Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and it just feels like the days are getting busier and busier. Baseball starts back up this week, and I’ll be back working at the ballpark with a smaller clientele. Business is picking way up at my other job because people are leaving the house now, and I still have to somehow find time to do everything I do here on the Interweb.

It’s getting tougher, but I press on because you the people demand it. If it wasn’t for me, where would you get your witty weekly wrestling news report? Nobody does them anymore. Now it’s all about the YouTubing & Twitching and other stuff that I’ll probably start doing after y’all move on to the next thing.

Yeah, I’m a little behind the times. Works for wrestling, doesn’t it?

Peacock removing content

In news that shouldn’t exactly be shocking to anyone, Peacock is actually going through WWE Network content and taking out certain things that won’t pass standards & practices. Two instances noted by various news outlets were Roddy Piper’s half-blackface gimmick at WrestleMania VI & Vince McMahon using the N word at the 2005 Survivor Series. There’s also some episodes of Raw that haven’t been uploaded as of yet, but I can imagine those late 90s Raws are going to have a ton of things taken off.

I can see the issues some will have with this. There will be those that whine & cry about censorship. You know who those people are, or you are in fact those people. Then there are those who are anal completionists. I fall into this category.

(Should I use the phrase “anal completionists”? Probably not, it sounds a little funny, but it’s the best phrase I can think of to describe people that feel the need to watch everything once they get into a show or genre.)

From a historical perspective, it’d be best to have these shows complete so we know what was going on at the time. A full picture is the best way to look at these things. But if you’re Peacock, or any multimedia company trying to bring in the widest net of people to your service, why wouldn’t you get rid of stuff that’s obviously offensive? In the case of the two confirmed instances, they were bad ideas back when they took place & would be bad ideas now. I’ve never bought into the idea that racism was ok “back in the day”, and 1990 & 2005 were well past the time of Amos n’ Andy.

Could the scrubbing of history go to far? Sure, that’s definitely possible. But that’s the risk you run when you sell your video library to a corporation. As long as Vince McMahon has that money, he won’t give a hoot about what Peacock uploads or doesn’t upload. And neither would most of us, to be honest.

Last Week’s Hall of Fame Announcements

The 2020-21 WWE Hall of Fame class keeps getting bigger, and last week saw two rather large men get the nod. Neither are much of a surprise, though I’m sure they’d be pretty far from induction in any Hall of Fame that writers of these columns or readers of these columns would vote for.

Kane: Certainly deserving from a kayfabe perspective, and from the idea that most people that have worked for WWE are big fans of the Big Red Machine. Kane was never really my cup of tea, but the dude was around for a long time and had a pretty sizeable fan following. Can’t really knock it, though if I was WWE I would try to keep from honoring politicians while they’re still in office. Seems a bit shady to me.

The Great Khali: This one got a reaction. Khali doesn’t exactly have a lengthy list of WWE accomplishments & probably has never had a match that was any higher than two snowflakes. Easy to overlook these things when you consider that Khali is from India, and it’s an important market to WWE. Seems like a good dude too. I know Jeff Small was smiling when he heard the news, and isn’t that what matters?

Rob Van Dam: This one’s not official via WWE yet, but has been confirmed by the holy trinity of Fightful, Dave Meltzer & Paul Heyman. RVD was one of the coolest characters of the late 1990s & 2000s, and was arguably the most over performer during the infamous WCW-ECW Invasion of 2001. He won a collection of championships during his time with WWE, and is still one of the most well-remembered wrestlers of that era. Quite ahead of his time too, as his wrestling style & his feelings towards certain substances would indicate.

There had been a report that Daniel Bryan was listed as a 2021 Hall of Famer on Peacock’s WWE Network, but that seems to have been an error. It would be a bit strange to induct the man into the Hall of Fame just before he challenged for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania.

New ThunderDome Home

As expected, WWE announced that their ThunderDome would be moving to the Yuengling Center in Tampa this Thursday. The venue’s website revealed that this would be going through August 3. I’m sure WWE hopes that provides enough time for things to get close enough to normal that a touring schedule can be made, and arenas will be filled with starved wrestling fans.

Who will all be super excited for the first match, then will get bored within an hour or so while us fans at home bitch & moan about the crowd not being loud enough. I’d like to think that annoying topic will go away, but I know it won’t because fans love telling fans how to fan.

I don’t really have much to add about the Yuengling Center other than Yuengling is a quality beverage. I liked it even more before they jacked the price up around here.

Logan Paul at WrestleMania

I’m going to be that guy y’all make fun of. The guy that doesn’t have any idea who a major celebrity is that everybody else apparently knows about for some reason or another. Those that were barely familiar with Bad Bunny were met with ridicule, and not knowing who this guy is will garner me even more mockery than those people got.

Especially since Logan Paul is apparently a world famous boxer, as well as a YouTube star. As a fight fan that watches a lot of things on YouTube, I should probably know who he is. Nope, don’t have the slightest idea. I’m just not big into “YouTube stars”…the stuff I watch on the service largely involves people that were famous for something else. Is that so weird?

In any event, Logan Paul is a huge superstar, and he will be appearing on this week’s SmackDown as part of a Sami Zayn segment. Sami & Logan have been interacting on the Twitter, and this will apparently lead to something at WrestleMania. Even if I don’t know anything about Logan Paul, and am not looking him up for the purposes of this column because that would kill the bit, I can tell you that this is a good thing for WWE.

Why?

Because people younger than me know who Logan Paul is. His boxing PPVs have done huge business. Heck, Money Mayweather’s looking into getting into business with the guy because he sees the dollar signs. We also know that WWE needs to do whatever they can to appeal to the younger audience, and not worry about the old people like me. Us olds will scratch our heads for a few minutes and move on to the next thing.

The youngsters just might actually turn on SmackDown to see this guy. Whether it works or not, you can’t fault WWE for actually trying to draw a younger demographic with their usage of Logan Paul & the Bad Bunny. And you can’t knock WWE if they decide to put a title on Logan Paul, as he does have combat experience.

ROH talk? Sure, why not.

Last weekend was a little light on the major event front, but Ring of Honor presented an Anniversary Show on Friday night. Did it present anything that interests us?

(Listen, I know that this promotion isn’t getting much buzz these days. Work with me here, I review the weekly TV for 411 and need to keep myself interested.)

Tracy Williams won two titles! 

Quinn McKay backstage interview with the NEW ROH World Television Champion Tracy Williams! 🎉#ROH19 pic.twitter.com/gw71j1ckvj

— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) March 27, 2021

Big night for Hot Sauce. Tracy won the Television Championship in a match against Kenny King, and teamed with Rhett Titus to win the Tag Team Championship from King & Bestia del Ring. Dedicated ROH fans will notice that Dragon Lee wasn’t in either match, so there’s the excuse for La Faccion Ignoberable.

They apparently blamed Amy Rose for their shortcomings, as she was superkicked out of her managerial role. Probably because the booker watched the New Japan Cup and saw the Bea Priestly angle. Not all was lost for LFI, as Rush retained his title against Jay Lethal.

New faction?

The Anniversary build was all about the Foundation and LFI, but they have a new group of folks to worry about now. Brody King led Homicide, Tony Deppen & Chris Dickinson in a beat down on both groups at the end of the show. I have no idea what any of these people have in common, but that might be part of the idea. Probably a common cause of bringing violence back to ROH, which was hinted at in a random vignette on TV.

The women are back!

The Allüre is here… 👀#ROH19 pic.twitter.com/i2Vd9aKfg7

— ROH Wrestling (@ringofhonor) March 27, 2021

Maria Kanellis-Bennett announced that the ROH Women’s Championship Tournament would be happening in Summer 2021. This set up an angle with The Allure & Quinn McKay, which will set up a match with Angelina Love & McKay for qualification into the tournament.

I know a number of ROH viewers will be excited to see Quinn in action. Something about that bowtie really does it for people. I dunno, reminds me too much of Mr. Bob Backlund. However, I can’t help but be skeptical of ROH attempting to do a women’s division based on all of the previous attempts leading to nothing. It’s tough not to think it’s largely happening because of Kelly Klein’s lawsuit.

It’s definitely something we have to wait & see about before buying into. Hey, I’d like to buy whatever Mandy Leon is selling. We’ve just been bitten too many times.

And unfortunately not by Mandy Le-oh hold on this is 2021 I can’t end these things with sexual come-ons. Get it together, man!

Blade Braxton

We close with some sad news about a long time IWC mainstay. Blade Braxton, one of the fine folks behind the WrestleCrap website, passed away over the weekend. He did a long-running podcast with RD Reynolds & brought a lot of laughs to thousands of followers & listeners. Braxton also wrestled in the indies as The Midnight Rose & was in a number of horror films.

I haven’t really kept up to date with WrestleCrap in recent years, but it was one of my favorite websites way back in the day when I was discovering the whole Internet wrestling scene. It definitely paved the way for things like Botchamania and the goofy Botched column I do for 411mania. I certainly want to send my condolences to RD, Jed Shaffer and the rest of the WrestleCrap family.

That’s all I got this week, thanks for reading & keep your stick on the ice.