News From Cook’s Corner 08.02.11

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I hope you’re all having a fantastic week, and maybe I can make it better by presenting the latest & greatest wrestling news, rapping with the readers a bit, and wondering what’s up with these crazy dudes stalking the very first winner of the News From Cook‘s Corner Hot 100. What I’d really like to know is why everybody immediately suspected me when this thing went down. Do I read or sound like a sixty year old man to you?

Today actually marks a very interesting anniversary in the history of 411wrestling.com…it was on August 2, 2004 that Chris Hyatte wrote his very last 411wrestling.com column and much of the 411 staff announced they were leaving with him & Widro to form a new website. People wondered whether 411 would be able to survive the loss of great writers like Hyatte, Scott Keith, Josh Grutman (full disclosure, Grut’s the only one of the bunch that I actually knew and he was great people), Flea, Eric S. & way too many other people to count. I’ll never discredit their writing ability, I was a huge fan of most of their work, but their leaving ended up being the best thing possible for 411 Wrestling in the long run. New writers that had the desire to write & were still interested in pro wrestling got the chance to come in and blow the roof off the place. Larry Csonka rose up and became the man around here. Ashish became extra-motivated to prove 411 was bigger than those big names that left.

And somehow I snuck in the back door & I’m still here!

411wrestling.com survived “The Split” and did quite well, thanks for asking. I don’t know what happened to most of the people that left…I know Keith has his blog & Hyatte got everybody at IP mad at him, bounced around a little while before falling in love with Trish Stratus & disappearing, but I don’t know if Josh Grut still writes or how Eric feels about the Obama Administration. I imagine he’d be supportive of them because he’s a Chicago liberal, but a tad disappointed because they haven’t done more to stick it down the GOP’s throats. I hope they’re all doing well, and I appreciate the stage they helped build here for me to do my thing.

Good times.

I hate Bud Light…I LOVE Bud Light Lime – @ZackRyder

This was not a comment on last week’s column, I just wanted to post it here to show that I’m not the only person in the world that hates Bud Light & loves Bud Light Lime. WWWYKI

The hottest angle in wrestling becomes a remake of Shawn/Razor, belt/best 1994.

I pose this to Cook and the Comment Section who would defend WWE:

Kurt Angle says he’s leaving TNA because of Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo are killing TNA like they did WCW. Bischoff/Russo tell Sting he will be fired if he loses.

At the next PPV Angle beats Sting for the TNA title…when a Russo/Bischoff screw job goes awry due to Sting’s intervention. Angle “leaves” TNA with the title.

At the next Impact, Angle is “He Who Shall Not Be Named (HWSNBN for future reference) and a tournament is scheduled to fill the vacant title. Samoa Joe and AJ Styles reach the finals…but Hulk Hogan comes out and says he and the Network are firing Bischoff/Russo, Sting is not fired, and the Joe/AJ final will be next week.

At Impact the following week, AJ beats Joe for the title and later Hogan comes out and says Sting never got his deserved rematch…so he’ll get it tonight on Impact vs. AJ.

Later in the show, Sting beats AJ for the title. As he’s celebrating, Milli Vanilli’s “Blame it on the Rain” plays and HWSNBN emerges with the TNA title. He and Sting do a stare down, raising their respective belts to the crowd, and the screen fades to black.

Tell me you all would not have shit all over this and why? – Ronnie

“Blame it on the Rain”? That’s the best you got? What, Ace of Base & “The Sign” didn’t want none of that? I think this wouldn’t work as well, and it all comes down to the following:

-Kurt Angle is not a revolutionary
-Sting is not as over as John Cena & doesn’t represent the establishment as well as Cena does
-Hogan siding with the Network & firing Bischoff makes no sense

But fear not, you aren’t the only person mad because we like a WWE storyline…

Before the pay per view, Angle comes out and says he’s done with TNA.

Angle says: “The Carter family are pouring in good money after bad with no clue how to run a wrestling company. And they’ve entrusted Hogan/Bischoff/Russo to do a repeat of WCW’s dying days.”

Angle says: “I came here to get away from the incompetence of up north and help build something new and exciting for the next generation of wrestlers. Joe and AJ gave me the best matches not just in TNA, but my career…and all TNA does is bury them and they fire Petey William, Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal and replace them with a succession of cast-offs and has-beens and never-weres.”

Angle says: “Hogan/Bischoff/Russo have made TNA a laughingstock. Hogan is a selfish, crippled old man, desperately clinging to the past. Bischoff is a con man, who found success on Ted Turner’s coattails and has been living off it ever since. Russo is a one-trick pony, who conned WCW and TNA into believing he ran WWE.”

Angle says: “And Dixie Carter. Let me tell you about the spoiled, little girl who begged her daddy to buy her a wrestling company….(the mic goes dead and the screen fades to black).”

Come on comment section, tell me how this and TNA suck and WWE/Punk are so awesome…go ahead, let me have it. – TK

The difference between CM Punk “shooting” on WWE management & Kurt Angle “shooting” on TNA management is fairly simple: Punk is believable. He says things that we actually believe that he would think based on what we know about him. Whether we know him as well as we think we know him is irrelevant. Kurt Angle is always kissing TNA management ass and thinks that Dixie Carter is the greatest person ever, so if he came out all of a sudden and said bad things about them, we wouldn’t believe him. It’s that simple, TK. It’s all about believability. We believe CM Punk as an anti-management revolutionary.

We wouldn’t believe Kurt Angle in the same role, and it’s hard to believe most of what Kurt Angle says these days anyway so it’s tough to buy into him “shooting”.

So who is going to be more bitter about the Punk angle, Russo for the worked shoot succeeding or Matt Hardy for the use of social media? Or will they try to claim some of the credit for being the visionary? – Guest#0002

I would guess the person that spent a lot of their time burying Punk to the dirt sheets that he claims to despise and never quite made it to the main event level in WWE would be more bitter about it.

No, you don’t. Cross is ok, but he’s one of those small indie guys who’s basically a glorified gymnast. You’ll never see him have a ****+ match – he’s nowhere near as talented or charismatic as guys like Danielson, Punk, Joe, Low Ki and Aries. Austin recognised that and let him go. His judgement was completely correct. – Guest#6316

I get that, and I’m not as high on Matt Cross as a WWE Superstar as some people are…but the second elimination? Really? There were plenty of other people on that show that should have left before he did. The problem was that he decided to lay back and not make waves. I still wonder what would have happened if Austin Aries actually made it on the show, because he would have gone out of his way to make everybody else on the show look like a bunch of jabronis.

It’s all right though, I fully accept that Steve Austin has forgotten more about wrestling that my audience & I have ever known. He’s certainly made more money than the rest of us.

Again, from a kayfabe perspective, why on EARTH would Rey Mysterio agree to defend the title against SuperCena when he already wrestled a 15 minute match earlier in the night, and wrestled 3 matches the week before (one of those matches was the incredibly brutal MITB, btw). Absolutely dumbfoundingly stupid booking. Not to mention, Cena/Rey would have been a perfect Summerslam main, and we could have had Punk return and do the belt vs. belt posedown deal to end the PPV. I mean, c’mon… it’s just stupid. – The TradeMark Experience

That was the one downside of the whole angle, which I pointed out. I never like it when somebody can’t even hold on to a championship for a whole television show, and it did make Rey look like a goof. Cena vs. Rey would have been a fine SummerSlam main event and probably would have done good numbers if they built it right. I guess the way I would answer your question is that Rey has never been one to back down from a fight, so when Triple H asked him if he’d wrestle Cena later in the show he had no choice but to agree to it. It wasn’t a smart move on Rey’s part, but he would have felt lesser of himself if he backed out and didn’t wrestle Cena on that night.

Oh, no! I guess that means it doesn’t count! Fortunately, you have no authority to decide who is and isn’t the correct champion. WWE.com is the final word on which reigns are legitimate, and they recognise Rey and Cena’s title victories. – Frie

My column, my authority. I won’t be recognizing WWE.com’s authority until I’m writing for them. Yay thinking for myself until I get paid!

“It doesn’t seem that she’s been up to much since then, which is a shame”

Yeah, only ACTUALLY wrestling now & headlining in Mexico. Dick. – Wow

The interesting thing about this is I’m not quite sure why she’s mad at me. It’s not like I listed the things that the people in the comment section said she was up to, said anything mean or even mentioned the story with her that made all the big gossip sites. I mean, we had a bit of an issue a few months ago, but it was more to do with her going back on her word than anything I did, and I’ve long since gotten over it because I suck at holding grudges and have moved on to other projects. If anybody should be mad, it’s me, but I’m not, so…

I just can’t win with some people. I try to take the high road and people complain, and I’m sure people will complain this week too. C’est la vie.

As anyone thought that HHH was behind Nexus. He was never touched by them and they took out McMahon. That, I believe started this “Board not trusting VKM decisions”. Notice how when Nexus first attacked it was during a Cena and Punk w/ Gallows match. Barrett often said that this was part of bigger picture and HHH was behind that to take over the WWE. I think the goal was to eliminate the biggest threats, Cena and Undertaker. Ever wondered why Nexus attacked Taker twice? Then it took HHH himself to officially take out Taker. I think Cena’s fight with Nexus, the rise of Orton as a bigger star, HHH taking out Taker are all connected. Hell I still think HHH was the GM. When HHH was wrestling, then it was Stephanie.

All HHH needed to do was to find that final piece of the puzzle and that was Punk, a big enough threat but that could kept under the radar at the same time, like being a 3 time champion but losing every ppv match for a year.

HHH has always been the cerebral assassin and now he’s taking that cut throat mentality to the back office instead of the ring. I see a huge turn with HHH because let’s face it, if he’s not DX’s HHH he’s waaay better a heel. – Higherlevel

I left out the part with Punk re-signing because they revealed on SD that he did, but I think there’s some interesting points here. There’s more going on with Triple H than meets the eye, and I have a feeling he will be turning here at some point…if for no other reason than WWE is more comfortable with heel authority figures. It’s too bad the ship has sailed on the Nexus because it’d make sense for Triple H to be upset that Punk kicked Wade out and formed a New Nexus that got rid of his big-picture plans to become a Punk worshipping group.

Gotta love how the IWC embraces everything about Punk here, just because he was the IWC’s ROH darling. The execution of Punk having ‘left’ just a couple of weeks ago and to come back is obviously what the IWC hates most. And nobody even talks about the fact that Cena didn’t leave at least for a longer period of time after losing the match at MITB. If a wrestler from TNA or another current wrestler in the WWE replaced Punk in this feud, there would be little hype on the internet. I know Punk was great with his promo skill and all, but everybody is overlooking the fact that Cena is holding the title again, and that the title changed hands twice in a night. This just gets to show that CM Punk is to the IWC what John Cena is to the 5 year old WWE fan. If Punk was the one dominating the main event scene and holding the World Titles like Cena, the IWC would love it all the same. Little Jimmy’s Cena = IWC’s CM Punk – Comment on this on Mailbag

1. If you’re commenting on this column you’re officially part of the Internet wrestling community. Sorry, I just feel the need to point this out to everybody that uses the “IWC = Evil” talking points while posting on an Internet wrestling website.

2. People are talking about all the points you brought up….well, except for the bit where Cena didn’t leave, but everybody knew that John Cena wasn’t leaving. They already killed that stipulation off last year and we all complained when it was brought back for this match. By the time it actually happened we’d accepted that Cena would be back the next night. It’s what they do. There’s plenty of criticism of this angle going on in the world of talking about pro wrestling.

3. You’re the third person in this malebag to complain about the angle because if somebody else was in the CM Punk role nobody would like it. Couldn’t we give CM Punk credit for playing the role well instead of being bummed out that our favorite TNA wrestler didn’t get the spot and is languishing in a crappy storyline in Orlando?

(The nice thing about TNA is I can be really vague here and still be right because everybody in that company is languishing in a crappy storyline in Orlando.)

4. Most Internet fans would turn on CM Punk at the drop of a hat if he was dominating the main event scene and winning world titles all the time. If Punk won every PPV main event for the rest of the year it wouldn’t be long before more people like yourself sprung up and said “RAWR I H8 PUNK”.

5. There’s nothing wrong with people having favorite wrestlers. Little Jimmy loves John Cena, and good for him that he does. We need more Little Jimmies out there getting their parents to buy merchandise, tickets & PPVs. It’s good for business when there are wrestlers that people gravitate towards, whether it’s Cena, Punk, Rey Mysterio or even The Miz.

6. You don’t like CM Punk. That’s fine, we here at 411 are all about people having different opinions. I could be wrong, but it sure seems like you don’t think it’s ok for people like me to have favorite wrestlers, like the fact that I write a column for a pretty big independently-owned website that covers wrestling & other pop culture takes away my right to like certain wrestlers more than others. Until Larry tells me I’m not allowed to like anybody in pro wrestling I will continue with my incessant pimping of wrestlers that I do like. I think most readers have learned to accept that I like some people a lot more than they do.

Good stuff this week. And now, the fake news!

Maryse has filed a request for a permanent restraining order against 61-year old Lee Silber. She says that Silber has sent numerous letters to her home and left more than fifty voicemail messages on her cell phone that were “extremely disturbing & delusional”. I wondered aloud on the Off The Team message board how this guy managed to get her phone number, and one of the other members was able to find it by Googling pretty quickly. That’s pretty creepy & I hope she’s had her number changed.

Silber seemed to take Maryse’s character’s personality pretty seriously, as he attempted to go the Ted DiBiase route of getting her attention. He promised to give her a check for $100,000 along with a 100 carat diamond worth 20 million dollars to prove he was her friend. He also has promised to take her to heaven with him, which couldn’t possibly happen if I know my theology right.

I’m probably not telling you guys anything you don’t already know, but I think it does deserve saying: It’s one thing to chat up your favorite Diva on the Facebook or Twitter & ask them questions about their career & such, but it’s quite another to go to the trouble to find their phone number & repeatedly call it with insane messages. WWE will be increasing security at their events to make sure that this gentleman doesn’t make an appearance at one of their shows, and I imagine she’ll be keeping a low profile for a little while. Hopefully this matter will be taken care of and sick freaks like this guy won’t become the norm rather than an aberration.

Upcoming live event listings indicate that Sin Cara will be returning to WWE on August 20 in Tacoma, Washington. Either he’s going to be sticking around after all, they were too lazy to change the advertisements, or they’re going to bring him back for the Mexico tour and then release him. I’m leaning towards him sticking around because Triple H isn’t going to want to give up on him so soon. Cara really does have a lot of potential and should be a big money-earner for WWE in the next few years as long as he can get his head straight and not do anything stupid.

Yeah, yeah, I know he’s Botch Cara & all, but he’ll grow out of that. And that doesn’t really matter so much to the kids getting parents to buy their shirts & masks.

Remember when CM Punk said he wanted his own collector’s cup and was sick of being left off of them? Well, 7-11 has a new series of collector’s cups, and here’s the list of who’s on them:

-John Cena
-The Rock
-The Miz
-Stone Cold Steve Austin
-Rey Mysterio
-Randy Orton
-Shawn Michaels
-Rowdy Roddy Piper

OK, that’s a pretty stellar list if you leave Miz off. But where in the blue hell is our CM Punk collector’s cup? First Good Humor refuses to bring back the WWE Ice Cream Bars, and now 7-11 won’t give us a CM Punk collector’s cup. It’s like these companies don’t want to make money or something. I don’t care all that much because there are no 7-11s in my area, but this is still ridiculous.

I guess it could be worse for Punk, as Jerry Lawler finally got an official WWE Shop t-shirt after nineteen years with the company. Yeesh, I think the Brooklyn Brawler got his own WWE Shop t-shirt within nineteen years.

Some of you will probably remember Billy Gunn doing several shoot interviews over the last few years where he took shots at his former DX buddy Triple H. He’s suggested that the Game didn’t marry Stephanie McMahon because he was in love with her, among other things. Well, it seems that Mr. Gunn has changed his tune if this interview he did with James Guttman last week is any indication:

“Has my position changed with him? Yeah. It has. Do I want to pick up the phone every day and call him to apologize? Yeah. Because it was something I did out of selfishness and the selfish person that I was back then. Not that I blame it on anything, but I had a bunch of things going on in my life that was really not that good. I took it out on him and, like I said, I wasn’t taking responsibility for my own actions. That’s what I did. I lashed out at him and everybody I could and I had somebody who was willing to listen and let me go on a live shoot tape to say whatever I wanted. Why would I not? It was all about making me look better and making someone else look bad. I know now that people were going, “Yeah, well it’s really just you. It’s not anyone else.” So yeah. I regret what I did then and for sure now because I’m sure something like that is keeping me from being back there training people. I wish I could change it, but I can’t change it. So I just have to live with the things I’ve done and the actions that I do from here on forward.”

I have a feeling Billy is the first of what will be a large number of people kissing Triple H’s ass trying to get a job here in the next few months. It’s like they thought Vince would live forever or something…

-Pictured above is StrikeForce MMA fighter Miesha Tate. I don’t think she made the Top 25 Greatest MMA Fighters of all time, but she should have! She’s also in the Plugs section because that’s how we roll.

-We start things right off with the Punker! The Champ is Here!

-Yup, he’s a total babyface now. I can live with that.

-At least he hasn’t lost his arrogance!

-“Apparently it’s time to play The Game.”

-What are these personal feelings from HHH?

-You know, CM Punk isn’t the first Chicagoan that said they were going to facilitate change.

-Who doesn’t love Motorhead?

-“skinny fat ass”? There’s my next fantasy football team name! I already have a team called the Doofus Sons-In-Law.

-Something tells me that this HHH/Punk thing’s gonna get physical sooner rather than later, but I think a slow build’s the way to go here. Yeah, I know they don’t excel at that these days.

-Nice to see Kaitlyn’s still around. Very nice.

-I’m a little surprised Maryse isn’t in this battle royal. I’d figure that it’d be a good idea to hide her in this match so if crazy stalker person shows up he’d have to go through a lot of people to get to her.

-Odd that Kelly’s rooting for Beth here. Out of all the people in this match Beth would have the best chance of beating her.

-Alicia Fox is out and my fears of a Kelly/Alicia match at SummerSlam were mercifully unfounded.

-Now Kelly’s blaming Cole for Eve getting eliminated. This is like when I blame my dad for making a Red strike out.

-Beth wins! It was nice knowing you, Kelly.

-Is the microphone a pipe bomb in Beth’s hands too? She just dropped the microphone like Punk did earlier!

-How about Josh Mathews rocking the glasses this week? He doesn’t look like a teenager anymore.

-I’m not really sure what R-Truth talks about most of the time, but all I know is that somebody’s gonna get got. Whatever that means.

-How come Rey’s the only person on the roster that gets to push pyro buttons?

-Morrison still walks down to the ring really slow. He should have gotten that fixed while he was out.

-You’d think Morrison would be reticent to tag with anybody since he’s facing his last two regular partners in this match. Is he going to be the modern-day Sting?

-JR claims that Miz is ubiquitous, which means he’s capable of being everywhere at the same time. This explains how he makes all those media appearances.

-R-Truth wins but they play Miz’s music since R-Truth has no music. It’s gotta be part of the conspiracy.

-Morrison returns to WWE by jobbing on Smack Down & Raw. Yeah, they’ve got some big plans for him.

-Triple H having been in the business for twenty years makes me feel really old, and I’m like half his age!

-OK, I’m a little more than half his age, but still.

-Has Mark Henry finally met his match? Well, if there’s anybody on SmackDown that’ll give that fella a fight it’s Sheamus.

-Honky Tonk Man vs. Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam 1988 is probably the best sub-sixty second match ever.

-Vickie & Dolph are looking good tonight! Yeah, I threw Dolph in there too, why not?

-Dolph also yells “Follow that!” after leaving the bathroom.

-Downstait is the name of the band playing all these songs for guys wearing suits, right?

-I think the US title is about the right place for Alex Riley, and I support Dolph feuding with somebody not named Kofi Kingston for once.

-You think A-Ri’s trying to get Dolph to drop Vickie so he can go out with her? I wouldn’t put it past him.

-Zack Ryder still finds time to team with Santino even though he’s also the Assistant to the SmackDown General Manager? Well, they are facing the World’s Worst Tag Team so I guess it won’t take too much time away from his duties.

-How about Ryder being on the last three WWE TV shows? Here’s hoping it’s the start of a Cal Ripkenesque streak!

-Nice to see Otunga & McGillicutty finally gave up on the Nexus coming back, and it’s nice they now have music as bad as they are.

-I hope they don’t have Downstait remix Zack Ryder’s theme.

-The fans demand Ryder!

-That belt only cost Ryder $1500? Not bad.

-What the hell is Santino wearing on his hand?

-WWTT wins. On the bright side you guys will get to hear Larry complain about it on the Monday edition of The 411 on Wrestling with the esteemed Andrew Critchell.

-Obviously Punk & HHH will be getting along from here on out.

-RICARDO RODRIGUEZ! Nice ride for ADR!

-Evan Bourne vs. ADR! I hope it isn’t ruined by Cole complaining about what JR says about him on Twitter.

-Shockingly ADR wins in a fun match. Kofi’s shirt hurts my eyes.

-John Cena wins the WWE.com poll. So can we stop claiming that the IWC loves CM Punk now? Obviously they are full bore behind John Cena. Duh.

-ACE(S), BABY!

-Johnny Ace is very popular with the Indianapolis fans.

-Cena does a great Ace impression.

-I think everybody’s getting a mixed reaction tonight except for Zack Ryder.

-Cena & Punk fighting over fan reaction & music is an interesting way to end the show.

You may recall Rob Van Dam talking last week about how some young bucks wouldn’t even say hello to him in the locker room, much less ask him for advice. Well, it turns out that he was indeed talking about Nick & Matt Jackson, and they had a response to RVD’s comments on a radio show:

“We knew he was talking about us. At first, we were like why? I didn’t feel like either of us had any issues with Rob. Rob always seemed like a loner who just did his own thing. He’s not exactly the kind of guy that you would approach. Every day we saw him at TV, we both said ‘hi’ to him. So he didn’t have the right to make comments like that. Just because we didn’t go to Rob specifically, I hope he didn’t take that personally. If we needed any advice, we would go to veterans like Terry Taylor, D-Lo Brown, Tommy Dreamer or Al Snow.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t specify which one said it, but for fun I’m assuming they both said it at the same time. I’m leaning towards believing the Bucks on this he said/they said matter, as it’d probably be easier to approach the guys they listed for advice than RVD. Now if D-Lo comes out and says “Those guys didn’t recognize!”, then I’ll have something to think about.

Matt Morgan will be out of action for six weeks with a torn pectoral muscle. I have to admit I’m shocked that it took this long for somebody in the Bound For Glory Series to be put out of action. I thought for sure it’d be two or three weeks.

TNA is taking advantage of the recent spike in CM Punk’s popularity by offering his TNA matches on their On Demand service. Some have said that it’s pretty lame on TNA’s part and shows that they have more confidence in Punk to draw than anybody they actually have, but what I’m wondering is why in the world Ring of Honor isn’t doing something like this. They’ve got a lot of classic Punk material in their library that they probably could be selling to people that heard about Ring of Honor in Punk’s promo a few weeks back, but instead they seem to be selling everything off at bargain-basement prices and not re-stocking anything. It’s an interesting business strategy & makes me wonder if ROH’s new ownership has any idea that CM Punk used to work for them, or knows who CM Punk is.

In related news CM Punk did not think highly of his TNA stint at all and hated it so much there that he was the only guy splitting time between TNA & ROH in 2004 when the Feinstein Incident happened & TNA pulled their talent from the company that decided to stick with ROH. It seems like that’s worked out very well for him.

TMZ reported last week that former Big Brother star Jesse Gooderz (that can’t be his real last name, can it?) has signed with TNA. Apparently he’s been training at the 3D wrestling school ever since leaving that show & he’s expected to debut on TV by the end of the year. I’m not particularly offended by this because reality show people gotta work too, and it seems like he’s been taking it seriously & trying to learn the craft before going on TV & making a fool on himself. The “Mr. Pectacular” name worries me a bit, but I’m willing to give him a chance to impress.

Don’t get your hopes up for seeing MVP in TNA anytime soon. When somebody on Twitter asked him about going to the company if he got homesick for America, he replied with “I could never be THAT homesick!”. I think as long as New Japan’s paying him the big bucks and giving him a big push he’s going to be pretty happy in the Land of the Rising Sun, which should make the one reader that whines and complains that nobody wants to wrestle in Japan whenever I bring it up very confused.

Shelley Martinez posted a video on YouTube pitching an idea to Vince Russo for her coming back to TNA. I think she’s barking up the wrong tree there, but I still wouldn’t mind her barking up my tree. HI-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Pictured above is the lovely & talented Terra Calaway, who you may remember from her special guest appearance in the June 28th edition of the Corner. She’ll be on The Greg DeMarco Show tonight…I’m told that Patrick O’Dowd & myself will be conducting the interview, but that’ll probably go south once Patrick goes off-topic & starts blabbering on about the St. Louis Cardinals. Seriously though, it should be a great listen as she’s a pretty smart chick and has an interesting insight into the pro wrestling business. Make sure you tune in at 10:30PM EST tonight for all of the fun & excitement! I know I’m excited about it, and I can only hope I don’t screw it up by saying something ridiculous as I typically do whenever talking with beautiful women.

Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan has been a wrestling fan for quite a long time, and now he’s going to be having more of a role in it. He’ll be the Creative Director for a new promotion called Resistance Pro, which will have more information on what exactly they’ll be doing at Wizard World Chicago on August 13. I have no idea who’s behind this promotion or what type of product they‘ll be presenting, but signing Corgan up is a smart move because it’s already getting them some good publicity.

The card for the JCW card at the Gathering of the Juggalos on August 12 in Cave In Rock, Illinois has been announced, and it looks like a doozy…

-I Quit Match: Terry Funk vs. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
-The Outsiders (Scott Hall & Kevin Nash) vs. The New Age Outlaws (B.G. James & Kip James) with special guest referee Sean Waltman
-Greg “The Hammer” Valentine vs. Tito Santana in a Steel Cage Match
-A 10-Man “Eliminations for Generations” battle royal featuring: “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, Tony Atlas, Honky Tonk Man, Carlito, “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka, “Big Daddy V” Viscera, Rob Conway, Zach Gowen, Ronnie Garvin, and U-Gene Dinsmore
-Too Cool (Big Kishi & Brian Christopher) vs. The Powers of Pain (The Barbarian & The Warlord)
-The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express vs. The Headbangers
-Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera
-“Memphis Madness 4-Way”: Jerry “The King” Lawler vs. Koko B. Ware vs. Kamala vs. Dutch Mantell
-Tracy Smothers vs. “Wildfire” Tommy Rich
-“Philly Madness 6-Pack”: Raven vs. Al Snow vs. Rhino vs. “The Franchise” Shane Douglas vs. Balls Mahoney vs. a ????? opponent

I think we need to do a 411 Wrestling Roundtable for this show. Funk vs. Piper? Outsiders vs. Outlaws? Valentine vs. Santana? Backlund vs. Patera? Sign me up! It’s tough to argue against JCW when they book old-timer shows like this one and have Officer Colt Cabana as their heavyweight champion. Good times.

By the way, I’m picking Honky Tonk Man in the battle royal because there’s no way he’s taking a bump over the top rope. Honky don’t roll like that.

The Friday edition of The 411 on Wrestling featured Larry Csonka & your humble correspondent talking about CM Punk, Impact, Smack Down & the long-lost 411 Sports Zone. Good times!

We hope that Ari Berenstein had a happy birthday! I have a feeling his Mike Bennett countdown isn’t going to go too well because ROH doesn’t seem too concerned with running shows lately. Such a shame for the Prodigy!

I was e-mailed a petition to have Wes Kirk fired from 411. Unfortunately I already signed it as “Wes Kirk” as a joke, so I don’t think I can help these people with their goal. Sorry!

The Triple Threat covers all the latest wrestling news.

Nick Bazar talks about wrestlers who were perfect on one side of the face/heel fence. Think about this for a minute: Not only did WCW make Rey Mysterio a heel, they unmasked the guy. And we wonder why WCW went out of business. OK, we don’t really wonder why WCW went out of business.

The MMA Zone is counting down the Top 25 MMA Fighters of All Time, and I chimed in on a couple of my favorites. Being a wrestling fan I probably don’t need to explain my Ken Shamrock markdom, and there’s somebody in today’s installment that ranks as one of the greatest people that ever lived that I just had to talk about.

Well, that’s all we have time for this week! The BFFs Michael Ornelas & Nick Bazar will be in tomorrow, join me later this week for Fact or Fictions in Movies & Wrestling, and I’ll be back next week with more News From Cook’s Corner! Until then…