News From Cook’s Corner 11.2.20: Tracy Smothers

Steve Cook gives us a smattering of topics that cover a few different emotions and thought processes. The News was definitely diverse this week.

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I hope you all had a emotionally satisfying Halloween Weekend. I also hope that at this time next week things haven’t gone completely & utterly insane, or at least more insane than usual here in 2020. This whole election thing just gives me a sense of impending doom. No matter which side ends up claiming more popular and/or electoral votes, the side with fewer isn’t going to be happy. Even moreso than usual with typical elections. I hope I’m wrong, but it feels like things are going to get real ugly here in the next few days/weeks & I could be writing next week’s column holed up in a bunker somewhere.

I presume we’ll still have working wifi because everybody’s going to want to capture all this stuff on their phones.

So there’s that to look forward to. Until then, we still have plenty of wrestling news to discuss, so let’s get to it!

The WWE Twitch ban is official?

We’ve heard about WWE officially taking over their Superstars’ Twitch channels in the past, and it seems the process on that has sped up. Some of the WWE Superstars have already suspended their accounts. Others have yet to do so, and have yet to comment on the matter. Some, like Adam Cole, Paige & Jessamyn Duke, have expressed their desire to keep streaming. Which could get interesting.

According to PWInsider there was a meeting on Friday where several folks were hoping they could get Vince McMahon to change his mind. That didn’t happen. Vince is digging his heels in on this one, as it’s obvious to him & WWE that their workers shouldn’t be making money on the side without WWE getting a significant cut. It’s a good business model for them, as their financial statements have shown.

This is obviously still an evolving story, so it’s tough for me to comment too much further on it. I’m still trying to figure out what a video game is, so I have to admit that I’m not the go-to guy on this one. I will say that it’s going to be tough for WWE to win the public relations battle against Paige. Sure, some people will buy their story and say she’s lucky to have a job, but more people will feel sorry for her since she can’t wrestle anymore. They’re going to need a heck of a spin job to come off in the right here.

Riddle!

WWE has taken another first name away. They do this from time to time since wrestling fans can’t handle people with two names. Too difficult to remember, you see. We all remember the drama over Antonio Cesaro becoming Cesaro. Buddy Murphy became Murphy. Now, Matt Riddle has become Riddle. From a marketing standpoint, “Riddle” seems like it has more potential than “Murphy”, so I don’t really mind it.

The thing that kinda gets me is that the Wrestling Observer is allegedly reporting that this is being done in part to keep people from Googling “Matt Riddle” and reading about the details of the sexual harassment lawsuit that Candy Cartwright filed against him, WWE & EVOLVE. I don’t think this is the case, unless Vince McMahon & his creative associates have no idea how Google works. If you search “Riddle WWE”, you’re getting all that stuff. WWE could change his name to Frick Frack McGee and Google would have the lawsuit ranked pretty high.

So I’m not buying that, but the idea it’s plausible just reminds us how sleazy the wrestling business can be.

Ronda on her way back?

James Storm recently tweeted out a picture of himself training with Ronda Rousey & Travis Browne, leading to speculation that Ronda might be heading back to WWE sooner rather than later. Fightful reported that Rousey had done some other training sessions recently, and Browne might be looking into making the transition to pro wrestling himself. Which leads to the obvious question: does WWE book them against Triple H & Stephanie, or Seth Rollins & Becky Lynch?

I know people have some mixed feelings about Rousey, but I think that women’s wrestling fans would be all about her returning to WWE. That’s the best way for the ladies to get back into those PPV main events, and maybe have another one of those Evolution shows. Rousey is a draw, and WWE would be wise to welcome her back as soon as possible.

Plus, I thought she was good in the ring! That still counts for something, right?

Thunder Rosa still with NWA in spite of losing a championship

Last Tuesday, Thunder Rosa lost the NWA World Women’s Championship to Serena Deeb on a UWN pay per view event. For whatever reason, everybody automatically jumped to one conclusion that Thunder Rosa was on her way out of NWA and on her way to WWE or AEW. This is where we’re at in 2020: anytime somebody loses a championship, we assume it’s because they’re leaving the territory.

Here’s what’s really up: Billy Corgan says that Thunder Rosa is under contract through 2021. It’s been confirmed by Thunder Rosa and multiple media outlets. Rosa sure doesn’t mind the attention she’s getting though.

🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/hjAvAz6Fzv

— Thunder Rosa (@thunderrosa22) October 28, 2020

All I know is that wherever Thunder Rosa works is getting one heck of a talent and a lot of eyeballs on their product. I also know that people lose championships all the time and still work for the company the championship is sanctioned by.

Different endings to Raw?

Apparently if you watched Raw in Canada or other places around the world, you got a different ending to the show than us here in the USA watching USA got. As the show was ending, Randy Orton was punching Drew McIntyre on the announce table. USA cut away to the next show while everybody else got to see Drew make the comeback and attack Randy’s eye with a pen.

I don’t know what WWE’s fascination with eye injuries is lately, but as somebody with eye problems I take great offense to this. I feel triggered, if you will.

Pretty obvious what happened though…USA was switching to the next show at 11 PM on the dot no matter what Raw was doing. No wonder NXT got an eight minute overrun.

Everybody Dies…even Tracy Smothers

When we talk about the greatest wrestlers of all time, the discussion is often focused around kayfabe accomplishments. How many titles they won. How many times they main evented shows. The amount of butts they put into seats. These are easy things for us to keep track of.

By that metric, Tracy Smothers wouldn’t rate as a Hall of Famer. He only had one significant run on top of a promotion as a singles star: Smoky Mountain Wrestling in the early 1990s during the wrestling recession. Nobody was drawing then.

He worked with Steve Armstrong for years as one half of the Wild-Eyed Southern Boys. They made waves in Florida before making it to World Championship Wrestling and having some classics with the Midnight Express. They later became the Young Pistols because WCW management thought a couple of cowboys from Wyoming would be easier to sell to a nationwide audience than a couple of Southern rednecks rocking rebel flag attire. They likely had a point, but the Pistols didn’t really get over as a top tag team either, Armstrong left, and we got “Young Pistol Tracy” working as an underneath heel for a few minutes.

Freddie Joe Floyd? I don’t remember that guy even getting a promo. He did get wins over Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw & Hunter Hearst Helmsley, so he had that going for him. Smothers made a brief return to the WWF in 1999-2000 doing jobs on TV, which led to the one time I saw him live: versus Rikishi on a SmackDown/Heat taping. I had yet to see Fatu in a thong, so I really had no idea what was going on there.

After the FJF WWF stint, Smothers was part of the Full Blooded Italians stable in ECW, hailing from Nashville, Italy and winning the tag team championship alongside Little Guido. This is where the awful dancing Tracy Smothers would regularly bust out in the 2000s indies developed. Being a comedic heel played more to the strengths of an older Tracy than anything else would have.

(It’s GCW in Nashville, so the audio is obviously NSFW)

The 2000s indy scene was where Tracy made his greatest contribution. He regularly worked IWA Mid-South, a fed where Midwest guys like CM Punk, Colt Cabana & Chris Hero first got on the radar of larger promotions. Those three were among his most well-known and most dedicated students, but certainly not the only ones. Name somebody that worked the indies in that time period, and they probably learned something from Tracy Smothers. Tracy was all about giving advice to the young kids who were willing to listen. I’m not sure if the man ever officially trained anybody or worked in a school, but he did plenty of on-the-job training wherever he went.

You saw it in the reaction to his death online. Every star of any note that worked the indies in the twenty-first century had nothing but great things to say about Tracy Smothers. He was one of those guys that made things better for the next generation. We’re talking about a guy who back in the day when he worked as a babyface would give his opponent a cut of the money he made off of merchandise. Salt of the Earth.

He might not have worked WrestleMania. I’m not sure he’s ever been on the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame ballot. But if you ask people in the business, Tracy Smothers was one of the all-time greats. His death this past week at the age of 58 is a great loss to pro wrestling. Hopefully, other veterans will step up and give the youngsters the guidance they need.

Thanks so much for reading! Hopefully I’ll see you on the other side next week and I won’t be in a bunker. Until then, keep your stick on the ice.