Cook's Corner 08.04.08: In Freddie We Trust

Posted by Steve Cook on 08.04.2008

WWE actually hired a wrestling fan to write for them! But not just any wrestling fan...

Editor's Note: Yeah, the race stunk. Everything else about last weekend was freaking awesome, so I can forgive NASCAR for that. I appreciate all the reaction to last week's column whether it was positive or negative. I'm not going to fill up column space by reacting to comments, but I may do such a thing on either the 411 blog or my MySpace blog. That might be fun. And in case you haven't noticed from my writings over the years, I'm a lot more about having fun than being all serious about the pro wrestling. That may explain the content of this week's article...

Everybody and their uncle seem to have an opinion on Raw's new General Manager. While I do find Mike Adamle strangely intriguing in a purely heterosexual way, I'm not here to talk about Larry Csonka's old American Gladiator co-host this week. Instead I wish to discuss another new face that could impact WWE for many years to come, a man that I have idolized for many years and hold in high regard with great respect and admiration. Indeed, Freddie Prinze, Jr. is a god among men, somebody that we can all look up to and place our trust in to do the right thing when it comes to professional wrestling.

Freddie was born in Los Angeles, where I can only presume he grew up watching such masters of the mat as Chavo "Classic" Guerrero, Mil Mascaras, the Great Goliath, Black Gordman, the Hollywood Blondes, Roddy Piper & others that competed in the historic Grand Olympic Auditorium and other locales in the Southern California area. SoCal is still known as a wrestling hotbed, as Pro Wrestling Guerilla and other independent promotions run regularly in the area and WWE always draws good crowds when they come through the region. Not to mention lucha libre, which also has a strong following with the Los Angelinos.

*checks Wikipedia*

OK, so Freddie actually grew up in Albuquerque and didn't move back to LA until 1995. That's all right…New Mexico also has a strong wrestling presence and just so happens to be home to one of my favorite wrestlers of all time.



BANG BANG~!

His very first acting role was in Family Matters, which is on most peoples' list of top Friday night sitcoms of all time. He played the role of "Tough Guy" in the infamous episode in which a fellow student threatened Laura Winslow at gunpoint. He appeared in an after school special and a couple other movies of no interest to me afterwards, but he got a role in 1997 that would forever change his life in a movie that did a lot to change me.

I Know What You Did Last Summer did not get rave reviews from movie critics. It did win several Blockbuster & MTV Awards, and Freddie was nominated for the coveted "Favorite Actor" Blockbuster Award. Unfortunately Freddie came up short and lost to future WCW Champion David Arquette for his role in Scream 2, which was the predecessor to Scream 3, which featured future WWE Saturday Night's Main Event participant Jenny McCarthy. But none of that is particularly important.

"IKWYDLS", as I like to call it, was very important to me as a thirteen-year-old male for two main reasons…ok, there were actually at least four and probably more than that now that I think about it. This movie just happened to feature two of what I thought were the hottest women in the world in 1997, Jennifer Love Hewitt & Sarah Michelle Gellar. I wasn't too familiar with JLH because I wasn't a Party of Five watcher, but the scene with her running from the crazy fisherman dude still rates as one of the most tremendous things I've ever seen. I think the only time I've ever seen her look better might have been the scene in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer when she used a tanning bed. I have viewed each scene several times and still haven't decided which I like better.

You know, her music video for "How Do I Deal" from the soundtrack of "ISKWYDLS" wasn't bad either. I may have to re-think this thing…



Am I the only one who remembers when this video premiered on TRL and Carson Daly was still hosting and was banging her at the time? Things really got awkward later on when they broke up and she was in a music video that regularly appeared on TRL, which was "Girl on TV" by LFO. I think she was with the lead singer of that group after leaving Daly, but I could be completely wrong on that. Why do I know all this stuff? Girls in my high school watched TRL, that's why. You had to keep up with what they were keeping up with if you wanted to have a chance. I mean, it's not like you could break the ice with a cute girl by talking about the Bengals' latest defeat or what Stone Cold did on Raw. You could try, but that sort of action would usually end with the girl forgoing your company for the company of some goofy looking mongoloid who didn't even have to shave yet but had a way of wooing the ladies. Yes, high school could be quite depressing sometimes.

Back to the original point of this column…not only did Freddie get to be with JLH on-screen, he ended up hooking up with SMG off-screen. I really don't think this gets enough credit as one of the great accomplishments of the 1990s. In fact, if I were to make a list of the Top 5 accomplishments of the 1990s, it would go something like this…

5. Dale Earnhardt winning the 1998 Daytona 500 after years of failure

4. The Montreal Screwjob

3. Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" video

2. Freddie making out with JLH on-screen and banging SMG off-screen

1. O.J. Simpson being found not guilty

Why are there only five? Because the man wants to deprive me of ten! In any event, Freddie's presence in WWE means that CM Punk is no longer the ultimate ladies' man in the company. Don't get me wrong…the Punker has amassed a very impressive list of talent over his years in pro wrestling, but does anybody on his list compare to Buffy the freaking Vampire Slayer? With all due respect to my TNA Knockout friend, I gotta say no.

I should also mention that Freddie was in She's All That, which featured Rachael Leigh Cook. I get this question all the time, so I should go ahead and address it here…I am not married to RLC. Yeah, I'm disappointed too. We're not actually related to the best of my knowledge, so I think I could still have a shot if she splits up with her husband. Freddie was also in Summer Catch, where he got to co-star with Jessica Biel. You start to wonder if there's any hottie Hollywood actress that Prinze hasn't got to hook up with on screen. Heck, people like to talk smack about Wing Commander, but in that movie he got Saffron Burrows to act with.

Oddly enough, the lovely Saffron brings me to the next thing I want to talk about. Freddie also rules because he plays the role of Donny Crane on Boston Legal every once in awhile. In case you're not familiar with Boston Legal, it's only one of the best television shows out there at the moment and will probably cause me to miss most of Raw in the autumn months. Donny Crane is the son of Denny Crane, who is quite possibly the greatest character in the history of television. William Shatner owns everything, and any man who can play his son on television is worthy of my respect.

OK, I have to admit that I can't really defend Scooby Doo or his short-lived sitcom. Everybody's entitled to a mistake or two, aren't they?

Many people online have railed against the Hollywood writers that WWE tends to hire, and they seem to assume that FP2 is another one of these out-of-touch yahoos that have no idea how to write a wrestling show. Other people have asserted that Freddie is a big fan of pro wrestling and that will give him an advantage in trying to help produce a product that people will want to watch. Others are saying that it's too soon to tell and he probably won't stick around very long anyway.

Me? I'm not going to doubt a man who has accomplished what Freddie Prinze Jr. has accomplished in his life. If you can land Buffy…what can't you do?

And the guy isn't even a vampire. Figure that one out.

Final Thoughts

Big ups to Batista for rocking the Wes Unseld throwback jersey last Monday night. It's always good to see some love for my U of L peeps, which Unseld happens to be one of. REPRESENT!

Did you guys catch the end of Smackdown last week? That just might be the best segment I've seen on any wrestling television show in 2008. It was great stuff from Edge & Mick Foley, with a tremendous promo from Foley and a nice beatdown by Edge to end the show. I'm not big on a lot of things WWE does these days, but that was some good business.

I've spent a good bit of the last two weeks watching the Wrestling Society X Complete First Season DVD. I didn't really get to see most of the WSX craziness while it was actually happening, so it was interesting to see what the fuss was about. I really liked the show except for the ridiculously short match times, but there's not much you can do about that when you've got eighteen minutes for your weekly show. The explosions were pretty funny and hokey in a good way. I wouldn't mind seeing a Season 2…it's too bad that MTV's more interested in showing programming that appeals to their fanbase. What nerve!

How about the NWA title changing hands on an ROH show? It sounded strange to me at first, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. You might as well have your title change hands at the Hammerstein Ballroom instead of some high school gymnasium in Podunk, West Virginia. Brent Albright's a pretty solid worker and a good choice for their champion. I'm just not sure how much the NWA title means right now. I'd put it somewhere between the ROH & WSX titles, I reckon.

Here's a question: How can anybody hate the PWG commentary?

The best thing in TNA right now just might be the Spin Cycle. If you haven't checked it out on YouTube yet, I highly recommend you do so as soon as possible. Heck, I'd say it's better than Impact. Damning with faint praise, I know. But it's good stuff.

I did not catch Saturday Night's Main Event due to other things to do on a Saturday night…and from the sound of things I wasn't the only one.

Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers? I say Brian Brohm.

I don't think it's fair to call the Gun a pedophile. As long as I've known him I haven't seen him hit on anybody younger than 18.

"P.S. Question often asked me how do I feel about DDT being used so often? Truth is, it hurts when I see it only because it's done wrong. As far as it not being sold properly as used as a finisher. I laugh my ass off. Why? All that does is to confirm to those watching how much better I am." – Jake Roberts

The grammar isn't pretty, but Jake Roberts just might be the best wrestling writer on the Internet right now. That probably doesn't speak well for the rest of us, but the guy's forgotten more about wrestling than 99% of us will ever know. I'm not saying he's technically a great writer, but I'd rather hear his opinion than most other peoples'.

And I'm spent. Thank you all for reading, and keep your stick on the ice.