Your News, Cook's Views 11.18.08

Posted by Steve Cook on 11.18.2008

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Welcome to the show! I'm Steve Cook, filling in for the distinguished Larry Csonka. Larry has other matters to attend to for the next two weeks, so he's entrusted me with delivering you some wrestling news, some wrestling opinion, and some pictures of hot wrestling chicks. You probably won't even notice he's gone…well, except for the fact that it smells a lot better in here.

Larry: Careful there son...I WILL stop payment on the check!

BUYS OR NO BUYS

Buys or No Buys is similar to what Larry used to do in discussing random events and small bits of wrestling news. BUYS or NO BUYS is a phrase Larry uses all the time, even outside of wrestling. In a way it is just another way of ranking GOOD or BAD. So each week Larry is gone I will continue to kick off the column with BUYS or NO BUYS, discussing the world of wrestling, this website and/or my life. Don't feel free to skip it, I will be terribly offended and will refuse to be your friend.

MANY BUYS to COLLEGE BASKETBALL SEASON~! With my interest in college football already at an end for all intents and purposes, the time couldn't be better for college basketball to walk back into my life. I got to see my Louisville Cardinal men's & women's teams live and in living color back on the 8th at Northern Kentucky University and I must say I was impressed. Expect big things from the Cards this year, even though the Big East is going to be ungodly difficult. The only downside is that the only thing my best friend will talk about from now until March is Kentucky basketball, which I couldn't care less about. I have to tune him out like you married readers tune out your significant other whenever they're babbling on about something that doesn't affect you.

NO BUYS to previously mentioned Kentucky, who insists on having their sporting events at times that I want to hang out at my favorite sports bar. I'm not a big fan of big crowds, especially big crowds of Kentucky fans that don't appreciate a friendly Louisville guy impeding on their "turf". However, it is pretty sweet when they all walk out after their buttkicking ends and I get the bar all to myself. Heh heh heh.

MANY BUYS to my fantasy football teams, which finally completed the 3-0 sweep for the first time this season. Fortunately my team that had Pittsburgh's defense coasted to a 35-point victory, so the refs taking a touchdown away from them meant nothing to me. However, the fact that it took eleven weeks for me to accomplish this should tell you how my season's going overall.

NO BUYS to the Cincinnati Bengals & Philadelphia Eagles, who forced me to sit through three and a half hours of the most boring/useless football game I've ever seen. And believe me, as a Cincinnati Bengal fan, a Louisville Cardinal fan, and a guy who went to a high school where the football team went 2-38 for the four years he was there, I've seen some pretty bad football. But at least in all the previous games I've seen with these teams, there was a winner and a loser at the end. This assortment of losers and jackasses couldn't even provide me with that. Honestly, the NFL should just kick these two teams out of the league after that debacle.

MANY BUYS to Brock Lesnar, who won the UFC Heavyweight Title from Randy Couture Saturday night at UFC 91. I know many wrestling fans have never forgiven Brock for bolting from WWE, but a former pro wrestler winning a shoot-fighting championship seems like a pretty big deal from where I sit. Kudos, good sir! And ironically enough, Brock's presence in UFC has resulted in many PPV buys for the promotion. Hey Vince…ya like apples?

NO BUYS to work. Just when I was getting used to running my company's paint store, the decision was made to take me out of that job and have me assist our inventory manager with taking stuff out of stock in our auto parts stores and returning them to the factory we get parts from. Not only does it cut back on my Internet time, but it has thrown my schedule into a state of uncertainty and I'm not sure what they'll have me do when we're done with this stuff. It's not like they're going to fire me since my dad does run the company, but it illustrates the fact that they have no idea how to use me. I feel like Rob Van Dam during his time with WWE…except I don't smoke nearly as much weed.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK



Who do I get to make sure I'm re-incarnated as a bee?


Dixieland Developments and Diatribes:

I find this more interesting than anything going on in TNA at the moment…here's a description of Mick Foley's new sitcom:

"Comic Joey Kola is now attached to play the role of Foley's agent 'Barack Blumenthal," which is a nod to Foley's real agent Barack Bloom. Former adult star Christy Canyon will be playing an exaggerated version of herself as Mick's next door neighbor. Foley has written many times about Canyon in his autobiographies. They are looking for a "name actress" to play Foley's wife on the series. The untitled show is being shopped around to networks, and there are hopes that SpikeTV would be interested in picking it up. With Foley now a part of TNA, the hope is that it could play into the network's corporate synergy. They are continuing to develop scripts for the show, and there is talk of doing an MMA themed episode, with cameos from legitimate fighters."

That is either the most amazing thing I've ever heard, or the dumbest. I'm not really sure. The show is currently being called "Have A Nice Day", and if you don't know why a Foley show would be called that, I'm not sure why you're reading this column.

In case you're still wondering why Glenn Gilbertti & Pat Kenney were fired, it wasn't because Glenn's the most annoying man alive and Pat wouldn't stop saying "SIMON HAS A PROBLEM" in a loud voice backstage. It was a simple case of numbers…with Jim Cornette being added to the ranks of the agents, it was decided that they had way too many agents for just thirty minutes of wrestling a week. Corny & Dutch Mantell were and are pretty safe from being fired, so it came down to Savio Vega, BG James, Gilbertti & Kenney. After it was figured out that Vega & James were the ones that were previously employed by WWE, it was decided that Gilbertti & Kenney had to go. OK, I'm making that part up. Or am I?

Another entry in the "in case you were still wondering" file…Frankie Kazarian has been brought back to the tapings to film more Suicide promos. The plan was for the character to have a major role and to cross-promote with the video game, but Kazarian's triceps surgery held off the debut, which was supposed to be at Bound for Glory. So here's my question…since we can safely assume that by the time Kazarian returns to active competition the TNA Impact video game will no longer be new and likely be owned by anybody that wants it, what is the point of bringing him back as this Suicide character? Will anybody actually care? I know not that many people cared about him as Kazarian, but honestly.

The Short Essay: An Ode to Lita~!



Editor's Note: One of our long-time readers has always wanted either Larry Csonka or myself to discuss Lita at length. This is for him.

It's hard to believe that it's almost been two years since Amy "Lita" Dumas left World Wrestling Entertainment. It seems like just yesterday that the Internet was up in arms over how she cheated on Matt Hardy with Adam "Edge" Copeland and as a side effect really helped Edge get over the hump to become the perennial main-eventer he is today…when he isn't injured or "in hell". While some may see this as the prevailing legacy of Lita's WWE tenure, there was a lot more to Lita than her final days with WWE.

The first time I remember seeing Lita was in ECW, when she showed up with "Dastardly" Danny Doring & The Angry Amish Warrior, Roadkill on a PPV. Doring & Roadkill were pretty new at that point, Roadkill was your stereotypical fat Amish guy that didn't talk much while Doring cut promos using every sexual entendre in the book and had move names such as the "Bareback" and "Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am". Looking back, I'm not really sure how those two characters became aligned. In any event, Lita was known as either "Miss Congeniality" or "Angelica" depending on who you asked, and she was with the Dastardly One. I'm pretty sure her main accomplishment during this time period was holding Tammy Sytch while Dawn Marie spanked her with a paddle, which was a very important event for my sexual development. How this isn't on YouTube, I have no idea.

Soon afterwards, Lita made her way to the WWF. She was at the side of Essa Rios, a Mexican light heavyweight who they planned on basing the light heavyweight division around. However, as good as Essa was, Lita was definitely the favorite of the crowd, who would pop whenever she hurricanranaed one of his opponents. It was a cool visual. And it should probably be noted that her breasts grew at least one cup size between her ECW & WWF stints. How this happened, I'm not really sure. Late puberty, perhaps. At any rate, Lita was over and Essa wasn't. So it was only natural that Essa would turn heel and go all bitter on Lita.

Of course, this led to Lita joining up with Matt & Jeff Hardy and forming Team Xtreme. In real life, Lita had trained with Matt & Jeff and had been dating Matt since…well, hell if I know. Who do I look like, Ryan Seacrest? More importantly than who Lita was dating, soon after she joined up with Matt & Jeff she started wearing pants that rode a little low and showed some thong action. This was another important event for my sexual development. Eventually Lita became an active wrestler and liberated the Women's championship from Stephanie McMahon-Helmsly, which was a cause we could all get behind.

Another cause we could all get behind was the cause of Malenko…Dean Malenko. For the Great Malenko wanted him some Lita in late 2000 & early 2001, and who couldn't blame him? He tried, and quite frankly Lita should have let him have it, but instead she opted to hook up with Matthew Hardy. One has to wonder how history would have been different had she done the right thing and went with Dean. But…that's the way the cookie crumbles. If nothing else, it led to Dean Malenko having one of the greatest themes and Titantron videos of all time.

Lita did become one of the cornerstones of the Women's Division along with Trish Stratus, but her career would be marred by injury. A neck injury put her out for 17 months in 2002-2003, and she suffered a knee injury in early 2005 that put her out of active competition for several months. To be honest, Lita was never my favorite wrestler in the women's division, and I disliked it when she would be pushed to the top of the heap over Trish or Victoria or whoever the top female face had been before Lita rode back into the picture. The main thing I remember (for all the wrong reasons) from Lita's 2005 was her relationship with Kane. In order to preserve my sanity I won't recap all of that, although the wedding was pretty hilarious.

Then Lita left Kane (actually Matt, but who's counting?) for Edge and became the superbitch most of us remember her as. Although public opinion eventually turned against Matt for being a whiny emo kid, at first people were OUTRAGED at Edge & Lita. To be honest, I don't think Edge got that much heat, if anything people were jealous of him. But Lita…one of the few women in WWE that hadn't been marketed as a total slut, who had been perceived as somebody for young pre-teen girls to look up to, well, she got a lot of heat for it. On the bright side, her heat helped Edge get over as a top heel in WWE and he still remains one of WWE's top stars to this day.

Lita's departure from WWE stood in contrast with her top rival Trish, who received a heroine's farewell in her hometwon by defeating Lita for the Women's title. Lita put over Mickie James on her way out, and Cryme Tyme auctioned off her merchandise after the match. Not that there's anything wrong with a heel putting somebody else over while retiring, but the Cryme Tyme stuff was seen by most (myself included) as a bit much.

In a way, Lita's progression as a character in WWE reminds me of the progression of the character of most women we (well, at least I) meet. At first we think they're super cool, nice and interesting to be around. Eventually we find out they're dirty whores doing the wild thing with everybody except us, and that's pretty goshdarn disappointing. But, what can ya do?

(And before you female readers get offended, keep in mind that I haven't actually met any of you and you may very well be different than most of the women I've encountered. I haven't written you all off…yet. And besides, if you're smart enough to read my column, you're already better than them. So there.)

At the end of the day, Lita is just like every other woman. No better, no worse. I think most of us have forgiven her for her transgressions, and she would be welcomed back with open arms if she were to return to WWE. Well, for at least a minute anyway, until she turned heel on somebody. Because that's what women do, you know. Can't live with them, end of story.

Not that I'm bitter, or anything like that. Of course not.


Stamford Occurrences and Outbursts:

Speaking of Matt Hardy, he suffered a slightly torn PCL and stretched some ligaments in his surgically repaired left knee during a match with Finlay. How much time he will miss due to this injury is unknown at this point, and he plans on working at Survivor Series. I know the old-school way is to work through injuries, but sometimes it's really quite ridiculous and ends up with people missing more time than they would have anyway. Ask Rey Mysterio. Hopefully, the fact that he's worked three matches on the knee so far means it isn't that bad.

Our favorite Raw General Manager of all time Mike Adamle was very upset when he got to television the night his character resigned his position. He was simply told that plans had changed and that it was going to be his last show. No forewarning. On one hand, it's kinda shitty to do that to a guy who's done his job to the best of his ability (even if he wasn't all that great at it), but on the other hand, didn't Adamle kind of see this coming? I know he probably hasn't watched wrestling as long as I have, but I thought it was pretty obvious from the way the storyline was going that Adamle wasn't going to last much longer as general manager one way or another. Am I the only one who wasn't surprised by this, or was Adamle the only one who was?

Also not a big surprise…Chuck Palumbo's dismissal from WWE. His contract was set to expire rather soon, and they hadn't done anything with him in months. I was always of the opinion of "why did they bring him back in the first place?"…some people online seemed to like his act on Smackdown, but it never got over and he never did anything that meant anything. I think he was pretty successful in his last Japanese stint, so that might be the best place for him to go now.

Johnny Knoxville was injured and he hurt his neck when he did the angle on Raw a few weeks back. He has been wearing a neck brace ever since. So if you need another reason to cheer Great Khali…there you go.

Here are your top-selling WWE DVDs for the year 2008:

WrestleMania 24: 323,000 Units Sold
The HHH DVD: 241,000 Units Sold
The Steve Austin DVD: 231,000 Units Sold
The Rock DVD: 206,000 Units Sold

Where's Flair? If this proves nothing eise, it's that commercials = DVD buys. And you know HHH has a printout of that chart blown up and on his wall.

Here's Jim Ross's take on couples in wrestling…

Not with any one in particular in mind but does any one ever day dream why "wrestling couples" usually don't make it? It's a challenging profession, much akin to Hollywood, when there are two performers in the marriage or relationship where often times egos and who gets the most TV time or the biggest "push" can adversely affect these fragile to begin with unions. For the record, when I was head of talent of the WWE I cringed when I saw two performers who traveled almost constantly become couples. Travel and ego's seem to be the root causes of these "not meant to be train wrecks." Some couples cannot separate the difference in being in lust and being in love.

On one hand, he's rehashing some points I made several eons ago about love and wrestling not mixing, and I have not been proven wrong on that front. On the other hand, why is good ol' JR so concerned with wrestlers' personal lives? And am I reading it wrong or does he seem to be ok with the talent fooling around, as long as they're not in actual relationships? Also, what's the difference between lust & love? I just don't get where JR's coming from here. Maybe he should be more concerned with calling the matches and less concerned with who's sleeping with who, hmmm?

Today in Wrestling History

1938 - Jim Londos defeated Bronco Nagurski for the World Heavyweight title
1983 - Ted DiBiase defeated Brett Wayne for the Georgia National Heavyweight title
1992 - Event - Clash of the Champions XXI
1992 - Shane Douglas & Rick Steamboat defeated Dustin Rhodes & Barack Windham for the WCW World Tag Team title
1995 - Event - November to Remember, ECW Arena Philadelphia, PA
1996 - Brian Christopher defeated Macho Warrior Ric Hogan for the USWA Southern Heavyweight title
2000 - Homicide defeated Jay Lover for the vacant Jersey All Pro Heavyweight Title
2000 - Nick Berk defeated Trent Acid & Ric Blade to win the vacant for the Jersey All Pro Light-Heavyweight Title
2000 - Skinhead Ivan defeated Dr. Hurtz for the New Jersey State Title
2001 - Event - Survivor Series, Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro,NC
2001 - Edge defeated Test for the WWF Intercontinental title
2001 - Edge unified the WWF Intercontinental and WCW US Heavyweight titles
2001 - The Dudley Boyz defeated The Hardy Boyz for the WWF Tag Team title
2001 - The Dudley Boyz unified the WWF and WCW Tag Team titles
2001 - Trish Stratus defeated Ivory, Lita, Jazz, Molly and Jacqueline in a 6 Way Match for the vacant WWF Women's title

1963 - Born - Brian Steele
1975 - Born - Taiyo Kea
1978 - Died - Eric the Red Hansen in a motor vehicle accident at 34

Wow. November to Remember 1995 is the first ECW show I remember seeing on Channel 25 in Cincinnati. Good times. Also good times: the end of the Invasion. Woohoo! If memory serves me correctly, that was Trish's first Women's title victory. Also, I wonder whatever happened to Jay Lover.

Independent and International Insights~!

ROH has been making a lot of news recently by booking their upcoming shows. All of this information you can find on our friendly 411 Newswire. I will say this…apparently Gabe's tendency to book expensive Japanese guys isn't what got him fired.

Speaking of Gabe, he now has a MySpace blog where he's talking about things that are on his mind. He doesn't sound very bitter, which makes it a lot less fun from where I sit. The best thing about MySpace blogs is that's where you can go to be all bitter and emo about life and whatnot. It gets all your frustrations out in a healthy matter. Come on Gabe, let it out!

The Insane Clown Posse has promised that the Juggalo World Order will be making their presence known at WWE & ROH events very soon, much like they did at TNA's Turning Point PPV. I don't know about you guys, but I pretty much stopped paying attention to ICP after the Joker's Card series ended. Which was probably a lot longer than most of you paid attention to them. That being said, I don't hate on them running their own promotion and helping indy wrestlers make money and whatnot. And hell, I don't even fault them that much for wanting to get on television. But with all of that being said…who wants to see a rap group that was last popular sometime around 1998 doing a wrestling gimmick that was last popular sometime around 1998? Didn't MTV teach us that 1998 is dead when they cancelled TRL?

Let's head south of the border…AAA is not planning on bringing in any new American talent anytime soon due to economic concerns. This is bad news for Paul London, who would have been a sought-after commodity due to his in-ring ability and his ability to speak Spanish. Ari's dream of London calling for an ROH return is one step closer to happening.

In your Vampiro update, he says it will be at least six months before he comes back to in-ring action, if he comes back at all. Rumor has it he will be coming back to TV soon as a babyface commissioner.

CMLL is suffering from attendance woes, and is considering bringing back Shocker to try and draw a crowd. Unfortunately, Shocker has quite the reputation for missing events, but they need all the help they can get and Perro Aguayo Jr's too busy trying to get bookings in the US to be bothered.

Plugs!

Don't forget to check out TigerFlashGames.com when you're bored at work and can't get on to all the fancy porn sites you like to use at home.

Berenstein!

Prag!

Domingo!

O!

Lansdell!

Melchor!

Csonka! (and others!)

Politics!

Join me right here next week when I talk about this Friday night's ROH show that I'm attending, some wrestling books I have recently read, and whatever else is going on in the world of pro wrestling!

A Beautiful Sendoff…