Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! The news was a bit weird last week, and not very helpful for this column. Even though there was a Royal Rumble coming up (which we’ll spend most of our time this week discussing), most of the newsbites I saw seemed to involve people talking about things I either didn’t really care about or wanted to avoid listening to. Some fell under both of those categories.

Honestly, is it news that guys like Undertaker & Goldberg think that today’s generation is “soft” because they play video games? It’s what old people have said about young people since right around whenever video games were invented. Besides, I have no room to talk about whether or not people are soft. Softer than a roll of toilet paper over here.

I am interested in talking about the Royal Rumble, so let’s get right to that!

Royal Rumble Results!

All the feels. ❤️❤️❤️

(via @WWE) pic.twitter.com/wr1ealqAmi

— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) February 1, 2021

While WrestleMania is the granddaddy of them all, the showcase of immortals or whatever name you want to throw at it, the Royal Rumble has always been an event I hold on par with that most sacred of shows. Something about the Rumble match itself has always tickled my fancy, and while WrestleMania often offers a climax, the Rumble offers promising beginnings. Let’s break the show down!

Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler beat Charlotte Flair & Asuka on the Kickoff Show: I was wondering how they would fill out the show with the number of matches they had booked, turns out they needed to punt one to the Kickoff Show. How bout that. Not a bad match, though I’m pretty well done with the whole storyline with Lacey Evans & the Flair family. Also, I’m the most unathletic person I know and I’m pretty sure I can get more height on a legdrop than Nia Jax. Yikes.

Drew McIntyre defeated Goldberg to retain the WWE Championship: I get the general idea here, and plenty of fans & experts on my Twitter timeline were totally buying into this whole thing. Here’s where I balk at the idea of Drew McIntyre beating Goldberg being some kind of legacy making moment…

Dude’s 54. I know, age is just a number and 50 is the new 40 and all that stuff, but you’re never going to convince me that beating Goldberg in 2021 is the same thing as beating Goldberg in 1998. Maybe it works for people that weren’t born in 1998. If it does, good for them. From where I sit…at least they didn’t have Bill win the title again. Drew won in convincing fashion, but this whole thing with Drew & Bill served the purpose of filling a few weeks of programming. Anything deeper read into it seems a bit much.

(This won’t be the last time we’re talking about age here, just so you’re aware.)

Bianca Belair won the Women’s Royal Rumble: All of us that picked Bianca were a little nervous when she came out at #3. Much like how Bobby Heenan was nervous when Ric Flair came out at #3. We had nothing to worry about, as Bianca made it all the way to the end, and now heads on the Road to WrestleMania. A match with Sasha Banks seems promising, and one could figure that Bayley will be involved in such a feud, considering her current issues with Belair & previous issues with Banks. Sounds good to me!

Massive locker room pop for Bianca. She’s beloved. #RoyalRumble

— Florida Man (@WWEBigE) February 1, 2021

Other potential issues arising from this match:
-Billie Kay eliminated by the Riott Squad, which might make Billie get the hint that she’s not wanted.
-Lana eliminating Nia Jax, which might lead to a few more usages of the Raw announce table.
-Charlotte Flair making it to the end and coming up short, and no longer being Women’s Tag Team Champion. I mean, I guess there’s more to do with Lacey Evans & the Naitch, but surely that’ll be blown off in February or March.
-Rhea Ripley had a star-making performance in her own regard, garnering the most eliminations, making it to the runner-up slot and having an impressive finishing sequence with Belair. Is she going back to NXT, or going somewhere else? Rhea being the only one smart enough to do something instead of stand there like a goober while Alexa Bliss tried to do some silly spooky stuff might lead to something down the road.
-Shotzi Blackheart, Toni Storm, Santana Garrett, Dakota Kai & Ember Moon also represented NXT in the match, but none of them made any eliminations.
-We got comebacks from Jillian Hall & Victoria, along with folks like Torrie Wilson, Alicia Fox & Mickie James that have made Rumble appearances before. History tells us not to read too much into this.
-Alicia Fox won the 24/7 belt for a few minutes before R-Truth won it back. Then Peter Rosenberg won it from R-Truth. Pretty normal night for that title.

Roman Reigns beat Kevin Owens in a Last Man Standing Match to retain the Universal Championship: I liked this match a lot more than other offtheteam.com homies did for whatever reason. Went kinda slow early, but really picked up when they went to the non-ThunderDome portion of the building. Most of the action was good and both guys did their best to kill each other. Unfortunately, the ending wasn’t the best booked thing of all time, and the execution made it even worse. Overall though, I can’t knock Reigns or Owens’ effort.

I also got annoyed by everybody using Owens getting hit by a golf cart to give us their take on WWE vs. AEW. If it wasn’t AEW fans talking about WWE “ripping AEW off”, it was WWE fans trying to remind us of WrestleMania X-Seven. Let’s be honest: part of the Key Demo either wasn’t alive in 2001 or was too young to be watching Attitude Era wrestling. Seriously though, I think golf carts are fair game for anybody to use in wrestling, largely because they’re funny modes of transportation.

Guys, I know. They did it well so props to all involved.

— Kenny Omega (@KennyOmegamanX) February 1, 2021

Edge won the Men’s Royal Rumble: If Belair thought she was hot stuff winning from the third slot, Edge outdid her by winning at #1. Pretty impressive considering he’s 47 years old, hasn’t wrestled in nine months and didn’t wrestle for several years before that. I told you to bet on Edge and picked him in the picks column, so the result didn’t surprise me one bit…though when I heard he was in the top two I became a bit concerned.

Edge did fine in the role. It just concerns me that they don’t have other people ready to fill slots like “WWE Championship contender” or “Royal Rumble pace-setter & eventual winner” that aren’t already on the active roster. This has been something of a problem for WWE as long as I can remember, and people keep telling me eventually new stars will pop up.

Other potential issues arising from this match:
-BAD BUNNY appeared, mad that Miz decided to knock his turntables over, and hit a big cross-body off the top rope onto Miz & John Morrison. People were kinda shocked that Miz was chosen to help catch Bad Bunny.
-Seth Rollins made his big return in the 29 slot, and wound up being the next to last person eliminated. His significant other…nowhere to be seen as of yet, but she’s got a bit more to come back from.

Oh no, my bad. I just thought it was a really nice picture of a curtain. https://t.co/MzDU1DGvjr

— The Man (@BeckyLynchWWE) February 1, 2021

-Surprise old-school entrants: Carlito, The Hurricane & Christian. We’ve seen Hurricane make appearances before, but Carlito hasn’t been in a WWE ring for years, and Christian at least being cleared to have a decent run in the Rumble seems like news. Perhaps Christian plays a role in the build-up for whatever Edge’s WrestleMania match is.
-Oh, and Mayor Kane was there, though he had less Rumble success than the Knoxville representative in the women’s match.
-Damian Priest was the sole NXT representative this year, making a good showing for himself with four eliminations. Seems like a matter of time before he makes the move to Raw or SmackDown.

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty enjoyable evening. No real surprises in the results, but sometimes it’s better to have the right results than surprising results.

Mox Returns To New Japan

Jon Moxley is New Japan Pro Wrestling’s United States Champion. Which is easy to forget, since he hasn’t competed in one of their rings for nearly a year. February 9, 2020 to be specific, when he defeated Minoru Suzuki to retain that championship. Things changed not too long after that, as we’re all aware. Getting from North America to Japan, or from Japan to North America, became a lot tougher. New Japan went on a bit of a break, came back, but was missing most of their key gaijin talent. Including Mox, who has had plenty of business to tend to here in America. You know, AEW, getting his wife pregnant, stuff like that.

NJPW has started running shows in North America again, specifically in Los Angeles at their dojo. NJPW Strong has been airing on their streaming service for some time now, and it was only a matter of time before the NJPW US Champion was able to appear in LA.

Apparently this was taped some time ago during Mox’s absence from AEW, so good for them keeping that under wraps. People are already speculating on what this could all lead to, as AEW has acknowledged Mox vs. KENTA on social media. Me, I would pump the brakes on getting too excited about it. Sure, it’s fun to think about this being the beginning of a beautiful relationship between AEW & NJPW.

The most likely scenario: KENTA wins the title and AEW never mentions it after it happens.

Don’t get mad at me! That’s just typically how these things go. Also better to accept the most likely scenario than dream about potential Kenny Omega matches in the Tokyo Dome.

Is that all we have time for this week? It sure is! Don’t worry, plenty more content coming your way in the next few days like there always is. Until then, keep your stick on the ice.