News From Cook’s Corner 11.23.20: The Undertaker

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! It’s been a busy week for me at work, which leads to me not wanting to spend my time off work doing work. So we were a column short last week, it happens from time to time. I know Greg was pretty busy on his end, that’s probably why he hasn’t yelled at me yet.

Turns out this one’s going to be pretty light. We got some Survivor Series results & whatever else I can find on the newswire, so let’s not mess around and talk about depressing things like Joe Burrow getting injured. We all knew it was coming…the Cincinnati Bengals can’t have nice things.

The Undertaker Actually Retired!

I say at least once a week that the first rule in pro wrestling is “Never say never”. So I won’t be completely shocked if Undertaker pops back up around WrestleMania time, or for his 40th or 50th anniversaries. OK, 50th would be pushing it. He’ll be 75 at that point, which means he’ll probably be running for President. Hey, if Kane can be a mayor, why can’t Undertaker be President? He’d probably keep Texas Red, if you know what I’m saying.

Come on now, that one was good! Don’t groan at me!

I think once you bust out the Paul Bearer hologram, you pretty much have to go away for at least a few years. The Undertaker’s Final Farewell made for a pretty cool light show. We thank Undertaker for his service and wish him many more years of success on Cameo.

Raw Team Dominance

I expected Team Raw to win the men’s match due to the amount of drama going on between the team members and the fact that SmackDown’s team didn’t have much better chemistry. Was I expecting a clean sweep, with each member getting a decision? Not really! The only solution I can think of is for AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Keith Lee, Riddle & Sheamus to form a faction. Then again, I’d have to hear them arguing over who the leader was for the next few months, and I don’t have the patience for that.

The women’s match had a slightly surprising result, except a lot of people had floated out the possibility of Lana winning to play off the weeks and weeks of going through tables. It was certainly an idea, and I hope it works out for the ol’ gal. Also of note was Peyton Royce getting the pinfall over Bayley, which I’d have more hope of leading to something if she didn’t tap out to Natalya a minute later. We shall see.

SmackDown’s Champions Do Better

Outside of Sami Zayn coming up short against Bobby Lashley, it was a good night for SmackDown’s champions. The Street Profits just don’t lose on PPV, and their streak continued against the New Day. Sasha Banks beat Asuka to even the score in their rivalry that I don’t think we’ve seen the last of. And of course Roman Reigns beat Drew McIntyre because duh why wouldn’t he have?

People were thinking Miz would cash in that briefcase after Roman beat the snot out of Drew, but Miz was probably still worn out from winning the Dual Brand Battle Royal earlier in the evening. Plus, it would have killed the ThunderDome crowd for the Final Farewell main event.

The Gobbledy Gooker Returned!

Because it was his thirtieth anniversary! PWInsider reported that it was Drew Gulak in the costume, which would make sense as the Gooker attacked R-Truth & won the 24/7 Championship. Also, I’m told Gulak’s voice came out of the Gooker outfit. R-Truth was champion again by the end of the evening, so you all can rest easy tonight. Unless he loses it on Raw, but he’ll probably get it back anyway.

MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL: KEITH LEE HAS NEW MUSIC

Keith Lee new theme, NOW WE'RE TALKING #SurvivorSeries pic.twitter.com/79UBruXRsu

— D̵̻̐̈́͂Ȑ̵̛̿̔̀͂À̸̛̀͊D̴͆̄A (@2Sweet4Lyfe) November 23, 2020

That’s what I’m talking about, fools! Those tights were looking better too. I’m seeing a bright future for this kid.

So yeah, that was Survivor Series. We had some other things happen this week though…

Rhea Ripley Almost Goes Full Mick Foley

You never want to go full Mick Foley, trust me on that one. Ripley had five earrings forcibly removed from her left ear during her match with Io Shirai on last week’s NXT episode. I remember back in the old days when piercings were more rare that commentators would mention the likelihood of the rings ripped out. Now, nobody says boo about them, and here’s what happens!

Rhea will be fine though, they just had to cut little parts off of her ear to make it look all right. This is the difference between wrestlers and people like me. The idea of getting an earring doesn’t have much appeal to me, forget having a doctor cut away on my ear! Besides, getting an earring at this point in my life would merely continue my transformation into modern-day Tony Schiavone.

A Quick Opinion on Rhea Ripley

I was going to write a column about Rhea Ripley before I got derailed by work and other things like getting drunk and chatting about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel with the homies. The jist of it was this: Around this time last year, Ripley looked like she was going to be the next big thing. Her team won at NXT TakeOver: WarGames & Surivor Series. She won the NXT Women’s Championship from Shayna Baszler. She was as hot as hot could be…but eventually cooled off a bit. Lost to Charlotte at WrestleMania, which was allegedly going to lead to something but hasn’t as of yet. (Charlotte’s a bit preoccupied these days.) Hasn’t done much of interest during 2020 unless you’re really high on her feud with the Robert Stone Brand. You might be.

So 2020 wasn’t the Year of Rhea Ripley. I thought this was a bad thing for awhile, but things clicked for me recently and I realized it wasn’t so bad. Why?

-She’s still young. 24 years old as of October.

-It’s really hard to kill people off if they have supremely great talent. Bayley’s WWE main roster booking has been criticized to all hell since she got there. The Bayley/Sasha feud/friendship got a ton of criticism early. Few would argue that all that wasn’t all for the best now. Plus. WWE keeps almost everybody under contract forever, so they’ll get around to pushing you again even if you fail once. It’s not like the old days where one bad run can kill you off forever.

-Who wants their year to be 2020, anyway? This whole year has been a dumpster fire. It’s very hard to tell if people are really getting over or not. Is Drew McIntyre a hit as WWE Champion? I have no idea, since I never get to see what an actual crowd thinks of him. Sure, I can click onto social media and figure out what folks like me think of him, but it’s just different. I could try to interpret TV ratings, but I’m not Dave Meltzer. Rhea’s big push is probably best off waiting until things are somewhat normal again.

-It will come at some point. I was reminded of this while watching that Shirai match. She’s too good and has too much going for her not to get the big push.

I was originally going to stretch that out to around 800-1000 words or so, but things got in the way. Hopefully these news columns don’t become dumping grounds for things I didn’t get around to writing about, but who knows what the future might hold!

WWE Settles A Class Action Lawsuit

This one kind of flew under the radar since we can’t get mad about WWE going to Saudi Arabia anymore. I ripped it off of Wrestling Inc. Warren, Michigan’s City Police & Fire Retirement System had sued WWE, and some other folks joined in as well. Basically, WWE was accused of deceiving investors on all the Saudi Arabia stuff, claiming that WWE didn’t mention that those proposed business agreements like TV deals weren’t quite consummated yet. WWE hyped them like they had happened, then sold a bunch of shares at fraudulently inflated prices.

I know, sounds a bit dull to me too. WWE trying to cheat people out of money? You gonna tell me water is wet next? Of course, WWE would never admit to doing such things, so they went with the quick settlement. Probably for the best. Anyway, let’s talk about something more fun…

UNDERTAKER CAMEOS

lmao #ThankYouTaker pic.twitter.com/VANbOIc0Qy

— bossmoz (@BossMoz) November 23, 2020

Seriously, I’ve got nothing else for you this week. Just click on some Cameos and laugh your way into a short work week. Not for me, but for pretty much everybody else! We’ll be back soon with the annual list of things we’re thankful for. Have a good one, and keep your stick on the ice.