Hi, hello & welcome to News From Cook’s Corner! Tomorrow will mark one year since this column has made its glorious return. All in all, I think I’d give this year of News From Cook’s Corner a solid “C”. Not my best, but not my worst either. Considering the year that’s taken place for all of us, I’d be willing to bump it up to a “C+” based off of degree of difficulty. A rough year for wrestling, a pretty full plate at work…not really the best time to produce your best writing.

Thing is, I know I can do better. I’m glad my work draws whatever interest it does, and I appreciate everybody that reads & likes my stuff, but I’m a greedy son of a gun. I want more. Gonna try and make that happen by the time the second anniversary of the third News From Cook’s Corner run rolls around. How am I going to do that?

Well, hopefully I’ll figure it out by then.

For now, let’s run through some rasslin news!

Spring Cleaning

That’s what we used to call it back in the day. Every year in the time following WrestleMania, WWE would release a number of wrestlers from their contracts & wish them well in future endeavors. The practice stopped during the 2010s largely for two reasons…

1. WWE wanted to have every professional wrestler in captivity under contract.
2. Linda McMahon was trying to get elected to political office, and her family’s company firing a bunch of people didn’t make her claim of being a job creator look very good.

Sure, people would leave or get released from time to time, but we went years without that day where the axe fell and it seemed like people would never stop getting fired. Not a great time to be a wrestler without much going on in WWE,

We talked about Samoa Joe in the Fave Five column and nothing else has been reported on that front. Except that everybody is talking about how much they would love to finally see a rematch between Joe & CM Punk, and Punk seems like he’d be up for it. I kind of wonder if they could put that together themselves and make some money off of it, or get one of these other feds to book it. FITE re-tweeting a Bleacher Report article about it tells me they’re seeing if they can get involved in something with these guys. I mean, their new owners are promoting boxing shows built around Jake Paul, and it seems to be working, so why the hell not?

Billie Kay & Peyton Royce

Back when the Iiconics split up, everybody told me that Peyton was in store for big things because Vince McMahon liked her and was going to give her a singles push. Nothing that happened after the split indicated that anybody associated with Vince or Creative had any interest in Peyton Royce. She went to a tag team with Lacey Evans that didn’t make anybody forget about Peyton’s old tag team, then once Lacey went out of action there was nothing for Peyton to do. She gave an emotionally-charged promo on Raw Talk that got some people talking, but it didn’t lead to anything.

Billie was supposed to be left behind after the team split, but got a bit more run on SmackDown with a gimmick where she would distribute her resume to everybody. Dunno if they were trying to send her a message or not, but she got the darn thing over. Fightful reported that Kevin Dunn didn’t understand Billie’s appeal, which is one of those things that isn’t surprising at all because it’s Kevin Dunn & the only thing he understands is bad television.

It’s kind of a theme with these releases. A good percentage of these people were in tag teams that split up for reasons that ended up being irrelevant. Singles pushes that never went anywhere because somebody lost interest.

Mickie James

Mickie was one of those girls back in the day that history tries to overlook now in a desire to emphasize how today’s women’s wrestling is the best ever. It seemed like her in-ring career was just about done anyway, and WWE probably has enough people to train and whatnot, so the release doesn’t come as a huge surprise. A shame to many, as we all like Mickie.

Like a good number of people released by WWE lately, Mickie has a significant other employed elsewhere. Does she follow Nick Aldis to the NWA? Billy Corgan’s company sure could use a boost, as not many of their other recent additions have generated a ton of interest. Not saying Mickie turns the tide for them, but she’s damn sure a bigger draw than Tyrus. Mickie vs. Serena Deeb sounds good to me, as does Mickie vs. Thunder Rosa, and I’m sure Kamille could learn something from her. Book it, William!

Chelsea Green

Chelsea finally made her main roster debut back in November and was set to be part of Team SmackDown at the Survivor Series until a wrist injury during the match changed those plans. She had a couple of start-stops like that just when it seemed like her time.

Could still be her time somewhere else though! She’s already taking outside bookings and I’d guarantee that we’ll see her on one of the other TV wrestling promotions before 2021 ends. She’s got history with Impact and friends there too, so that seems like the best fit. That said, I think she’ll have her choice of where to go.

Tucker

Making lemonade. pic.twitter.com/5Jvvmol88o

— TUCKy (@REALLeviCooper) April 15, 2021

I never heard anybody say one word about this cat until he popped up on Twitter day of his firing smoking joints and ripping Vince. Now he’s everybody’s favorite! Not hating on the guy though, I thought he was solid enough in Heavy Machinery, and it was obvious they had nothing for him after that split. What wasn’t as obvious was they had nothing for Otis either.

Anyway, Tucker’s better off somewhere that somebody might at least book a match for him.

Wesley Blake

Remember that big hullabaloo over Jaxon Ryker’s tweet last summer? It got the Forgotten Sons taken off of TV and everybody wanted Ryker to get the hook. I never saw it happening, simply because Ryker’s tweet wasn’t anything that the WWE front office would have disagreed with in private. Sure enough, Ryker still has a job while the rest of the Forgotten Sons have been released.
Blake was in a well-regarded tag team with Buddy Murphy that got Alexa Bliss over as a star before moving on to the Forgotten Sons. He’ll be teaming with somebody somewhere.

Bo Dallas

Bo was already making plans for life after wrestling. Maybe he’ll do some well paying indies or something, but I doubt we see him on a large stage again. Besides, all his family’s stroke is with WWE.

Kalisto

Kalisto was one of those guys that showed a lot of talent before arriving in WWE, and he had a solid run early on too. Not so much in the past couple of years, and I read something from thecubsfan that made a lot of sense. Expectations for Kalisto will be high now, but there’s no guarantee he’ll live up to them. Dude’s spent the last several years un-learning the stuff that fans outside of WWE liked about him. He won’t magically become Octagon Jr. or Samuray del Sol again, like people might expect.

So if people lower those expectations, I think they’ll be happy with what they see from him in AAA or wherever else he ends up. A US indy tour seems inevitable since that’s where he made his name to begin with.

In closing, it should be noted that getting fired by WWE isn’t the end of the world. Everybody here has feasible options they can move on to, and the door’s always open for a comeback. Heck, Drew McIntyre was let go by WWE some years ago, and he improved himself to the point where he eventually became WWE Champion.

I don’t even mind WWE trimming their roster, just don’t give me the “budget cuts” excuse. WWE can afford anybody they want at a price that doesn’t hamper the almighty profit margin too much. If fans, or WWE tries to justify firing people with “budget cuts”, don’t buy it.

Just say you don’t want these people around anymore. You have no use for them. Be honest!
I’m also not going to make any suggestions on who should be fired, as WWE will just keep them around forever. People tell me they still see money in Velveteen Dream…I’m not sure what kind of money they’d see in him at unless the FBI puts out a reward for his capture.

Announcing News!

Last week I sat here and explained to you how it doesn’t matter who commentates on shows, what actually matters is the content of the shows. Sometimes, it feels like people in the business read my columns, then set out to prove me wrong. This is a ridiculous, self-serving belief since it assumes that people in the business read this shit, but it’s just a feeling I get on some occasions, such as this one.

WWE completed their current announcing picture not long after last week’s column, putting Pat McAfee next to Michael Cole on SmackDown. It makes sense, McAfee is quite the talker and has football commentary experience, and also has a fanbase that he can implore to watch SmackDown. I feel like an opportunity has been missed considering his in-ring performance against Adam Cole, but McAfee doesn’t seem into doing that full-time, and seems quite happy talking for a living. Wouldn’t we all?

Then we have Impact Wrestling making a big announcement. Mauro Ranallo will be calling the main event of their Rebellion show, which pits Impact Champion Rich Swann against AEW Champion Kenny Omega in an apparent unification match. You always have to add “apparent” in front of “unification match” given the past hundred years of pro wrestling history. It’s nice to see Mauro return to pro wrestling, and it’s not like he’s had a problem getting work since leaving WWE.

Is Mauro going to make anybody buy Rebellion? Will Pat get more people to watch SmackDown? I’m leaning towards “probably not” on both. Yet it seems like that’s what these promotions think will fix things. Maybe I’m wrong. They’ll do their best to prove it.

AEW did a little bit of cleaning too

I feel that I need to go ahead and mention this as well, since we already covered WWE firing a bunch of people, and WWE fans will get mad if I don’t mention other companies letting people go. More importantly than all that, I just find this particular story fascinating for some reason.

Ivelisse hasn’t been seen in AEW since February. There had been some speculation that she had gotten into trouble backstage due to some issues with Thunder Rosa. Some tried to say there were no issues, but people that watched their match on Dynamite knew better.

Ivelisse: I don’t know why I got released.

Also Ivelisse: pic.twitter.com/rvvzE2geEA

— Soundwave (@LocalSoundwave) April 14, 2021

She didn’t appear too often on Dynamite after that, but got a solid push on Dark. Ivelisse won fifteen straight matches on Dark, whether as a single or teaming with Diamante. Lost her last one, and hasn’t been seen since. What’s up with that?

According to Ivelisse on social media & during an interview with Lucha Libre Online, it’s due to heat with a coach & with Thunder Rosa. Rosa & Ivelisse have had bad blood since their days in Lucha Underground, and apparently Rosa ran her down to anybody in AEW who would listen. See, I don’t completely doubt that. I don’t know if Thunder Rosa was giving everybody her unsolicited opinions, but if somebody asked her what she thought of Ivelisse, she probably gave an answer.

I imagine that’d be the nice thing about being under NWA contract instead of AEW contract. One can be a little more truthful.

You feel bad for anybody getting fired, and Ivelisse has the potential to be a star somewhere. Unfortunately, it seems like she keeps getting in her own way, and it also seems like she doesn’t realize that she’s part of the issue. Not saying she hasn’t been wronged in some of these situations, it’s the wrestling business and not many of these people are wearing halos.

It’s a lesson a lot of us could stand to learn. If the same bad things keep happening to us, maybe there’s something we can do to make things better.

That’s all I got time for right now. Thanks for reading, and until next time, keep your stick on the ice.