The Thread Killer

That’s weird, I haven’t had any trouble at all. Maybe the board is becoming self-aware, like Skynet...and is trying to keep Mauro Ranallo fans from accessing the forum.

I don't see why this story is turning into such a big deal. Marty Jannetty was actually trending on Twitter today because of this supposed story. I mean, who here among us can honestly say that in their youth, they didn't "make somebody disappear" after a drug deal went horribly wrong? It's all part of growing up and being a kid.

I believe the aforementioned interview where Nick Aldis tore into Bruce Prichard was on Busted Open. Something else interesting came up during that interview. Aldis talked about the positive buzz around his match with Cody at All In, the rematch at NWA 70 and that he is constantly being asked by the fans about a "rubber match" between he and Cody. Aldis mentioned that he and Cody are still close and remain in contact. Aldis said that he has a great relationship with Tony Khan, and that there is pretty much an open offer for him to go to AEW, but that he is totally committed to the NWA unless the day comes that Billy Corgan decides it's time to close up shop. So it's good to know that if the NWA does go down, at least Aldis has an offer on the table. Also, if Nick Aldis shows up on Dynamite unexpectedly to challenge Cody for the TNT Championship, then we can pretty much assume the NWA is dead. I'm almost glad Bruce Prichard doesn't like Aldis, because WWE would never use him properly and he'd end up like EC3 or somebody like that.

And having said all that... Billy Corgan just released a statement saying not to believe the rumors, he is not selling or shutting down the NWA...he's just trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Fucking Raven.

Supposedly, after the pandemic had gone on for a couple of months and it became obvious that Pro Wrestling wasn't going back to "normal" anytime soon (if ever) then the NWA told everybody they had under contract that if they wanted to be released from their contracts to work elsewhere, they could be. From what I have read/heard, NWA contracts weren't really like WWE/AEW contracts, or even like Impact. Essentially, the NWA contracts guaranteed the talent a very nominal amount of money per month, but they got a generous amount of the profits from merchandise sales. Anybody under NWA contract was free to work for any other independent promotions, but I think they were prohibited for working from one of the big companies or be on television unless they could still honor their commitments to the NWA. I got the impression that they were trying to avoid a repeat of the Willie Mack situation, where they thought they had him locked up but he just went and showed up in Impact. Aside from Nick Aldis, a lot of the bigger names in the NWA were only really part timers anyhow, and in a lot of cases they already had full time "day jobs." To me, that was a great part of the NWA. You could work NWA tapings 2-3 days every 4-6 weeks, still focus on your other career but look like you were wrestling full time due to the NWA taping schedule. Tim Storm is a full time teacher, Aron Stevens and Eli Drake are both living in Los Angeles and trying to break into acting, Ken Anderson and Trevor Murdoch either own or train at wrestling schools, ODB owned a food truck...stuff like that. These guys could still enjoy being in Pro Wrestling and make a bit of money on the side, while not threatening their main source of income or job security. Guys like Aldis, James Storm, Thunder Rosa and some others might only have Pro Wrestling as their main source of income so I guess this will hit them a lot harder. That's assuming this story is true. As I've said before, if the world ever does go back to normal, Billy Corgan can always try this again. He owns the name NWA and all the associated intellectual property outright, so it's not like he's going to go bankrupt over this. I'd say the whole Dave Lagana scandal is probably what hit them even worse than the pandemic. Billy Corgan may have been the driving creative force behind the NWA but I think Lagana was doing most of the grunt work behind the scenes. I don't know that Corgan would have the time, enthusiasm or inclination to try and find somebody new to replace him. If this project really is dead, then it sucks. I thought the NWA was really onto something and they seemed to be on the right track. The Crockett Cup was going to be their biggest show since Power debuted and the attendance at and reception for that event would have been a really good indicator of where the NWA was going to go. Now we'll probably never know.

I don't know how reliable he is as a source, but Raven apparently stated in an interview yesterday that he has heard Billy Corgan is planning on pulling the plug on the NWA. Corgan and Raven are friends, so who knows if Raven heard this directly from Corgan or it is just gossip. Raven claims that between the COVID-19 shutdown causing the NWA to lose talent like Ricky Starks and Zicky Dice, and the whole fiasco with Dave Lagana, Corgan has grown disillusioned with the whole project and is basically going to throw in the towel. I wouldn't be surprised if that is true, but I would be very disappointed if it is.

Because I love him.

I don’t. I’m in awe of how badass you are. You’re like a one man army, crusading for justice. You SHOULD be in charge here. It would just like that movie Walking Tall. (The Joe Don Baker version, not the one with The Rock.) Nobody would mess with you, and everybody would know how tough you are because you keep saying “Fuck.”

I'd just like to say that this is hands down the funniest post I've read here at PWO and I want to put it in my signature.

You're the man, @Blehschmidt. I am so ordering that shirt.

But he ain’t gonna stand for no alt-right horseshit and he’s gonna call it whenever he sees it, though.

I'm more concerned they're going to book him the way they booked Asuka on the Main Roster. But I guess not until he gets there, maybe.

Okay listen, I know you're from France so I'll chalk what you just said up to a cultural misunderstanding...because that is Iron Mike Sharpe you're talking about, mister. As in "Canada's Greatest Athlete" Iron Mike Sharpe. The man wrestled for 15 years with a forearm injury that would have crippled anybody else, but all he needed was a leather forearm brace and he was still twice the athlete anybody else in the WWF was. He was robbed of the WWF Tag Team Championships on multiple occasions because they kept sticking him with inferior partners like Steve Lombardi or Terry Gibbs. Hell, the man had the greatest set of lungs in the history of Professional Wrestling. As Gorilla Monsoon used to say, if you could win matches verbally or judged the winner by volume, Iron Mike would have been undefeated. So I'll thank you to keep your snide comments about Iron Mike Sharpe to yourself. If you think @C.S. is out of control with his blind love for Mauro Ranallo, you ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait until you see what happens if people keep besmirching the good name of Iron Mike Sharpe.

I am looking forward to that. With Cornette right now, we're definitely in a "good news/bad news" situation. The bad news is he basically admitted the majority of his new fans only listen to hear him rip on modern wrestling, so he bowed to fan pressure and is reviewing Fyter Fest and The Great American Bash. (I suspect Brian Last had a lot to do with that as well.) The good news is, they apparently got a ton of positive feedback for the old school watch-along, so as @NitroFan says, they are doing another one. I am all for that. A lot of that was deliberate though. I used to go to WWF House Shows at Maple Leaf Gardens religiously from 86-91 or so, and usually there wasn't any great matches until after intermission. Hell, it wasn't even unusual for the first two or three matches to feature enhancement talent, and for those matches to be LONG sumbitches. (Hence my love of Iron Mike Sharpe.) Arn and JR have both talked about how on house shows or even the big events, the opening and even midcard matches were discouraged from being too exciting because that would take away from the upper card and the Main Event. Which is a kind of dumb philosophy in some ways, but then again having all your talent doing insane shit from the opening match and playing "top this" can burn the crowd out and actually does make big spots in the Main Event matches less special, so I guess there are arguments to both sides. That is a massive generalization, and isn't provable one way or the other.

So I guess comprehending blatantly obvious sarcasm is not your thing, then?

Pete Dunne has already relocated to the States and is part of the NXT roster now, from what I understand. I'm not sure what the full story is with Tyler Bate. The worst I heard about him is that he made a pass at a married woman. Call me immoral but I'm not sure that makes him worthy of banishment, but I guess we'll see. WALTER is an interesting case. I got the impression from a couple of interviews I saw with him that he was pretty happy to remain the big fish in the small NXT UK pond, making the odd flight Stateside for an occasional appearance. If he can't do that, I don't know how interested they'd be in using him full time. Not to mention that as soon as Vince and Bruce get their hands on him, they'll fuck him up and try to get him to breakdance while wearing a tuxedo, I'm sure.

I just finished that watch along and I agree, it was excellent. Cornette’s memory of the details is very impressive with him pointing out where he and the guys in the match were calling spots and time cues. I’d seen this match a few times before and I had no idea Tommy Rogers had been injured so badly on the bulldog spot outside the ring. I also found it interesting that they had to adjust their usual gameplan due to time restrictions and borrow a layout from a Memphis style match to get in everything they wanted to do. I have heard Eric Bischoff, JR and Tony Schiavone do watch alongs with Conrad on his podcasts and they are never as entertaining or informative as the rare occasions Cornette does them. I really wish he would do more stuff like this, and less political and anti-modern pro wrestling rants. This was so much better.

I am slowly making my way through this week's edition of The Jim Cornette Experience. It's taking a while because this sumbitch is long...around 3.5 hours, and I usually only listen about 30 minutes at a time while I am walking my dog. They have finally gotten to the review of the first Clash of Champions, and are talking about the bizarre panel of judges for the Flair/Sting Main Event. You had Gary Juster, (the event promoter) Sandy Scott (former local wrestler and JCP office worker), Ken Osmond (who played Eddie Haskel on Leave it to Beaver), Jason Hervey (who was still a kid at that point, staring on "The Wonder Years") and...1988 "Penthouse Pet of the Year" Patty Mullen. Cornette and Brian Last rightfully start making fun of some of the choices for the judges, when Brian Last asked if Patty Mullen had also been an escort, since (he claimed) many of the Penthouse Pets were also escorts. Cornette took a very offended, haughty tone of voice and replied: "Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm a prude. I do not like sex talk. Intimate relations should be between one man, and one woman. With as small a crowd as possible watching." Another highlight of this episode so far was when Cornette was talking about his Cornette's Collectible's business. He recently introduced a limited edition Jim Cornette action figure, of which there were only 450 available. The response to the limited edition action figures was so overwhelming that they sold out in one day and crashed his website, apparently. Cornette talked about how they were shipping out all of the figures in the coming week. Brian Last said that he couldn't wait to see the response to the next action figure...the "Jim Cornette Hot Tub Play Set."

That's interesting. I had always heard the same story you mentioned, that the whole reason Hansen won the title was that Baba wanted to showcase Stan Hansen as a World Champion when he did his next AJPW tour, but Gagne turned around and wanted to take the belt off Hansen before he had barely defended it in AJPW. If I remember correctly, Hansen did mention somewhere that he thought it was odd that Gagne would ever have agreed to put the title on him in the first place, considering it was common knowledge that All Japan would always be his first priority over everything else, and his tours there would make him unavailable for long stretches of time. Now that you mention it, I do remember Hansen saying that he wasn't impressed with how disorganized Gagne was and the fact that putting the title on Bockwinkel seemed to be a last minute decision. Talking about Stan Hansen and Verne Gagne, they have to be more of the two more notably stubborn and bull headed guys in the history of Pro Wrestling. Small wonder they couldn't work together.

I was curious about that book myself. The one thing that stopped me from ordering it is the fact that Stan Hansen seems to be one of those old school guys who is still trying to "protect the business" whenever he talks about stuff that went on behind the scenes. I saw his episode of "Legends" with JBL, his Shoot Interview with Devon Nicholson and his episode of "Back to the Territories" with Jim Cornette, at Kayfabe Commentaries. In all three interviews he seemed happy to discuss certain aspects of his career, but Stan Hansen seems content to speak in generalities and really never goes into any detail. For example, he admits he ran the AWA World Championship Title belt over with his truck and mailed it back to Verne Gagne rather lose the championship, but he won't get into the specifics of why he refused to drop the title. (I know it's pretty much common knowledge at this point, but it would have been nice to hear it from his perspective.) I was especially annoyed with the "Back to the Territories" Shoot Interview. The whole point of the interview was to discuss All Japan, and Hansen only mentions Misawa and Kobashi in passing. If I recall correctly, he never even mentions Kawada. He is also surprisingly sparse on details when talking about Baba. I am worried his book would be similarly vague and short on insight.

One of the things I used to enjoy about Cornette's podcasts is that there was a clear delineation between Cornette's Drive Thru and The Jim Cornette Experience. If you wanted to hear Cornette answer questions from fans and talk about Pro Wrestling History and the Territories, you listened to the Drive Thru. If you chose to listen to The Experience, you would get lots of Pro Wrestling talk sure...but you'd also get more of his ranting about Modern Pro Wrestling and lots of ranting about politics. For the longest time, I listened to the Drive Thru exclusively and pretty much avoided The Experience unless I knew he was covering a topic I wanted to hear him talk about. That way, you could still be a Cornette listener but avoid a good amount of his insane rantings. Like I said earlier in this very thread, I think when Cornette reviewed AEW's first Pay Pay View was when everything changed. His review (specifically his comments about the Battle Royal on the pre-show) seemed to ignite a firestorm of controversy and almost inadvertently increased his popularity. It wasn't long after that Cornette came right out and announced that both his podcasts were basically going to have the same format, with the exception being that he'd still try and answer questions on Mondays. Since then, there have even been a few episodes of the Drive Thru where he didn't take any questions at all, and instead devoted the entire show to reviewing a PPV or whatever. Here's the problem...he opens both shows with the same old shtick. He plugs his business, he does some ad reads and then like clockwork he starts talking about current events. Thing is, I don't give a damn what Jim Cornette thinks about Donald Trump, the Republican Party, or religion, to be honest. For a few reasons. Firstly, I'm Canadian. I couldn't vote for or against Donald Trump, even if I wanted to. It's bad enough that you can't go online or turn on the television without being absolutely inundated with people complaining about Donald Trump 24/7. I use Pro Wrestling as an escape from all that, I don't need to hear about it on a Pro Wrestling podcast. Secondly, even if I wanted to hear somebody talking about politics, the absolute last person I would want to hear from is Jim Cornette. His views on politics are astonishingly simplistic. I have literally heard Jim Cornette complaining when the weather is cold that is the fault of the "goddamn Republicans." And he's not joking, or working his gimmick either. Cornette actually gets worked up about bad weather to the point where he starts profanely cussing out "Republicans." Not a particular Republican. Not a particular policy or piece of legislation. He doesn't bother to specify if it's on the local, state or federal level...he's just pissed off that it's cold and it's the damn Republicans fault. Jim Cornette is like a lot of people who have taken hardline political positions on both ends of the political spectrum...he isn't interested in rational discussion, or intelligent debate. Cornette just likes to scream insults, talking points and generalizations. If you're going to make me listen to your political opinions, at least put some thought into it and say something remotely resembling intelligent. If I wanted to listen to an idiot ranting about current events with no basis in logic or interest in discussion, I'd listen to Alex Jones. If Cornette would cut out the political rants or at least restrict them to one show rather than both, I'd be pretty happy. I am already an hour and a half into this week's show, and he still hasn't got to discussing the first Clash of Champions yet. But I did get to hear all about what he thinks of Donald Trump this week. Which is exactly the same as what he says every week. I think it's hilarious that Brian Last has to edit out large portions of both shows before they go up on YouTube, because Cornette's ranting about politics violates some sort of YouTube policy or something. I am considering waiting the extra couple of days and just checking out his shows when they go up on YouTube. Cornette made mention again this week that he is essentially being inundated by messages from fans begging him to go back to reviewing AEW every week. And if you read between the lines, you can tell Brian Last would like him to. When Cornette does answer questions, Last makes sure the majority of them are about the current product and AEW in particular. So far, Cornette remains steadfast in his refusal to watch or review AEW...his only exceptions being that he will watch whatever FTR or MJF does. The whole reason Brian Last talked Cornette into getting the WWE Network is so he could do watch-alongs and review stuff he had never seen. I think the idea was to make that exclusive content for their Patreon members. Unfortunately, the first couple of things Last picked for Cornette were Legends House and the Ruthless Aggression series. I for one would love to hear Cornette review some of the WWF stuff he never saw because he was too busy on the road in the NWA. Cornette did miss a lot of big WWF shows because he was otherwise occupied. But I agree, I'd like to hear him review stuff from the WWF from before he was there, that he's never seen.

The new episode of The Jim Cornette Experience just debuted, and apparently Cornette reviews the first Clash of Champions, including a watch-along/detailed breakdown of the Midnight Express/Fantastics match. Pretty stoked about listening to that. More classic breakdowns and reviews, less bitching about AEW, please.

I assumed that if Cornette knew that what he was saying could be very easily disapproved he wouldn’t have been so adamant about denying it, or he might not have said anything at all.

I agree with Jerome. During my career I worked with a number of hardcore sex offenders who were some of the most charming, engaging people you would ever meet. I would read files on some offenders and have a hard time believing that the individuals I knew were capable of committing the acts I was reading about. That's the thing about a lot of sex offenders, their ability to charm helps them manipulate people and keeps them from getting caught. There have even been cases where husbands have been serial offenders and their spouses and families literally had no idea. These people have subterfuge down to an art form. I can't honestly blame somebody who knew Joey Ryan for not seeing through his act. I am sure in some cases there might be people who look the other way, don't want to believe it, or try and rationalize predatory behavior...but more often than not sexual predators are just master manipulators and world class liars.

There have been a couple of new developments regarding the allegations against Cornette. As mentioned earlier, the guy making the accusations is named Phil Early, an OVW trainee in 2017. When Early made the accusations, he initially claimed he was doing it not on his own behalf, but on behalf of an unnamed friend. During his denial on his podcast on Monday, Jim Cornette claimed that Phil Early was lying. Cornette claimed that he and Stacey Cornette had spoken to the "unnamed friend" who they were still friendly with, and that the friend denied being involved in the allegations. Cornette also pointed out that he was not involved with OVW in 2017, so he couldn't have used his position in OVW to either help or harm anybody. Since that podcast was released, a lot of Cornette fans and even some of the so-called "Pro Wrestling media" went after Phil Early for making false accusations against Jim Cornette. Dave Meltzer (who is hardly an ally of Jim Cornette lately) reiterated that the timeline of the accusations did not match up. As soon as the opinion that the allegations against Cornette were false started to spread, a lot of Cornette's fans really went into overdrive harassing Phil Early and really going after him. It got especially interesting on Tuesday, when somebody came forward with screenshots of a post Phil Early had made on Facebook. This person was a Jim Cornette fan who had supposedly managed to get onto Phil Early's friend list on Facebook, and discovered a post Early had made on FB bragging about his ability to "cut and paste" and basically manipulate or manufacture screenshots of conversations and use them to get people in trouble. The Cornette fan released the screenshot of the FB post on Twitter. This alleged Facebook post was made prior to the allegations being made against Cornette, so it sure didn't look good for Phil Early. (I believe the exact quote was "who wants to see me photoshop him into some embarrassing shit?") When that Facebook post was made public, Phil Early deactivated his Facebook account. So by Tuesday, things seemed to be looking better for Jim Cornette. The general consensus seemed to be that he was telling the truth about the allegations Phil Early had made, and there even seemed to be some evidence to prove that. But then...today, the "unnamed friend" came forward. His name is Josh Ashcroft and he is now claiming that he was sexually involved with Stacey Cornette but she basically wouldn't let him break it off. He is now claiming that after Phil Early went public with the accusations, Jim and Stacey Cornette and their lawyer contacted him and asked him why he had disclosed private conversations to Phil Early. Ashcroft is now saying that Cornette is correct...he did deny knowing Phil Early to Jim Cornette, which is why Cornette made that statement on his podcast. However, Josh Ashcroft is now claiming he was lying and it actually was him who disclosed the information to Phil Early. Ashcroft claimed that the reason he is coming forward now is because Cornette fans are "making Phil Early's life hell." Josh Ashcroft is saying that he was sexually involved with Stacey Cornette is 2015, and when he broke it off she basically started stalking him and harassing him. He is claiming Stacey Cornette tried to get him evicted from his apartment and fired from his job, and that she sent him messages threatening to harm herself. He is alleging that Stacey Cornette did threaten to use Jim Cornette's influence to ruin the his life, both professionally and personally. The interesting thing here is that Ashcroft's statement only partially confirms the allegations against Jim Cornette. If Ashcroft is to be believed, Stacey Cornette did threaten him and did claim Jim Cornette could use his authority to screw up Ashcroft's life. However, (at least so far) it doesn't appear that Jim Cornette himself was actually involved with the threats, and the timelines still don't line up where Jim Cornette could have done anything to Josh Ashcroft, since by 2015 he had divested himself of all his involvement in OVW. It is starting to appear (on the surface at least) that @Mad Dog might have hit the nail on the head. This is starting to look more like a Stacey Cornette issue...basically she was a jilted lover who threatened to use her husband's supposed influence in the Pro Wrestling business to screw up her ex-boyfriend's life. Cornette obviously had his lawyer contact the guy and ask him if he was working with Phil Early, and Ashcroft (by his own admission) lied to Cornette and his lawyer and claimed he didn't know anything about it...but now he's changed his story. So on one hand, the main aspect of Jim Cornette's denial seems to still be true...he didn't work in OVW when Phil Early or Josh Ashcroft did and he didn't use his influence to screw up Ashcroft's career. That was the main gist of the accusation against Cornette, and it remains provably false. It seems possible (maybe even likely) that Jim Cornette didn't even know Stacey had gone all "fatal attraction" on Ashcroft either. You have to assume that if Cornette did know, he wouldn't have issued such a heated denial on Monday. I am not criticizing the Cornette's sexuality or lifestyle, but I guess situations like this happening are some of the risks you run when you are married but have a non-monogamous, non-exclusive "understanding" with your spouse. I tend to believe Josh Ashcroft is probably telling the truth. Unfortunately his initially denying involvement in the allegations to Cornette's lawyer and then changing his story won't help his credibility much with some people. Plus he also isn't being helped by Phil Early's making accusations that haven't proven to be true, as well Early apparently bragging on social media about his ability to manipulate information to hurt people. On top of that, there is Cornette's allegations of Phil Early basically being a blackmailer. And Early's own Twitter account have pretty much confirmed that as well, as he has made several allusions to having other information on other people that he hasn't released yet. What a convoluted mess this has turned out to be. Neither Phil Early or Stacey Cornette are coming out of this situation looking very good.