The year was 2007, and Steve Corino was at rock bottom. Well, not really. But while he wasn’t at the top of the American wrestling scene, he had steady work and a greater following overseas, much akin to Huey Lewis and The News. Unlike H. Lew and The New, though, Corino would claw and scrape his way up to possibly the 14th most prestigious title in America, the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, besting Ric Converse in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, a town that only wishes it could be Pottsville, home of the former NFL Champion Maroons.

Now, I bore witness to an AWA World Title match earlier this year. While mostly a rockin’ contest between Steve and Cameron Matthews, your typical hyper-athletic but undersized guy, I was deeply disturbed by a spot involving Corino sticking his thumb up the guy’s butt, then being forced to suck his own thumb. I guess he felt his match only needed one thumb up to be a success.

But, to paraphrase one of the six times JBL uses the phrase whenever Rey Mysterio appears anywhere, ever, Cinderella struck midnight. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. I mean the clock struck midnight for Corinorella. Just as ignominiously as it had started, Corino’s reign ended when he walked into Yokohama, Japan, on April Fool’s Day and faced Takao Ohmori, the Japanese version of Chris Curtis (who?).

This begs the age old question: if a title changes and nobody gives a fig, why am I Profiling it? Cuz that’s how I roll (what happened to that phrase?).

Well, until the Colorado Rockies release the “World Series Shuffle”, I am, in fact, James E. Couture.

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