On Brand Segunda Caida: Bob Cook in WWF, Part 1

Bob Cook vs. Bob Holly WWF Wrestling Challenge 2/19/95

ER: This was a brisk 3 minutes with a great long section of Cook totally outshining Holly. They were pushing Holly as a kickass young part of the New Generation, and Cook gave him a cool grizzled vet beating actually made Holly feel like a young upstart babyface (even though Holly looked like a freedom rock Walton Goggins). Cook buries a great low knee in Holly's gut, throws several great punches, drops a beautiful kneedrop, and just makes a snapmare look the way a snapmare is supposed to look. Holly hits a big elbow off the top for the win, but this was a cool showing for Cook.

Bob Cook vs. Man Mountain Rock WWF Superstars 2/25/95

ER: This is barely a minute, but it is a great minute. Cook's stretch of offense is a kick to the stomach and 5 punches, but they are 5 excellent punches perfectly thrown to the Rock's jaw. Rock is a huge guy, a guy whose offense correctly consisted of him running into and falling onto people. It's a damn shame he didn't get to mix it up with many people on the main roster. There were a lot of potential great big man matches, and the crowd was clearly into Rock squishing guys. He threw a heavy elbowdrop, big shoulderblocks, and landed and missed avalanches with big speed. Cook sidesteps him on a fast avalanche and just lobs the most perfect pro wrestling punches at his face. It would be tough to rank these 1-5, they're all keepers. God they could have done Cook vs. Lawler for 10 minutes and it would have been one of the great gems of 1995. Alas.

Bob Cook vs. Doink WWF Raw 2/27/95

ER: This was the final Doink, Ray Apollo, and Bob Cook did not get a lot of play versus Doink. Dink had some nice moments, running across Cook's stomach while he was in a sub and then hitting a rolling senton, bouncing on the bottom rope to liven up the crowd during some long Doink matwork. A lot of this was grounded, but I liked Apollo's amateur approach to a jobber squash. He was working hammerlocks and drop toeholds, and there was one brief competitive moment where Apollo got his own really great drop toehold - the kind where you really force your opponent somewhat slowly down to the mat once you scissor his legs - but Doink quickly reverses. Doink muscles through a cool gutwrench suplex and drops the Whoopie Cushion, but this was a missed opportunity. Cook is a guy who could work simple compelling mat sequences, but also work compelling sequences with a midget, but they wouldn't let him get too involved in either.

Bob Cook vs. 1-2-3 Kid WWF Superstars 3/4/95

ER: These two were natural opponents for each other, a guy with some whip fast kicks and big bumps against a guy with perfect bunches and a desire to bump fast for whip fast kicks. Kid throws out some nice ones, and we get a famous gif sequence of Cook wheeling around and punching Kid in the face right out of the corner. Sadly the only video of this online appears to be from a garbage YouTube account who zooms way in on their videos and intentionally adds glitches (for effect?). I'm unsure why some people take so much time to upload completely worthless files, but it's a thing.