Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and this is where I’m supposed to complain about how the NCAA screwed over my Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball team by not including them in their Tournament. I can’t bring myself to do so, as it’s not like the men did anything to prove that they belonged in it. U of L can still get in as the first covid replacement team, which is somewhat ironic considering they got hampered by the virus more than pretty much any team.

There was a time where news like this would have sent me towards the bottle. Now? It sends me towards talking about the latest & greatest wrestling news, since that’s what you’re here for. I think. Bit of a quiet weekend, but a couple of interesting things worth discussing!

Andrade is still in WWE

It’s been a minute since we talked about Andrade. He hasn’t appeared on WWE television since the October 12, 2020 edition of Raw, where he lost to Angel Garza. Garza & Andrade had been teaming, they split, Garza won the blowoff, and we haven’t seen Andrade since. (We’ve barely seen Garza, but that’s a different topic for another time.)

Nobody really seemed to notice. WWE has a ton of people that are “stuck in catering”. It’s hard to keep track of them all. Andrade returned to the news cycle over the weekend, when he made a social media post suggesting “If you don’t like where you are, move you are not a tree.” & people noticed he had dropped mentions of WWE from his profiles. WrestlingInc reported that Andrade had asked for his release from WWE. After several hours of Internet speculation, F4WOnline reported that WWE denied the request.

Andrade seemed to be on the verge of big things back in his NXT days, but like many before him, Of course, like many before him, the main roster experience proved lacking. He did have some hope when Paul Heyman was running Raw and was high on his future, but Bruce Prichard doesn’t seem to share the same feeling. It’s hard to see Andrade having much of a future on WWE television, at least during this current stint. He could always come back later and get more of a chance, there’s plenty of examples of guys like Drew McIntyre & Jinder Mahal that have done that.

If Andrade does leave WWE, there would be plenty of potential suitors in multiple countries once things get back to somewhat normal. As far as we know, he didn’t burn any bridges with CMLL. AAA likes bringing in former WWE talent. New Japan would likely be interested, and Ring of Honor already has a lot of his old CMLL allies under contract. And of course there’s AEW, who are signing more and more former WWE guys these days. He wouldn’t be hurting for work.

Left unsaid so far in all reporting I’ve seen is how how his fiance, Charlotte Flair, feels about all this. She recently remarked on how she had pitched working with Andrade on television, but it was turned down by management. One hopes this isn’t another Rusev/Lana type of situation where Andrade is being punished because somebody thinks he isn’t good enough for Charlotte, but it can’t be ruled out.

This is why I’ve always advised people to avoid workplace romance. Never ends well, unless you marry the boss’s daughter and end up running the industry. There’s only so many scenarios where that can happen, though.

NWA Adding Folks From Back in the Day

AEW isn’t the only company adding guys that used to wrestle for WWE! The NWA is announcing talent for their upcoming TV tapings, and two of them were staples of late 2000s-early 2010s WWE that we haven’t seen in wrestling for quite some time. One of them, I’m interested to see! The other…well, I think they’ll drive more people away from watching the show than they’ll draw towards it.

Remember Chris Masters? The Masterpiece has mostly been working limited West Coast events since leaving Impact Wrestling in 2018. He appeared on one of the UWN Primetime Live shows last October, and is making his NWA debut as Chris Adonis, which he went by in Impact. He had a strange WWE run…his first stint he wasn’t very good in the ring and got a bit of a push. His second stint, he was good in the ring and got no push. He mostly managed in Impact, so it’s tough to say what we’ll get here.

Then there’s Tyrus, the wrestler formerly known as Brodus Clay & Funkasaurus. Mostly known these days as a Fox News contributor that’s been accused of sexually harassing colleagues. With all the Speaking Out going on, not exactly the type of name I’d be looking to bring into my promotion, but surely Tyrus’s stellar ring work will be worth the trouble.

In other NWA news, the main event for this coming Sunday’s Back For The Attack PPV (taking place at 4 PM Eastern. I wondered why they were competing against WWE for a second there) has been announced. Nick Aldis will be defending his championship against Aron Stevens in a match dedicated to Stevens’ tag team partner on previous NWA Powerrr shows, Joseph “Question Mark” Hudson.

B-Boy’s AEW Run is Short-Lived

Speaking of folks from back in the day, some of you likely remember B-Boy from the litany of promotions he worked during the 2000s and early 2010s. Had runs in WSX, CZW, Lucha Underground, PWG & too many other places to name. His WSX stint was highlighted by a Piranha Death Match in the series finale, while Lucha Underground had him get murdered by another wrestler. Heck, I saw him on an IWA Mid-South show in Indiana way back in the day that somehow didn’t feature a Piranha Death Match or anybody getting murdered.

Last week, he made the trip to Jacksonville and was ready to get a shot on AEW, but he wound up tearing his Achilles about thirty seconds into his match. Just awful. The guy’s been wrestling for two decades, finally gets a shot with a national company with people in the office pretty familiar with his work, and gets hurt before he can earn a spot. You gotta feel for the guy.

B-Boy was very complimentary of the folks backstage at AEW, shouting out Santana, Ortiz & Eddie Kingston for helping him immediately after the injury, and noting that everybody came up to him the next day to give him support. Fortunately, Achilles injuries seem to heal faster these days, so hopefully he can make a quick recovery and get another shot.

What can I say, stories like this just hit me a certain way. I’d like to see all of these folks make it, especially guys like B-Boy that have been working for longer than I’ve been writing. Let’s be honest, there aren’t many left that have been working longer than I’ve been writing!

Jim Cornette Makes People Mad: Part 9,563,758

It’s been a minute since we’ve talked about Jim Cornette here. Mostly because nothing’s really changed. He says things, people get upset, he’s cancelled until next week, when the same people that got upset the week before get mad and cancel him again. There’s only so many times I can write the same story, you know? I need something to freshen things up & put a new spin on it.

We got that over the weekend, when some of AEW’s best men (and lady) got mad and put ol’ JC on blast. Did he have it coming? I’ll let you decide. Here’s what Corny had to say about Miro, Kip Sabian & Penelope Ford on his most recent AEW review podcast:

“He’s being allowed to be himself and he is obviously a complete f–king goof. He has no idea how to get over, no idea what got him over for a little while before in the other company. He does this stupid s–t, and obviously is enjoying himself doing it. He was paired with a kid that looks like he’s in middle school and his sl–ty girlfriend. To have a feud with a guy that sticks his hands in his pockets and another guy that looks like he cuts his hair with a pencil sharpener. Job guy — underneath talent all the way. And he has embraced this.”

From a purely wrestling perspective, when it comes to Miro and his current station in life…he ain’t completely wrong. I’ve been saying something similar and plenty of others have as well. Miro is doing exactly what he wants to do right now. It isn’t how most of us would fantasy book him, and it isn’t what we thought he would be doing when he came to AEW. But it’s what he wants, and he’s happy with it. I’m not one to question it.

Where Corny goes wrong, or where he goes right as far as his business goes, is where he off-handedly throws in a description of Penelope Ford that he thinks fits her character. Its part of a lot of peoples’ perception that women in the business who have been with one or more male wrestler must be doing all of them. They never call out men that have been with multiple female wrestlers, just the women. Funny how that works.

Jimmy might question her taste in men, and I might have when I was a younger age doing this column on another site, but I’m older & wiser now. I don’t know Joey Janela, he could be a great guy with lots of amazing qualities. We all have our tastes, it’s not my place to judge Penelope’s, or Jim’s, or anybody else’s.

Oh, and there’s also something about the way she dresses that makes these guys think she’s open for business, even though she wears more clothing than Kip does. Total anti-woman nonsense that needs to go away with the boomers, but won’t because enough of the young’ins have been indoctrinated with it.

Miro had a response to Corny’s diatribe, but it wasn’t in response to what was said about him…

“@TheJimCornette, if You call Penelope slut again I’ll come like Gods wrath on you! You understand. I’ll personally drive to Your BASEMENT. People like @TheJimCornette bring not only pro wrestling down, but young women and men get abused and name called for 40 views on YouTube.”

In his defense, I will say that Cornette gets far more than 40 views. Heck, his views across various platforms might be closer to AEW’s numbers than we think. That being said, I would pay ringside to see Miro show up at Jim’s house.

Kip was also none too happy, and I think Cornette would actually be proud of this response:

“Legit @TheJimCornette is a total all talk wet lettuce, his funeral is going to be a joyous occasion. I’ll be riding shotgun. Although we will let her kick beat the piss out of him. Just like he watches his wife, right captain cuck @TheJimCornette.”

“We don’t have to worry about it, he’s definitely going to die at some point soon. Then we can all, like, dance — we can have a celebration. That will probably be one of the first times on the internet that I will post something like a celebratory post. Ya know? And I mean that, I’m not even joking. I’m deadly serious, I cannot wait for that man to die.”

Am I the only one who read that and thought of Cornette’s rants wishing death on Vince Russo? Lotta similarities there, in my opinion. I’ll bet ol’ JC probably felt a little something downstairs when he saw that.

We round out the group with Penelope responding to some goofball trying to claim that Cornette never called her other terms for a woman of the evening:

“I mean he has multiple times… but he lets people fuck his wife while he watches, so what does he think of her… but she’s probably the only person besides himself he feels bad for because his little dick can’t please her after five blue chews & needs other men to do it for him.”

Pretty good, and working in a popular podcast sponsor too. So how did Cornette respond to all of this hullabaloo?

You know how.

Bluto, somebody that's known me for awhile better sit down & tell you why you're making a DRASTIC error trying to joust with me before I make you wish you'd never TRIED to learn English. You're a toothless lamb about to piss off a wolf & I just want you to be aware of your peril https://t.co/hMphYMRsJD

— Jim Cornette (@TheJimCornette) March 14, 2021

Goddang right he plugged his next podcast, where he would give a take on all this mess. Say what you want about the guy’s belief system and his refusal to change with the times, but dude knows how to string you along. That’s why I’m not getting all hot & bothered about anything he says on his show, no matter how wrong/offensive it might be.

He’ll just top it next week.

So Corny’s coming out of this smelling like a bed of roses. Probably best not to speculate on what his bed smells like. However, he’s not the only winner here, no matter how much his cult would like to tell you he is.

Miro, Kip & Penelope come out ahead as well. Let’s be honest: nothing JC says about them is going to make a major impact on their perception. The Cult of Cornette will love it & declare them buried. AEW stans will damn him to hell and stick up for their favorite video game threesome, who gained some respect from us impartial observers by standing up for themselves in entertaining fashion. Sometimes Cornette’s victims come off making themselves look dumber. Not here, these three made their point and got over. Say what you will about Miro, he knows how to use social media to further his brand. Kip & Penelope are learning a lot from him, I’m sure.

You know who else comes out ahead? People like me that love to write about this stuff! Jim Cornette needs AEW, and AEW can use him as an evil boogey man. Everybody wins.

Thanks for reading! Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.