Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! The last couple of days have been all about the returns. Folks that wrestling fans have been waiting to see for a long time returned to their profession on Friday & Saturday night. As you’d expect, the results varied. Today, we break them down.

We’ll take a look at the TakeOver results with some thoughts on them. I only saw the last two SummerSlam matches, and after hearing the results don’t have much motivation to check out the rest of the card. I mean, Edge coming out to Gangrel’s music with the ring of fire but no Gangrel? Pretty weak, in my opinion. You gotta bring the fanged guy back if you’re going to take his gimmick. Last I heard he was based in Vegas, so I don’t know what happened there. Vampires gotta be immune to Covid, right?

Lord, I apologize for that joke. I also apologize for using a Larry the Cable Guy line. Guessing that act hasn’t aged well. Let’s talk about these wrestling returns, shall we?

Return of the Punker

CM Punk’s return pop is legitimately one of the biggest any of us will ever hear. #AEWRampage pic.twitter.com/OKhs1OVuBk

— Alex McCarthy (@AlexM_talkSPORT) August 21, 2021

I don’t think that CM Punk fans can ask for more than what they got Friday night. They got exactly what everybody hoped for. An extended entrance with Punk soaking in the adulation of a rabid United Center audience. A promo covering where Punk had been and where he’s going next. Some, but not too much, and plenty to follow. A challenge to Darby Allin, who looked pretty cool up there in the rafters with Sting. Some ice cream bars for the fans in attendance.

One of my criticisms of AEW is they often try to do too much in too little time. We saw that at the end of the first Rampage show with Jamie Hayter joining Britt Baker in a heel beatdown in a location it wouldn’t have gotten heat unless they set the American flag on fire or something. That wasn’t the case on Friday night. They didn’t have Punk run down at the end of the show to attack Allin while he was celebrating with his buddies. We will hear from Punk again on Wednesday. For now, that’s all we need.

The response was pretty much everything AEW could have hoped for. Positive fan reaction, sports media coverage, Google news searches making people looking for WWE see CM Punk & AEW instead of SummerSlam. They hit a home run on Friday night. Now they have to follow up.

Punk, for his part, looks motivated. He talked to the media about wanting to follow in the footsteps of guys like Terry Funk, Harley Race & Tracy Smothers that taught him the way. He’s willing to teach anybody willing to listen. AEW has a lot of kids working their YouTube shows, and a lot of kids on their TV shows too. Hopefully they’re willing to listen.

So you knew something big would happen on SummerSlam. Even before Friday night happened, people in WWE saw it coming. They knew they were going to need something to change the subject from CM Punk & AEW. They had two tricks up their sleeve, and used them both on Saturday night.

I’m back. pic.twitter.com/dlKraRFC2p

— The Man (@BeckyLynchWWE) August 22, 2021

Becky Lynch’s return from maternity leave was something people were excited about. We knew it was coming, we just didn’t know when. SummerSlam seemed like a good time for it. Biggest live audience of the year, biggest event of the summer, sounds like a good time for the Man to come back around. Sure enough, that’s what happened.

The one downside?

It came at the expense of any credibility Bianca Belair had built up over the past several months. Becky beat her in under 30 seconds to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship, which in itself isn’t a surprise because SD is where Becky’s husband works, and is also the show that matters these days.

I can already hear the explanations. It was a SummerSlam Moment! Wins & losses don’t matter! They’re building Bianca like they built Daniel Bryan! Let it play out & see where it goes! Yeah, well try telling that to Kofi Kingston fans. He got squashed back down the card by a real star in eight seconds and hasn’t been the same since. I’d like to think things will be different for Bianca, but has WWE given people reason to think it won’t be? Maybe if she gets a good acting role, or does something to distinguish herself outside the company.

As for why Sasha missed the show, all I’ve read from the various Internet soothsayers is that she wasn’t cleared to compete, and WWE knew she wouldn’t be able to at least a week before the show. A shame because she was to be involved in one of the most anticipated parts of the SummerSlam event, but something that couldn’t be helped. PWInsider reports that the match wasn’t an indication of Belair being taken down a notch, it was just “how WWE opted to react”. OK.

Nothing wrong with Becky (assuming she isn’t the writer), and her addition to SD is a good thing overall given the depth of their women’s division. Well, the depth of the women’s division that makes TV anyway. Remember when Toni Storm was coming in? What happened there? PWInsider reports that the plan is to turn Becky heel and have her go against Bianca…to which I say, good luck with that one. Nothing like having your new top heel squash your top face clean to start a feud…but it makes sense when you remember that WWE loves pushing people like they’re Barry Horowitz.

The difference between our two returns thus far? Punk’s return didn’t squash anybody that people care about yet. And if he does beat Darby Allin at All Out, it’ll take over thirty seconds. Hopefully. If it doesn’t, we’ll talk!

Then we had Brock Lesnar’s return. He came down after the main event to establish himself as Roman Reigns’ next challenger, almost certainly for the next Sweet Saudi Blood Money event. Which apparently that’s a thing again since the pandemic is over. Pretty cool, no issue with that except, well…

This is gonna be interesting 🔥#WWESummerSlam #BrockLesnar pic.twitter.com/qWjzOlGpuV

— Bola D (@Bola_D99) August 22, 2021

That hair. Yowie wowie, as the kids say.

Listen, I won’t lie to you and say I’ve had much use for Brock Lesnar since his match with Daniel Bryan. I do respect the hold he has over Vince McMahon, and the ability he has to make Vince give him millions of dollars for very limited work. That’s the American Dream right there. So whenever Brock comes back, I will applaud his business savvy.

Oh, and after SummerSlam went off the air, Brock beat up John Cena to pop the crowd. Cena has commented on how the company needs to build younger stars, and the fact he & others keep coming back to pop the business isn’t a great long-term statement for the company. So it’s nice that Cena did his part to help the next generation of WWE talent here. That young kid Brock needs the rub.

Not really related to the whole “returns” topic, but how long do you think Roman Reigns spends rehearsing his monologues during matches? More or less time than is spent planning out the matches? Its an interesting question.

NXT Changes Update

"We're doing a complete revamp on NXT, led by Paul Levesque/Triple H.

Look for it in the next few weeks, it's going to have a whole new look, a new feel."

Nick Khan confirms to @arielhelwani that changes are coming to NXT and the reason why.

In full: https://t.co/IquKp1Cj59 pic.twitter.com/0yN6cimOj4

— WWE on BT Sport (@btsportwwe) August 22, 2021

Nick Khan did an interview with Ariel Helwani where he confirmed a lot of what people were saying the new direction of NXT was going to be. There will be a whole new look & feel, with different logos & color schemes & things of that nature. We also know that new wrestlers are being brought in. WWE signed over a dozen people after their try outs in Las Vegas last week. They’re looking for wrestlers they can mold into their system, and wrestlers that can be top stars for their brands.

As I said before, not all of this is bad. The idea of looking places other than the indy wrestling circuit for WWE Superstars is a good one. And let’s be honest: there are now plenty of viable options for your favorite independent wrestler. It’s not WWE or Bust anymore, if you aren’t what Vince McMahon wants in a wrestler, you can still make some good money.

The main downside of all this is simple, and it makes one wonder about NXT’s future as a two hour program on the USA Network. The TV show won’t be as good. TakeOver won’t be what it used to be. If what Nick Khan & people that aren’t Triple H or the Internet want NXT to be comes to pass, there will be a steep downgrade in the in-ring product. As it is, NXT isn’t drawing in most of Raw & SmackDown’s audience. What happens if the more dedicated fans tune the show out?

I will say it was at least nice to see & hear Nick Khan. It’s good to know what these people look & sound like. That way maybe we can figure out what appeal they have with Vince that he keeps them around. (Still don’t know what it is with Kevin Dunn, though.)

Dave Meltzer updated us on why NXT is holding tapings this week. They’re upgrading the Performance Center, likely involving all those logo & production changes. So we’ll be getting live NXT episodes again in about a month or so, though as I said last week, I’m not sure it matters that much. In fact, if you’re going to have greener wrestlers on the show, you might want to tape the thing. Unless you want to give me material for the Botched! column, which I would appreciate.

NXT TakeOver Thoughts

I had been waiting for NXT TakeOver odds to come out to do a Gambling Picks column on it. Looked like an interesting card, and I figured with NXT’s final show before the event being on Tuesday, the odds might have been released earlier than they ended up being. By the time they finally dropped, I had moved on to a project for an upcoming 411 column, I was also super busy at work & the show didn’t feel worth carving out time to write about.

Not an original take since I saw it all over Twitter, but it’s like writing about WCW in early 2001. Some good stuff going on, but zero reason to get invested. Times are changing, and shows like the one put on Sunday night are going to be a thing of the past pretty soon. Not entirely, as it’s not like WWE is going to release every single person on the card. At least, I don’t think they will.

They’re still putting on TakeOver cards, and for some reason this one was on a Sunday night. Probably because they wanted me to write about it in this column, right? OK, probably not. Let’s break it down anyway.

Cameron Grimes beat LA Knight to win the Million Dollar Championship: So where does this championship rate on the NXT totem pole? Below the North American Championship? Above? It got a defense on TakeOver, the NA title didn’t. Right now the NA title feud involves people feuding over teeth like they’re Danhausen or something. It’s kinda weird. Here, we have a perfectly logical feud with people serving as butlers. Though if Grimes had lost here, I bet Ted DiBiase would have hired Virgil to help him out with Knight’s chores.

Raquel Gonzalez defeated Dakota Kai to retain the NXT Women’s Championship: This wasn’t bad, but the highlight for me was Kay Lee Ray appearing afterward. Haven’t seen much of her work, but the lady looks like she has potential. Gonzalez does as well, but this whole feud seemed rushed to me. Probably because they had to call people up to the main roster and do nothing with them.

Ilja Dragunov beat WALTER for the NXT United Kingdom Championship: I see everybody online hailing this as the match of the year and one of the best in WWE history. Maybe it’s just me being weird, but my main takeaway from this had nothing to do with match ratings or where it rates alongside other matches this year.

DRAGUNOV WINS!
DRAGUNOV WINS!
DRAGUNOV WINS!

The historic reign of @WalterAUT is over and we have a NEW #NXTUK Champion in @UNBESIEGBAR_ZAR!#NXTUKTitle#NXTTakeOver pic.twitter.com/EORAcDruKM

— WWE (@WWE) August 23, 2021

It’s a work, guys! Y’all don’t need to kill each other, even if the Internet will give you a ton of stars for it. The men brought a ton of effort, no doubt, but I can pretty much guarantee you it solidified WWE upper management’s opinions towards NXT & its future. They don’t want that kind of stuff on Raw or SmackDown.

Kyle O’Reilly defeated Adam Cole: The match wasn’t bad, the response suffered from following the previous match and the finish felt a bit flat. What we’ve been told is that this will be Cole’s final NXT match. Now, whether that means he’s going to the main roster or elsewhere…we don’t know yet. Stay tuned.

Samoa Joe won the NXT Championship from Karrion Kross: Some good news for those worried about NXT’s future, as at least Joe will be there working with all this new talent. It’s not like all of your favorite wrestlers will go away. Some will, but they’ll need people that can put on competent wrestling matches with people Vince actually sees something in. At one point that was Karrion Kross, we’ll see if Kross becomes that again now that he’s got that NXT title off of him. It won’t go down as one of your classic TakeOver main events, but it did what it needed to do.

So there’s your last TakeOver of the Super Indy Era. Good times, bad times, you know we had our share. Fun show, but tough to kinda shake the feeling that a goodbye gives you. That’s why I don’t say goodbye.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this column half as much as I enjoyed writing it, and at least a quarter as much as you’ve enjoyed the recent returns. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.