The Thread Killer

When I started the watch-along thread for Super Showdown, I admitted I'm basically housebound right now due to illness, so I'll watch pretty much anything that's on television. Besides, it's always fun watching a show and dissecting it with the crew at PWO. But as it happens, Sunday night is a good night for television, for me. There's The Great Food Truck Race on the Food Network, Fear The Walking Dead on AMC and now I've got that great new crime drama City on a Hill, with Kevin Bacon on Showtime. My viewing schedule for this evening is booked up, and the positive thing all three of those shows have in common is that none of them will feature Baron Corbin in any capacity. Sometimes, I'll just record other shows on the DVR and watch the WWE show anyhow, but I don't think I'm going to do that tonight. I still have PTSD from Super Showdown. That may literally be one of the worst shows I've ever seen...and this card has rematches from that show. I have zero desire to sit through another title match featuring Corbin or Dolph Ziggler. As much as I enjoy being critical of WWE, I need to at least like the product on a peripheral level and get some basic enjoyment out of it. I don't think I can muster up even the bare minimum degree of enthusiasm required to sit through this show, so it's most likely going to be a pass for me.

Yeah, the response to Cornette's review of AEW's Double or Nothing has really caused quite a backlash online, as we discussed here. The whole thing has continued to snowball since then. A lot of fans, and even wrestlers (some who apparently never actually heard his review) took great umbrage with Cornette's review of the Pre-Show and the Battle Royal in particular - especially the comments he made about Sonny Kiss. Cornette called Sonny a Transvestite, which in the eyes of some people makes him homophobic. In particular, Joey Ryan took it upon himself to defend Sonny, and tagged beIN Sports in his tweet, I assume trying to get Cornette fired from MLW. That set Cornette's fans (the so-called "Cult of Cornette") and his co-host Brian Last off, so they retaliated by dredging up all sorts of unsavory tweets Joey Ryan has made over the years joking about rape and paedophilia. Of course, Cornette has a history with Joey Ryan, just like he does with Omega and The Young Bucks who run AEW, so this whole thing took on a life of it's own. Cornette responded to the controversy on his podcast the next week and claimed that he never meant to insult Sonny Kiss for being gay, but he didn't apologize for calling him a Transvestite either. Cornette then doubled down on his criticism of Joey Ryan. I suppose there is a chance the whole thing might have actually blown over, except for the fact that this past week Cornette got into it again - this time with Sami Callihan as we discussed here. If you didn't hear, on last week's episode of Fusion, Callihan spat in Cornette's face, which he claims was in defense of Sonny Kiss. Callihan subsequently got fired from MLW, which he is blaming on Jim Cornette. So now, not only are Sonny Kiss and Joey Ryan fans on Twitter calling for Cornette's head, but so are Sami Callihan's. Once again, Cornette issued a rebuttal on his podcast this past week, claiming he had nothing to do with Callihan getting fired, but I guess that's not what some people want to believe. So you've basically got fans of Sonny Kiss, Joey Ryan and Sami Callihan in an uproar on Twitter, and Cornette's fans and Brian Last responding in kind. Now this Independent wrestler named David Starr (who appears to be mostly famous for his time in CZW, I guess) has weighed in. I guess Starr has an issue with Court Bauer, the guy who runs MLW and he also now has an issue with Cornette. Starr apparently is friends with Sami Callihan and doesn't like Cornette's attitude towards modern wrestling in general. Starr unearthed a five second clip of Jim Cornette uttering the "N-Word" and posted it on Twitter. The clip was apparently intended to make it sound like Cornette was literally using the word as an insult. In response to the clip being released a bunch of fans complained that the clip was taken out of context, so Starr has now released the entire 8+ minute clip in response. It turns out the clip is from an interview Cornette did where he wasn't directing the racial insult at anybody at that time, but he was describing a match he was involved with in Smoky Mountain 25 years ago, when he used the word during an argument with an African-American security guard in attempt to "get heat" as a heel. So the various Sonny Kiss, Joey Ryan, Sami Callihan and now David Starr fans have all apparently banded together and are trying to use this clip and various other things Cornette has said over the years to get him fired from MLW and get his podcasts "cancelled." Cornette being Cornette will probably respond with his usual vitriol as soon as he gets a chance. In the meantime, his fans are already attacking on Twitter, and some have apparently threatened to release Sami Callihan's personal information on Twitter, in response. Needless to say, there are those who are claiming the whole thing is a "work" especially since Cornette's downloads for his podcast have reportedly almost doubled ever since his AEW review. I guess it remains to be seen if anybody "important" responds to the complaints about Cornette and if he faces any repercussions as a result of the interview clip that has been released. His using the word "Transvestite" and the accusations of him being homophobic didn't end up gaining very much traction, but who knows...this clip just might. It's not quite as damning as the infamous Hulk Hogan video, but there is no doubt David Starr has a clip of Cornette using the "N-Word" and his fans are doing their best to get Cornette fired because of it.

I guess when you kiss Vince McMahon's butt extra hard, your teeth go rotten and have to be extracted.

Turns out I was right about the dates but wrong about the details. Jeremy Lambert of Fightful had some more news about Impact's upcoming schedule. According to him, the Fallout event on July 14 is being held at a venue run by Santino Marella's gym but it's actually being co-promoted with Destiny Wrestling, an Independent outfit which usually operates in Sarnia, Ontario. Lambert reports that this will be a TV taping, but I'm not sure if they are also doing a Twitch exclusive event that night as well. Then after that, I guess they are doing the tapings with Border City Wrestling in Windsor. So that should give them more than enough TV to take them into August. He is also claiming there will be a live Twitch special and a TV taping in California during the first weekend of August with dates and venues to be announced next week. To finish out the summer, Lambert is claiming Impact will also taping TV in Mexico again at some point in August. So moving forward, it looks like they are pretty much co-promoting all of their TV tapings with other Independent organizations. The last time they taped TV in Mexico, did they co-promote with a Lucha organization or did they run it themselves?

We'll see how deep this problem really goes if for the Hall of Fame next year, they announce the Dick Murdoch Award and name the Harris Brothers as the first inductees.

You're right, they do a lousy job at keeping their website up to date. I don't even know if they've announced those tapings yet on Twitter, either. I actually heard about it on the radio, I was listening to a radio station from St. Catherines, Ontario and they were advertising it. The tapings are at St. Clair College. Turns out the show is being promoted and hosted by Border City Wrestling and the show is heavily featured on the main page of their site, but logically you would think it would be listed on the Impact site as well.

They're running Slammiversary in Dallas on July 7, and then they have a show called "Fallout" in Toronto on July 14. I think that might be a Fight TV or Twitch exclusive event. Then they have two days of TV tapings in Windsor Ontario on July 19 and July 20. Those tapings should take them right through the rest of the summer, I think. The thing is, when they run Live Events in Canada, they frequently team up and co-promote them with another Independent organization, like Border City Wrestling or that show they just did with Muta which was co-promoted with House of Hardcore, or in the case of that event Fallout, they are doing it with Santino Marella's wrestling school. Co-promoting is either smart or stupid I guess, depending on how you look at it. They don't have the expense of running the events themselves, they're pretty much co-opting events which were happening already. But I guess the negative side is they end up having to use a lot of talent from the Indy they are working with, which in some cases might suck. I haven't heard much about this Canadian Battlearts school/Indy that Santino Marella runs...but it's run by Santino Marella. How good could it be?

For what it's worth, Konnan appeared on the Wrestling Inc. podcast recently and confirmed that Impact does have a new, significantly better TV deal lined up. I don't know how reliable he is as a source, but he has worked backstage for the company, and it seems like an odd thing for him to lie about. I hope it's true for Impact's sake.

Yeah I just saw that press release from MLW. It looks like the July TV tapings fall during the July All Star Break, so Tony gets to do one night of work for MLW that equals an entire month of Television. I was hoping we were going to get the Schiavone/Cornette combination as well, but the press release says it is Schiavone/Bocchini. Not sure if that means Corny will just be working backstage, or maybe he won't work those tapings at all. He's always bitching on his podcast about how he doesn't want to work full time and that Court Bauer had to make him the proverbial "offer he couldn't refuse" to agree to work the dates he has, so maybe he was telling the truth and Cornette is really only there as a placeholder, to do the dates Schiavone doesn't. Hearing Schiavone do play-by-play with Cornette on color would be such a great throwback, but maybe it's not to be. Or maybe Court Bauer doesn't want to come across as too "old school." I can see how he'd be worried that those two together wouldn't appeal to younger fans and would remind hardcore fans too much of post JCP WCW. EDIT: So it turns out that MLW only has two more TV tapings scheduled for this summer, July 6 in Chicago and July 25 in New York. Cornette is doing the Chicago taping but announced he won't be at the New York taping at all, because Tony is available and Cornette hates going to New York so it works out perfectly. Also, it turns out that the taping Tony is back for isn't a date that falls during the All Star break, but it does fall on one of Tony's days off from his baseball gig. After these tapings, they don't tape again until September in Dallas, so who knows what the plan will be by then. Could be Tony will be back for the Fall/Winter by then.

I never agreed to that.

Hell yeah. LA Park vs. Savio Vega? That calls for a...

They tape a month at a time, right? I think Aries is booked for the next set of tapings, so I think by August he should be all over the shows. Until he and Low Ki get booked together and they both simultaneously walk out, or something. Savio is definitely up there in age, but he can do those old school Puerto Rico style brawls, and he is also apparently being brought in to work behind the scenes as well.

I don't disagree with you, that Cornette really isn't a great booker or at best his ideas are terribly outdated. There's no way he could book a modern show. I think he'd be invaluable as part of a booking committee, but by himself? Nope. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of wrestling history, and can frequently come up with ideas and angles from the past that can be modified or used again in a modern setting, but his own original ideas...aren't really original. He booked a great old Southern Style promotion in Smoky Mountain but that wouldn't fly today. On the flip side, he thinks that if somebody tried booking a promotion today like vintage JCP was booked, it would still get over. He might be right, and I'd love to see it tried. But to your point, Jim Cornette is out of touch, for sure. Last year Brian Last asked Cornette who he thought should be on top of WWE right now, and Cornette's top two picks were Randy Orton and Bobby Roode. Of all the talent in WWE right now, for him to pick those two is pretty much baffling and shows he literally doesn't understand what modern fans will and won't accept. Or more to the point, he doesn't understand what would actually work and be good. It's also an ongoing joke between Last and Cornette that Cornette hates The Miz and doesn't think he's any good, where even Brian Last can see how good The Miz is as a heel. Part of the problem is that Cornette studied under Bill Watts, who had that whole philosophy that only former jocks could be Pro Wrestlers. For the record, I don't disagree with Cornette regarding his opinion of Steen and Generico. He told them Steen was too fat and needed to lose weight, and that Generico would never get over wearing the mask if fans couldn't see his facial expressions, and I think time has proved him right on both counts. Both of them got to WWE, and Steen lost a bunch of weight before he debuted and was reportedly told to keep his weight under control, and the first thing NXT did was take the mask off Generico. As far as Cornette getting replaced by Russo twice, that's not entirely accurate. He didn't want to be on the WWF creative team anymore, so when Russo gave Vince the "him or me" ultimatum Cornette was more than happy to go, because he hated doing creative for Vince, and he hated working with Russo, plus he hated living and working in Connecticut. He wanted to go home to Kentucky and start a developmental territory and was happy to do it to get away from Russo. And in TNA, Russo literally went behind Jeff Jarrett's back and got Jarrett, Dutch Mantel and Cornette all fired. It was a power play which blew up in Russo and Dixie Carter's face, but I don't think it was as simple as somebody thinking Russo was a better booker than Cornette. But fair point, if Cornette had booked TNA they probably wouldn't have been any more successful than they were under Russo, it probably just would have sucked in a different way. Cornette claims he didn't even want to be in creative there, he wanted Dutch Mantel in charge while he worked with the talent, which is what he claims he loves doing. I think Cornette is being used perfectly in MLW. Like him or not, he can cut a promo and with his memory and knowledge or pro wrestling history he can suggest ideas to guys that will probably really help them. That's the part of his podcasts that I love, when he gives the history of the different territories and recounts stories of who booked what angle, and why. If there was ever a class on the overall history of the sport, Jim Cornette would be the guy to teach it. There are plenty of other guys like Steve Yohe who know all the facts that Cornette does but they don't have the speaking ability and storytelling skills. Hell, I think they should have a class like that at the WWE performance center, except Vince thinks Pro Wrestling history started with the first Wrestlemania. As far as I know, there isn't any actual heat between Conrad Thompson and Jim Cornette, but Conrad has said on more than one occasion that Cornette's podcast is just as popular as some of his, if not more so...and we know how insanely popular Conrad's shows are. Cornette (and Brian Last) sniped at Conrad during the whole Bischoff/Cornette Twitter feud and Cornette has steadfastly refused to appear at any Starrcast events which are owned and run by Conrad Thompson. Plus, Conrad is buddies with the guys who run AEW, so it doesn't take much to guess where that puts him in Cornette's book. Conrad has maturely and wisely sidestepped every opportunity to get into any spats with Jim Cornette, I think he knows that is a no win proposition.

One of the things that cracked me up about that episode was when Conrad accused JR of being a "mean drunk."

I'm not one of those people who is all gaga over AEW. I don't really care for a lot of the talent who are going to be working there and I probably won't watch the show when it debuts, assuming it is even available in Canada. Having said that, I know a lot of fans (especially WWE fanboys) are calling Tony Khan a "money mark." I listened to this show, and this guy is no dummy. He really does come across as a lifelong fan but he sounds like a good businessman, and most importantly his major advantage is the connections he has in the entertainment and television industry. That's how they were able to get such an excellent television deal. He's smart. I was really impressed with how Tony Khan came across in this interview, and I'm not a guy who is openly slobbering over all things AEW. This guy came off as pretty much the antithesis of Dixie Carter. If Vince McMahon isn't worried about competition from this guy, he should be.

It's being reported that Impact is apparently not happy Killer Kross has been venting about the organization on various podcasts and maybe as a result, they are refusing to grant his release and are making him finish out his contract. Yikes.

I listened to the show, and one of the things I found most interesting was hearing Austin talking about his infamous podcast with Dean Ambrose and the fallout from that.

Like him as a person or not, Jim Cornette is an excellent color commentator. He is able to get wrestlers and angles over through commentary better than pretty much anybody else in the game right now. He's been excellent since he did color back in WCW in the early 90's, and he even did a good job behind the microphone when he was in the WWF. Jim Cornette is one of the few color commentators who truly understands the importance of getting the talent and story over, not just trying to crack jokes and get himself over. If you're talking about overall value to the organization, I'd say that Cornette is worth more to MLW as a commentator and promo coach than Callihan has as a talent. I watch MLW every week now, and I'd miss Cornette being gone from commentary. As others have mentioned, MLW has never really used Callihan in a prominent or key role. I'd say he has a much more significant role in Impact then he had in MLW. I don't hate Callihan, and I enjoy him at times in Impact but as far as his being part of MLW, I won't miss him. Secondly, the whole "irrelevance" talking point regarding Jim Cornette really needs to be put to bed. That's a shot that The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega have both taken at Cornette over the past few years. "Who cares if Jim Cornette likes us, he's irrelevant." That's bullshit. He doesn't like a lot of the facets of "modern wrestling" especially the parts that come across as obviously fake, overly choreographed or unsafe. He sees Pro Wrestling as a sport, not a performance art. Jim Cornette is old school, a traditionalist and doesn't like how Pro Wrestling has "evolved" but that doesn't make him irrelevant. Irrelevant implies insignificant or unpopular. He has one of the most downloaded and popular weekly wrestling podcasts in an exceptionally crowded field. He's incredibly popular. When he does meet and greets and autograph signings at conventions, he regularly outdraws 99% of the other talents. Even Conrad Thompson has admitted that, and he and Cornette aren't exactly buddies. People might not like Cornette's opinions, people might have their shorts in a twist because he used the word "transvestite" or the fact that he hates Joey Ryan, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega or Vince Russo. I get that. As I've said ad nauseam, I don't agree with his opinions regarding a hell of a lot of things, but for people to try and write him off as irrelevant just because they don't agree with his opinion or like his delivery, that just shows a lack of understanding of what constitutes success in Pro Wrestling.

I read the same report, that the ticket sales are so lousy and the interest in Stomping Grounds is so low that they are considering making changes to the card. The source on the story is WrestleVotes, so I am taking it with a grain of salt, but there is no denying that the venue hasn't sold out and last I heard there are actually still floor seats available, which is pretty crazy for a WWE PPV. I have no doubt that there is no interest in the card. That's what happens when you run more than one PPV in the same month, the PPV you already had is going down in history as one of the worst shows ever, and the matches on the next show are mostly rematches from the crappy show you already ran. Duh. Did they actually think that people were going to watch Stomping Grounds based solely on the fact that this time there is a Mystery Guest Referee angle in the Corbin/Rollins match? I can't think of anybody they could get as the guest ref who would make that match any better.

If you don't like Sami Callihan, then there may be good news for you. There have been some unconfirmed reports that the "Loser Leaves Town" stipulation in the Callihan/Warner match was a way to write Callihan off TV and out of the company altogether. I also saw that Callihan allegedly spat at Jim Cornette at some point before/during/after the match, since he was supposedly "defending" Sonny Kiss, and there is legit heat between Callihan and Cornette over the infamous Eddie Edwards bat incident. (Cornette hates hardcore wrestling and loves Eddie Edwards.) Some think it is unlikely that Cornette would be willing to get spat at or spat upon by Sami Callihan and that is proof that Callihan is legitimately gone. Plus I saw that Callihan apparently did some damage to a venue at an MLW event, which MLW then had to pay for. So he may really honestly be gone from MLW. Or it could be a work, who knows. In other news, Savio Vega is coming in to wrestle and be a Producer/Wrestler/Coach. Which is awesome, if you ask me.

Yeah plus sometimes the new names are better. I'd take Finn Balor over Fergal Devitt and Aleistar Black fits him way better than Tommy End, just for an example. Sometimes the names they pick are dumb, but not always.

So according to spoilers, Killian Dain and Apollo Crews (who apparently got his last name back?) returned to NXT tonight. Also, Fandango returned and reunited with Tyler Breeze. But most importantly, the Adam Cole/Johnny Gargano rivalry continued and looks to be the Main Event for the next Takeover special in Toronto before Summerslam. Because what we all need in our lives is ANOTHER Cole/Gargano match.

Unfortunately, what's happening is that when Cornette gets cranky and goes off on somebody, be it Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Joey Ryan or whoever...word tends to spread online, especially on Twitter. People then react about it either positively or negatively on social media, but then everybody goes and downloads or listens to the podcast to hear what Cornette actually said. According to Brian Last, the episode where Cornette reviewed the AEW PPV and the subsequent follow-up response to the Sonny Kiss/Joey Ryan controversy were their most downloaded episodes in the history of the podcast. That means money for them, because all of their shows are posted on YouTube within a day, and their YouTube channel is monetized. During the whole Cornette/Bischoff feud recently, Brian Last commented that he doesn't know why 83 Weeks needs "Blue Chew" as a sponsor because the Cornette podcasts are making tons of money and he basically implied that if Conrad Thompson knew what he was doing, Conrad's podcasts would be too. So basically, I think in Brian Last's mind, Cranky Cornette = Money because the shows where he blows a gasket are always the most popular ones. I am definitely not one of those people who thinks Cornette is working a gimmick. I think he 100% means everything he says. I also don't think he wants to be considered "relevant" by today's wrestling fan, like Omega and the Bucks have claimed. He's quite proud of the fact that he's old school and out of touch with today's product for the most part, but I guess based on the reaction to his shows, he is appealing to a large segment of wrestling fandom that feels the same way he does. He mentioned on this week's show that he really does the podcasts as an afterthought, he never puts any effort or pre-planning into them (and it shows for the most part.) He still considers himself semi-retired and makes his money from his Cornette's Collectibles business and occasional convention appearances, provided they are within driving distance of his home and he doesn't have to fly, which he refuses to do. According to him, Court Bauer had to make concessions to get him to work in MLW as the Color Commentator and Promo Coach, because he isn't willing to commit to any Pro Wrestling job full time anymore. I guess Jim Cornette is basically just being Jim Cornette and getting paid for it, which is a nice gig for him. He gets to be miserable and rant about modern wrestling, and he gets paid for it. Most of us are doing that for free.

Yeah, this week's episode kind of stunk. I guess some people love Jim's road stories but I really don't need to hear a play-by-play account of all the places he went trying to get a burger every damn week. I also find it ridiculous that Jim and Brian spent weeks ridiculing Conrad Thompson's podcasts and Bischoff in particular for promoting "dick pills" but now Jim's new sponsor is a company that sells specialized equipment so you can shave your balls, taint and asscrack...which Jim then proceeds to talk about in horrifying detail for 15 minutes. That's so much classier. At least Eric's "dick pill" spots are fairly quick. Seriously, Cornette went on for a ridiculous amount of time this week talking about "manscaping." Then he finally gets to the NXT review after about 40 minutes of nonsense, and points out that he didn't have time to watch the whole show. Maybe he would've had time if he didn't spend all of his time talking about shaving his body. His review was pretty much what I expected, he loved Riddle vs. Strong (mostly because he loved Strong in ROH), he loves Shayna Baszler but didn't like the hardcore stuff, and then because Adam Cole was an ROH guy he praises him in the Main Event, but spends the rest of his time complaining about the modern wrestling style. I don't disagree with him that the Main Even was too many spots and not enough psychology, and I especially agree with him that Johnny Gargano needs big time work on his facial expressions, promos and overall character. A lot of his criticisms about the match were pretty much right on, but his dumping a lot of the blame on Gargano while praising Cole was a bit much for me. The other thing was...why is Brian Last even there? He literally doesn't speak at all during Jim's entire NXT review, and when Jim finally stops talking and asks Brian his opinion, Last replies: "I didn't see it, I don't watch NXT." To which Jim replies: "Then why did you ask me to?" Just confirms that as a host, Brian Last is pretty much a smug, arrogant, condescending jerk.

Pretty fun Main Event on this week's episode of NXT UK, it was a 6 Man Tag with British Strong Style vs. The Imperium. I like the Imperium and think they have a great look and aura, although I'm still not entirely sure I "get" Walter. To me, he still comes across as a tall pudgy guy with a bad haircut that mostly throws chops. One thing I really noticed was how much better the commentary was, with just Vic Joseph and Nigel, as well. When you have just a two man booth as opposed to three, people aren't always talking over each other. Nigel's personality and character come out much more on NXT UK and Vic Joseph shockingly concentrates on calling the match, and doesn't spend most of his time screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to come up with clever rhymes or spouting off stupid hip hop references. Quite refreshing.