their competition. Where's the bad in that?
Slow news week in TNA, so I'll throw in this thing from the Wrestling Observer that also involves WWE…apparently Vince McMahon has told Johnny Ace to sign anybody that TNA is interested in signing, even if they are people WWE recently cut.
coughCharlieHaascough
Some office workers have been told the idea is to sign them with lengthy no-compete clauses, then bury them so that by the time they can go to TNA, they are damaged goods. Meltzer says that management sees this as a pivotal year for TNA, and doesn't particularly want them to become legit competition. I guess you'd have to be an idiot to agree to that kind of deal from WWE if you're one of these guys, but maybe the money is really really good.
Of course, once TNA finds out about this they can come up with a strategy to combat it, such as indicating interest in people that have no talent at all and would be of no use to them or WWE. TNA should send some scouts to a backyard wrestling show…it'd be funny if WWE signed a bunch of those guys.
Other wrestling news
Congratulations to Brock Lesnar and Sable, who recently got married. I don't do marriage jokes either. Since, you know, a marriage is very similar to a funeral except you can only have one funeral. That makes funerals much less painful.
This whole column has been a funeral for my writing career…much less painful than a marriage though.
Remember those NWF flea market shows I was going to back in the summer? If not, here's a link to a column where I talked about one. Anyway, the NWF Champion at that time, Chad "2 Badd" Allegra, has moved to the New Japan Dojo out in Los Angeles, and is working shows there under the name Karl "Machine Gun" Anderson. Congratulations to Chad/Karl, and hopefully his time at the NJPW Dojo will make him even better than he was on those flea market shows. And he was pretty damn good then, so keep an eye out for this guy in the next few years.
Not much other wrestling news this week…Bubba the Love Sponge reported that he learned about shaving his ass and privates from Hulk Hogan. If I have to have that disgusting mental image in my head, so do you.
Who Owned Last Week?
The saga continues…
Kurt Angle - Yes, Kurt had a fine week. He might have lost in the Elimination Chamber first, and was beat in a tag match on Raw, but that's still a fine showing from the "Wrestling Machine". OK, that's something that Joey did that annoyed me. Did he have to say that every time he mentioned Kurt Angle?
Edge - I still don't think he deserves to be champ, but to leave him off this week's list would be lunacy. One thing though…he can't say "nobody saw it coming" because most of the 411 staff did. I blame them for this nonsense.
Generati…umm, whatever they're calling Aries, Shelley & Strong - Allow me to simply repeat what I said about them in the Wrestlers of the Week column this week…
"Sure, they didn't have the biggest victory of the week, but they did win the best match of the week, and a victory over established stars like Styles, Daniels and Sabin will get them going on the right track in TNA. Strong also had a superb match in FIP with Jack Evans from what I hear, so he gets super-special bonus points for that."
I am so lazy this week.
Lita's boob - What got the most attention from horny Internet fanboys across the globe? Clips from the UK version of Raw that showed Lita's boob exposed during the "Live Sex" segment. Ah, who am I kidding, I looked too, so I can't take the high road on this one.
This Week in Wrestling History
January 16, 2000 – Oklahoma beats Medusa for the Cruiserweight title at WCW Souled Out in Cincinnati, Ohio.
While this was obviously a very historic moment, as it marked the occasion that the WCW Cruiserweight title hit rock bottom, there was something on that same night that might have been of even greater importance. This was the night that Chris Benoit would finally achieve his life-long goal of being a world champion. He defeated Sid Vicious in the Souled Out main event, winning the WCW World Title. Obviously, Benoit would go on to a long and prosperous reign as WCW…
Oh.
No, there was a change of plans. Benoit's long time arch-nemesis Kevin Sullivan had just been named booker of WCW. A number of people were unhappy with this decision, and several of them threatened to leave the company. Benoit was one of these men, and Sullivan tried to make him happy by having him go over Sid for the title. However, Benoit figured that Sullivan wasn't going to make life very easy for him, and working in WCW sucked. Along with Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, and Perry Saturn, Benoit left WCW and signed with the WWF.
Benoit has gone on to some fame in WWE, and ended up winning their version of the World title at WrestleMania XX. He doesn't seem to regret waiting four more years to be a world champion.
The WCW title was left vacant due to Benoit's departure. Eventually Sid Vicious got it back, but there was a series of events leading up to that involving Kevin Nash and the Harris Brothers that I really don't want to talk about or even remember. Something about a cage handicap match…whatever it was, it was really fucking stupid. Which was par for the course in WCW.
Plugs
Larry usually gets the first slot, but his ridiculous bragging has cost him that privilege this week! Read my blog instead!
I'm still trying to figure out how Boman ripped me off in his news column.
Meehan does another two-parter…I remember when I was motivated enough to write that much. No I don't.
Clark named 35 good WWE matches. Frankly I think all the Eddie/Rey matches were overrated, but I might get in trouble for that cause Eddie's dead and stuff.
Carapola looked back on WWE January PPVs. Good stuff.
Prag defends Scott Hall. This should be interesting.
I was going to plug Gamble, but I decided that it wouldn't be fair to just single out Csonka for his Bengal bashing. Even though he didn't specifically bash the Bengals in his column, I'll assume he did it somewhere.
JT had Byte This. And in related news, is anybody else getting tired of the incessant bickering between the HH peeps and MeeThinks over who has the most positive column? No? OK, it's just me then.
Final Thought
I can't say I was all that motivated to write this column this week. You know why? Because something happened that I thought would never happen. Juventud Guerrera got fired by WWE.
I was shocked for several days. Why would a good, upstanding citizen like Juventud be fired? Out of all the firings WWE has done over the past few years, this one makes the least sense to me. Juvi is well known for his willingness to put over people, his safe ring work, and his friendship towards his fellow wrestlers. How could WWE fire a man like Juventud?
Frankly, it doesn't make sense to me, and it had me on the verge of giving up this whole thing. A WWE without Juventud is a WWE I do not care to know. TNA probably won't pick him up either…apparently Jerry Lynn wasn't too happy about getting dropped on his head by Juvi, which put him out of action for a very long time. Doesn't Jerry realize that Mexican children would consider it a privilege to get dropped on their head by the legendary Juventud Guerrera?
From the Second Home Office in Louisville, Kentucky…
Top 10 Reasons Why Juventud Owns All
10. Losing his mask actually helped his career
9. Juvi Driver~!
8. The fact that he'll do a 450 splash when WWE says he can't
7. He traveled with Cowboy Bob Orton
6. Two words: Juan Deere
5. Was a great guest commentator on WCW Thunder
4. Had an outstanding match with Blitzkrieg that makes people miss Blitzkrieg to this very day
3. Which luchador didn't own all in WCW?
2. The Rock referenced him in a promo on Raw…it doesn't get any bigger than that
1. Nobody left WCW quite like Juvi did
It's a damn shame that a good man like Juvi Juice won't be appearing on my TV anymore.
There's only one thing that can get me back in the mood to do this shit, you realize.
There we go. Now I'll be ready to come back next week. If you're lucky, I might bring my B game then!
