The CookThinks Friday FreeThinks 04.04.08

Posted by Steve Cook on 04.04.2008

I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.

Hi everybody! I'm Steve Cook, the last of a dying breed, and I hope you're having a fantastic Friday. I don't think I've done a Friday news report before, so now we can cross that one off the list. I've covered Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday now…Monday & Wednesday, you're next!

Your regularly scheduled host Jonathan Meehan will be back next week. Although we don't agree on a whole heck of a lot and our lifestyles couldn't be more different (well, they could be if either of us were into dudes, but the heterosexual life is one thing we agree on), I have a great deal of respect for his work and I think he respects my stuff. All I'm saying is this is probably the first Friday news column in a good long while written under the influence of alcohol. Whether that's a good thing or not…you make the call!

Usually there is a rhyme or reason to my news columns, but there is none this week. I've just cut & pasted a lot of news and jammed it all together in no particular order. There are also no pictures of scantly clad women. I can hear you all clicking the back button on your browser right now, so I'll just get this shindig started…

Cook on Flair

Everybody else has already had their say on the career of Ric Flair, so what is left to be said? Simply put, WrestleMania 24 was the end of an era. It's hard to imagine professional wrestling without Flair bouncing around in some capacity. I'm sure he'll be back on WWE television soon enough, and if his contemporaries are any indication he'll probably wrestle again. I think the best thing I can do right now is to go back in time…from the July 31, 2005 edition of News From Cook's Corner & the Home Office in Edgewood, Kentucky…

Top 10 Arguments Against Ric Flair being the Greatest of All Time

10. "He screwed Bret!"

9. "He wasn't half the Nature Boy Buddy Landell was."

8. "He started wrestling before I was born."

7. "His initials are RF, so he's evil!"

6. "He applies the figure 4 on the wrong leg!"

5. "He's not Hulk Hogan, brother!"

4. "Every time he goes to the top rope he gets thrown off!"

3. "Because even he will tell you that Triple H is better than him."

2. "Anybody who jobs for Rico can't possibly be the greatest of all time."

1. "He slept with my girlfriend!"

Most of those have aged pretty well. However, I fear that the Rico reference is lost to most of the newer readers. That's probably for the best…the less you know about that, the better.

A camera crew followed around Kurt Angle over the weekend in Florida for what will apparently be a reality show pilot. Not much is known about it other than the fact that the production company approached Angle about it.

I thought there was already a Kurt Angle reality show on television. It airs every Thursday night on Spike TV…I believe it's called TNA Impact or something.

During an appearance on the Showgram radio show in Sacramento earlier this week, Kurt Angle made some bold statements again...

* He said that TNA will be in a ratings war with WWE in 2-3 years.
* He said that he will fight Brock Lesnar if the money is right.
* He said he and Randy Couture have signed on with a promotion to have their submission fight but wouldn't reveal which promotion.
* He said Sting told him he is the best wrestler he's ever faced.
* He put over Ric Flair's career.
* He again said that Dana White was set to sign him to UFC but only if Angle agreed to not wrestle for TNA, which Angle declined.
* He said he is currently training two days a week for his fight with Couture and will increase that as the fight gets closer.
* He said he will be at the Sacramento Kings basketball game tonight against the LA Clippers.
* Said he wants TNA to make their California debut in Sacramento within the next few months.

Who doesn't love crazy Kurt Angle interviews? I'll say this though, if Sting actually told him that, it's a hell of a compliment. The only greats from this era I can think of that Sting hasn't wrestled at some point are Shawn Michaels, Triple H & the Rock. I'm sure there are others that I am forgetting, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a hell of a compliment.

KMOV in St. Louis reports that a four year old boy is believed to have killed his two year old brother by imitating a pro-wrestling move he saw on WWE Smackdown, according to the boy's mother.

Jacqueline Davis says she came out of the shower and found her two-year-old son Jacquion unresponsive on his bedroom floor.

She says her four-year-old son told her and police that he was pretending to be WWE professional wrestler who he watches dominate opponents on the Friday night show.

The 4-year-old allegedly choked his brother with part of a curtain.

Now I'm not going to sit on the pro-WWE soapbox and condemn the anti-wrestling media for blaming wrestling for this tragedy. They will frame this story however they want, and pro wrestling doesn't exactly have a great track record of morality. But what I can't understand is why in the world parents allow their small children to watch pro wrestling. For the record, I started watching when I was six years old and while I have re-created what I've seen on television before, I haven't killed or even hurt anybody while doing it. And I've never tried to beat up a two year old.

I hate to get on the moral high horse here, but quite honestly pro wrestling was a different animal when I was six. The Saturday morning wrestling shows didn't have sexually suggestive storylines (unless you want to count Savage/Elizabeth, but that was a love story), the violence wasn't really all that bad and wasn't any worse than things you'd see in Saturday morning cartoons, and there was never any foul language. I should also point out that my parents had me in bed well before Prime Time Wrestling came on Monday nights at 9:00, so I only saw the shows on Saturday morning until I was around eight years old. Looking back on the Attitude Era, I'm not sure that I was mature enough to understand what I was watching then, and I was thirteen when Steve Austin won his first WWF Championship. So I can't comprehend allowing a four year old to watch pro wrestling or anything else that isn't rated TV-Y for that matter.

Another thing I hate is criticizing parents…as somebody who doesn't have kids, I don't feel comfortable telling parents how they should do their jobs. I can't imagine there's a more difficult job in the world than raising a child and making them into a well-adjusted citizen. I was an extraordinarily well-behaved baby, but most kids behave like little monsters. For the most part, they don't know what they're doing because they haven't been taught and haven't developed a code of behavior or common sense. I can't say I blame the four year old at all…sure, we would know better than to choke our siblings out with curtains, but if little Johnny sees JBL choke out Chris Jericho with a bullrope (I know that was a Raw segment and likely not the incident that provoked this tragedy but work with me here) and Jericho comes back the next week not looking all that bad, he thinks getting choked doesn't hurt and decides to have some fun with his little brother. He doesn't know any better.

Maybe the mother could have prevented it by not letting Johnny watch Smackdown and keeping a closer eye on things, but we don't know what kind of a schedule the mother leads. We don't hear anything about the father in this story, so how do we know if he's around to guide his children? There are too many questions left unanswered here for me to cast blame in one direction. Once we learn more about the home life of this family, it'll be easier for us to know what kind of a job the parents did in raising their children and if this could have been easily prevented.

I think what I'm saying here is it's too early to pin blame on anybody and it's always a horrible tragedy when a two year old dies of any cause. So forgive me for not getting up on the pro-wrestling soapbox and bashing the parents for being negligent and the mainstream media for trying to give pro wrestling a bad name. It's just a horrible tragedy and I feel badly for all that are involved.

WWE foiled a plan by TNA to fly a plane over the Citrus Bowl during WrestleMania. WWE found out ahead of time that TNA was planning to do this, found out which company was going to fly the plane, and then convinced them not to go through with it. The company told TNA that they couldn't fly the plane due to weather, but most see through that excuse since several other planes did fly over WrestleMania to promote various things including one plane that promoted an adult entertainment club. Some in TNA were upset over this.

WWE also forced a TNA mobile video truck to leave the Amway Arena parking lot prior to RAW last night even though TNA paid to park there. The driver of the truck was given a refund for his parking fee and told to leave. He then moved to another parking lot and was confronted again by WWE but refused to move unless police forced him to, which they didn't.

Some people are getting on TNA for trying to advertise at WWE events, but anybody who's been to a wrestling show has probably ripped some paper advertising a local wrestling promotion's upcoming show off their windshield on their way out of the venue. That's just how it works. Wrestling promotions want people to go to their shows, and the easiest place for them to find wrestling fans is at the show of their competition. TNA would have been dumb not to advertise, and WWE knew that TNA was going to try something. Obviously they didn't care because they held the show in Orlando anyway and it still went well.

WWE is releasing a new Boogey Man teddy bear soon, which may be an indication that he could be on his way back. He has been out with a torn calf.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

On the bright side, my readers can stop asking where he is.

The reason Arn Anderson wasn't the one inducting Ric Flair into the WWE Hall of Fame on Saturday, its because Flair specifically requested that Triple H do it. During the ceremony, Flair did speak about his friendship to Arn, but that part of his speech didn't air on the USA Network portion of the show. The full Hall of Fame Ceremony will be on the WrestleMania XXIV DVD which will be a 3-DVD set.

If I was Flair I would have requested that Triple H do it as well. H probably doesn't have as many stories to tell as Arn does, and Flair doesn't want his hottie wife upset with him. Can you blame him? Personally, I was hoping that Paul Roma would make the induction speech.

Ric Flair claims that he shot down an announcers role with WWE because he doesn't think he'd be good at it. He will remain with WWE in a public relations role and will also now work on his Ric Flair Finance company in Charlotte.

Yay Ric Flair Finance! I'm a bit disappointed that Flair doesn't want to try his hand at announcing. The prospect of not being good at it hasn't stopped a lot of people from trying.

Dusty Rhodes is set to take over booking in Florida Championship Wrestling and will transfer there full time soon, leaving behind the WWE creative team. Rhodes will be in charge of character development in FCW as well as the booking of FCW's upcoming weekly TV show (will air locally). This is why Rhodes wasn't on RAW last night for the Flair tribute, as he is already busy with his new job. Most view the move as a good one since Rhodes won't have to travel so much now and will be able to have a lot of influence on young wrestlers. [PWInsider.com]

You know, I've been skeptical of the whole FCW thing because every attempt WWE has made at a developmental territory other than OVW has been a massive failure. With Dusty booking, FCW may have a fighting chance. And now that WWE has placed all of their chips into this pot, they pretty much have to make it work. One thing's for sure, if anybody has experience booking a wrestling promotion in Florida, it's the American Dream. If you will.

The Times-Picayune in Louisiana has a story up on WWE's new 12 Rounds film which is shooting in the state. "I really think this is a movie that's going to make John a movie star, an action star," director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) told the newspaper. "We're concentrating on making it very realistic: nothing bigger than life, no superhero stunts, nothing that a normal guy who has the energy and stamina couldn't do. So I think it's going to really work on many levels and bring him down to kind of an Everyman -- a guy men can relate to, women can like, kids find appealing."

Didn't somebody say during the Hall of Fame ceremony that John Cena would never leave wrestling for Hollywood? Funny how he's filming a movie less than a week afterwards.

Flair's son, Reid, is currently under a WWE developmental contract and is training in FCW.

We can only hope he's better than his brother. I guess it'd be tough to be worse than ol' David, who never really wanted to be a pro wrestler anyway. Reid has the amateur wrestling experience and it's said that he has some charisma, so maybe he'll make something of himself. It won't be easy though, and if he has even a fourth of the career that his father had, he will have a very successful career…but will get no credit for it because people will expect him to do as well as his dad. This is what Dale Earnhardt Jr. has to deal with in NASCAR…if he wins one championship he'll have a very good career, but since his daddy won seven everybody is mad that he hasn't won any yet.

Famous peoples' sons live rough lives filled with high expectations that they can never live up to. Famous peoples' daughters get to do nothing and run around in very little clothing all day while being questionable sex symbols. And people say the women's movement wasn't a success.

DH Smith worked a dark match last night prior to RAW as a heel. He also used his new nickname, the Canadian Bulldog.

BANK ON IT~!

I don't expect more than five of you to get that reference. What the heck happened to Online Onslaught anyway? Rick Scaia was a pretty good writer before his head became permanently inserted into his own backside.

In the new issue of WWE Magazine, RAW GM William Regal says that if he could trade anyone from RAW to Smackdown or ECW, it would be Ashley. "Ashley. She's a scruffy mare. Dirty, filthy little thing, my goodness gracious. Take a bloody bath or something; She's just dirty looking. She's there with those bloody things in her lip and tattoos, like someone who works on the docks. She should be unloading fish off a ship somewhere."

Regal speaks the truth! I only included this in the news column because it was a funny quote.

Newsday reports that a Long Island company, Zenith Pyrotechnology, handled WWE's WrestleMania pyrotechnic display which included a malfunction that left 40 fans injured, three of whom had to be taken to a hospital.

Fortunately there were not more people hurt by the pyro malfunction. Honestly I'm surprised that sort of thing doesn't happen more often. I'm also surprised that there hasn't been more reported about this story, but that's probably because there weren't any deaths. I've noticed that the media only pays attention to pro wrestling when death is involved.

Internally WWE was not happy with the Raw rating from Monday night. The company was expecting the show to do at least a 4.0 coming out of WrestleMania. The show ended up doing a 3.9 rating. WWE did not even have the rating sent out company-wide due to how disappointed they were with it. Usually WWE sends the RAW rating out to some members of the staff, but not this week.

3.9 does have to be considered a disappointment, but I think WWE realizes that at this point in time they're just not going to get fantastic numbers. No matter what people around here want to tell you, wrestling is not in a boom period right now. It will likely get there again someday, but it doesn't seem to be coming up on the horizon. I'm not being a negative nelly, I'm just calling it like I see it.

Besides, does it really affect you if pro wrestling is "popular" or not? Me, I couldn't give a rat's patoot because I don't need the approval of others when it comes to what I like or don't like. It would be nice in the aspect that more people would be watching wrestling, which would mean that more girls would be watching wrestling, which would mean that more girls would read this column, which would mean that I would have a better chance of getting laid for being famous sometime this decade.

On second thought, maybe wrestling being "popular" wouldn't be so bad.

TNA employees are saying that Chavo Guerrero didn't attend any of their TV tapings over the weekend, despite some ongoing internet rumors.

I wasn't there, so I can't tell you if he was there or not. Maybe somebody mistook him for Hector.

Sent in by Adam Lebow: During their Wrestlemania recap show that airs on Fight Network Radio, The LAW aired a clip of an interview that they taped for next week with Trash Stratus where she gives her thoughts to co-host Jason Agnew about the Bunnymania match that happened on Sunday. The following is a transcript of the brief clip they played as a teaser for next weeks show which is at 11pm on CFRB 1010 Toronto and other Fight Network Radio affiliate stations.Vince may not like it so much...

Jason Agnew: You know, I am looking at someone like Beth Phenoix, who is really a good in-ring worker and is in a Playboy Mania match at Wrestlemania, any thoughts on that because I think you and her in a match would be much more entertaining than what they are doing right now.

Trish Stratus: Ya, well what is it called, Bunny Mania?

Jason Agnew: Ya

Trish Stratus: Ok I think... (makes spitting sound). I'm sorry did you get that? Did I make you wet with that? Um... (laughs) I don't, I have always been this way, I think there is a place for it because particularly there is a deal with playboy so there is obviously a place for it, there always will be, but I really think they could always provide the other additional idea, that is kind of what I did, I had the women's storyline going for the women's championship and then it's like Beth is the champion and there is no women's championship match, so I just... boo hoo, I don't like it. I don't like it one bit Jason.

The comment section for this news item was really quite disturbing. Am I surprised? No. I'm not sure what was more ridiculous, the people claiming that Beth Phoenix looks like a man or the dude talking about how he wanted to do bad things to her in wrestling terms. I don't know what the hell is wrong with you people sometimes. You either talk about wanting to screw a lady wrestler or claim that she's a man. Is there no middle ground? And why the hell can't you judge a woman based on something other than how big of an erection they give you when you look at them? God Almighty.

For the record, Trish is right.

The following two matches are set for WWE Backlash.

* The Undertaker vs. Edge for the World Title
* Kane vs. Chavo Guerrero for the ECW Title

No surprises here, as WWE Backlash has always featured lots of rematches from WrestleMania. Can Kane beat Chavo in less than nine seconds? Only time will tell.

27-year-old Ryan Bishop, a 6-foot 6-inch former tight end for the New York Giants has signed a developmental deal with WWE, and is currently training in FCW.

Go Giants~!

What? Are you telling me you didn't mark out when they beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl? If so, you have no soul.

Throughout The Rock's incredible sports-entertainment career, fans and foes alike knew enough to know their role, shut their mouth, or risk a beatdown from the Brahma Bull. While he's gone from WWE rings to the big screen, his impact on professional wrestling will never be forgotten. The Rock: The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment highlights the meteoric rise of The Great One, the first man to hold the WWE Championship seven times. This package is packed with 3 discs filled with 19 amazing matches.

Disc 1

*Samoan Royalty
*Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. Rocky Maivia - Raw 2/13/97
*Rock the Ruler
*Owen Hart vs. The Rock 4/6/98
*The Nation vs. DX
*Triple H vs. The Rock 6/22/98
*The Rock's Big Chance
*Mankind vs. The Rock Survivor Series '98
*Rivalry with Mankind
*Last Man Standing Match: Mankind vs. The Rock St. Valentine's Day Massacre PPV
*So it continues…
*Ladder Match: Mankind vs. The Rock 2/15/99 Raw
*Two of the Most Charismatic Superstars Ever
*Steve Austin vs. The Rock - Wrestlemania XV

Disc 2

*People's Champion
*Steel Cage Match: The Rock vs. Triple H 7/5/99 Raw
*The Rock ‘n Sock Connection
*WWE Tag Team Championship: The Rock & Mankind vs. Undertaker & Big Show 8/30/99 Raw
*Verbal SmackDown!
*No Holds Barred Match: The Rock vs. Kane 12/30/99 Smackdown
*McMahon – Helmsley Regime vs. The Rock
*Triple H vs. The Rock 4/30/00 Backlash PPV
*The Following Night…
*Steel Cage Match: The Rock vs. Shane McMahon 5/1/00 Raw
*The Great One vs. The Olympic Medalist
*Kurt Angle vs. The Rock 2/25/01 No Way Out PPV
*The New Title
*Booker T vs. The Rock 8/19/01 Summerslam PPV
*The Undisputed Champion
*WWE Undisputed Championship Match: Chris Jericho vs. The Rock Royal Rumble 2001 PPV

Disc 3

*Icon vs. Icon
*The Rock vs. Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania 18
*Triple Threat
*Kurt Angle vs. Undertaker vs. The Rock - Vengeance 2002 PPV
*Just Bring It
*The Rock vs. Eddie Guerrero 7/22/02 Raw
*Steve Austin vs. The Rock - Wrestlemania 19
*Transcending Sports Entertainment
*The Rock: The Most Electrifying in Sports Entertainment

Promos

*Heat July 11, 1999 – "Billy's Prayer to God"
*RAW August 9, 1999 – "The Big Slow"
*RAW September 6, 1999 – "My Name is Kane"
*RAW November 15, 1999 – "Doughnuts"
*Smackdown August 10, 2000 – "Hermie"
*RAW December 4, 2000 – "Armageddon Opponents"
*RAW August 13, 2001 – "Thomas Jefferson Sucka"
*RAW September 10, 2001 – "The People's Strudel"
*Smackdown September 20, 2001 – "Great Balls of Fire"
*Smackdown January 3, 2002 – "Copacabana"
*Smackdown January 17, 2002 – "Camera Man"
*Smackdown January 24, 2002 – "The Charleston"
*No Way Out February 17, 2002 – "NWO"
*Smackdown July 11, 2002 – "Busta Rhymes"
*RAW March 10, 2003 – "The Superhero"
*RAW June 21, 2004 – "Miami Dolphins"
*The One-Liners

Yay Rock DVD! I know a lot of you are mad that he left wrestling for Hollywood and apparently he rubbed a few people the wrong way at the HOF ceremony, but I'm still a big Rock fan. I will be sure to purchase this at some point. And I think this explains why there were no Rock matches on the Triple H DVD.

-Low Ki was backstage at the ROH shows in Orlando over the weekend. He didn't have any talks with the promotion about returning. He is currently recovering from a torn MCL. He was also backstage at the Impact tapings.

I would like to see Low Ki back in either TNA or ROH upon his return from injury, but I'm not getting my hopes up for either. I assume he was just visiting with friends at the shows.

- ROH is looking to book more TNA talent. ROH is still allowed to book TNA talent for shows that aren't used for PPV broadcasts or national DVDs.

I just hope they don't bring in Black Reign. For heaven's sake, the guy's getting heavier than his father. At least he has the common courtesy to wear some trash bags while wrestling.

Rehab News!

- Sean Waltman is scheduled to be released from rehab at the end of April.

- Jake Roberts has finished up his stay in rehab, and was scheduled to wrestle in Orlando on March 29th.

- Scott Hall signed himself out of rehab early. He stated that he wanted to go to the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony. His friends have reportedly convinced him to return for further treatment.

I did not see if Jake actually wrestled or not, but his recent postings on MySpace seem to be a good sign. I wish all three men the best, hopefully they have better results from their experiences in rehab than people I know have. They claim that all they learned in rehab was more drugs that they want to use. I associate with some strange people.

Tale of the Tape

Monday night's episode of Raw featured the debut of the Age of Orton. Well, one could argue that the Age of Orton started before Monday night, but Orton didn't coin the phrase until Monday night and JR & King didn't say it 450 times a show until Monday night. This got me to thinking…isn't there another Age of wrestling going on right now?

Indeed, the Age of the Fall has been running amuck in ROH for the last few months now. So the question seems obvious…whose age is it anyway? Let's look at the Tale of the Tape…

Titles Held During Their Age:

AOTF: ROH World Tag Team Titles
AOO: WWE Championship

Advantage: Age of Orton. Tag team titles don't matter, no matter how much my Ask 411 Wrestling readers want to believe otherwise.

Internet Presence:

AOTF: An entertaining blog where members talk about society and discuss their goals for upcoming events.
AOO: Fansites, crazy rumors and embarrassing pictures of Orton wearing a towel and nothing else.

Advantage: Age of the Fall

Members:

AOTF: Jimmy Jacobs, Tyler Black, Necro Butcher, Joey Matthews, Austin Aries, Zach Gowen
AOO: Randy Orton

Advantage: Age of the Fall. If Orton wants to compete here, he needs to get some flunkies. Thus far, nobody seems too interested in aligning themselves with Orton.

Success with Da Ladeez:

AOTF: After well over a year of pursuit, Jimmy Jacobs finally landed his dream girl, Lacey. Lacey has been joined in the group by fellow hotties Rain (in FIP) & Allison Wonderland.
AOO: The last on-camera squeeze Orton had was Stacy Keibler. He broke up with her by giving her an RKO. Obviously this makes one question his intelligence. His pooping escapades have been discussed in other places and I don't really feel like going there.

Advantage: Age of the Fall

Rivals:

AOTF: The Briscoes, Tammy Sytch
AOO: John Cena, Triple H, JBL, The Hardys

Advantage: Age of Orton. This listing is nowhere near complete, but Orton's success against top-notch competition can not be questioned.

Gimmick:

AOTF: Emo
AOO: Asshole

Advantage: Age of Orton. It's kind of ironic that AOTF has better success with women, because the women I talk to prefer assholes over emo kids. Strange how that works out.

Google Search Results:

AOTF: 20,100,000
AOO: 559,000

Advantage: Age of the Fall

Age:

AOTF: 24 (Jacobs), 21 (Black), 34 (Butcher), 29 (Aries), 28 (Matthews), 25 (Gowen)
AOO: 28

Advantage: Age of the Fall…with some younger members they have more upside.

Entrance Music:

AOTF: Lacey screaming
AOO: HEY NOTHING YOU CAN SAY

Advantage: Push

Wingman Potential:

AOTF: Jacobs would scare the women away with his depressing monologues if Necro didn't scare them away first by…well, by being Necro Butcher.
AOO: Orton would draw the women over with his looks and charm, but eventually the girls would realize that he's a douchebag and you would seem like the nice one by comparison. So you'd get the top girl and Orton would end up with the needy sidekick.

Advantage: Age of Orton

Final Score: Age of the Fall 5, Age of Orton 4, Push 1

The original Age takes the battle this time, but with a little work the Age of Orton could truly be upon us. Until next time…the numbers never lie!

Plugs!

Buy or Sell featured Bayani Domingo & The Kentucky Gentleman talking about ROH bidness. For the record, I was correct in my prediction that no ROH titles would change hands over the weekend. Choke on that, Placido!

Csonka hired a bunch of new people to replace me. Which is strange because I haven't quit yet. Let's take a look at some 411 newcomers, shall we?

Brooklyn Brawlin by Dan Torkel raises an interesting point that I wanted to talk about this week. Is it acceptable to cry while watching wrestling? I say no. One of the many problems with America today is that at some point it became culturally acceptable for men to show their feelings. Back in the old days men were expected to be strong, unemotional beings that were capable of anything. Men were men, women were women and the sheep were scared. Now we're a bunch of crying sissies and it makes me sick. To me, crying is only acceptable in the following scenarios:

-Death of a loved one
-Extreme physical pain (we're talking broken bones or severed limbs here, not a paper cut)
-Side effect of too much alcohol

I've been guilty of the second one a couple of times and the last one most recently. When you get in that state sometimes you can't control these things. That being said, Ric Flair's retirement doesn't fall into any of those categories…unless you were smashed while watching it. If you are a personal friend of Ric Flair's I'll allow it, but somehow I doubt that a lot of Ric Flair's personal friends are reading this column. Colin Delaney may be an Ask 411 Wrestling reader if I choose to believe the names of people that comment in the comment section. That's the closest connection I have to people that are on WWE television. So you'll forgive me for not being able to work up some tears over this stuff.

Oh, and you get bonus points of manliness if you tear up and are able to hold it in. I teared up last Saturday night due to a combination of too much alcohol and an epiphany of sorts, but I managed to hold it in and did not cry. I was very proud of myself for that.

Worth Your Wealth? by Ryan Merholz looks like a fun concept to me. As a man who doesn't like to spend money, I need to know if wrestling events and shows are worth spending money on. This shall prove very useful to me.

Wacky Wrestling Theory by Jake Chambers talks about how people hate John Cena because they're homophobes. I disagree with his assessment here because I'm pretty sure Cena is heterosexual. Now, the hate for Pat Patterson is definitely homophobic.

Fink's Payload by Andrew Clark. Kid, you gotta change your name. It's bad enough we've got 50 Steves & Stephens on this website, we don't need two people with the same first and last names.

The Dusty Shelf by Stu, who needs a last name if he expects to be taken seriously. I suggest either "Hart" or "Scott".

Final Thought

My parents are out of town until Sunday and instead of doing anything crazy I've spent the past two nights drinking at home and working on a wrestling column.

Is something horribly wrong with me?

Well, that's all we have time for this week. Meehan will be back next week, and I'm sure he'll have all sorts of great stories from his trip to share with you. I'll be back with Ask 411 Wrestling on Wednesday…until then, boooooooooooooohica!

The National Domestic Violence Hotline : [phone]-SAFE.