Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! My name is Steve Cook, and I’m very happy you’ve clicked on this link to read some of my opinions on the last week of news in the pro wres. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world outside of the pro wres, and there’s a lot of stuff going on in the pro wres as well.

Have I used the term “pro wres” enough? Probably!

Just expressing my appreciation to those of you reading. It’s been a rough year around here, and I really am grateful to those of you that have stuck with me through the good columns, the bad columns, and the ugly columns I don’t even want to think about again. Hopefully 2021 will bring a lot more of the good, less of the bad and even less of the ugly.

Let’s do it!

WWE TLC Happened

TLC is typically highlighted by Tables, Ladders & Chairs matches, and one has been featured in the main event position of the vast majority of TLC events. One year featured a chairs match, another year featured a ladder match, but other than that it’s been TLC going on last every year.

This year was different. Fans were treated to the Fiend taking on Randy Orton in the main event slot in the very first Firefly Inferno Match. We all knew which one of these guys was more likely to allow themselves to be set on fire, and sure enough, TLC ended with the Fiend prone in the ring while engulfed in flames. One would think this might be the last we see of this version of Bray Wyatt. Or, the Fiend might be back tonight. I have no idea what to expect other than this certainly won’t be the end of Bray Wyatt foisting his creations on the WWE Universe. The man was on Twitter after the show! I think he’ll be ok.

pic.twitter.com/nC3wdp93i0

— Danial (@Danial_Ali998) December 21, 2020

Roman Reigns & Drew McIntyre retained their respective championships to the surprise of very few. Somewhat surprising was Miz’s attempt to cash in the Money in the Bank briefcase by adding himself into things during the match. It didn’t work out for him, and now Miz has no briefcase. Sasha Banks retained her title. We did see two title changes..Cedric Alexander & Shelton Benjamin did get the big win over The New Day, giving The Hurt Business more belts to add to their collection. Also, Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler’s Women’s Tag Team championship run came to an end at the hands of Asuka…and Charlotte Flair.

That’s right, Charlotte’s back and now the Raw ratings will go through the roof. Mark it down! Oh, and we can see her on SmackDown & NXT again too, so those ratings are going to go up too, and in a few weeks we’ll be wondering what people were thinking when complaining about WWE TV ratings in December. The Queen will make everything right again.

I haven’t watched the show yet, but it has to be at least a solid 8 when a dude gets lit on fire. I don’t make the rules.

ROH had a Final Battle & regained their champions

There haven’t been many battles within Ring of Honor rings in 2020 due to the pandemic. To their credit, ROH has taken more precautions than any other wrestling company in ensuring the safety of their performers. I applaud them for that, and I’ve enjoyed the ROH television that I’ve been reviewing for 411 the past several months. It’s been a fun time.

The annual Final Battle event aired on Friday night, and, to be honest, the main thing people were wondering about was the status of ROH World Champion Rush, and ROH TV Champion Dragon Lee, who were finally returning to ROH after months in Mexico. There had been speculation from Dave Meltzer and the usual folks suggesting that WWE had interest in both men. WWE has certainly been collecting Mexican talent over the past few years. You might recall that Andrade was a key part of Rush’s Los Ingobernables faction before making the move to WWE. Then there’s Angel Garza, Humberto Carrillo, Santos Escobar, Raul Mendoza and probably ten other guys at the Performance Center that I’m forgetting about.

We could talk about how WWE would use Rush or Dragon Lee, but it seems like a moot point at the moment. Rush & Lee both retained their championships on Friday night, and ROH fans also saw the debut of La Bestia Del Ring, the father of Rush & Lee.

It appears to me that ROH should expect to see these two, along with their father, around for awhile. Makes sense, it’s not like there’s many places for them to work in Mexico right now anyway. We’ll get to some news on that here in a minute.

As for what else happened at Final Battle? Jonathan Gresham retained the Pure & Tag Team Championship. The 6-Man Championship remains with Mexisquad after Shane Taylor Promotions rejected the idea of ROH awarding them the titles. Danhausen won a contract. Sounded like a decent enough show, and now that Rush & his family are back they can feature the World & TV titles more often.

Also of note: Maria Kanellis-Bennett is back with the company promoting The Experience, which will be a private Facebook group that ROH fans can join. Apparently it’ll be an open forum to tell ROH directly what they want as far as matches, wrestlers & things like that go. It’s always hard to say if a promotion will truly listen to their fans, but anything that brings Maria back is cool in my book for obvious reasons I would have written more about in 2010.

AAA Getting Shut Down (Outside Mexico)

We mentioned in passing last week a lawsuit between the folks behind the AAA wrestling promotion based in Mexico and the folks that helped them out with Lucha Underground. The LU folks believe that they’re entitled to all of the money AAA makes outside of Mexico due to contracts signed. AAA was probably inclined to make that sort of deal because they thought Lucha Underground would take off more than it did. (I also thought it would, it was a good show!)

It looks like we’re seeing some effects from that lawsuit now. AAA’s YouTube channel has been shut down, as has its Facebook account outside of Mexico. That’s not a good thing for a wrestling promotion trying to expand its brand outside of its country limits, especially when its country is fighting the coronavirus and can’t have people running wrestling shows.

All I know for sure? It’s a damn good thing AAA ran TripleMania on December 12 instead of December 19! Since they ran it earlier, we all got to see it!

It sucks for wrestling fans that like the lucha and would like to be able to watch AAA. I’ve always been more of an AAA guy than a CMLL guy, and CMLL doesn’t even try to promote towards the US. Unfortunately, it’s AAA’s fault for making bad deals with people that can’t produce what they promise. The losers? Wrestling fans like me that love the lucha.

Madison Rayne Leaving Impact Wrestling?

One of my favorite things about recent Impact Wrestling was the announce team of Josh Mathews & Madison Rayne. Apparently I was in the minority on this according to 411 commenters, but I enjoyed their chemistry. I haven’t been a big fan of Mathews on commentary since the days of him on WWE Velocity with Tazz, but he finally won me over as part of the husband/wife act.

I’ve always been a big fan of Madison’s. Good worker, has a good head on her shoulders. Apparently that good head on her shoulders is leading her to a full time job outside the industry. I hope it’s a good full time job, as I have one myself and it’s not a great job! I assume Madison’s advisers are better than mine, and she’s moving on to bigger and better things. Impact is apparently looking for an outside voice to fill Madison’s spot, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being Matt Striker, who filled in for an episode a few weeks ago and was part of Ken Shamrock’s Impact Hall of Fame induction. Mathews & Striker have worked together before, and were a fine team that would fit the current Impact product. If they don’t want to go with Striker, I would nominate myself if I could go 10 minutes without botching my own writing.

I will miss Madison as a part of the show. I would hope that her new job allows her a day off to shoot some Locker Room Talk segments for several months of Impact Wrestling.

Reefermania 6 Gets Shut Down

Florida has been more friendly to wrestling promotions than most, but indy promotions are still running into some issues. Like the folks at Fighting Evolution Wrestling, who were attempting to promote Reefermania 6 this past Saturday night in Miami. They had quite the cast of characters booked, including names like the Headbangers! Indeed, Mosh & Thrasher were heading down to the ring when the fuzz showed up and shut the show down.

Why? Not due to any reefer that may or may not have been involved. Nah, they went over the attendance cap of 200 people. Heck, they were pushing 400 when things got shut down, with more coming in!

Don’t worry, friends. Reefermania 7 will be held in April at a larger facility. I’m sure it’ll receive a lot of coverage amongst wrestling media, as “Reefermania” sounds right up the alley of a lot of writers I know.

Thanks for reading! I’ve got all sorts of great content coming your way this week looking back at 2020. Until then, keep your stick on the ice.