Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and it’s been one of those weeks where I need a week off afterward. Lots going on, lots more going on this week, it pretty much won’t stop until October. So this is your advance warning of a pretty rough string of columns coming up in September, and hopefully we’ll come out of it on the other side better for the whole experience.

Until then, let’s see what’s going on!

We Don’t Know, Bay Bay

There was some expectation that we would know where Adam Cole was going by the time this column was posted. I mean, it’s still not impossible that the news breaks between the time I write this and the time it gets posted. Here’s what we know, or at least what we think we know about the situation:

-Vince McMahon wants to keep Adam Cole in WWE.
-AEW would like to have Adam Cole as part of their company.
-Adam Cole has yet to make up his mind.
-Britt Baker is charging people $100 to ask her Adam Cole questions.

That’s all we know here at the Corner, as I haven’t been able to get somebody to donate me money to ask Britt Baker questions about Adam Cole. My PayPal address if [email protected], if anybody wants to assist me with the endeavor.

Riddle Is Talking Smack & I Like It

I won’t like to you and say I’m the biggest Riddle fan out there. He’s decent enough in the ring. Not big on his interview skills, at least what he does on Raw. The interviews he does other places are much more interesting than the stuff he gets to say on television, as he tends to go out of his way to bury whoever annoys him at the moment. First it was Bill Goldberg, then it was Brock Lesnar, and now Riddle’s shooting on the Big Dog, Head of the Table & Tribal Chief Roman Reigns. He had the following to say about Reigns during an interview with Bleacher Report:

“When he’s saying ‘Acknowledge me’ or ‘I move the needle,’ no, you don’t. You’re related to The Rock. Shut up. Like, I’m not impressed, I can beat you up in a real fight. So, shut your mouth. You’re not moving needles. I’m the real stallion, RK-Bro is moving the merch, we’re moving the needle, and that’s it. I don’t want to say too much, I’m not trying to get in trouble. Hey, hats off to him. He’s amazing at what he does. I do like what he does, but at the same time, it’s like, get off your high horse. You’re in that spot for a reason. You’re not a bro. You’re second generation. I’m first generation.”

So there’s a bit to unpack here. Perhaps most importantly: Who wins a shoot fight between Matthew Riddle & Romanus Reigns? Reigns has an inch of height & forty-nine pounds on Riddle, but Riddle does have actual fighting experience. Reigns was a pretty good defensive tackle and surely had some fights out there on the football field. I think he could use his power on Riddle, but Riddle would have the advantage if the fight goes to the ground. However, most of Riddle’s wins in MMA didn’t come via knockout or submission, so it’s fair to wonder if he could knock Roman out. I’d like to see it! Also, how does Randall Orton feel about Riddle’s disdain for people whose families have been in the business forever?

I saw a bunch of people clowning on Riddle for these comments. Me, I’m just happy whenever anybody has the guts to actually say something. We complain about wrestlers, athletes, actors, politicians never saying anything of interest, then when they do, we complain about that. Why do we do this? As a certain company would tell us, complaining isn’t conversation. I hope Riddle has more interesting thing to say about his fellow wrestlers. Might not help his cause in the locker room, but it gives me something to write about. And as we all know, that’s what’s important here.

Of course, the needle talk is in reference to Roman’s comments that CM Punk didn’t move the needle and wasn’t as big a star as The Rock & John Cena. Which I also appreciated because it’s always fun when stars of one company talk smack about stars of another. Makes people think that these guys might actually care.

Impact Making Some Moves?

AEW’s additions are getting all the attention these days, but Impact Wrestling is apparently going to be adding two names that were recently let go by WWE very soon. One will be Buddy Matthews, who was previously known as Buddy Murphy before becoming just Murphy. Buddy is considered one of the best workers in the business by many, and Impact could be the best place for him to get TV time in order to showcase it. He also has new entrance music from Downstait, which seems to be the thing for ex-WWE folks to do these days.

Braun Strowman is also reportedly headed to Impact, which will get a mixed reaction for sure. Strowman’s reported price tag was so high that it was tough to see companies falling over themselves to hire him, but there’s somebody for everybody. Braun would probably get pushed right to the top in Impact, and has enough name value to get some attention for a company that could still use some.

Mistico Leaves CMLL, Mistico Returns To CMLL

Some interesting news from south of the border this week. You’re likely familiar with the name Mistico, as that’s been the name of a top CMLL star since the year 2004. In the late 2000s, Mistico became the #1 technico in Mexico & one of the biggest stars in the world. Then he went to WWE & became Sin Cara, which is considered one of the bigger flops in modern wrestling history. Sin Cara’s work that got over so well in Mexico didn’t translate to WWE, and he was back in Mexico by 2014.

In the meantime, CMLL had given another wrestler the Mistico gimmick. It just so happens that this wrestler is the brother of Rush & Dragon Lee, and son of La Bestia del Ring. The rest of the Munoz family left CMLL back in 2019, but Mistico remained with the company until last week. The original Mistico switched his name to Caristico and teamed with the new Mistico fairly regularly upon his return to CMLL in 2015.

CMLL had been preparing for Mistico’s departure for awhile, even getting a younger wrestler to practice Mistico’s moves & spots for the day he’d take the spot. It came earlier than they thought though, so they decided to have Caristico take back his old name instead. Hopefully it works out for them, they’re losing main event talent more often than WWE is right now.

Gangrel Misses Out

People like to put the WWE logo all over AEW advertising these days, and they nearly got a chance to put another one on there. Gangrel was scheduled to appear on last week’s Dynamite show in Milwaukee, but that was cancelled after Edge’s angle the week before, where he gave Seth Rollins a “Brood Bath” and came out to the famous Brood/Gangrel music at SummerSlam. AEW rightly didn’t want to be seen as copying off of WWE in that instance, and Gangrel still got paid.

Edge was apparently sorry to hear about all this, but I don’t know why. Dude got paid to do nothing. As we’ve said before here, that’s the American Dream.

Universal Going Dark

Universal Studios in Orlando has a lengthy history with wrestling-related programming. Several WCW series were produced at Universal during the mid to late 1990s, the XWF held their lone events there, and Impact Wrestling ran their shows there off & on from 2004 until 2018. Now AEW is reportedly going to fill the wrestling void there, as Dark will be taped there most weeks for the general public. Hopefully they’ll use the old Applause sign for the fans to figure out who to cheer for.

This move or something similar was bound to happen once AEW started taping stuff on the road. Either Dark & Dark: Elevation would be drastically cut in time, or AEW would be regularly running events until 2 in the morning. Not very feasible. Seems like most wrestlers live in Florida these days, so Universal Studios is a logical location with experience hosting wrestling events.

Welp, that’s all the news we have time for this week. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of my Top 5 Quarterbacks of Each NFL Team series, and some Gambling Picks for All Out! Until then, keep your stick on the ice.