Cook's Corner 09.22.08: Out of the Darkness

Posted by Steve Cook on 09.22.2008

After a week without power, I bring you some NWF thoughts and thoughts on life without electricity. It's great to be back.

At around 2:15 PM on Sunday, September 14th, the power went out. A tremendous windstorm caused by Hurricane Ike caused this occurrence. The power stayed out on our block until Friday afternoon. I hope those of you who were also affected by this storm didn't have to go through that.

Honestly, I didn't deal with it very well. I went through every emotion in the book from anger to sadness. When you're accustomed to being able to take a warm shower or being able to flick a switch to turn on a light or relatively unimportant things like watching television or surfing the Internet, it's tough when that gets taken away from you. It gets even tougher when you see houses around yours that have all of those things and you wonder why you don't. I coped with these feelings by spending most of my time at work or at Dickmann's Sports Cafe, where I was able to watch the rest of the Bengals game and some actual football games too. The wings will probably take ten years off of my life, but what the hell.

Now that I have power back and can do all of the things that I normally do, the main emotion running through my head is thankfulness. You don't realize how lucky you are to have the things you have until they're taken away from you. No, things in my life aren't perfect and there are a lot of things I'd like to change, but they could be a whole lot worse.

And as bad as we had it up here with the winds and the loss of power, we didn't get nearly the buttkicking from Ike that the folks down in Texas got. Hope y'all are getting things better down there. I can't even imagine dealing with that.

It doesn't look like I missed a whole lot as far as wrestling goes. Raw got a low rating because people wanted to watch Cowboys vs. Eagles. (Speaking of which, one my fantasy football games was riding on this game. I was down by 15 but still had Romo & Witten to play. My opponent had McNabb. I ended up winning by 5. One of the greatest fantasy football victories of my illustrious career, and I couldn't even watch the game. Such is life.)

Jeff Hardy got kicked off an airplane for seeming intoxicated. I can't muster up some outrage over this because I've probably seemed intoxicated a lot in the last week. There was a bunch of TNA stuff and Triple H is still burying people. We do have new ROH Tag Team Champions and I'm a big Kevin Steen/El Generico mark so that's a good thing. But other than that, there's not a whole lot going on. Hopefully now that I'm back things will begin to pick up.

I now present to you a piece that I was planning on submitting last Monday. There's some new stuff thrown in towards the end, but most of it has been untouched, uncensored and unedited for your sanitation. Enjoy!

-----------

It had been a couple months since I'd managed to make it over to Shimmers Tavern to take in some Northern Wrestling Federation action. With nothing else going on last Saturday night and a column that needed writing (I did quite a bit of writing on Friday night but when I woke up Saturday morning and read it, I realized most of it wasn't usable for a number of reasons), I decided to attend the show and write a column about it. I actually went to the trouble of taking notes, which I usually don't do at wrestling shows because I prefer to just enjoy the action. Luckily for you, I made an exception this time. So join me in…

Tales From Shimmers or How Wildcat Got His Groove Back

7:46 - When I arrive at Shimmers I am amazed to find an actual parking spot open on the side of the building. In the past I had to park over in the Ramada parking lot. The Ramada has been replaced by "Roadside Inn" since the last time I was there, and their sign amuses me a little too much. It says the following:

"ROD SIDE
WELCOME SNAPON"

The jokes write themselves, don't they?

7:50 – I enter the ballroom and order a Beam & Diet. I notice several things have changed since the last time I was there. First of all, there are no chairs at the bar. I assume they got tired of people sitting at the bar all night and drinking a wee bit too much. For the record, I wasn't the only one that did that, so don't point your finger at me! Secondly, the blonde bartender is no longer there. There were a couple of things I liked about her, but the brunette is still there and that's ok with me. She gives me the smallest $4 mixed drink I've ever had and I go to the back row.

7:55 – Five minutes until showtime, and this kid keeps running around behind me. I have a feeling this is going to get really annoying. NWF CEO Kirk Sheppard & TV announcer Hooks come out and talk about the card. Sheppard's tie looks like a combination of two ties I own. The selection of girls here isn't looking all that promising, but I've never gone to a wrestling show for the purpose of picking up chicks. An attempt at a wave by the crowd doesn't go well. The wave's been played out for at least a decade, so this warms my heart.

8:10 – Longtime ring announcer Slick Rick comes out. He's worn the same suit since 1998, and I'd wager he's had the same hairstyle at least twice that long. However, this is why the people love him.

Match 1: The Zodiacs w/Jack Attack vs. Tap or Snap

Tap or Snap are two nice fellows by the name of Stewie Backlund & Tiny Tim that come out to The Final Countdown. The Zodiacs are two guys in purple masks and a manager with a mullet. I don't think I have to tell you who wins this one. By the way, Tiny Tim was once married to a WWE Diva. The first person to post which one it was in the comment section will get a nice, shiny No-Prize. Nice little match, but the illegal man for the Tap or Snap team made the pinfall and the referee counted it anyway. I'm probably the only one who noticed this, but I'm a stickler for these things.

Match 2: Jeremy Hyde vs. Austin Meddler Danny Montgomery

Speaking of referees, the referee for this one is young Amanda, who likely qualifies for runner-up for the award of "Hottest Referee in Pro Wrestling". (I was going to say she was the winner, but then I remembered that Traci Brooks has refereed some TNA Knockout matches lately and I don't want to get any heat with her.) I'd love to know what exactly brought her into the wrestling business, and why she never wrestles in our area. I also wonder if her boyfriend could beat me up. In the time I've watched the NWF, Meddler has gone from being a mad scientist to a hard working union man to a lottery-winning millionaire. That's an interesting career pattern if I've ever seen one. Anyway, Meddler opts out of the match and we get Danny Montgomery, who resembles Chavo Guerrero with a beer gut and less hair. The match is just kinda there, and I notice that I have a small hole in the armpit of my Corona Extra t-shirt. It's not noticeable by anybody except me, but this will annoy me the rest of the night. Hyde wins with a Roderick Strong move.

Match 3: Anthony Bryant vs. Jay Donaldson

I haven't seen Donaldson since the days of the Richwood Flea Market shows, so I'm interested to see if he's gotten better since then. He's still wearing his Jeff Jarrett starter kit, which some of the crowd takes notice of with "Double J" chants. Some of the fans aren't really into the babyface Donaldson, which I'm guessing has to do with his departing the NWF for another promotion for quite sometime. That hampered the match a little bit as Donaldson wasn't as over as they were hoping for. Good match, most notable for a spot where Donaldson got vertical suplexed from the ring onto the floor. The spot got a silent reaction, but in a good way. I liked it, though they had to fight the crowd reaction there for a while. Donaldson won with a fruit rollup.

Match 4: Ice & Brian Jennings vs. NWF Tag Team Champions The Thugs w/InGe

I must have missed something here because the Thugs are coming out wearing suits and wrestled wearing their white shirts and black ties like the RTC used to do. This reminds me of the time we did a video in high school about the epic tale Beowulf. Us wrestling fans in the group decided we were going to steal a bunch of stuff from wrestling for the video. So I did the narration in the style of William Regal and a couple of us randomly ran in certain parts of the video and beat people up while wearing white shirts and black ties. We got some weird looks while shooting it, though they weren't nearly as weird as the looks we got from our classmates when they watched the video. I got the loudest pop of the whole video, though it was during the blooper reel when I got hit in the groin by a rolled up poster. I sold the heck out of that, though it wasn't hard to do so because it freaking hurt. The tragedy of the whole thing was that the teacher never gave us the video back. He said he lost it, but I fully expect it to resurface if I run for public office. I spent most of the match thinking about this and didn't actually take any notes. Which is a shame because the guys did some pretty good work. We got a DQ finish though, so I don't feel too bad about it.

Match 5: Christopher Michael Lotus vs. Unified Champion Mr. Hayes

Good ol' CM Lotus. I remember the first time I went to one of the flea market shows and saw a poster with the names CM Lotus and Pompano Joe on them…this was when Punk & Joe were a big deal in ROH so I got a kick out of the similarity. Hayes is quite the heat machine, that's for sure. You can always count on the fans to tell him to go home, but the guy just won't do that. Probably because it's a long drive to Tampa. I take the opportunity to get another drink at the beginning of the match…I figure it's a good idea to hit the bar before the rush at intermission. This time the bartender gives me a taller cup that's at least twice as big as the first one, and it's for $5. This leads me to believe that one of these two things may be true:

-The small drink is a complete and utter ripoff
-She wants me

Maybe a little bit of both? Anyway, I head back to my seat with my new drink and enjoy some good old fashioned Southern style rasslin', where men are men, women are women and the sheep are scared. The finish to this match was a new spin on the traditional Dusty Finish, at least one I hadn't seen recently anyway. Hayes got the belt, Lotus ducked and Hayes took out the ref. Lotus then hit Hayes with the belt, another ref came down, counted three and rang the bell. During the celebration, Hayes attacks Lotus from behind, throws the new ref out and wakes up the first ref, who is still recovering. The first ref counts three and Hayes ends up winning the match. I thought it was pretty freaking brilliant…I'm sure that was done before at some point but I haven't seen it in a long time. Good stuff.

9:08 – It's intermission time, which means time for people to get pictures taken with the wrestlers and whatnot. Some large gentleman near me decides to do some stretching, which ends up with him sticking his ass way too close to my face. Dude, you gotta have better manners than that, don't ya? I'll also take this opportunity to say that the new Kid Rock song needs to die a miserable death. Ronnie Van Zandt's rolling over in his grave, even if the rest of his family has no taste and will tag along with the Kid.

9:30 – Intermission ends with Anthony Bryant coming out and challenging Donaldson to a re-match at the next Shimmers show on November 8. I have to admit that I'm a bit pre-occupied thinking about a friend of mine that's had a really rough week. I wish there was something I could do for her, but I'm drawing a blank. This has been on my mind for most of the show, so I apologize if I'm not as in-depth for it.

Match 6: Warlock & Virus vs. The Hippies

The Hippies are always fun and they win here as usual. The main story of this match is Virus turning against Warlock & Jack Attack afterwards, and Ice coming out and challenging him. Looks like they're going to do a double-turn with Virus & Ice, which I would approve of because Virus seems more over anyway. Virus's taunt of "You will be infected" needs a little work though. Little too creepy for my liking.

9:51 – The face to face confrontation between "Wildcat" Chris Harris & Ryan Stone is underway. Wildcat starts out in the same mode he was on in the YouTube video that's been making the rounds, saying he's lost his passion for wrestling and is going to walk away. Stone doesn't let Harris do that though, verbally & physically trying to provoke him into a fight. Harris finally snaps when Stone calls him a "pussy", which as we all know is always going to start a fight. Harris vs. Stone will take place on November 8, and hopefully we see more of Chris Harris than Braden Walker in that match.

Match 7: Stamp Lickage vs. Muldoon

This match has the unenviable position of following the Harris/Stone confrontation, which was the main selling point for the show and got more heat than anything else so far. It doesn't help that neither of these guys wrestle a particularly exciting style…think Kane vs. Big Show minus six inches of height. OK, it's not nearly as bad as a Kane vs. Big Show match, but it's not all that exciting either. Lickage turns heel at the end of the match by whacking Muldoon with his post office bag and chokeslamming Kirk Sheppard. Makes sense…it's tough to root for a mailman anyway. Remember Newman?

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday night. The NWF always puts on a good show here in the Greater Cincinnati area, and I'm sure there's an indy in your area that does the same. Support your indies! Without them, you wouldn't have a WWE or a TNA or whatever to watch on television.

Random Thoughts

TNA announcers usually get a lot of crap, but Don West rules it for uttering the phrase "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner" on Impact. Tremendous!

I've been torn on whether AJ Grey is a good thing for our website, but his posting of Megan Fox puts me solidly in his corner. Good God Almighty. And he quoted the legendary Michael Scott; so what more can you possibly ask for? I throw my full support behind Mr. Grey and what he stands for. I also support any and all pictorials of one Nicole Schcershlawhateverhernameis. As the kids say, EPIC PASS~!

Of course, I am partial to girls named Nicole. But that's another story for another time.

Why does Geoff Eubanks think I would be awake at 2:30 AM on a weeknight?

Wouldn't it have made more sense for the Jericho/Punk cage match to go on during halftime of Cowboys vs. Eagles? I figure the best strategy WWE could have used on Monday was to put something good on when people are changing channels to see what else was on. If they see a cage match, they're more likely to stick around at least for the duration of the match than they are if they see…well, whatever they did end up showing during halftime.

The Pro Wrestling vs. MMA debate confuses me. Isn't somebody allowed to love both for what they are? I love pro wrestling for the drama it provides and the ride that you can go on with a classic match, but I also love MMA for the real fights that can end with a submission or a knockout or a ref stoppage or whatever at any given time. And, quite honestly, MMA has more compelling characters than pro wrestling does at this point. But the argument that one has to like only one of them…I don't buy into that.

The Boston Legal season premiere is tonight! I wonder if anybody besides Larry Csonka and myself are geeked up over this. After all, I am the Alan Shore to his Denny Crane.

You know, I wanted to give up on the Bengals after their piss-poor effort in the first two weeks of the season. But after watching them against the Giants this week…maybe there's something there. And that's the pain of being a Bengals fan, they always find a way to make you have hope for some unknown reason. You know that at the end of the day they're not going to go all the way…but somehow you keep sticking with them. I can't explain why.

Four Questions With…

It was only a matter of time before I had this guy in this section of the column. Certainly all the Ask 411 Wrestling readers remember my partner in crime, my brother from another mother, the Terry "Bamm Bamm" Gordy to my Michael "P.S." Hayes, the one and only Penguin of a voodoo variety. Unless you visit the Fan Forums you haven't got to hear from him lately, so I thought I'd see what he was up to.

How have you been filling your time since our departure from Ask 411 Wrestling?

Penguin: Well I went out and got me a real life grown up job. In addition, me and Mrs. Penguin just got a place together. So it's pretty much been work and spending time with her. Thank God for DVR or I'd never get to see any damn tv.

CM Punk is no longer WWE Champion as I write this. You and I are known as not being fans of the Punker. Did this title reign do anything to change your mind, or did it cement your opinion?

Penguin: It did nothing. Even though he was billed as a brave kid who could win a match from no-where, he STILL never had any character development, or a gimmick what so ever. If I want to see martial artists compete for titles, I'll watch UFC. In fact I do. That's not pro wrestling. Now HBK and Y2J, that's some fine pro wrestling right there.

We all know that you're a huge fan of the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels. What is your favorite HBK moment of all time and why?

Penguin: It's probably cliche' to say this, but I'm going with the infamous barber shop with Marty. I was just a youngster in elementary school and everyone loved 'rasstlin. Well we had all noticed Shawn's bad mood and heard the Rockers would be officially getting back together on Superstars that week. When he threw him through the window I couldn't wait to get to school on Monday. We analyzed and analyzed. Looking back on it now, that's probably where my enjoyment in wrestling became less in the cartoony figures and more in the real life stories. Plus it was the most violence I had seen in the wwf (old nwa tapes beat that, but you get the point). Totally different to see someone thrown through glass when you're used to hulk hogan leg drops winning matches.

Last question: If you could be with any woman holding some sort of political office, who would it be?

Penguin:I want to do wonderful yet horrible things to Sarah Palin.

More than Condi?

Penguin: Condi's still my girl. But that Palin's got moxy!

Moxie's overrated. Give me a girl who'll just lie back and take it any day of the week.

Penguin: I told you to stop cruising morgues.

Hey, do I look like a big red pant wearing bald guy wondering if somebody's dead or alive?

Penguin: Santa?

ho ho ho biatch!

Yeah, I don't know what the rest of that was about. I still know that Palin doesn't do it for me. But that's not what I base my voting on…hopefully the American people won't base their voting on who's hot and who's not.

See ya next week!