Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! I’m not sure I’ve seen many more dramatic sporting days than what happened on Sunday. Between Max Verstappen winning the Formula 1 World Championship, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers winning the Grey Cup and the Louisville Cardinals defeating the Kentucky Wildcats in women’s college basketball, it was a pretty good day to sit in front of the television.

Oh, and the football too. But that got my blood pressure going a little bit so let’s not discuss that. Let’s talk about the wrestling instead!

WWE Releases Jeff Hardy

Jeff Hardy is so beloved by his fans and his peers. I’ve never heard a negative word about him & he’s always treated me with such kindness. Just wishing him and his family the very best.

— Ettore “Big E” Ewen (@WWEBigE) December 9, 2021

Just before the last edition of the Corner came out, we learned of Jeff Hardy having some issues that became public during a WWE house show in Edinburg, TX. Hardy had been sent home, speculation was all over the Interweb, and we were hoping that things would work out for the best. We still do, but WWE will not be part of the proceedings at the moment. Hardy was released by WWE after he refused to go to rehab. Not the first time that’s happened, we kinda hoped it wouldn’t happen again but…it is what it is.

What usually happens at this point is that the next company in line signs Jeff Hardy. When WWE let him go in 2003, TNA picked him up. When TNA let him go in 2006, WWE picked him up. When WWE let him go in 2009, TNA picked him up. You get the pattern. Jeff Hardy is a popular man. Fans like him. Other wrestlers like him too, it’s not like he’s an asshole to other people. Just self-destructive, not bothering anybody else for the most part. When you consider AEW already employs Jeff’s brother, who serves as one of his biggest advocates, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that Jeff Hardy will be #AllElite in approximately three months. It would be interesting to see the reaction to that, which is why I’m kind of rooting for it.

What can I say? I love to watch the world burn.

The meat of the matter is that Jeff Hardy has to do what’s best for Jeff Hardy & the people that love him. I’m not here to tell you what that is. I’m also not here to make excuses for him. Jeff, as the kids say, is a grown ass man. He doesn’t need an army of diehard wrestling fans explaining to us how he’s A-OK and WWE are big ol’ meanies for letting him go. There’s nothing wrong with being a diehard Jeff Hardy fan. I know there’s a ton of them out there. I do wonder if their continued enabling of Hardy over the years has had any kind of effect on how things have played out. Maybe it has, maybe it hasn’t. I don’t know how much effect wrestling fan chatter has on how Jeff Hardy sees himself.

We’ve seen this story play out over and over for just over fifteen years now. Will there be a different ending this time? One that doesn’t lead to me writing something like this again a few years from now? Time will tell.

Next In Line?

The inaugural #WWENIL class has been revealed! https://t.co/qf4XVQlje3

— WWE (@WWE) December 8, 2021

If you follow college athletics you know all about how the athletes are now allowed to make money off of their name, image & likeness. They can make deals to endorse companies, or print t-shirts or do anything they want to make some money off of their exploits on the field. And colleges can also use their connections with companies willing to endorse their athletes to bring on even better athletes, which gives quite the advantage to certain schools, but we’re not here to talk about that.

We know that WWE has shifted what they’re looking for in their Superstars. They’re not looking to the indies for experienced grapplers that have paid their dues. WWE wants fresh young athletes that hopefully can do everything necessary in the ring while being able to tell the stories that keep fans coming back. With this NIL stuff going on and athletes being able to endorse companies, WWE figured it would be a good idea to ingratiate themselves with young athletes that they could make into WWE Superstars.

A number of them are collegiate wrestlers. Gable Stevenson was the first, of course, and he’s been joined by a couple of others. A.J. Ferrari is a name that popped up on our radar during last year’s NCAA Championships. Skilled wrestler, also appeared to have a lot of charisma during interviews. They’d be absolutely foolish to make him change his name, that’s for sure. He is a bit smaller than the other men in this class though, most of them are north of 6’5 or 300 lbs.

The other two gaining the most attention so far are twins from Fresno State Universiy. Haley & Hanna Cavinder play basketball there, and were the first to sign NIL deals with companies after the NCAA made it possible. Why them? They have a huge social media following via the Gram, the Tok and other sites I have no idea what they are. The Cavinders are what marketing types call “influencers”, and pretty good athletes.

They’re also twins, people find them attractive, and WWE thinks they can make them into the next Bellas. They had previously expressed interest in continuing their basketball career post-college, but maybe being WWE Superstars would pay better. If nothing else, trips to the Performance Center would make for great social media content.

It’ll be interesting to see how this program develops in the years to come. NIL could end up being a source of talent like OVW was back in the day. Or, it could be a waste of time. It’s obviously too soon to tell either way, which is a shame because I’m supposed to tell you one side or the other right now. We won’t really know the answer until years down the road when we see who’s on top of WWE programming. If it’s still Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, Edge & people like that taking up WrestleMania main event slots, it didn’t work out. If guys like Gable Steveson, Bron Breakker & A.J. Ferrari are making waves & drawing money, obviously WWE knew what they were doing.

Some Potential WWE Comings & Goings

We saw the last of Johnny Gargano & Kyle O’Reilly on NXT last week…at least for now. WWE folks apparently still believe both of them will be back at some point. We know about Johnny’s baby on the way via Candice LeRae, but apparently Kyle has one coming as well. Presumably not via Candice LeRae. In any event, Johnny did not sign a new contract and is now a free agent.

Two more men who have contracts expiring soon are Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn. Dave Meltzer tells us that WWE is featuring them heavily on TV likely to keep them happy and make them want to stay. I’m not so sure about his theory. Sami Zayn has spent the last two weeks getting the shit kicked out of him by Brock Lesnar. If I wanted to keep somebody around and happy, the last thing I would do is have Brock Lesnar kick the shit out of him on a regular basis. Maybe Sami really gets off on it, who knows.

Bill Goldberg has one match left on his contract! Unless Tony Khan really wants to get Goldy back on TBS & TNT for some reason, I would assume that as long as Goldberg is having matches, they’ll be with WWE. Most likely in Saudi Arabia.

ROH has one last battle

Final Battle took place this past Saturday, and will serve as Ring of Honor’s final event for the time being. The event did set up some things for the future, though one does wonder where they’ll end up taking place. Here’s some of the major happenings:

-Jonathan Gresham defeated Jay Lethal to become ROH World Champion: Bandido was unable to appear due to testing positive for COVID, so Lethal was brought back in to main event & put Gresham over for the “original” ROH championship belt. It seemed as though Bandido was going to lose the championship to Gresham at this event anyway. As things turned out, he still has a belt! He could do what most luchadores that have retired belts do and keep defending it. I think Dr. Wagner Jr. still brings out the UWA Championship occasionally, and that company’s been dead for twenty-five years.

After the show ended, Gresham talked about how he’s purified the championship and will defend it under Pure rules. He also put over the new promotion he’s starting, which seems to me like a way for him to do his own thing and stay out of the mainstream feds. We’ll see though, I’m sure Tony Khan will make an offer.

-Jay & Mark Briscoe won the Tag Team Championship, and then laid out an open challenge to any tag team. FTR came out, there was some brawling, and somewhere Jim Cornette creamed himself.

-Rok-C defended the Women’s Championship, then Deonna Purrazzo came out to challenge her to a “winner take all” match after she beats Mickie James for the Knockouts Championship.

-The wrestler formerly known as Braun Strowman appeared with EC3. If he’s still charging what he said he’d be charging per appearance, this seems like ROH sticking Sinclair with the bill on their last night.

-There were multiple videos from former ROH talent. Eddie Edwards, Hangman Page, Jimmy Jacobs, CM Punk, Adam Cole, The Young Bucks & Bryan Danielson were featured in this manner. Mostly AEW people, a couple of Impact representatives.

It does seem like AEW & Impact will have their pick of who they want from ROH. Given that some of their talent appeared here, one can assume they’re sniffing around. New Japan already has some ROH talent on their Strong shows, and announcer Ian Riccaboni will be joining the team there. Should people ever be able to travel to Japan again, NJPW proper could be an option. And of course there’s GCW, PWG & other indies too. I wouldn’t expect too many folks to go to WWE, as we’ve seen they’re shifting away from signing experienced wrestlers in favor of young athletes that may have star potential.

As far as ROH goes…I increasingly get a feeling that they will actually try to do something in April. I was very skeptical at first, but for some reason I have a hunch that we’ll actually see ROH again. Whether it’ll work or not, it’s tough to say. There was definitely more interest in this show than in previous ROH events, so maybe that gets the ball rolling for Joe Koff & whoever else will be running things in the future.

The End of DVDs (and Blu Ray)

WWE has decided to quit producing DVDs & Blu Rays since everything is going on the Peacock anyway. The Survivor Series DVD/Blu Ray will be released on December 28, and then that will be it. No more physical copies of your favorite wrestling shows. I’ll be honest, I thought they stopped doing these years ago. Haven’t got one since they started doing the Network thing.

However, I find it kind of fitting that this news came out so close to ROH’s final show (at least for now). Back in the 2000s, Ring of Honor made a good amount of their money off of DVD sales. I have a number of shoeboxes with ROH DVDs around here somewhere. I ended up seeing most of the company’s shows from 2002-09 one way or another via DVD.

Just another sign that the world keeps moving, and we end up with stuff that’s pretty useless in the long-run. Where’s my VCR?

Blackjack Lanza

I’ll be honest, the original Blackjacks were a bit before my time. Most of my memories of Blackjack Lanza, who passed away last week, involve him being one of the random WWF officials in the background. Lanza was one of the company’s top road agents/producers from the mid 1980s until the 2000s. He was usually the agent behind Stone Cold Steve Austin’s big matches, and typically ran things behind the scenes on house shows.

Of course, Lanza did have a very successful career in the ring, and we all remember how he dressed & what he looked like. Black hair, vest, chaps, tights & mustache. He & Blackjack Mulligan held tag team championships in the WWWF, WWA & World Class territories. Lanza could also do the singles thing, he main evented in the AWA & St. Louis fairly regularly. Lanza had the respect of everybody of his era, and was one of the behind the scenes people that made the WWF what it was during my childhood.

That’s all we have time for this week! Thanks for reading, and until next time, keep your stick on the ice.