The Cook-Thinks Saturday Spectacular 09.01.07

Posted by Steve Cook on 09.01.2007

Don't call it a comeback!

Hi everybody! This is not John Meehan, who is spending his week in the wonder of all things Disney. I'm glad for him, because as you know, John's a very positive guy who wants to bring a positive slant to all things wrestling-related. I guess if I spent all my time at DisneyWorld I'd be a pretty positive fellow too.

My name is Steve Cook. You likely know me as the current steward of Ask 411 Wrestling, and may remember my time reporting News From Cook's Corner. In case you don't, just know that I'm a cynical kind of guy with a healthy dose of sarcasm and good humor. I'm not going to try and spin things into a positive light because that's not my style. Nobody's paying me to be their bobo, so I'm not going to spread their propaganda. I call it like I see it, and sometimes the truth hurts.

I'm only going to be here this week, so don't get too excited. Reporting wrestling news interests me about once every few months these days. So maybe I'll be back in a few months. Or maybe Larry & Ashish will fire me. It could go either way, honestly.

Let's go ahead and get this shindig started, shall we?

Reason #236 to not buy anything on the Internet

I've never been comfortable with online shopping. Call me old-fashioned, but I like walking into a store, looking at items, and picking one out. I also like handing money to attractive female cashiers. The only downside is the weird look I get when they notice that I'm purchasing the latest edition of Playboy. What's the big deal? I'm single; I gotta get my gratuitous nudity somewhere! Seriously though, I've never been comfortable with the whole online shopping thing. It's too easy for crazy hacker people to get all of your personal information and start doing evil things with it. I don't trust it.

Maybe if some pro wrestlers felt the same way I did, they wouldn't find themselves in a heap of trouble right now. Just after it was reported that WWE was suspending 10 people for violating their wellness policy, the New York Daily News released a list of wrestlers that were clients of Signature Pharmacy, a pharmacy that was raided in February due to issuing illegal prescriptions. Their list consisted of:

- Randy Orton
- Adam Copeland (Edge)
- Charlie Haas
- Robert Huffman (King Booker)
- Shane Helms
- Mike Bucci (Simon Dean)
- Anthony Carelli (Santino Marella)
- John Hennigan (John Morrison)
- Darren Matthews (William Regal)
- Ken Anderson (Kennedy)
- Chavo Guerrero
- -Umaga

ESPN added Dave Batista, Sho Funaki & Chris Masters to the list. The late Brian Adams, Chris Benoit & Eddie Guerrero are also on the list, along with former WWE wrestler Sylvan Grenier. On Friday, it was revealed that former WWE & current TNA wrestler Kurt Angle had also been a customer of Signature. There are many more details on this story that were covered very well yesterday by Larry Csonka & Ryan Byers, and I strongly recommend that you check out their articles on the subject.

I'm not an expert on the types of drugs they were using, but my basic knowledge of human growth hormone (re: what I've heard on sports talk radio) tells me that it is impossible for any drug test to detect HGH or other growth hormone products in the system. This could explain why WWE's wellness testing didn't uncover drug usage by these gentlemen. Sure, this shows that the wellness policy is mostly ineffective and useless…but it's like the old referee adage says: you can't call what you don't see. Today's drugs are more effective, tougher to detect, and quite simply better than the steroids that Hulk Hogan and others had injected into their buttocks in the 80s. No matter what kind of testing WWE does, it won't be able to catch everything.

It's very easy to pass judgment on these men as jacked-up juice monkeys willing to do anything to keep their spot on the roster. But ask yourself one question…if there was a chance that taking these drugs could make you millions of dollars and you wouldn't get caught unless somebody did some serious digging…would you?

As some have pointed out, this list proves that using drugs doesn't exactly equal getting a push. When was the last time Funaki won a match? But it doesn't take 20/20 vision to see the kinds of guys that WWE pushes at the top of their cards. They like guys with great physiques. Not everybody can look like a John Cena, a Bobby Lashley, or a Dave Batista. Wrestling fans want to see super human characters…most of them aren't going to be as thrilled with a guy that looks like their Uncle Morty with his shirt off. I'm not saying that WWE wants their wrestlers to use steroids or growth hormone…but for a lot of guys, that's their best chance to get that "look" that WWE and their fans value so highly. Tell me, would Randy Orton get chance after chance to become a tippy top guy if he didn't have a great physique? Probably not.

At the end of the day, this issue isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Word is that Congress will be holding hearings at the end of September. WWE has cleared their schedule for the occasion. I'm not saying that Congress has the power to overhaul the wrestling business, but they do have the power to create a lot of bad publicity for it.

Things will get a lot worse before they hopefully get better. I hope that once everything is out in the open, wrestling promoters will try to clean up their business and the people in it. The question is if anybody will be watching after they do.

Due to his involvement in this, Mike Bucci has been fired. He was serving as the guy in charge of WWE's developmental territories. His purchases from Signatures took place while he was still an active wrestler…oddly enough, had he not become an office guy, he probably would have just gotten suspended like everybody else. Once you become a person of some authority, they expect you to act like a role model or something. How strange.

Besides, Nova invented growth hormone. This is all his fault!

Two Hour Impact?

TNA has reportedly told several of their wrestlers that they will be expanding Impact to two hours starting in October. Considering this has only been rumored for about a year now, it's nice to see it finally come to pass.

For many months, TNA & their apologists have been using the argument that their show doesn't feature a lot of wrestling because they only get 40 minutes a week. Once they get 80 minutes, the shows will obviously be much, much better. It seems like we'll get the chance to see if they're full of crap or not. If they expand to two hours and we're still treated to "classics" like the VKM vs. Motor City Machine Guns match from this week's Impact…well, it won't be pretty.

In case you've been living under a rock, TNA's been receiving a lot of criticism from Internet fans about their product lately. Some smaller sites are even trying to organize "boycotts" of Impact. They don't seem to be working very well since Impact's rating has been somewhere from 1.0 to 1.2 for the last few months and hasn't trended downward lately. In my opinion, the TNA product has been pretty lackluster lately. Why? That's a tough question to answer, but generally when I want to watch a wrestling show I don't want to see things like….

-Pacman Jones
-Kevin Nash in a speedo
-Samoa Joe looking like a dumb goof that just fell off the turnip truck and couldn't win a World title if somebody laid down in the middle of the ring for him
-Pacman Jones
-Dumb feuds that last forever for no apparent reason other than the bookers don't have anything else to do with them
-Jim Cornette sounding like a dumbass while making management decrees that usually make no sense at all
-Matches starting about a minute before the commercial break
-Have I mentioned Pacman Jones?

Yeah, I thought the whole Pacman Jones signing thing was total bullshit. Let's give some overhyped thug a bunch of money even though the NFL probably won't let him do anything useful. Good idea! And let's still push him over everybody else and have him spraypaint people because that's never been done before! Yeah!

Sigh…

Joe Kills Rumors

The following was posted on Samoa Joe's MySpace page by the Samoan Submission Machine himself…

"Former X-Division champion Samoa Joe has been telling people that he would rather accept an entry level WWE contract (believed to be $50,000 per year), rather than resigning with TNA. Joe is not happy in TNA, and doesn't want to stay with the company when his current contract expires."

This statement is untrue because of one tell all reason. "he would rather accept an entry level WWE contract (believed to be $50,000 per year), rather than resigning with TNA."

Buuuuuuuuuullshit, Are you crazy? I really really like money! You see, the goal as a career pro wrestler is to work hard, make money, and hopefully have a life that is somewhat of a comfortable experience in your latter years. Do many of us succeed? Well, no but a Kid can dream can't he?

The only reason why I choose to openly refute this rumor is because in all honesty it makes me look SO UNCOOL around the office! I mean when you make up cool rumors that make me seem all super rebellious and anti authority I just ride with it, but when you make up rumors that I am going to work just as hard for less money, well that just make me feel that you think I would be dumb enough to do something like that.
In closing,

My name is Samoa Joe
and You can watch me & TNA Wrestling on SPIKE TV..
:)

You know the thing I really like about this statement? Joe admits that he's in it for the money. If more pro wrestlers would admit that, the wrestling world would be a much saner place. Seriously, if you're not in your chosen profession to make money…what the hell are you in it for?

In other good Joe news, he will be competing in Pro Wrestling NOAH in the not too distant future. So don't cry for Samoa Joe, even if his TNA character is dumber than a box of rocks he still has a brain.

King & Queen to Renew Vows

In our "Awwwwwwwwwwww" story of the week, King Booker & Queen Sharmell will renew their wedding vows in a traditional Zulu ceremony. Members of the Zulu royal family and top city officials will attend the ceremony in South Africa. Apparently Booker wants to return to his roots by doing this ceremony. Good for him. Booker also plans on opening up a branch of his PWA promotion in South Africa and doing some charity work there.

Kinda makes it a bit harder to bury him for the whole steroid thing, doesn't it? We can forgive Booker for doing drugs…at least he didn't do what one of his ex-compatriots did…

Benoit's "Legacy"

Next year the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame will be conducting a recall election concerning the status of one of their past inductees. Is Chris Benoit still worthy of inclusion in one of wrestling's most prestigious halls of fame? We'll find out next year, but I know what my answer is to that question, and the question of if Benoit should be worthy of inclusion in any other halls of fame in the future.

No chance in hell.

As writer of Ask 411 Wrestling, I receive all sorts of e-mails from all sorts of people on all sorts of subjects. One subject that came up frequently in the weeks after Benoit's death was his "legacy". People e-mailed me hoping that wrestling fans wouldn't forget about all the good things that Chris Benoit had done during his life. That they wouldn't forget about the classic matches and hours worth of entertainment provided by the Canadian Crippler over the years. Some even said that Benoit still stood as a good example for smaller people wanting to get into the wrestling business.

I have not commented at length on the Benoit tragedy in Ask 411 for a very good reason…I had no desire to do so. Everybody else has spoken their piece on this, and many of them far better than I could ever hope to. What I'm discussing today is something different…Chris Benoit's "legacy". As far as I'm concerned, Chris Benoit forfeited any "legacy" he might have had when he chose to end his life and the lives of his wife and son.

I've seen people say that you can't judge Benoit (or anybody else) based on one event in their life. I disagree…if somebody does something so utterly heinous that you can't even imagine defending it, that defines them. No matter what Chris Benoit might have done before that fateful weekend in Georgia, I will always remember him for what he did then. A man who I once considered one of the best wrestlers in the world is now nothing more than a punchline to some very tasteless jokes. My inbox is full of them, and some of them are pretty darn funny. They won't see the light of day in my column, but they give me a chuckle nonetheless. Does that make me a bad person? Nah, just one with no tact. Us humorists are legendary for not having any tact.

Men who murder women and children do not deserve your respect or adulation. If WWE wants to wipe all mention of Chris Benoit out of their archives, I have absolutely no problem with it. More power to them. I understand that most Internet wrestling fans are completists by nature and want their shows completely unedited and whatnot, but I really couldn't care less if I ever see another Chris Benoit match.

To sum this all up, I won't be voting for Chris Benoit in any hall of fame. Sorry if that pisses some people off, but that's just the way it's gonna be. I wouldn't want to be one of those voters determining if Benoit should be taken out of the WO HOF. It's one thing not to vote somebody in, it's another thing to decide if somebody should be taken out. Tough call.

In a related note, an older African-American male walked into my place of employment the other day wearing a "4 Real" t-shirt. I was later told that the man had previously been involved in an altercation involving a gun and a casualty. I was not surprised.

If an NWA Heavyweight Champion is Crowned in Puerto Rico, Does Anybody Hear It?

Today will mark the crowning of the first NWA Heavyweight Champion in the post-TNA era, as Adam Pearce is set to face Brent Albright in Puerto Rico in the finals of a 16 man title tournament that has been taking place for months in high school gymnasiums all across the U.S. and Canada. And maybe somewhere else, I really don't know. The match was originally supposed to feature Albright taking on Bryan Danielson, but Danielson's been forced out of the tournament due to an eye injury suffered against ROH Champion Jumbo Morishima.

You know, when I hear about Morishima or some other dudes that work real stiff injuring people, I'm reminded of one of the reasons Bret Hart claims to be the best there is, was or ever will be…throughout his whole career he gave 100% and never injured anybody he was in the ring with. A great worker is somebody who can make their offense look really good and not hurt the person receiving it. Making your stuff look good and hurting somebody in the process…that's not being a great worker. But that's beside the point I'm getting to here.

Danielson was widely considered to be the top choice for NWA Champion, so this might have thrown a monkey wrench into the plans of Dave Trobich, Tits McGee, Frank Stallone and the other NWA directors. Now he will be serving as a special guest referee to counteract possible interference from Pearce's manager. Yeehaw?

I remember getting a question from somebody wondering why 411 doesn't give more coverage to the NWA. My answer to them was quite simple…they need to do something to earn it. Ring of Honor has been in business for over five years now, and does pretty good business everywhere that they go. Some of their markets are stronger than others, but generally they sell pretty well. That's why they get the coverage that they do on this website. You could possibly make an argument that the NWA should get more coverage than Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, but Bayani would kill me if I tried to make that argument.

I will say this though…what the hell is the deal with them jobbing out the Necro Butcher? Necro is easily one of the top 5 guys in the business today as far as entertainment value goes, and it's ridiculous when I read one of our PWG articles that gives him no respect at all. Bunch of fruitcakes.

Anyway, the NWA's got some work to do before their title can mean anything again. Getting a TV deal on some station that absolutely nobody has heard of isn't gonna get it done. Build yourselves up into something, and maybe we'll give you some love somewhere down the line. For now, you'll have to settle for what you get, which ain't much. Like the New Radicals song says, you only get what you give.

This Just In: Nick Hogan is a Douchebag

That's all you need to know, isn't it?

Plugs

Csonka says he is the only reason 411 has an MMA Zone. I thought the only reason we had an MMA Zone was Gina Carano

If there is one woman that can give Miss Brooks a run for her money…it's Gina. What can I say…I love women that can legitimately kick my ass. What about it?

Domingo heads up the PWG Roundtable. Remember when I made him a star? Ahhhhhhhh, memories.

Fact or Fiction features my boy JT & Wilcox, who hasn't talked to me since I called him out a few weeks ago on his Hannah Montana crush. Hey, at least my crushes are over 18!

Ari's Column of Honor goes up today. Read that shit.

Sforcina writes about Scary Sherri. I'm holding out for a schematic on………..Gary Michael Capetta. Yeah, that'd be good.

That's all I'm plugging because 411 keeps messing up my browser with some illegal Shockwave plug-in operation or something. Usually when I call this shit out, Ashish fixes it. He's good like that.

That's all, Folks!

I hope you enjoyed this brief venture into the dark side. Us cynics aren't all that bad. We like to have some fun every now and then, mostly at the expense of others. Meehan will be back next week, unless he just decides to stay at Disney for the rest of his life. I can't say I'd blame him if he chose to do that.

As for me, you can catch me every Wednesday doing Ask 411 Wrestling. It's a fun little column that answers questions that readers send me. Some of them are pretty good. Others…well, they make for interesting reading. I do enjoy doing it, though I'm trying to put in for some time off here pretty soon. A guy like me can never spend too much time doing the same thing. It's just not my style.

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me. Peace!