News From Cook’s Corner 11.29.21: Turkey Hangover

Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m Steve Cook, and it looks like it was a pretty quiet week as far as wrestling news goes. Nobody got fired, for one thing. Most of us went home and gorged ourselves on turkey. We watched tons & tons of football. The Bengals beat the Steelers by 31 points. Louisville lost to Kentucky by 31 points, so things pretty much evened out for me. Things tend to.

The wrestling news cycle this weekend consisted of wrestlers throwing out crazy things they want to happen. Big E wants the Undertaker to dance with New Day. Ric Flair wants to wrestle Sammy Guevara in Israel. I want a million bajillion dollars. Not much we can do with any of that.

Big week coming up though!

Well, maybe. BetOnline hasn’t posted any NXT WarGames matches yet, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that as a potential column goes. There is some interesting news regarding that, as Johnny Gargano signed a week-long contract extension so he could work that show. We’ve seen that recently with people like Adam Cole, signing short-term contract extensions so they can finish their business with the company. Gargano’s wife Candice LeRae’s contract expires in May 2022, but one wonders if they would extend her contract due to her missing time with her pregnancy. Maybe this doesn’t become an issue and they both stay with WWE, most likely as part of NXT helping the young kids learn.

I assume AEW would be an option for Gargano & LeRae given their connection with the Young Bucks back in the day. That men’s roster’s kinda crowded though, so it’s tough to say which would be the better option for fans of Johnny’s work.

Who says WWE Superstars don’t get heat anymore?

Probably the most newsworthy thing to happen on WWE television this week was Seth Rollins getting attacked by a fan on Monday’s Raw episode. Rollins was backing away from the ring after beating up Finn Balor when a fan managed to enter from stage right, run down and tackle Rollins in the entranceway.

This angle of the “fan” attacking Seth Rollins from @kash_vL is pretty crazy

pic.twitter.com/faM5fMhXA4

— Chris Van Vliet (@ChrisVanVliet) November 23, 2021

Who was this guy, anyway? Elisah Spencer is a 24 year old from Red Hook. No word on whether he’s friends with Hook or not. He was a big Seth Rollins fan at some point, and met him a few years ago and felt a connection. So he tried to get in touch with Rollins on social media, since apparently that’s where people talk to wrestlers. Turns out, the person he thought was Seth Rollins was actually a scammer, and got Spencer to spend $3,000 on WWE gift cards & tickets. Spencer’s girlfriend at the time (who I’m sure was a really perceptive invividual) ended up getting arrested when she tried to pay for the tickets with a bad check.

So there was a beef there. Somehow this all turned into a situation where Goldberg & Vince McMahon booked Spencer to be there, while keeping it a secret from Rollins. Apparently he’s also related to Roman Reigns, Rikishi, the Rock and the rest of the Bloodline, and he did it for them. Big Finn Balor fan now too.

Spencer was charged with attempted assault and an “attempted violation of arts and cultural affairs”. So there you have it, the answer to the debate of whether or not pro wrestling is art.

AAA MegaChampionship Update!

Last week in this column we mentioned how Kenny Omega wouldn’t be able to defend AAA’s top championship at their upcoming TripleMania Regia event due to various injuries he’s taking time off for. Shortly afterward, AAA announced that the MegaChampionship would be vacated, and a new champion would be determined at TripleMania Regia in a five-way. Why a five-way? Honestly, I have no idea. For all I know, El Santo used to compete in five-ways all the time back in the day. Maybe there were five Aztec coins. Don’t know.

I do know the five men scheduled to compete for this thing: El Hijo del Vikingo, Samuray del Sol, Jay Lethal, Bobby Fish & Bandido. Vikingo was originally scheduled to challenge for the championship, so that makes sense. Bandido is an interesting addition since he’s ROH Champion and hasn’t competed for AAA since 2018. His ROH deal is up soon though, and we’re not exactly bullish on the future of that promotion. Back in 2012 when SdS was working the indies, AAA brought him in and repackaged him as Octagon Jr.. Octagon Jr. was originally intended to feud with another debuting wrestler patterned after a name from AAA’s past: Pentagon Jr.. That didn’t last too long, as SdS had a pretty busy schedule even before signing with WWE and didn’t have time to make AAA shows.

Neither Jay Lethal nor Bobby Fish have competed in AAA. They are the foreign talent brought in to generate interest. We’ll find out if they do, as FITE is offering part of this card on their website for $19.99. This seems to indicate that the lawsuit with the Lucha Underground folks has been settled to some extent. Or AAA is hoping they can pull this off without anybody noticing. It would be nice to have AAA readily available here in the US again, or at least some type of lucha libre show with solid production values.

The most recent Young Bucks Twitter bio update let us know that their contract with AEW has rolled over. The Bucks will be with the company until at least 2024, which comes as little surprise to most of us. WWE isn’t going to make them Executive Vice Presidents, nor feature tag team wrestling in any kind of meaningful way. As awesome as RK-Bro vs. Young Bucks matches would surely be, we’ll have to wait until 2024 before we see them.

The Bucks celebrated by taking the week off from Being the Elite. Understandable, especially since I don’t think they made last week’s taping.

Welp, that’s all we have time for this week. Darn turkey’s still making me sleepy. Thanks for reading, and until next time, keep your stick on the ice.