The Thread Killer

Both @El-P and @Blehschmidt make total sense and I could not agree with them more. Back in the 90's nobody I knew loved "hardcore" wrestling more than I did. I ordered FMW tapes from tape traders, I bought ECW bootlegs because they didn't have TV in Canada, and I used to drive all the way from Toronto to Buffalo just to see ECW live. But the so-called "hardcore" stuff and "death matches" that happen now are a pretty pale comparison to that classic stuff, in my opinion. Like El-P said, there is a massive difference between what guys like Onita, Funk and Foley did back then and the stuff that goes on today - in the States and in Japan. I know it sounds goofy, but the old FMW and ECW actually had a perverse kind of psychology to it, whereas a lot of this new stuff is basically the Pro Wrestling equivalent of torture porn. Some fans seem to forget that the best "hardcore" wrestlers could actually...you know...WRESTLE. There is a legitimate argument to be made that Terry Funk could be the greatest Pro Wrestler of all time, and what guys like he and Onita and even Foley understood was how to work the crowd, and how implied violence is often more effective than the actual bump itself. Those guys could structure an entire match around the suspense of taking one or two big bumps into a supposedly electrified cage or the ring "exploding." Even if you watch the infamous "King of the Deathmatch" tournament from 1995, most of those matches were based around a guy taking one or two big bumps. (And even then, the matches weren't really all that good.) Besides, Onita got famous partially due to his personality and charisma, not just the violence. One of the biggest parts of his act was his post-match promos where he'd break down and cry and hug his opponents. I don't speak Japanese and I could see that guy had "it" in spades. Even in ECW, as much as some people like to remember it as some crazy hardcore fed, they stuck to the brawling basics. Chairs, tables and brawling through the crowd. Sure, the Dudleys would light tables on fire, and sure New Jack would jump off balconies, but they always built to that. Yeah there was the odd barbed wire match in ECW, but their shows weren't based on nothing but crazy hardcore stunts one after the other. People remember the goofy soap opera story between Raven and Tommy Dreamer as much as they remember Sabu getting stuck in barbed wire. A lot of the modern death match stuff I have seen has made me sick. As soon as Big Japan and other places started doing stupid shit like bringing florescent light-bulbs into it and then building from there, in my opinion it went from cool to gross, and then from gross to outright stupid. The scene didn't evolve it degraded. El-P brought up a good point as well, Onita started doing this crazy shit in front of packed stadiums. At least he made money from this stuff (in the beginning.) Today you get morons breaking light-tubes over each other's heads in their backyard or in a damn barn in front of 150 people. And if you took that stupid shit away from those scarred up morons and asked them to work a normal match, they'd shit in their ripped jeans. In May of 1998, Funk and Foley had a great brawl on RAW and didn't have to resort to any of that stupid shit...they had an old school Memphis style brawl and it worked great. Like Foley said in his first book, these guys need to learn how to apply a wristlock, then they can break a table. If you have to get sliced up or cut somebody else in order to have a match and can't do anything else, then I really don't consider you a wrestler. I know that most of the guys who compete in modern death matches are themselves fans of the old school stuff, and they're just trying to intensify the violence and ramp it up because modern death match fans have been desensitized and expect more and more brutality...but I honestly feel that whole scene went badly off the rails somewhere. I liken the modern death match scene to what happened to Punk Rock. I know a lot of punk fans loved the Sex Pistols, and got into music to emulate them. But what a lot of them missed, is if you listen to "Never Mind The Bollocks" you discover that by the time the Pistols had finished recording that album, they had matured into pretty fucking good musicians. That's why that album still stands up today. But some kids listened to it, gave themselves a mohawk, stuck a safety pin through their nose and thought if they could play two chords, that made them a Punk Rocker. In theory, sure yeah...it did. But a lot of the bands that followed the Pistols or the Clash sucked, because they never understood what made the early Punk bands succeed. It was the attitude combined with skill...not just screaming and spitting at people. One of my closest friends, is friends with a former CZW wrestler, who was relatively famous. This former CZW guy told my friend that he quit CZW and death match wrestling altogether because he realized he was literally killing himself and going broke for no reason whatsoever. He was getting sliced to ribbons by broken glass at shows, making shit money and performing in front of small crowds who didn't give a shit about him and just wanted to see him bleed. That's a far cry from what the early death match guys were doing. I don't blame these newer "wrestlers" for being fans and copying their idols, but unfortunately the death match scene grew until it was unwieldy and it kind of ended up eating itself alive.

I hear one of them has heat with the Locker Room already, because it forgot to go around and shake everybody's hand before the show.

Yeah, I freely admit that it might just be me when it comes to Sami Callihan. There's something about Callihan I don't much care for, and I can't really even fully put my finger on what it is. Maybe I just don't like his character and his promos and that is coloring my overall view of him. Maybe it's just that I don't like his stupid hairstyle and the fact that he wears a fucking flak jacket in the ring. Like I said, just something about him irritates me for some reason. Not to the degree that Seth Rollins irritates you, mind you. I do agree with you that his role in Impact has been superior to what he did in MLW, in my humble opinion. You have to assume that solely falls on the respective creative teams, and that D'Amore and Callis have a better idea how to use him. Like I said, I do love oVe as a stable. You're also right about the feud with Rich Swann. That angle has brought out stuff in Swann that I didn't even suspect was there and made him a much more well rounded and serious character, and the feud with Callihan is pretty much solely responsible for that.

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit disappointed in that Main Event too. I had heard from three different people (including a couple who were there live) that this was a great match and almost like the second (or third, I guess) coming of the Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. Meh, not so much. This match was okay, at best. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad - it just wasn't as good as I'd been led to believe. There was some good stuff in there. Jacob Fatu is a beast, he's great and is going to be a big star wherever he ends up. Considering his lineage, I'm actually pretty shocked he didn't end up in NXT/WWE right off the bat. Simon Gotch was okay in this match, but some of his "brawling" offense looks a bit soft. His strengths are obviously mat wrestling and submissions, and you're not going to get a whole lot of that in an Unsanctioned 6 Man Tornado Tag Team Match. I've always been a big Josef Samael fan, since he was the Almighty Sheik. This dude is so old school, and I love it. Great look, great promo and a great overall aura. He did fine. One problem I had with this match was that a lot of the weapons shots and "violence" in this fight looked really weak and unconvincing. I don't want to see guys hammering the crap out of each other and getting hurt - but conversely if you're going to do a match like this, you pretty much have to "lay your shit in" as Steve Austin would say. Some of the kicks, punches, chairshots and especially that nonsense with the board looked really lame. The only one who used it properly was Samael, when he turned it into a spike. Speaking of weak looking, I am sorry but Tom Lawlor did not come across like a badass in this match. Firstly, I hate to say it but he needs to do something about his look. It appears as if he is wrestling in his boxer shorts. I know he is a former MMA guy - I saw in UFC long before I ever saw him in MLW - but his look in MLW is just goofy. Also, his promos are very wooden and unconvincing sounding. The spot where he got duct-taped to the ringpost and had to be rescued by the referee was just stupid and did him no good if he is supposed to be tough. Finally, he is obviously afraid of really hurting somebody because his worked punches and kicks are very obviously being pulled - they look really fake. I respect him but I do not think he should be the top guy in MLW. On the positive side, I thought the Von Erich brothers looked pretty good. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever seen them - I think I might have seen them once in a match from NOAH, but that was ages ago. Either way, they looked pretty good here. They look like stars. They certainly have a family history (good and bad.) Unlike a lot of hardcore fans, I was a pretty big fan of the Von Erich family and I'm old enough to remember them from World Class. Unfortunately, I missed the Freebird feud, but I saw a ton of their stuff in WCCW and I always liked them. I was really happy to hear Kevin's sons were coming to MLW and are finally getting some exposure in North America. I agree with @El-P that the claw is kind of goofy and outdated, but they're the Von Erichs, so what are you gonna do? It's expected. We can't say what they're like in a traditional Tag Team match, because this was anything but. I did think this was kind of a stupid way to debut the Von Erichs in MLW. I get the whole angle leading up to this...Contra are some weird faction who have come in and are terrorizing MLW, nobody knows why they're here, they don't even technically work for MLW, they have some mysterious "benefactor" and we don't know who that is. Fine. To make a statement, they attack the MLW Champion a couple of times, and cut his hair. Fine. But in response, Lawler challenges them to a 6 Man match, and basically says "You guys outnumber me...so I got the Von Erichs." Uh...right. Great storyline. Good buildup. Nice details. And then they stand there and don't say shit. I assume they're like their Dad and Uncles and can't cut a decent promo, but they could have said something, rather than just standing there. The post match brawl was okay, but strangely laid out. Fatu leaves, threatens the announcers, then he comes back. Contra beat up a bunch of officials, including putting a referee through a table, while the babyfaces stand in the ring and give each other high fives. I don't get it. I guess that was meant to help Contra keep their heat, but all it did to me was make Lawlor and the Von Erichs look either heartless for letting those poor guys get beat up, or scared. Or maybe stupid because they somehow missed it? I don't know. Finally, @El-P was dead on about how poorly paced this show was. They start off the show with an angle, which they then show a bunch of times on a replay throughout the show. Then Low Ki has a really lame looking squash match, which the fans don't care about. We have to sit through a ton of promos, and then the Main Event. Very poorly laid out, for whoever produced this episode. I like MLW a lot, probably more than Impact. They have a ton of talent and a lot of potential, but I am finding the quality of their shows tend to fluctuate wildly. For this show I guess the lesson is, don't believe the hype. Maybe I would have liked this week's episode of Fusion if I hadn't heard so much about how great it was, ahead of time.

I'm with you on everybody (especially Willie Mack) except Callihan. In my opinion, he's just okay at best. He's fine for midcard feuds and the odd brawl. His stuff with Edwards has been alright and I do think oVe are a great faction, but to me he is not the kind of guy you build a fed around. YMMV of course.

I watched this past week's episode of Impact and one thing really stuck out to me. Anthem need to pull their heads out of their butts and work things out with Killer Kross. Seriously, if they really do let that guy walk, they're morons. He is such a natural promo, he is head and shoulders above anybody else on that roster. That promo he cut when he was basically water-boarding Sandman was gold. He is so much more natural on the microphone than anybody else they have, plus he has a great look. After already losing Eli Drake, Impact really need to do their best to hang on to this guy. Anthem is not going to be able to rebuild their brand with Michael Freaking Elgin.

Has anybody heard the news item that claims WWE is going to stop having matches continue during commercial breaks? How would they even do that, time the show out so that they only go to commercial between matches, or will they have the referee call time out when the show goes to break?

Thanks brother, I really appreciate the kind words. I really hesitated for the longest time about even mentioning the fact I was sick here at PWO, because I know we generally don't post about those types of things (hence the name Pro Wrestling Only.) But in my own way I have made "friends" with a lot of guys here. Plus, if I suddenly disappear, people will know why. It turns out I have the exact same symptoms and condition that Ric Flair had recently - except mine is genetic and was not brought on by a lifetime of alcohol abuse. (Actually, come to think about it...) Maybe like Lou Gehrig's disease, they'll name the condition after Flair, and I can tell people I have Ric Flair disease. That would give me a medical excuse for drinking to excess, sleeping with thousands of women, wearing nothing but a robe and exposing myself to stewardesses.

Conrad Thompson recently said that Eric Bischoff and JR's podcasts usually do between 200,000 to 300,000 downloads a week. I think his show with Tony Schiavone does quite a bit fewer, and during it's peak I heard and read that Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard was doing significantly more than that, but I think that has dropped off. At it's height, Conrad claimed STW was getting an unbelievable 750,000 downloads a week, or 3 Million a month. It's been a long time since Conrad bragged about Bruce's numbers and I'm betting there is a reason for that. JR has said his audience has increased dramatically since he teamed up with Conrad Thompson. But despite all that, even at his most popular I think Jim Cornette's podcasts get more downloads than Conrad Thompson, the "Podfather" and king of Pro Wrestling podcasts. During one of his many spats with Vince Russo, Jim Cornette claimed that The Jim Cornette Experience does around 350,000 downloads a week - and that was a couple of years ago. Cornette once claimed that if called upon, he could prove that more people downloaded his podcast on a weekly basis than watched TNA wrestling during their decline, and if those figures are true then I believe it. He also offered to compare his numbers to those of Vince Russo's podcast, who wisely ignored the offer. On top of that, Cornette has long claimed that he makes more money from his collectibles business and from personal appearances than he does from his podcast. He has repeatedly claimed that he makes more money now than he ever did when he was active as a Pro Wrestling manager. But Cornette is no dummy - he uses his podcast to promote his other business ventures, obviously. Hell, the first 20 minutes of every show usually consist of him pimping his store and upcoming appearances. And Brian Last has wisely hitched his wagon to Cornette and uses his platform as Cornette's co-host to promote his own large network of shows. And now, if Brian Last is to be believed, the show where Cornette reviewed Double or Nothing did "almost a million" downloads, which (if true) is staggering. Obviously, they base their ad rates on downloads, and more significantly their YouTube channel is monetized and they get paid based on views. Cornette and Last have both claimed that since the whole Double or Nothing controversy, their audience continues to grow. Some of these people who are attacking Cornette online are pretty much playing right into his hands. Let's not forget, Cornette broke into the business in Memphis and at heart is an old school carny of the first order. As Eric Bischoff said: "Controversy Creates Cash" and in this case, I think Cornette and Last are laughing all the way to the bank.

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.