History repeats itself as “The Cowboy” James Storm heads to Bound for Glory

Courtesy TNA Wrestling

This time last year, “The Cowboy” James Storm had been edged out of the Bound for Glory Series by his friend and tag team partner Bobby Roode. Though Storm showed his support for Roode, who challenged Kurt Angle for the Total Nonstop Action World Heavyweight Championship, Roode came up short. Just days later, Storm got a shot at Angle and won the title, only to lose it the following week when Roode broke a beer bottle over his head in Macon, Ga. Almost a year later, Storm looked to be on track to win this year’s Bound for Glory Series to face the champion at this Sunday’s Bound for Glory. But history repeated itself and Roode in Storm’s match, causing Storm to be eliminated from the tournament and resulting in their match against each other at the pay-per-view. With TNA returning to Macon a few days after Bound for Glory again this year, one has to wonder how much history might repeat itself yet again for Storm. As he prepares for this Sunday’s Bound for Glory, Storm talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about his ongoing rivalry with his former Beer Money tag team partner.

Things are coming full circle for you heading into Bound for Glory. It was just after last year’s Bound for Glory that your former partner Bobby Roode turned on you. What are your thoughts about your match against Roode this Sunday?

Courtesy TNA Wrestling

It’s the same as any other time. I just take it one day at a time and see what happens. I don’t want to get ahead of myself and put the cart before the horse, as they say. You never know what the next day might bring, and with Bobby Roode it’s just one of those things where you’ve got to be on your toes. Right now, he’s one of the best in the business.

How do you think King Mo‘s role as special enforcer might play into this match? Do you expect him to get involved in any way?

To tell you the truth, I don’t care if he gets involved or not. It is one of them things where if he gets in my face I’ll punch him. I don’t care if he’s an MMA fighter or not. I’ve beaten people up in bars before, so he ain’t gone be no different.

TNA was in Macon for an Impact Wrestling taping just after last year’s Bound for Glory, which is where you won the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from Kurt Angle. You’ll be back in Macon for a house show right after Bound for Glory again this year. What are your thoughts on returning to the place where you won the title and had a beer bottle smashed over your head by Roode?

We try to hit each town at least once a year and definitely go to the surrounding towns. We were just in Atlanta, but we also went to towns right around the edges and now we’re working our way down to Macon. Hopefully this deal with Bobby will be over with. If not, maybe I’ll be facing him again in Macon.

You’ve been in and out of the title picture ever since he took the title from you last year. Are you looking to get back in the title hunt after Bound for Glory?

Courtesy TNA Wrestling

Yeah. I mean, anybody who is a singles wrestler always wants to be in the world title hunt. For me it’s more special because I actually won by points in the Bound for Glory Series and I feel like I should be going on to Bound for Glory to wrestle for the World Heavyweight title. But it’s one of those things where I’ve got to get my stuff done with Bobby first, then move on.

I was at last year’s show in Macon, as well as the recent shows in Atlanta and Gainesville. You seem to get a warm reception anytime you’re down South. How does that feel for you, being from Tennessee?

It’s great. To me, that’s what wrestling is all about – just going out and having fun and putting on the best shows I can for the people. I think that comes across to them and they know I’m there to have fun. Of course, you’ve got a ton of beer drinkers in the crowd, so that goes over good, too.

www.impactwrestling.com

“Here Comes the Boom” strikes with a few hard-hitting laughs

Kevin James is good at being funny, but he’s probably not the first person you’d bet on in a mixed martial arts cage fight. But as the unmotivated high school biology teacher Scott Voss, James becomes an unlikely hero in Here Comes the Boom when he trains for MMA fights in order to earn enough money to keep the school’s music program (and it’s director, played by Henry Winkler) from being eliminated to cut costs.

Scott Voss (Kevin James) leads his crew to victory in "Here Comes the Boom" (photo by Tracy Bennett)

Relying solely on his collegiate wrestling background from 20 years ago, Scott meets Niko (former Ultimate Fighting Championship Heavyweight Champion Bas Rutten), a Dutch immigrant looking to become a United States citizen. Niko agrees to train Scott to fight in exchange for Scott tutoring him on his citizenship test. Niko also gets Scott booked for some underground MMA fights, where Scott is quickly defeated a few times before landing a lucky punch to knock out one green-haired show off (then inadvertently throwing up on his downed opponent). Directed by Frank Coraci, who has directed Adam Sandler hits such as The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy, as well as last year’s Zookeeper (also starring James), Here Comes the Boom takes the high-school-teacher-fighting-on-the-side story of last year’s Warrior and combines it with the underdog sports comedy formula of The Waterboy to create a feel-good movie with a few gut-busting comedic moments.

Salma Hayek plays the Adrian to James’ Rocky, but it takes her a while (at least 18 attempts on Scott’s part) to warm up to the idea of having dinner with Scott. But as the school nurse, she finds herself spending more time than usual with Scott, who requires minor medical attention more frequently as he continues to fight (quite literally) to save his friend’s job. Along the way, he inspires his students and fellow teachers, while also becoming motivated to once again make learning fun for the kids. And he actually starts to get pretty good at fighting. Good enough, in fact, that UFC‘s Joe Rogan shows up to offer him an opportunity to fight on a UFC card, which, even if he loses, will earn him enough money to keep the school’s music program alive.

Bella (Salma Hayek) nurses Scott's (Kevin James) battle wounds in "Here Comes the Boom" (photo by Tracy Bennett)

Predictably, Scott is severely outmatched as he gets into the cage against one of UFC’s most aggressive fighters Ken Dietrich (UFC’s Krzysztof Soszyński), a chiseled and tattooed madman known for hitting his opponents with the Superman punch (a leaping blow that typically knocks his foes off their feet). Also predictably, Scott gets his ass kicked for a couple of rounds before getting a burst of energy late in the fight after a pep talk from Winkler. But you can’t really fault Here Comes the Boom for being a bit predictable. It is an inspirational sports comedy, after all, and there’s little to deduce other than what you’ve probably already seen in the trailers. So if you take it for what it is and don’t try to pummel it into being anything else, Here Comes the Boom is good for a few hearty laughs and some well-timed slapstick.

www.boom-movie.com

Cargill and Derrickson give Mr. Boogie a chilling new take in “Sinister”

Everybody knows it’s a bad idea to go to sleep right after watching a horror movie. And if anyone should know that, it should be a movie critic like C. Robert Cargill. But that didn’t stop him from watching The Ring, then going to sleep and having a bad dream that inspired Sinister, the new horror film he co-srote with The Exorcism of Emily Rose director Scott Derrickson. Having previously become fans of each others’ work, the two met when, by coincidence, they realized (thanks to Twitter) that they were both in Las Vegas at the same time. Derrickson was working on a different project altogether, but when he heard Cargill’s idea he decided to turn it into a movie. And Sinister was committed to film.

Starring Ethan Hawke as Ellison, a writer who found fame after writing a hit non-fiction book about a murder, Sinister follows Ellison’s quest to reclaim that glory after his subsequent books haven’t fared as well (and have left a sour taste in the mouths of many cops, who he typically doesn’t portray in flattering fashion). After he moves into the house where an entire family was murdered (aside from one girl, who has been missing since the murders), he finds a box of Super 8 home videos that turn out to be gruesome snuff films, including one of the family that used to live in his new home being hung from a tree in the back yard. As he watches these films and conducts his investigation, he uncovers an eerie Pagan creature known as Bagul, or Mr. Boogie to the children he encounters. Refusing to acknowledge the increasingly odd occurrences happening to his family as his investigation continues, Ellison sees these developments as the perfect opportunity to regain his fame. Before Bagul comes to life on the big screen, Cargill and Derrickson talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about Sinister‘s themes of fear, their intentional misguiding of the viewer and breaking some traditional horror film formulas to create something frighteningly fresh.

When people die in horror movies, there’s often some moral reason for these deaths. We don’t know much about the previous victims in Sinister, but we learn a good bit about Ellison. Is there any indication in Sinister that the killer is out to set something right or teach his victims a lesson?

Ethan Hawke stars as crime writer Ellison in "Sinister" (photo by Phil Caruso)

Derrickson: There’s certainly a moral tale being told in that, like all horror films, it’s a movie about fear, it’s a movie about scaring the audience and the main character getting scared. But probably my favorite thing about the movie overall is the fact that Ethan’s watching these movies and they’re scaring him, then these weird things are starting to happen as a result of him moving into this house, then things are becoming inexplicable paranormal for him and he gets even more scared at that, yet why doesn’t he leave? Because he has an even deeper fear than all that and it’s his fear of losing his status and his fear of not regaining his fame and fortune. That’s a really relatable fear, especially in modern America where everybody’s obsessed with their status. His placing his own need to reclaim his high status above his family’s safety, and his fear of not having that, is the moral sin, for lack of a better word, that’s at the center of the movie. It causes him to make a faustian bargain very early on. He should have handed that stuff over to the police, but he realizes, as he says in the film, “This is my shot.” From that moment, he’s on a trajectory to the end of the movie.

Cargill: There’s even more to it than that in regards to the other families. The families are just collateral damage to what Bagul’s end goal really is. He’s a seducer, he’s getting someone to transgress and through that transgression, that’s where the evil really comes from. And there’s a lot of that running throughout Sinister.

Ellison’s fear of losing his fame is made apparent in one scene where he’s watching an old tape of his first television interview, which is presented in much the same way as when he’s watching these mysterious tapes of grizzly murders. Was that an intentional juxtaposition?

Derrickson: That was certainly deliberate. He’s caught inside himself in a way that he doesn’t realize and driven by a deep-seated fear that is so powerful he can’t escape it when he clearly should.

You also mentioned that he should have turned these tapes and his investigation over to the police. When he finally does decide to drop his investigation and get away from it all, why does he abandon it rather than turn it over to the police?

Ellison (Ethan Hawke) tries to destroy Bagul's tapes in "Sinister" (photo by Phil Caruso)

Derrickson: Just prior to that moment, he’s talking to the deputy and makes it clear that he doesn’t believe in any of that stuff, that he’s a skeptic, but things are getting too weird. Then he goes up in his attic and sees six ghost kids and Bagul, Mr. Boogie. At that point he knows he’s dealing with something far beyond this world.

Cargill: And to make it even simpler than that, he realizes the tapes are just evil.

Derrickson: That’s why he burns them. When he realizes that’s where it’s coming from, he asks the professor what would happen if you destroy [the source]? The professor says it would close the gateway, so he thinks he should be safe. But he’s wrong.

The only thing connecting the families is where they’ve lived. But unlike a lot of horror films, where one particular setting is cursed, this curse moves with the families. Why did you decide to do it that way?

Cargill: Quite simply, it was because who the hell would move into a house where five different families were murdered? By the second family that’s murdered, that house would be burned down or bulldozed.

Derrickson: And the connection of the killer is clear. The whole world would be investigating that.

Ellison's son (played by Michael Hall D'Addario) appears to be under Bagul's influence in "Sinister" (courtesy Summit Entertainment)

Cargill: Ultimately, at the same time I wanted to create a creature that could get you almost anywhere. You’re not safe and it’s not localized terror. It is a creature of the other world that can move freely about. At some point you’ve got to wonder just how long could Jason stay around Crystal Lake. As long as you don’t go to Crystal Lake, you’ll be fine. No, you want that horror to be out there in the world unleashed.

Derrickson: Bagul is an entity who resides within works of art. There’s a sophistication to the way he does things and I like the idea that he seduces children, he’s the eater of children, and when it comes time to wipe out their families and have these children practice this ritual killings, he drives them to another place. That keeps the trail cold and there’s something smart about that, which I really like.

Up until a certain point in the movie, the viewer still wonders if there’s actually anything supernatural going on and that maybe it’s just a guy who manipulates children into doing these horrible things.

Derrickson: Ethan definitely thinks that’s what it is, and so does the officer. The deputy is the one who puts it all together, but they both think this is a ritual killer and the deputy has cracked his code. He’s right, it’s just not a guy.

About a year ago a movie called Insidious (read my interview here) came out. A lot of things about Sinister remind me of Insidious, including the fact that it has a grim ending that bigger studios wanted to change. There have been a few other movies with a similar feel that have come out since then, but they’ve all been from smaller studios. What do you think it would take for Hollywood to realize these films are getting cult followings and could be making them a lot of money?

Derrickson: Summit has been giving this movie a big push, but with horror you save that campaign for the three weeks before. That’s just how horror releases work.

Ellison's daughter (Clare Foley) sees some of Bagul's previous influences in "Sinister" (courtesy Summit Entertainment)

Cargill: It’s going to take one or two more successful really dark, heavy films. The thing is a lot of executives have short memories. They feel that the audience is fickle and that their tastes change. They can name the greatest horror films of all time, but they can’t tell you why they’re the greatest horror films of all time. So what it’s going to take is a few hit films like Insidious and, fingers crossed, Sinister and things of their ilk to show them that audiences do want dark, heavy, scary, macabre horror, that it doesn’t have to have a happy ending and it doesn’t have to be built for sequels or be formulaic. The big studios were afraid of a few elements in the film, so they looked at it and passed. The ending bothered them a bit, the death of children bothered them and they were like, “Audiences won’t buy into that. They don’t want that. It’s far too risky to put this out.” Then when audiences go and love it, the studios are like, “We don’t understand.” So it will take a few more successes for the studios to go, “Oh, wait. This is hot right now.” And that’s how they’ll put it. They won’t put two and two together that every great horror film has a really heavy ending. They think that Saw was successful simply because of how grizzly it was. They forget Saw had a really downer of an ending where the bad guy wins. They forget that so many of these horror films end very poorly for the protagonists and the characters you’re invested in. That’s where this horror comes from is the fact that they aren’t safe. They’ll tell you that The Omen was great or that Rosemary’s Baby was a big blockbuster and they kind of forget that at the end of The Omen, the little kid is the only one left alive and that he’s killed the family and that Rosemary does give birth to the devil’s child.

It’s funny that you mentioned Saw because the way this movie ends, you could definitely do sequels or prequels. But then you’d run the risk of subsequent movies following the Saw formula where the focus ends up being on making each death more shocking than the previous one.

Derrickson: We don’t know exactly what we’ll do if the movie is successful and there’s going to be a franchise, but we don’t want to do that. What we’ve talked about is not wanting to do the predictable sequel thing and just put the box in another house and have more extreme kills. That’s just not why we made this movie and that’s not why people are going to like it and, if it works, that’s not what the sequels will be.

The two of you kind of serendipitously came together to work on this film. Given the chemistry you clearly have working together, do you plan on working on other films together in the future?

Cargill: As often as possible.

Derrickson: We really like each other and have great respect for each other. We’ve got several things that we’re doing now, both paid projects and a spec script that we’ve already got a first draft of.

And you also have a book coming out, right Robert?

Cargill: Yeah, it’s called Dreams and Shadows.

Derrickson: I’ve read it. It’s awesome.

www.haveyouseenhim.com

“From Prison to Promise” reveals the struggles of a young Booker T

Before he was the general manager of SmackDown, a delusional King of the Ring winner or five time (five time, five time!) World Championship Wrestling World Champion, Booker T was a kid finding his way on the heated streets of Houston. One of eight siblings, things got rough for Booker after the death of his mother, when he was left to fend for himself while his closest relatives exposed him to drugs, prostitution and other criminal activities. But even in his darkest moments, Booker was able to find ways to enjoy himself as is chronicled in From Prison to Promise: Life Before the Squared Circle. Co-written by Andrew William Wright, From Prison to Promise follows Booker’s life of breakdancing (and the first time he did the spinaroonie), dealing drugs and other hardships up to the point that he and his brother Lash first tasted success in the wrestling ring. With the book recently on store shelves, Booker T talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the hardships he faced and his hopes that From Prison to Promise might help others avoid the setbacks he had to overcome.

This book reveals some pretty funny things about a young Booker T, such as your love of country music and Richard Petty. I think a lot of people will be surprised by some of the things you were into.

Yeah, I grew up on that kind of stuff. The Doobie Brothers, Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor – you never would have imagined some of the stuff I listened to. Still today I’m a music connoisseur. I love music, but today’s music is a little bit hard to grasp.

Throughout the early part of your life, you make references to wrestling here and there and emulate its stylings in various ways. But the book doesn’t talk much about how influential wrestling was on you until the point where you actually started training to wrestle. Did you follow wrestling very closely when you were younger or was it something you got into more as you got older?

I was always a fan of wrestling, but I never looked at wrestling the way most kids do, I guess because of the way I grew up. So when I watched wrestling, I always watched it from a purely entertainment perspective – I always knew the guys were out there performing and entertaining for us. So I watched it and liked it, but I also watched All My Children, General Hospital and The Three Stooges. I watched everything when I should have been studying my books. It’s all just part of my makeup of who I am.

Even when you were doing things like robbing Wendy’s, selling drugs and going to prison, the book still portrays you with a sense of humbleness and uncertainty. How hard was that struggle for you to decide what was right and wrong, especially considering the influence of those around you?

I wasn’t a bad kid. There are a lot of kids out there that aren’t bad, but there’s a lot of bad kids out there, too. So it’s hard for the system to decide who should get a break and who shouldn’t. But I think they should be able to see some stuff like that because I was a first-time offender and that was the first time I had ever been in trouble. But kids from better neighborhoods perhaps would have gotten probation or would have gotten out of it with a slap on the wrist. Where I was from may have played a role in it, but one thing I always try to tell young people is that life isn’t fair. So you can’t blame yourself for what happens after you get in a situation. You’ve just got to try and steer yourself away from getting into those situations, first and foremost, and you won’t have to figure out whether the system is being fair to you or not. It was my choice to get in that position. There’s no gray area between right and wrong and I knew I was part of something that was wrong. I knew I had to pay for it somehow and if it was going to prison, then I had to go through that. And I went through it and after I came out of it I put it behind me and never went that route again.

Between going to prison and your brother’s influence after prison, that’s oddly what got you into shape and interested in pursuing wrestling.

I always followed my brother around and wanted to be like my brother, even before we got into the wrestling business. When we lived together, he worked out and had all the girls while I was a skinny guy and had no girls. So my brother has always been an inspiration in some form of my life. He’s always been the guy I looked up to and wanted to emulate. So he definitely helped me follow my passions and I think it helped out a lot.

You started training to wrestle in 1991 and it wasn’t long after that that you were already on WCW television. What do you attribute that rapid progression to?

Wrestling, for me, was like déjà vu: it seemed like I had been there before even though I hadn’t. It came very, very easy for me, but I had some great teachers as well. I watched a lot of Bruce Lee movies as a kid, so I tried to create my own style and put something different out there. But it was all pretty easy for me.

I don’t know if it was your doing or that of your coauthor, but I loved the King Arthur reference, which sort of foreshadowed the King Booker persona we’d see you take on years after the events in the book.

I gave him a little bit of creative levity, but that’s what’s good about working with a team. I put all my thoughts down, so everything in the book is my thoughts. And towards the beginning, before I was getting in trouble, it almost feels like a feel-good story. But it was actually the beginning of my demise before I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s very in-depth and tells my whole upbringing. I didn’t have a lot of education, but I have a lot of street knowledge. That’s what enabled me to figure my way out in this life.

How much of what you learned during that time would you say you still use today in your role as SmackDown general manager and other roles you play in life?

Well, you always got to have street knowledge. One thing I’ve always been willing to do is handle things diplomatically, but sometimes you’ve just got to take the gloves off and fight. That’s one thing I’ve always been pretty good at because I’ve been fighting my whole life. A lot of people didn’t know my background until now and it’s really hard to judge a book by its cover, no pun intended, when you don’t know a guy’s background.

What kind of reactions have you gotten from the people you talk about in the book?

Everybody’s given me positive insight on the book. It’s real, and my family didn’t even know a lot of the stuff that happened in the book with myself, with my sister’s struggles and how things really were when we were young kids. For those who’ve had a chance to read it, they may have a better understanding of the person I am today and why I don’t back down from nothing or take no for an answer. I just don’t do that as a man due to what I’ve gone through. I accept no excuses from the young kids at my wrestling school because of what I went through as a young man, having to go out there and not be on welfare, not take government assistance and still struggle and find my way through. I always say, “If I can make it, anybody can.” I give breaks here and there, but not very many.

From Prison to Promise follows your life up to the point that you started to get big opportunities in wrestling. Do you plan on writing another book that picks up where this one ends or that gets more into your wrestling career?

Everybody’s asking for it and the publisher is already talking about it. But I want to make this book special, get it into the right hands and focus on it first. This is the beginning of something for my life and career after wrestling. Now it’s time for me to roll my sleeves up, put my hard hat on and go to work to start really helping some people in this life. So I want to make this thing special and reach out to the prison systems, the schools and everybody that might be in a similar position I was in.

Before I started recording, you joked about seeing this story on the big screen, but with all the movies WWE Studios has been cranking out, do you think a film adaptation might be a possibility?

It’s definitely a possibility, but I don’t know if WWE could handle that kind of a movie. It might have to be somewhere else, to be honest, because I don’t know if the WWE audience is ready to see Booker T from that perspective. It needs to be real, it can’t be sugar coated. There was this movie back in the day that I watched when I was a kid called The Mack. It was a blaxploitation movie, but it was my life as a young man getting his education. Life is life and we move on and I’m in a better place now.

www.medallionmediagroup.com

“Best in the World” is one of WWE’s most in-depth DVD releases

Arguably the most highly anticipated DVD release in recent WWE history, CM Punk: Best in the World definitely takes a unique approach to showcasing one of wrestling’s most intriguing talents. While previous WWE DVD releases (especially those that focus on current superstars) have highlighted a respective wrestler’s best WWE matches and moments, Best in the World is just as much about CM Punk‘s straight edge punk rock lifestyle as it is about his wrestling career. And when it comes to his in-ring accomplishments, this three-disc set is not limited to the work Punk has done since he joined WWE.

For a young Punk, pro wrestling was just another oddball form of escapism for a kid coming from a broken home. While he embraced punk rock, comic books and monster movies, he also found refuge in the brash antics of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and the other pageantry he saw in the wrestling world. With commentary from his surrogate family and close friends such as Rancid‘s Lars Frederiksen, original trainer Ace Steel, longtime wrestling friend Colt Cabana and former WWE Women’s Champion Lita, Best in the World gets at the things that make up the Punk we know today. It seems that few topics are off limits as Punk talks about the drunken father that inspired his aversion to drugs and alcohol, the origins of the CM Punk moniker, the meanings behind many of his tattoos and the years of backyard and indie wrestling where Punk paid his dues.

As a result, Best in the World plays more like a documentary on one of yesterday’s stars rather than someone who is just reaching his championship potential. From the ex-girlfriend who encouraged Punk to embrace his punk rock attitude as his wrestling persona to indie rivals like Chris Hero (who appears here as Hero, not as his NXT persona of Kassius Ohno) to WWE friends and foes like Daniel Bryan, Triple H, John Cena and The Miz, it’s apparent that Punk’s self-made family is a tight-knit circle that crosses over from his personal to professional life. In an unprecedented move on WWE’s part, Best in the World includes footage from his early matches in Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South, his rise to prominence in Ring of Honor against the likes of Samoa Joe, the infamous Summer of Punk (read my review here), during which he signed his WWE contract on the ROH title, and his early Ohio Valley Wrestling matches.

Courtesy WWE

It’s not until almost 45 minutes into Best in the World that we see Punk’s WWE debut thanks to Paul Heyman and the resurrected Extreme Championship Wrestling. And in true Punk fashion, he’s more than willing to discuss how he feels WWE misused him in his early days with the company, even during his runs as ECW, Intercontinental, World Tag Team and World Heavyweight Champion. But if there’s anything Punk is good at doing it’s adapting, and he realizes at numerous points on this DVD that in order to prove himself in WWE he will have to adapt in big ways.

In steps Punk’s big friend Luke Gallows, as well as Serena and Joseph Mercury, to form the Straight Edge Society. And while Punk was subversively turning himself into a Jesus-like Messiah on television, Best in the World reveals his more benevolent side behind the scenes when Mercury falls on hard times. Despite his best efforts with the SES, however, Punk soon becomes disgruntled yet again as others get championship opportunities. And that’s about the time that the pipe bomb goes off. In much the same way he had done years earlier in his final months with Ring of Honor, Punk dares to say what’s truly on his mind. He takes control of his fate with only a few weeks left on his WWE contract, and threatens to defeat Cena for the WWE Championship and leave the company with the title at last year’s Money in the Bank, in his hometown of Chicago.

Courtesy WWE

My only criticism of Best in the World is its glorification of the events that transpire after Punk lives up to his promise and does, indeed, walk out the front door of the arena with the WWE title (only to tweet that now-infamous picture of it sitting in his refrigerator later that night). No one can argue the impact Punk had on WWE during the time leading up to Money in the Bank. But had his WWE return been postponed for a few more weeks (if not months), his actions would have carried even more weight. But considering that few (if any) other people would have dared to risk their future with WWE the way he did, this slight glorification of a series of events that did get many people’s attention is a very minor complaint.

What Best in the World proves, without a doubt, is that the Punk we see on TV and in WWE rings is the same person you might find at a Cubs game or in an airport. He can be brash and rude, but he can also be a leader and an inspiration (as he has been for veterans like William Regal and up-and-comers like Zack Ryder). And regardless of how you feel about him personally, there’s no doubt that Punk is one of the most entertaining guys to step into a WWE ring, which is displayed on the other two discs of this set. From an OVW match against Brent Albright and his ECW debut against Justin Credible to his WrestleMania XXIV Money in the Bank win and championship victories over John Morrison, Regal, Jeff Hardy and Chris Jericho, Punk makes it hard to deny that he is, as he likes to say, the “best in the world.” And with this DVD release, it seems that WWE is finally agreeing with him.

www.wweshop.com

Georgia Wrestling Now welcomes Les Thatcher and “The Demigod” Mason

Georgia Wrestling Now, with Wrestling with Pop Culture, Team All You Can Eat’s Matt Hankins and Georgia Wrestling History‘s Larry Goodman, have plenty to talk about after a weekend that included big shows from Universal Independent Wrestling, Alternative Pro Wrestling, Chikara, Rampage Pro Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Resurrection and more. But our guests have even more to talk about given their respective backgrounds. A legend in almost every aspect of professional wrestling, Ringside Rap co-host Les Thatcher joins us to talk about the wrestling seminars he’s conducting at Deep Southern Championship Wrestling Oct. 13-14. Later in the show, undisputed Platinum Championship Wrestling Champion “The Demigod” Mason graces us with his presence. Which reminds me, this is our first anniversary show and Mason was the very first guest on GWN. So things come full circle on this edition of GWN!

"The Demigod" Mason has his hand raised in victory to become the undisputed PCW Champion at Sacred Ground: Chapter Three (photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots)

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“The Summer of Punk” chronicles CM Punk’s final months in Ring of Honor

One summer, CM Punk became an underdog champion whose fan support was divided between those who recognized his talent and those who saw him as a turncoat. Truth be told, Punk did betray many of his supporters when he proclaimed that he would hold the title hostage and take it with him when he left the company. Oddly enough, I’m not talking about the events leading into last year’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view, where Punk defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship, only to walk out the front door of the arena with the belt, as his contract expired that same night. I’m actually referring to a very similar series of events that took place in 2005, when Punk became the Ring of Honor Champion, then proclaimed that he would take that title with him as he left the smaller promotion for WWE‘s grander stage.

While WWE’s highly anticipated CM Punk: Best in the World DVD set comes out Oct. 9, ROH chronicled Punk’s 2005 departure months earlier with The Summer of Punk, a two-disc set featuring matches that took place during his final months with the company. And it’s strange how similar that summer was to the summer of 2011, when Punk revealed that his WWE contract expired the same night he battled Cena for the WWE Championship (in Punk’s hometown of Chicago, no less).

The Summer of Punk begins with Punk, a fan favorite, defeating Austin Aries (himself on his way out for his first stint with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling) for the ROH Championship. As his victory speech progresses, he gradually becomes more and more arrogant, stating that a microphone in his hand is like a pipe bomb, saying he is “the devil himself,” referring to himself as the “greatest pro wrestler walking the Earth today,” calling the fans his puppets and generally foreshadowing everything from the inception of his Straight Edge Society to his current WWE title reign.

The Summer of Punk includes some of the most memorable matches and promos from the summer of 2005, including the moment that he signs his WWE contract on the ROH title belt. But just as he has done over the past year or so in WWE, Punk is able to back up everything he says by defeating several of ROH’s top wrestling talents, including Jay Lethal, Roderick Strong, Christopher Daniels and longtime ROH rival Samoa Joe. Though Punk had previously had some great matches with many of these people, he truly brings out the best in them with his threats of leaving with the title. But for those three months, he is unbeatable and it really does look like he will cripple ROH by taking its top prize to another wrestling promotion.

From his numerous battles with an unlikely savior in James Gibson (this DVD is almost as much about Gibson’s quest for the title as it is about Punk’s determination to retain it) to his infamous confrontations with Mick Foley (yet another instance of history repeating itself in recent weeks in WWE), Punk’s ability to play with the emotions of his competitors and the ROH fans is phenomenal. But even after his tyrannically turbulent final months in ROH come to an end, as Punk wrestles his longtime friend Colt Cabana in his farewell match in the Chicago suburb of Chicago Ridge, he is visibly emotional as the fans chant his name and shower him with streamers (a common show of respect for ROH fans). And when the locker room empties and the ROH roster shows its respect to a man that helped elevate ROH to greater recognition, it’s clear that The Summer of Punk is a bittersweet chapter in the story of a man whose potential in WWE has only become popularly apparent in the past few years.

www.rohwrestling.com