Hey guys! Just wanna hit you up with a quick programming note before getting to the June Fave Five. You might have noticed a lack of News From Cook’s Corner this week, and that comes down to me getting tired of reading and writing about wrestling news, rumors & gossip. This happens a lot. Eventually, the repetitiveness, the mindless speculation & nonsense of the wrestling news scene gets to me and I need a break. I’ll get back into it eventually, but for right now the best thing for my sanity is to spend less time scouring various wrestling websites to try and piece together stories that may or may not be true. It’s fun sometimes, but it’s not scratching that itch for me right now. Don’t worry, I’ll find something that does.

You know what is fun? Writing about some of my favorite current wrestlers! Sometimes when I’m in that news grind, or when I’m diving into the issues with the presentation of modern wrestling, or when I’m sorting out which company I’m supposed to stan for this week, I lose sight of the fact that there is a lot about pro wrestling that I still like. Tons of folks out there doing their thing and doing it well.

Here are the five currently rocking it the most, at least in my eyes.

5. Serena Deeb

Malenko approved. pic.twitter.com/8RXszBZaEj

— Serena (@SerenaDeeb) May 31, 2021

Serena’s return from injury has been a successful one thus far, as she’s established herself as the Woman of 1,000 Holds during matches with Red Velvet, Riho & Kamile. The Riho match was especially good, getting the crowd pumped for the Double or Nothing PPV. In the matches with Velvet & Kamille, Deeb was in her element as a player/coach, helping inexperienced competitors through matches that made them look better than they did going in. AEW’s women’s division has benefitted from her arrival, and there are plenty of wrestlers there that can learn from a match with her.

Unfortunately for the NWA, I’m not sure taking their championship off of Deeb was the best idea. I can only assume they meant to take the men’s title off of Nick Aldis and the wires got crossed somehow.

4. Elektra Lopez

I’m happy that Franky Monet has made her way to NXT and gets to work in the same company with her husband again. Good person, talented worker, deserves all the best. However, I must admit that during her World Premiere Encore on Tuesday night, my attention was more taken by her opponent. It was something to hear the entire NXT viewing audience exclaim “WHO IS THAT?” right at the same moment, but that’s exactly what happened. Who was this captivating beauty billed from Puerto Rico taking our viewing devices by storm?

Every single wrestling website immediately jumped on this story, and we found out that Electra previously went under the name of Karissa Rivera while working the Northeast indies. Electra is a second-generation wrestler, being the daughter of late 70s-early 80s WWF enhancement talent Steve King.

She had a brief ROH run in the middle of 2019 where she scored an upset win over Sumie Sakai that unfortunately didn’t lead to much of anything. Also made some previous WWE appearances, including an NXT match with Lacey Evans in 2018 before the show made the USA Network. She also appeared on SmackDown in April 2019 as one-half of the Brooklyn Belles, teaming with Kris Statlander before she became an alien and made some friends. Oh, and she was also Bobby Lashley’s ex-wife in the Lana/Lashley wedding debacle. So let’s just say that she’s been through some stuff, and it’s very fortunate that nobody remembers any of it now! WWE was impressed with her work though, and brought her in full-time back in February.

Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of Electra on NXT television very soon so she can be a regular in this column!

3. Tony Deppen

Deppen has had a pretty impressive string of matches on ROH television lately. It started with an upset victory over Tracy Williams for the World Television Championship, giving his VLNCE UNLTD group its first ROH title. Not too many people would have pegged Deppen to be the first amongst that foursome to get a strap, considering the other members are Brody King, Homicide & Chris Dickinson. Deppen has commented that while people think he’s the least violent of the group, he’s actually the least stable. Littlest dog in the fight, biggest heart, he’s got that stuff going for him.

Deppen’s win streak continued with an 8-man tag team match win for VLNCE UNLTD over The Foundation, who consist of Williams & fellow sticks in the mud Jay Lethal, Jonathan Gresham & Rhett Titus. Then he had his first TV title defense against Williams & Dragon Lee…since Williams was the one pinned it’ll be Dragon Lee getting the title shot at the Best in the World PPV. Deppen will be the underdog, but we should probably quit picking against him in these matches.

2. Miro

The sound of thunder at the end of this is actually my ovaries popping #GodofThunder https://t.co/U3IRz2e1Mm

— CJ “Lana” Perry (@LanaWWE) June 10, 2021

After a few months of video game playing & Mickey Mouse shirt wearing, Miro has finally become the badass we all hoped he would be when he came to AEW. The switch has flipped, and the Best Man is running over everybody in his path. He decimated Darby Allin to take the TNT Championship, and it’s anybody’s guess who will eventually take the title from him.

It was nice to see Miro having fun early on. He was doing what he wanted to do. But some people are just meant to be asskickers. As fun as video games are, and as over as Rusev Day was, Miro is at his best when beating the living crap out of people. Fortunately, there are plenty of people in AEW that he can beat the living crap out of.

1. Eva Marie

Allow me to introduce my protege @viperpiperniven
–@WWE @WWEonFOX @USA_Network #EVALution #WWERaw #ALLEverything pic.twitter.com/AgR8cBclub

— Eva Marie (@natalieevamarie) June 15, 2021

If you’ve been keeping up with my work here at The Chairshot, you knew who would be #1 with a bullet this month. After all, Eva was a large reason why I got back into the whole Internet wrestling writing thing after a lengthy absence, and columns I wrote about her led to a couple of paying gigs at the time. Sadly, the Eva gravy train only led so far, as she left WWE not long after I got back in the game.

So what is it about Eva, you might ask? Given my reputation as a bit of a horndog, I won’t deny the looks factor. There’s a bit more to it though. I’ve always felt bad for wrestlers that get hate from Internet fans for no other reason than simply existing. Fans got mad at Eva Marie because WWE wanted to put her on television before she was ready. That was the fault of WWE decision makers, not Eva. She doesn’t write the shows or decide who warrants being featured on them. The decision makers saw something in her they thought merited inclusion on TV over other talents that had been around longer. The Internet disagreed, and took it out on Eva Marie instead of the people making the decisions. Eva’s not the first person this happened to, she won’t be the last, and folks like me will be annoyed by people that blame wrestlers for the decisions of a billionaire in his seventies & his yes-men.

No matter what Eva Marie did during her first run with the company, it was going to be seen as a failure by a certain segment of the fanbase. I’m not saying she was the best technical wrestler of all time or the greatest interview, but even if she had been…those people wouldn’t have accepted it. They pre-judged Eva Marie before she could really become Eva Marie.

Of course, the Internet reacted to Eva’s return the way you would expect. Trashed it and villified it without giving it a chance. “How dare Eva Marie come back when Mickie James, Billie Kay, Peyton Royce & others are fired”, they say.

Eva. Did. Not. Fire. Them.

But to hear these people tell it, you would have thought she handed all the released wrestlers their papers. So no, I wasn’t surprised when the mass outrage over Piper Niven being introduced as Eva Marie’s protege without a name happened. We know darn well that at least 75% of the people whining about the announcers ignoring Piper’s NXT UK lineage during that match never watched her on NXT UK. WWE wanted to tell a story of Eva bringing in this new girl to fight her battles for her, and the details could either be told later or swept under the rug depending on what worked best.

The Internet bitched & moaned, and Monday’s show seems to indicate they’re getting their way, as Eva & “Doudrop” already lost a match after Eva’s protege walked out on her. Which would have been fine if it wasn’t in their very first tag team match. I guess they’re taking a lesson from recent AEW booking, starting with the blowoff and going backwards from there. I don’t think it’s what Greg had in mind when he talked about booking backwards.

Anyway, I’m happy Eva’s back. Also happy you read this! Join me on the Twitter, let me know who you’re digging, and I’ll be back next month to do this thing again.