The Thread Killer

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.

Now that I have listened to that interview twice (once just to hear it and the second time while I recapped it) I have some opinions of my own to share. Firstly, Cornette came off as very emotional in this interview. He started out trying to act like the situation doesn't bother him, when clearly it does. I tend to believe him when he says that he never listens to what people say about him personally and that rolls right off his back. By now, he must have incredibly thick skin when it comes to criticism. However, this situation has obviously hit very close to home and I think he is pretty devastated by the effect this has had on his wife. Understandably. However, I am a bit surprised something like this hasn't happened sooner, obviously. Cornette now pretty makes a career out of saying outlandish, insulting, demeaning and hurtful things about people. So I'm not really surprised that has boomeranged on him and his chickens have come home to roost, so to speak. Maybe this whole thing is karma, who knows. When you say hateful shit about people for a living, maybe you shouldn't act shocked and morally indignant when somebody does it back to you. Do I think Jim Cornette and/or his wife used his position in OVW to "groom" people or blackmail them into having sex under the threat of losing their license or it adversely affecting their career? No, I don't. Like Jerome said, Jim Cornette is so despised within the industry, I think somebody would have leapt at the chance to torpedo him or humiliate him if there was even a scintilla of evidence out there of wrongdoing on his part. If this situation has proved anything, it's how incredibly unpopular Cornette is with a lot of people, and how there are a lot of people salivating at the possibility of his downfall. Having said that...I do think it's entirely possible that Stacey Cornette has trotted out the old "do you have any idea who my husband is and what he can do to you" line at some point. I just don't think Cornette has ever used his influence (when he had it) to torpedo somebody just because they didn't want to have sex with his wife. Power is all in it's perception and if she ever did use that line it's pretty inexcusable, but I would hazard to guess it never went any further than a comment. Cornette seems absolutely convinced he is bulletproof against the main accuser, which makes me believe that he is innocent when it comes to that particular accusation. The fact is that the dates just don't line up. Cornette was not running OVW when Phil Early was there. And Phil Early isn't even making the accusation on his own behalf, he's claiming it's on behalf of one of his friends...who has not come forward. It's a little fishy, to be honest. And Phil Early is now touting himself as somebody who has "taken on the task of exposing predators in wrestling" and arguing semantics about Cornette's rebuttal, while at the same time promoting an independent wrestling event. While people challenge him on what he said about Cornette, he has started posting claims about stuff that is supposedly going on in OVW behind the scenes right now...and Cornette hasn't worked there in years. Cornette claims he can prove that Early's supposed "close friend" who was brainwashed by the Cornette's for years and "groomed" by them is still friends with them and doesn't even know Phil Early, and it's a little telling that Early does not deny that, now that Cornette has said it. As far as the people who have supposedly corroborated Early's claims...there are two people. Cornette was either lying or mistaken when he said they are the same person. Mike Braddock is a former OVW champion, a disabled veteran and he is clearly the guy Cornette referred to in his podcast today. The problem is, Braddock's biggest revelations about Jim Cornette is that Stacey once asked him about his sex life...oh, and he doesn't like what Cornette says about one legged wrestlers. Not to mention, Braddock's posts kind of sound like a cry for attention, saying things like "I don't even want to be on Cornette's podcast!" Cornette actually implied that there are some serious mental health issues at play with Mike Braddock and was very reluctant to discuss him. There is literally nothing in Mike Braddock's account that backs up Phil Early's story. The other guy who supposedly said something that confirmed Early's accusation was Iain Moore, who was apparently an OVW Tag Team Champion. Moore had his latest Tweet deleted today for violating Twitter's terms of service, but his entire contribution to this story was a tweet saying "this is legit." The bottom line is, if Mike Braddock and Iain Moore are the best witnesses Phil Early can come up with to corroborate his secondhand claims, then it's no wonder this story isn't getting more traction. One point Cornette made that I totally agree with, is the blatant hypocrisy of a lot of people on Twitter. Everybody went after Jim Cornette for being a supposed "groomer" and even tossed around unsubstantiated claims of his going after underage women. All this was supposedly done in the name of "speaking out" for women in Pro Wrestling. However, the response has been pretty damn repulsive when you look at how it has been directed at Stacey Cornette. I thought maybe Cornette was being melodramatic when he talked about some of the things being said about his wife, before I went on Twitter to check out the accounts of the accusers today. There are literally dozens of tweets mocking Stacey Cornette's appearance, or making fun of Jim Cornette for being a "cuck." Like I said, Cornette has made his career lately off being outrageous, so I guess the backlash was inevitable. But the people going after his wife while at the same time acting like they are "speaking out" for women disgust me, frankly. And I am not saying Jim and Stacey Cornette are innocent, but it's going to take a lot more corroboration before you'll be able to prove he's guilty of what he's been accused of. And considering how many people want to see him go down and how little damage he could do if he was taken down, I find it strange that more people haven't come forward if they're out there.

As mentioned earlier, Cornette's Friday podcast was recorded before the scandal broke, so there was no reference to the allegations during that episode. Brian Last did record a last minute insert segment where he acknowledged the allegations and reported that Jim Cornette would issue a statement on the Monday episode of Cornette's Drive-Thru. This was confirmed by the statement Cornette's lawyer released as well. Today Jim Cornette and Brian Last released a special episode of Cornette's Drive-Thru specifically devoted to Cornette's comments on the scandal that broke last week. I will do my best to recap what he said here. I am going to refrain from editorializing as much as possible, but if I do add my own comments I will do so in brackets. If Cornette specifically or categorically refutes one of the accusations which have been made against him and his wife, I will recap it in bold. - The show began with Brian Last introducing Cornette, as per usual. Last stated that this week they would not be doing the usual Q&A format for the Drive-Thru, and basically turned it over to Cornette. - Cornette started off by joking and pointing out that there was thunderstorm happening in Louisville as they were recording, which you might be able to hear in the background and would add to the gravitas of his statement. - Cornette said that he had accomplished the crowning achievement of his career, since he was now the only person left in Professional Wrestling who could get so much heat and be so despised by everybody even though everybody knows Pro Wrestling is a work. Cornette pointed out that if anything bad happens or any scandal comes up, people who hate him always try and drag him into it. He mimicked Sally Fields famous "you really like me" speech from the Academy Awards by saying: "You hate me. You really hate me." Cornette said that he was not going to take this situation seriously, and he was gratified that he is the only person left in the business that people legitimately hate. - Brian Last mentioned that a lot of very serious allegations have come to light over the past few days in the Pro Wrestling business, it is seemed Jim Cornette has been swept up in it. (In my opinion, this felt like Brian Last was basically trying to encourage Cornette to take the situation seriously.) - Cornette reiterated that the audience for his podcasts has grown tremendously over the past couple of years, and that considering the size of his audience it is possible that many of his listeners "don't live their lives on Twitter" and might not even know what he is talking about, so he is going to repeat the accusations that had been made against him and his wife Stacey. - Cornette said that he and his wife have been accused by a particular person on Twitter of trying to recruit sex slaves while he was running OVW, and that this person alleges that Jim Cornette subsequently threatened to ruin people's careers if they did not succumb to his wife's carnal desires. Brian Last confirmed that was the basic gist of the accusations. - Jim Cornette claimed the person making these accusations was a trainee in OVW in 2017. Cornette says that the accuser claims that Stacey tried to "groom" him for sexual purposes but that the accuser managed to escape them. Cornette claims the accuser further alleged that Jim and Stacey ruined the career of a good friend of his. Cornette said that the accuser has claimed that he was afraid to come forward, and was reportedly "shaking" as he typed out the accusation. Jim Cornette says that based on this accusation and some screenshots, the Pro Wrestling media and many fans on Twitter picked up on the story. - Cornette pointed out that last October he was basically accused of being the "Grand Dragon of the KKK" (referencing the infamous NWA fried chicken joke, I assume) and then in December he was accused of hating women (I believe that is when he got into the Twitter spat with the female AEW fan and used a bunch of the old Andy Kaufman lines to upset her) and then in March he was accused of hating babies (the Becky Lynch controversy.) Cornette pointed out that on all these occasions he had trended on Twitter, and now he was trending again and people believed what was being said about him. - Cornette said that things needed to be put into context. Jim Cornette claims that the person making the accusation is a man in his late 30's who lives in Billings, Montana. Cornette says he has proof of that fact and challenges anybody to prove him wrong. Cornette says that means the accuser would have been 35 years old at the time he claims Stacey Cornette tried to seduce him. Cornette basically claimed that maybe the accuser's age had something to do with why he never made it in the Pro Wrestling business. Jim Cornette says there is no proof that the person who has made this accusation against he and his wife is actually even a Professional Wrestler. Cornette does not deny that the accuser may have been to wrestling school, but he denies that the accuser is actually a Pro Wrestler. The only thing Jim Cornette can confirm is that the person making the accusation against he and his wife trained in OVW in 2017. Cornette claims the only proof that this accuser is even involved in Professional Wrestling is the fact that his Social Media profile picture was taken at a meet and greet with Sami Callihan. - Jim Cornette is claiming the person who made this accusation against him and his wife is also holding onto intimate photographs of another known Professional Wrestler. Cornette claims that the accuser came into possession of these photographs under suspicious circumstances, that the photographs were not sent to the accuser or intended for him, and that the accuser is planning on making an accusation against the Pro Wrestler in the photographs, alleging that this person sends out unsolicited photographs of himself without consent. Cornette said he will not disclose which Pro Wrestler is in the photographs. Cornette's point is that the person accusing he and his wife is holding onto these photographs as a "backup plan" in case the accusations against Cornette were unsuccessful. (Basically, he is implying that the person making the accusation is a blackmailer.) - Brian Last interrupted and said that he didn't understand what Cornette was alleging. Cornette reiterated that the person accusing him is holding incriminating photographs on somebody and is "starting a career" of making allegations. Cornette said he cannot say anymore about that situation.because it is not his place. Cornette says the point is, it has been proven that the person who made this accusation has the ability to access information or materials that were never sent to or intended for him. - Cornette says that he has being accused of withholding or rewarding employment and of using fear and intimidation based on people's willingness to engage in sex with he and his wife. Jim Cornette pointed out that he was the owner and booker of OVW from 1999 until 2005, at which point he had a falling out with WWE. In 2005 he resigned as booker and stopped being creatively involved with OVW. Cornette remained an owner of OVW until 2007, at which point he sold his portion of the business. So by 2007, Jim Cornette claims he had no ownership in or creative involvement with OVW. (Basically, Cornette is implying that the timeline of these accusations don't line up, since he had no authority in OVW at the time the accuser allegedly trained there.) - Jim Cornette pointed out that from 1999 until 2005, he had a very good record of training and developing talent for WWE. Cornette implied he was proud of what he did in OVW and that while he was affiliated with WWE, he pushed talents based on merit and not based on fear or favors. Cornette said that at no time in the past 15 years was he ever accused of pushing talent based on him having an unprofessional relationship with the talent in question. Cornette said the only time there was a problem with the wrong talent being pushed in OVW was when the WWE would force him to push talent he thought didn't deserve it. - Cornette pointed out that the most powerful and successful Pro Wrestlers in the industry came through OVW, and none of them ever accused him of pushing talent in exchange for sexual favors. Cornette pointed out that he was very unpopular with John Laurinitis and that Laurinitis would have been happy to have any excuse to get rid of Jim Cornette if accusations of that nature had come up. Cornette further asked if people were afraid to complain about him while he was in charge of OVW, why wouldn't they have come forward with these accusations after he was fired and they were safe from reprisals? - Jim Cornette claims there were plenty of complaints about him while he ran OVW, that he screamed and yelled at the talent about their work and "having crummy matches" so people obviously weren't afraid to complain about him, yet nobody ever accused him of that. Cornette reiterated that not one person over the past 15 years has ever accused him of pushing talent based on sexual favors. - Cornette pointed out that he was gone from OVW from 2007-2010. Cornette says in October 2010 he was contacted by Danny Davis who was the owner of OVW. OVW was no longer a WWE developmental territory by that time. Cornette was working for Ring of Honor/Sinclair Broadcasting by that point. Danny Davis asked Cornette if he would be willing to take over the booking of the OVW TV show, and Cornette agreed. Cornette started writing TV for OVW in October 2010, but he was not booking the house shows. Cornette claims at that point there was no affiliation with WWE, and he did not control the bookings, so he could not have possibly offered or withheld any favors at that point. Cornette pointed out that the OVW roster was pretty much depleted by that point, and there were only four guys who were any good...the rest were "the drizzling shits." Cornette claimed that he continued booking OVW TV from October 2010 until April 2011, at which point he handed off his duties. Cornette claims that his name was kept in the credits for OVW but by that time he was working full time with Ring of Honor and had nothing to do with OVW. Cornette pointed out that from 2007 until 2011 he either did not work with OVW or was not in the position where he could grant any favors to people who would have sex with his wife. - Cornette says he set up a sponsorship for OVW as a favor in 2015 and made a few appearances on OVW TV, but by that point he was only a paid talent and was not in a position of authority. Cornette says for the past 10 years he hasn't paid any attention to or had any involvement with OVW, especially since Danny Davis sold OVW to Al Snow. - Cornette addressed the accusation that he had threatened to use his power with the Kentucky Commission to punish people who wouldn't submit to his and Stacey's sexual whims. Cornette says that back during the territory days it was possible to bribe the commissioner to look the other way when wrestlers would blade, but that the modern day commission is a government post and it would be impossible for him to exert that type of influence. Cornette claims that would be an actual crime for the commissioner to do a favor for him just so he or his wife could "get laid." Cornette admits that he did ask the commissioner on some occasions to not drug test certain talents until after a show took place, or to not suspend other talents for not having a valid license, and whenever he would ask for favors like that, he would be denied. Cornette says he never asked a commissioner to suspend, fine or punish anybody in OVW. Cornette claims he could get a sworn statement to prove that. - Cornette also "categorically denies" ever promising any type of favors or threatening any type of punishment or exclusion on the condition of sexual relations with he or his wife. - Cornette says no female Pro Wrestler he has ever worked with his ever claimed he treated them in a sexually inappropriate manner. - Cornette says he has never been involved sexually with somebody who is not legal age. - Cornette says he has never physically abused anybody, expect for the men he hit with his tennis racket. He has never abused anybody in a sexual way. - Cornette says he has never sent an inappropriate picture or message to anybody on the internet. - Cornette says he never had any non-consensual sexual contact with anybody. - At this point, Cornette basically admitted that he and his wife Stacey are "swingers" for lack of a better term. Cornette admitted that both he and his wife have a relationship where they engage in sex with others, sometimes separately and sometimes apart, but he does not "cheat" on his wife as she is always aware of what he is doing sexually, or she is there when it happens. - Brian Last asked Jim Cornette to clarify that although and he and Stacey are admitted to being sexually active with other people, it was never associated with people getting a push in OVW. Cornette agreed, and joked that all he could offer is that if people got into the hot tub with he and Stacey, they could drive the OVW ring truck. - Cornette also talked about how the stories going around were making him sound like Hugh Hefner with all the hot tub parties. Cornette basically claims that even that aspect of his sex life is being blown way out of proportion. Cornette claims that in the past 15 years, he and Stacey have been involved with 5 or 6 people who are in the Professional Wrestling business, at most. Cornette claims that none of the people who were ever in his hot tub over the past 15 years were under contract with any major organization. - Cornette says that if you take out the accusation of he and Stacey using his position in OVW for sexual reasons, the only they are being accused of is having an interesting sex life. - Brian Last pointed out that in his opinion, Cornette is basically being "kink shamed" for having an unconventional sex life. Cornette says it wouldn't be possible for his sex life to be as exciting as some people have made it out to be and he wishes it had been. Cornette admitted that he and Stacey have been sexually involved with people outside the Pro Wrestling business, but "just a few, not a ton." Cornette also pointed out that the stories online have made it sound like Stacey is the one doing all the sexual exploring and not him. Cornette says the amount of sexual activity between the two of them is probably even. - Cornette talked about how seriously he takes the Pro Wrestling business, and how he finds it insulting that people would imply he would compromise the business for his own sexual gratification. - Cornette says some local Louisville fans think his wife Stacey is actually the character she portrayed on OVW TV and is some sort of deviant cult leader. - Cornette says the only evidence against him is a Facebook message and a picture of Stacey's ass. Cornette says that some people have claimed that the accuser must be telling the truth, because he has a picture of Stacey's ass. Cornette says that he hopes he does not offend anybody's sensibilities, but pictures of his wife's ass are not uncommon. Cornette says he has taken hundreds of pictures of his wife in a variety of locations over the years, and while she does not send them out unsolicited there are "quite a few" risque pictures of his wife in existence that she has shared. - Cornette says the Facebook message in question was written by Stacey, but it was not a conversation she had with the person who is making the accusation. Cornette is claiming that the accuser came by that conversation through other means. Cornette claims Stacey was drunk when she wrote the message and she was venting about a friend of theirs with whom she had a falling out. Cornette claims that the friend in question has since "made up" with Jim and Stacey, and he claims to not know how the accuser came into possession of the conversation. Cornette claims that the conversation has been cut, pasted and altered. - Cornette claims that neither he or Stacey actually know the person making the accusation, or recall ever having any conversation with him. Cornette claims they have never met and that he and Stacey "couldn't pick him out of a police lineup." Cornette claims that the accuser might have contacted Stacey under false pretenses pretending to be friends with the person Stacey references, when that was actually not the case. Cornette says their friend denies knowing the accuser and does not know why he has been dragging into this. The point is, the accuser claims he is close friends with the person referred to in the Facebook message. Cornette claims that is categorically untrue, and that he and Stacey are still friends with the person being referred to in the message. Cornette claims the accuser is not friends with the person referred to in the Facebook message. Cornette says the person being referred to in the Facebook message has no issue with Jim and Stacey Cornette, and was never under contract in OVW. So "grooming" would have been technically impossible and the entire backstory behind the accusation is a lie. - Cornette claims that anybody who corroborated the accusation are people from the local Louisville Pro Wrestling scene who have an axe to grind with he and Stacey, but have no proof of them "grooming" anybody because it never happened. Brian Last brought up the fact that two people have come forward and corroborated the accusation. Cornette claims that he knows the person who came forward, that his name is Michael and he is actually responsible for both accounts that backed up the accusation. Cornette claims that Michael has mental health issues, he is a veteran and Cornette says he does not want to malign him. Cornette says that when the accusations became public he looked into who was corroborating them and that is when he discovered it was Michael, a former OVW employee who he does know, that has a history of issues and he does not want to go into them. - Cornette pointed out that since the accusations have been made public, there have been calls on Twitter for Stacey to be banned from Professional Wrestling, which is impossible because she hasn't even been active in Pro Wrestling for 15 years. Cornette claims people have made the same statements about him, that he should be banned from Pro Wrestling. Cornette says he doesn't care about that. - Cornette says he accepts the hatred because he chose to make himself a public figure. What he doesn't understand is that these accusations are being made in the spirit of stopping bullying and intimidation against women in the Pro Wrestling business, but in that cause people are now attacking, bullying and slandering his wife. Cornette says that these attacks against his wife are being made by people who hate him but can't get to him. Cornette claims his wife has been overwhelmed with messages from people mocking her physical appearance and calling her a slut and whore and a sexual predator. - Cornette pointed out the timing of this controversy is terrible. He reminded Brian that Stacey's Father died this past winter and this was her first Father's Day without him. He said that she cannot even visit her Mother in person due to the pandemic, so she is feeling very lonely, sad and emotional when suddenly she is confronted with these accusations out of nowhere and is being insulted, mocked and degraded. Cornette says that his wife was having a bad enough weekend and on top of that she is being called a whore and spent three hours crying. Cornette talked about the Hanna Kimura incident and claims the exact same thing is happening to his wife, but people are okay with it because she is his wife. - Cornette pointed out that by a terrible example of timing, right before this whole controversy broke, Bobby Fulton of the Fantastics (who has been having a very public battle with Cancer) happened to Tweet a message thanking Cornette for being his friend and Tweeted a picture of them together. Since it happened right before the story broke, people have apparently been harassing Bobby Fulton and verbally abusing him. Cornette asked how can people who say they're against harassment of people in the Pro Wrestling business turn around and verbally abuse a 60 year old housebound man who just underwent chemotherapy. By this point, Cornette was obviously incensed and was basically cussing out everybody who was harassing his wife and friends. - Cornette says that a lot of people have been accused of a lot of things over the past few days, and unless the person admits they're guilty then he isn't going to judge them because based on what has happened to him he's not sure he can believe accusations are true. Cornette says that by making false accusations, people like his accuser are hurting the poor people who actually have been harassed or abused, because once they have been proven to be lying people will start to doubt everybody who comes forward even when they are telling the truth. - Cornette said in summation, the only thing he and Stacey are guilty of is having fun sexually, and cussing people out when they're angry. - Brian Last said that due to his relationship with Jim Cornette he has heard just about every criticism and claim against him, but he had never heard the allegations of "grooming" or trading sex for professional favors before. Cornette said that when somebody can prove that he did it, then he will be contrite but they can't prove it because he didn't do it. Brian Last asked on the record, for an unequivocal denial that Jim Cornette had never groomed John Cena, Dave Batista, Randy Orton or Brock Lesnar. Cornette laughed and said he couldn't even get Stacey in the same room as Brock Lesnar because they didn't get along. Cornette said you could go down the list, but he never groomed anybody. Cornette said he and his wife "have their fun" but they didn't do it. Cornette reiterated that his life hasn't been as exciting as the story has made out, and that these sexual things don't exactly happen all the time. Brian Last asked why he had never been invited to one of Jim Cornette's hot tub parties. Cornette said that Last never leaves his house, and now he can't due to the pandemic. - Cornette said this whole thing is just stupid and ridiculous but the way people have reacted has been repulsive. - Cornette said that he was so upset about this that he "wasn't going to sit here and answer questions about the Ding Dongs." - Cornette and Last said the show will go back to normal next time, and a standard Q&A edition of the "Drive-Thru" will be released later in the week.

For those of you who want to know what Cornette said in his statement but don't actually want to listen to him, I will post one of my epic recaps (like the Kevin Sullivan and FTR interviews.) I'll probably get that posted within the next hour or so.

That account doesn’t have anything to do with Billy Corgan’s modern version of the NWA. I’m pretty sure that is the Twitter account of Gary Price the promoter who runs the Charlotte and Mid-Atlantic fan fests.

I know it was announced on Reddit but I haven’t seen it anywhere else. I wouldn’t be surprised. The NWA was basically a two-man outfit with Lagana doing all the day-to-day work. They didn’t even have an office, he worked out of his home. With him gone the whole thing is pretty much screwed.

You're not kidding. I tried using Dailymotion the other day to look for a particular match I wanted to see that wasn't on YouTube. I hadn't been to Dailymotion in ages, and I couldn't believe how crappy their stupid search engine was, it's basically useless.

Apparently he had already recorded the podcast which is supposed to be released today before any of the allegations were made public, so I don't expect anything about the situation to be addressed on The Jim Cornette Experience this afternoon. That's assuming that they even release the podcast as scheduled, they may hold it back in light of all the controversy. I guess there is always a chance Brian Last will hold back the podcast today to add a last minute statement regarding the allegations, I'm not sure. Cornette alluded to the allegations on Twitter today, and basically made a sarcastic comment and implied he was going to get his lawyer to handle it, which was pretty much the response I expected. Cornette is quite litigious (as has been documented) so I imagine he's probably just going to have his lawyer deal with this situation from here on out. Which means I wouldn't expect for him to make too much of a comment. You remember that whole fiasco between Cornette and the death match wrestler, involving the "Fuck Jim Cornette" T-shirt...Cornette ended up getting his lawyer involved there, and so he hasn't even mentioned the guy's name on his podcast since. It's usually standard operating procedure to avoid making any comments of any kind about a situation if there is legal action pending, since anything you say can become part of the lawsuit, not to mention the fact that judges apparently strongly disapprove of litigants publicly commenting on matters that are still before the courts. If Cornette decides to go after the people making these accusations through legal means, then I expect him to make a statement saying his lawyer is handling it and he can't comment. That actually might end up being a way to determine how screwed Cornette really is on this whole deal. If the people making the accusations have any sort of hard evidence, or if there are enough people who could back the claims up, obviously Cornette probably won't pursue this via legal means, since it could potentially blow up in his face and bring even more damning evidence to light. In that case, I'd expect Cornette to engage and challenge the accusers publicly, I expect one of this standard blistering and profane rebuttals, which means it's going to turn into a they said/he said Twitter feud. One thing that will be interesting to see is how this affects Cornette's business. I wouldn't expect his downloads to be affected, to be honest. His fans are generally a bunch of mindless drones who believe everything he says and will follow him regardless. However, Cornette seems to be using an ad agency to arrange rotating sponsors for his podcasts (which is the Conrad Thompson model for making money with podcasting.) I can easily see a lot of those sponsors wanting to get as far away from Cornette as they can since these allegations are now out there. Then again, his sponsors have stuck with him after all the other crazy shit he's said, so who knows?

I'm honestly not terribly surprised about a lot of the allegations that came out today. You wouldn't think it to look at him, but Jim Cornette has always been fairly upfront about his shall we say "non-traditional" views on sexual behavior. Putting aside the unsubstantiated rumors about him from years ago (the whole "banana" story) Cornette has openly discussed the fact that between marriages he was a frequent client of various escort agencies. He has mentioned being a consumer of porn quite a few times, so I already surmised that his attitude towards sex was a lot more "relaxed" than you would expect from somebody who comes across as uptight as he is. On top of that, over the past couple of years Cornette has occasionally used some verbiage or made statements that hinted at the fact that he and his wife might be involved in BDSM. He has never come right out and said it, but if you read between the lines the allusions have been there, once in a while. I've always been of the belief that what goes on behind closed doors between consenting adults is none of my business. I am well past the point of being shocked when I discover that somebody has a "fetish" or engages in some type of behavior that is considered non-traditional. I think if most of us knew what goes on behind closed doors in the bedrooms of most of the people we know, we'd be shocked. I usually don't care about that kind of stuff, I suppose it's the Libertarian in me. I'm not one to hang the tag "pervert" or "deviant" on somebody based on their sexual preferences, with some very specific caveats. Specifically...the key words in my previous paragraph were CONSENSUAL and ADULT. I am not going to mock or judge Jim Cornette or his wife if they want to engage in swinging, cuckoldry, BDSM or whatever, so long as everybody involved is legal age and consenting. If Cornette and his wife really did use his position of authority in OVW to sexually harass people, then that is obviously unacceptable. Especially if they were chasing teenage girls, as has been suggested in some corners. That goes beyond alternative lifestyles and veers into socially and morally wrong, and obviously I would be very disappointed to hear that. And if it's true, then he deserves whatever blowback he gets for it. And if it isn't true, then I suspect the people making the allegations will be hearing from Stephen P. New.

I don't disagree with you. I've heard Billy Corgan say that if he had succeeded in buying TNA he would have basically dismantle TNA/Impact and do a total rebuild. What Corgan really wanted was the TV deal, the TV production equipment and staff, and a good chunk of the wrestlers who were under contract. If Anthem made a mistake, it was in not distancing themselves further from TNA. TNA actually put out a lot of quality stuff when they were in existence, but Dixie Carter and Vince Russo managed to pollute the brand so badly that it was basically toxic by the time they were done. I don't know anybody who could have saved that mess. You're right, Anthem basically had two strikes against them from the get go.

This is an interesting argument, and I can see what @El-P and others are saying when they claim Jim Cornette is not relevant to modern Pro Wrestling. As El-P said, it may just be a matter of semantics, in that we don't share the same definition of the word "relevant" or what the term encapsulates. By my understanding relevance is defined as "being important to or having a significant bearing on the matter at hand." I think we could agree that the "matter at hand" is Professional Wrestling. Is Jim Cornette historically important to Pro Wrestling? Absolutely. Is he important to Pro Wrestling in 2020? Debatable. Once again, how can you actually determine that? He's clearly popular. Does his popularity automatically mean that he's important to Professional Wrestling in 2020? I would argue that it does. He's clearly important to at least 300,000 people every week. I would argue that it is the exact things that modern fans claim make him irrelevant which have ironically made him relevant. Like @WingedEagle pointed out, this thread has 25 pages. Hell, go on Twitter and enter his name in the search bar. You'd be deluged with opinions on Jim Cornette, both for him and against him. I just can't see the logic in the argument that somebody who has such a large fanbase and illicits such a passionate response from fans (both positive and negative) is irrelevant. Conversely, if you want to make the argument that Jim Cornette has no bearing on the direction of Professional Wrestling in 2020, I would willingly concede that argument. But as I said earlier, that isn't honestly the point. You can't honestly use that as a way to dismiss him, or as an insult. Cornette's alienation from the modern product was his choice. When Tony Khan decided to start his own Professional Wrestling company, one of the first people he wanted to hire as a consultant was Jim Cornette. Cornette consulted with Khan, heard the direction AEW was going and declined to be involved. Cornette's lack of involvement in modern Pro Wrestling wasn't forced on him. Cornette has frequently discussed how he made the decision to stop taking bookings and jobs in the industry because he was unhappy with the direction it was headed. He has stated that he made the decision to stop trying to fit into the modern Pro Wrestling scene, and start speaking his mind. Jim Cornette has disavowed the modern product. He does not want to be associated with it because he doesn't support it. He has stopped being an active participant in Professional Wrestling and has become a critic of Pro Wrestling. But I don't think you can throw the "relevancy" argument at a critic. Honestly, I think it's foolish to hang that tag on him. There are a lot of unflattering things you could say about Jim Cornette, and you'd be totally right. If you want to say Jim Cornette is out of touch? I agree with you. Are a lot of his ideas obsolete, impractical and badly outdated? Absolutely. But he's a critic with a large audience and I don't think he's irrelevant. You can disagree with him, but I don't think you can just brush him off by saying he isn't important and nobody cares what he thinks. That clearly isn't true.

Not to mention, Impact wouldn't even have any audience at all, if their parent company didn't literally buy an entire TV network in order to keep them on the air. Interest in Impact was so low they couldn't get a TV deal, anywhere. They were pretty much dead in the water until Anthem bought AXS. That doesn't exactly scream "relevance" to me.

I agree with you. To me, this began to get out of hand when Cornette reviewed AEW Double or Nothing 2019. His comments about the Casino Battle Royal and Sonny Kiss in particular seemed to ignite the shit storm. That controversy seemed to bring Jim Cornette to the attention of a lot of fans who otherwise didn't know what his opinions were, or in some cases may not have even known who he was. The following week and for the next few episodes after that, Brian Last stated he was shocked how their downloads had begun to skyrocket. I even remember him mentioning at one point that their audience had almost doubled. You could pretty much hear Brian Last rubbing his hands together as their downloads went up, (as I assume so did their ad buys and ad rates, because they certainly started quickly adding new advertisers to the show.) Jim Cornette himself is to blame for this, of course. But I also blame Brian Last. Cornette himself has complained during the show about Brian Last insisting he watch certain things and review them...things that Cornette never would have bothered to seek out on his own. But Last insists that he watches stuff that he knows Cornette won't like, just so Cornette will freak out and say something outrageous. It's the same reason he deliberately selects stupid questions for Cornette's Q&A podcast. To me, it's the equivalent of having a friend who you know will act like a jerk if he gets drunk, but you keep insisting on buying him drinks and making sure he drinks them. Cornette bears the ultimate responsibility for everything that comes out of his mouth, but the way Brian Last pretty much goads him and manufactures a lot of the controversies himself is kind of pathetic. But Cornette isn't being manipulated. He's not stupid and he gladly goes along with it. Almost as bad, there are a bunch of Pro Wrestling so-called "News" sites, who have started to listen to Cornette's shows every week and then report on what he says. That also perpetuates the problem. Jim Cornette saying some outrageous or nasty shit about AEW or modern Pro Wrestling is not news, but unfortunately a lot of these sites act like it is. They report it, people get outraged and head to Twitter, and the whole thing starts all over again. And that's not even taking some weird AEW fans into account, who literally listen to Cornette's shows just so they can find something to get pissed off about, and complain about it on Twitter. The whole situation is pretty much self-perpetuating at this point and it's getting really old. AEW might define modern Pro Wrestling but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of fans who don't like modern Pro Wrestling, though. If nobody agreed with what Jim Cornette says about modern Pro Wrestling...then nobody would listen to him. Cornette would be a crazy old timer ranting and raving and everybody would ignore him (like Superstar Billy Graham, for example.) Jim Cornette is crazy and rants and raves, but people listen. He has a huge fanbase. He's getting that audience because there is a very large number of fans who hate what Pro Wrestling has become. Cornette reads letters from fans every week who are fans of old school, traditional style Pro Wrestling and don't like the modern stuff. I think Jim Cornette speaks to those fans, and he speaks for them. To me, relevance can be defined by doing something that people notice and care about. Like him or not, people care about what Jim Cornette says...so I can't see the argument that he isn't relevant. Cornette has been quite upfront about the fact that during the heyday of the Midnight Express in JCP, he made around $250,000 a year. When Turner bought out the NWA I am pretty sure he ended taking a pay cut, and of course everybody has heard Cornette's stories about how Jim Herd cut his pay back to $125,000. If I'm not mistaken he probably ended up making around $300,000 a year when he worked for Vince McMahon. So I assume those would have been his prime "earning" years. Cornette claimed that between his podcasts, conventions/personal appearances and most importantly his collectibles business, he has managed to match those numbers...and now he can stay at home most of the time so he's not spending a ton of money on travel, food and accommodation. I know Cornette makes a good amount of money from the ad sales for his podcasts and the YouTube money, but he's always given the impression that his financial bread and butter has been his Cornette's Collectibles business. I have heard him say that one of the main reasons he started doing a podcast in the first place was to promote his business. I think he's been very successful with that business. I remember when he sold out what he thought would be a year's supply of his graphic novel in a couple of months, so quickly that they had to order a second printing. Last year he announced that he was down to 250 units left of his action figure, and that sold out in a few weeks as well. I remember thinking at the time: "Who the hell wants a Jim Cornette action figure?!" I think between the books, DVD and T-shirt sales, he's doing pretty damn well for himself. I don't agree that he's making a living off hanging onto AEW. But hey, even if I'm wrong and he is making a living off hating AEW...that actually makes it funny. If Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks were responsible for Jim Cornette making a living, I'd find that kind of hilarious. Tony Khan offered Cornette a job, and Cornette didn't want it...and why would he? He can make money from AEW without even having to work for them. That's Pro Wrestling for you.

Cornette apparently has a pretty impressive Silver and Golden Age Comic Book collection (he has managed to hang onto a lot of the comic books he bought when he was a kid, amazingly) but he sold off some of his most valuable issues over the past few years. He actually discussed that not too long ago on his podcast, how he sold his "Amazing Fantasy #15" (the first appearance of Spiderman) and "Tales Of Suspense #39" (the first appearance of Iron Man) for a decent price. Brian Last is always asking him to watch and review the Marvel Movies and Cornette has hemmed and hawed about it. He claims his wife has seen them and really liked a few of them, but Cornette apparently doesn't watch any modern TV or movies. I get the impression from stuff he has said on his podcast that he basically only watches Documentary films or old classic movies like the stuff they have on Turner Classic Movies. He is always talking about different Documentaries he's watched. Of course, he is also a confirmed South Park and Family Guy fan. But from the sounds of it, his memorabilia business keeps him so busy (he and his wife run it alone) that it doesn't appear to give him a lot of time for casual entertainment. As far as modern video games, aside from bemoaning how modern Pro Wrestlers are more interested in playing video games backstage than they are in watching the other matches, I don't recall him every saying much about modern gaming. Cornette is notoriously reluctant to embrace any form of modern technology...he still writes everything by hand and only uses the Internet under great duress. I don't even think he owns a Cell Phone. If he actually sat down to try and play a video game, I can easily envision him not understanding how it works, getting easily frustrated and then smashing the console to pieces in a profanity laden psychotic episode. (Very similar to my reaction every time I have upgraded my gaming system since the end of the original Nintendo system.)

Jim Cornette is experiencing his "greatest professional success" right now. He makes more money now than he ever did. Oh good, the "Jim Cornette is irrelevant" talking point. For the millionth time, I ask...what exactly is "relevance" in Professional wrestling and who defines it? His podcast gets 300,000 downloads a week, minimum. Even Conrad Thompson has admitted that Cornette's podcasts get as many or more downloads than the majority of his do. Cornette's official YouTube channel just passed 137,000 subscribers. So if you define relevance by popularity or by how many people actually listen to you, then clearly Jim Cornette is relevant...at least to his own fanbase. If you define relevance as somebody who is in touch with current or modern trends, then you're clearly missing the point. Jim Cornette has made it clear repeatedly that he doesn't want to be "relevant" to current Pro Wrestling or fans of so-called "modern" Pro Wrestling, because he hates it. He's a critic. He speaks for a very large number of disaffected or alienated Pro Wrestling fans who really don't like the way Pro Wrestling is "evolving" or what it is evolving into. Whether you agree with Jim Cornette or you don't...you can't honestly make a logical argument that he isn't successful or that he isn't relevant to his own fans, at the very least. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

Conrad Thompson introduced a Patreon service you can subscribe to, where you can get all five of his podcasts as soon as they're recorded (weeks before they're released, in some cases...I have already heard the next month's worth of Grilling JR) and best of all, without any ad reads at all. (No Blue Chew ads!) You also get bonus content from all five podcasts on a weekly basis, watch-alongs, stuff like that. JR has watched some old Mid South, and Arn has done "deep dives" on a couple of his old matches. It's really good stuff. One of the first "bonus" episodes they released was an hour long interview Conrad did with Eric Bischoff where he discussed the circumstances surrounding his hiring and subsequent firing from WWE this year. There is a lot that Eric Bischoff is not at liberty to discuss about his time with WWE due to his non-disclosure agreement, but even from hearing the stuff he was able to talk about it...it provided a very revealing look into what is going on behind the scenes right now in WWE, and how things work there. Interesting insight into what it's like working for Vince McMahon. It was a fascinating listen and I was pretty shocked at some of the personal information Eric Bischoff revealed about himself. Trust me @C.S., you're pretty much right. If what Bischoff claimed is true (and I believe it was, based on the fact that a lot of other people have corroborated stories like his over the years, including Bruce Prichard) there is no way a normal, well adjusted human being who wants to have a family and any kind of personal life can ever work for Vince McMahon, I don't think. Jim Cornette talked about the same thing on his podcast when Prichard went back to work for WWE last year. People can rag on Cornette all they want, but he was right there next to Bruce in Vince McMahon's inner circle for quite a while, and he knows what that entails. If people like Bischoff and Cornette are to be believed, Bruce Pritchard is basically at Vince McMahon's beck and call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He just uprooted his family from his home in Houston, and moved to Connecticut to be closer to WWE (something Bischoff refused to do.) Prichard is 57 years old, has had multiple heart attacks, and is now basically subject to the whim of Vince McMahon...and he just got his workload doubled. I would not be one little bit surprised to read that Bruce Prichard dropped dead from a heart attack any day now. Obviously I don't want to see that happen, and I hope it doesn't...but there is something a little warped about the relationship between Bruce Prichard and Vince McMahon. Even Conrad Thompson has publicly expressed concerns about Bruce Prichard's health and well-being working for Vince McMahon. It's almost like Prichard has some weird subservient need to please Vince McMahon. Jim Cornette put it best, when he said Bruce Prichard's biggest job has always been to give Vince McMahon what he wants, when he wants it...even when Vince doesn't even know what it is he wants. And then his second job is to explain that to other people. It's no shock to me that neither Eric Bischoff or Paul Heyman could make it in Vince's inner circle. Bischoff wasn't willing to be subject to Vince's whims (or schedule) and Heyman has a naturally abrasive personality and argues with Vince all the time. (The "My Name Is Paul Heyman" documentary provides a lot of insight into their relationship.) If I had to pick between Bischoff's life and Prichard's life? I'd take Bischoff any day of the week.

You know, @Loss opined here at PWO way back that it didn't matter who was "booking" in WWE as long as Vince was around, and at the time I didn't agree with him (as I recall.) I actually remember thinking (or maybe even making the argument) that different writers could put their own stamp on the WWE product even if Vince was the final say. I can honestly say I don't believe that anymore. Charles was right. At this point, it doesn't matter who is booking. You could magically resurrect Eddie Freaking Graham and it wouldn't matter...as long as Vince is in charge, the WWE product is going to suck. Bischoff, Heyman, Prichard, whoever...it really doesn't matter. Bischoff made that point after he got fired, and I don't think he was saying it out of sour grapes. Vince just puts other people on the "creative team" so he has somebody to call at 3:00 am or blame when he rolls out yet another shitty idea. He's totally lost it, he's creatively bankrupt and totally out of touch at this point, so it doesn't matter who is charge. I am betting that if you put Heyman in charge of a Pro Wrestling show without Vince McMahon around and gave him creative free reign, it would look a hell of a lot different than Raw has over the past year. And then Heyman would bankrupt it. We all know that with Prichard "in charge" of creative, that just makes it official...Vince really is calling all the shots, like he always has been. Now he's not even trying to pretend somebody else is in charge. When Prichard moves his lips, it's basically Vince McMahon talking, and it pretty much always has been.

Yeah before I even clicked on this thread, I thought "well, it has to be Daniel Bryan with maybe AJ Styles a distant second" and that seems to be the general consensus here too. I love AJ but I used to think he was capable of having a good match with anybody, until his interminable series with Kevin Owens that seemed to be endless and produced exactly zero good matches. Since then, I've found Styles to be hit and miss. With Bryan, I find he can usually get a good match out of pretty much anybody. I can't honestly think of a match or angle he's been involved in that I thought was a total misfire, and several have actually over-delivered. Hell, he carried Big Cass to a watchable match for gawd's sake. If that's not a major accomplishment, I don't know what is. I don't hold anybody's personal beliefs or behavior against them when judging them purely as a worker, provided they haven't committed a felony, so AJ gets a pass from me for his beliefs. If social media has taught us anything, it's that (much as suspected) 99% of Pro Wrestlers are either mindless corporate sycophants, or idiots. Or in many cases...both.

Hey @El Dragon, where the hell have you been, dude? I was worried you'd caught the COVID or something! Good to see you posting again.

That show did pretty badly in the ratings (AEW is now pretty much neck-and-neck with NXT, which can't be good considering how high their ratings were just a few weeks ago) but I don't care. I for one thought that FTR vs. Butcher and Blade match was pretty goddamn good. I'm all in on those guys being in AEW and I'm a big fan of how big and viable AEW's Tag Team division has become. On the other hand, Brodie Lee has turned out to be a pretty big disappointment and I'm already pretty much over Matt Hardy's shtick. Maybe old Vince was right when he decided to limit what Matt was allowed to do in WWE. If what he's done so far in AEW is any indicator, then...yeah.

The timing of this is so weird. I had literally just finished watching the May 26, 1984 episode of Mid South where Magnum TA beat Mr. Wrestling II for the North American Championship when I heard the news he had died. I hadn't even thought of him in years until I watched that show. First time I ever saw him he was a JTTS in the WWF in the 80's, and he must have been well in to his 50's by then, at the time (I was a kid) I had no idea he'd been a bigger name during the territory era. (Of course, I had no idea he was all rapey, either.) I always thought with his goofy, baggy white tights he always looked like he was wrestling while wearing a diaper.

Here is the basic gist of the interview, as I best remember it. - Cornette put FTR over huge for being a Tag Team that actually "gets it" and understands the nuances of Tag Team wrestling. He asked them why it came so easily to them when other modern Tag Teams couldn't seem to figure the basics of Tag Team wrestling out. - Harwood countered that it actually didn't come easily to them, that they had spent hours studying the classic Tag Teams of the 80's. Harwood mentioned a multiple disc set he had featuring the Midnight Express and he also mentioned studying a DVD set of the Rock & Roll Express as well. FTR talked about how they tried to learn something for all the successful Tag Teams of the past. Cornette joked that if you steal one move you're ripping somebody off, but if you take something from a lot of different people, you're doing research. - FTR talked about their work ethic as well. They claimed that when they were in NXT, it wasn't uncommon for some talent to want to work shorter matches at the house shows. For example, some talents would be told they had to work 20 minutes but would only want to go 10. FTR said they would always take the extra time for their matches if it was offered, because they wanted to work. They later talked about how they loved working so much that even though they weren't always featured on TV, they worked so many house shows that they had the second most appearances and ring time of any act in WWE in 2019. They had worked so much that they had exceeded their guarantee, which ended up hurting them when they asked for their release, because they'd already made their guaranteed minimum. As a result, when they got sent home for refusing to sign new contracts, they didn't get paid for three months. - Cornette and FTR put over the series of matches with American Alpha, huge. FTR talked about how when they were doing a loop of house shows, they wouldn't just have the exact same match every night like some acts do, but they would put in the effort to have a different match every night. They claimed that Matt Bloom was vocally appreciative of that fact. They also spoke fondly of their matches with DIY. They discussed the fact that prior to their popular 2/3 falls match with DIY at Takeover: Toronto, Wheeler hadn't actually worked in weeks due to a knee injury but nobody knew that. - Overall, they spoke very fondly of their time in NXT. - They seemed to feel that not too long after they got "called up" to the Main Roster that things weren't going to work out for them. They mentioned having great matches with The Usos, The New Day, Titus O'Neil and Apollo Crews, and especially Bobby Roode and Chad Gable, but that the creative team for the Main Roster didn't seem to care about Tag Team wrestling at all, that it was pretty much an afterthought. They talked about how months would go by and the Tag Team titles wouldn't even get defended on PPV. - FTR talked specifically about an incident where they had a match with The New Day that they thought was excellent, and all four guys felt they really tore the house down. They claimed that when they got backstage Vince McMahon was standing there with his hands in his pockets, and looked unimpressed. They said that Vince McMahon said they wanted to be just like Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, and they were...they were great Pro Wrestlers, but that was it. FTR talked about how they took that as a compliment, but McMahon actually meant it as an insult...that they were "just" Pro Wrestlers and not Sports Entertainers and didn't seem to care how good their matches were or how hard they were working. - Jim Cornette talked about how something had happened to Vince McMahon over the years, that even the Vince McMahon that he knew used to care somewhat about quality Pro Wrestling, but for some reason he didn't care anymore. FTR agreed, and said that pretty much all of the agents/producers used to tell them that they were doing a great job and were having great matches, but for whatever reason Vince McMahon just didn't "get" them. - FTR talked about how a lot of the top talent like Roman Reigns and Randy Orton would put them over. They claimed that had literally seen top names go to Vince McMahon, right in front of them and put them over...and claim that they wanted to work with them, but creative would never follow up on it. FTR confirmed the story that went around last year, that Randy Orton wanted to use FTR as his henchmen and have them with him whenever he was on TV, but Vince wouldn't go with it, and never really explained why. They claimed that eventually it became obvious that for whatever reason Vince didn't like them, they weren't his "cup of tea." Since Vince didn't like them, the writers would never come up with anything for them, and they would go weeks when they wouldn't be on TV at all, or they would be scheduled to be on TV but get pulled off at the last minute with no explanation why. They talked about one particular incident where they were scheduled to be on Raw and then were told moments before the show went on the air that they were being pulled. - They decided that since it was clear Vince didn't see anything in them, and since the WWE didn't seem to be interested in promoting Tag Team wrestling in general, that they were going to respectfully ask for their release and permission to try and make it as a team elsewhere. They told a story about how they went to Triple H and asked him for their release, and Triple H tried to pacify them by claiming they would be getting the Tag Team titles soon. FTR made it very clear that it was never about being made Tag Team champions to them, they didn't care about the titles and didn't campaign to get them. They claimed the issue was that WWE does not seem to care about Tag Team wrestling anymore and treats it as an afterthought. - They talked about something that I wasn't aware of, since I don't watch WWE TV. They claimed that the McMahon family had made some speech on the air last year admitting that things needed to change in WWE, and that things were going to change. (I have no recollection of that.) They claim that the talent was being told the same thing backstage, and that Triple H seemed to legitimately believe it, but obviously it was just lip service and nothing ever changed. They discussed with Cornette that Vince McMahon is in charge and he will always be in charge, and WWE will always be what he wants, no matter what. - They claimed initially they were told that they could have their release, and that the news spread like wildfire backstage that they had asked to be released. Originally Triple H told them they could have their release, but then Mark Carrano told them they couldn't. They claimed that they signed contracts and if they weren't going to be released they intended to honor their contracts. They claimed they were offered extremely large new contracts, for a great deal of money...but they turned them down. They claimed that they are both extremely frugal, they are not in debt and are careful with their money, so this issue was never about money to them. They basically didn't want to work for a company that obviously didn't see anything in them or the type of Pro Wrestling they represented, no matter how much money they got offered. - The whole issue of WWE offering their talents big money contracts to keep them from AEW was brought up. Cornette pointed out that Gallows and Anderson had taken the huge money contracts that the WWE offered them to keep them from AEW initially, but then turned around and screwed them once the pandemic hit. FTR admitted that if they had taken the big money contracts WWE had offered them it was very likely the same thing would have happened to them. Jim Cornette reiterated what he always says...that when you sign a 5 year contract with WWE, you are really just signing a 90 day contract because WWE can release you whenever they want, so it isn't really a contract anyhow. - They discussed a couple of misconceptions about FTR. Firstly, they talked about how some people seem to think that they refused to do "sports entertainment" and that wasn't true. They brought up the angle where The Usos put "Icy Hot" on their balls. They claimed they had no problem with the angle and were happy to do it, and that they never turned down ideas that were brought to them. In fact, they claimed that they sent the writers ideas for them by email every single week, but not only did the writers not accept the ideas, they never even acknowledged the emails at all. They claimed that when they told Vince McMahon this he claimed to be totally unaware of the fact that they had been pitching ideas for over a year, and he apologized to them for the "system being broken." - They also discussed the misconception that they could not cut promos. They claimed that one of them (Harwood I think) had actually won a promo competition in NXT, and that both of them were fully capable of cutting great promos, but nobody would ever give them the opportunity. Jim Cornette claimed that he assumed The Revival had weak promos skills and needed a manager because they never talked, but FTR claims they would be happy to talk...they just weren't allowed. - The whole issue of the infamous new outfits and angle got brought up. They confirmed that basically, WWE wanted them to pretend to be a ripoff of The Fantastics or The Fabulous Ones, and have cheesy 80's entrance music (which they claimed Vince did a very humorous dance to) and those ridiculous outfits which leaked online. They admitted that they did find it insulting that the WWE would mock some of the best Tag Teams of the 80's, and that it was possible that WWE was trying to humiliate them or punish them, they never knew for sure. Cash Wheeler talked about how when he first saw the infamous sketches of the new ring gear, he burst out laughing right in Vince's face. They both claimed that they did not refuse to do the angle, that they would have done whatever WWE asked them to do, no matter what. They claimed that as long as WWE was paying them and they were under contract, they would not refuse to do anything...they would do whatever asked. But they claimed that they made it clear to Vince McMahon no matter what gimmick he gave them, no matter how much money he offered them, no matter if they won the titles, as soon as their contracts were up, they were leaving WWE no matter what. As soon as they made that clear, they were sent home and were forced to wait out the remained of their contracts without pay. - Brian Last asked a couple of questions. He asked who was more full of shit, Bruce Prichard or Paul Heyman? They found that question very funny. They ended up claiming that they were both pretty much equally full of shit, but that Paul Heyman actually seemed to believe his own bullshit. They gave a hilarious example of Bruce Prichard clearly lying to them about something. They claimed that they sat down with Prichard to discuss the gimmick change that had been proposed, and during the conversation FTR mentioned that their contracts were coming up and they were planning on leaving. They claimed Bruce Prichard told them they he had no idea their contracts were up and that they wanted to leave, which is pretty hysterical. Cornette confirmed that knowing WWE like he does, Prichard absolutely knew everything about their contract status and future plans, and he was clearly lying. FTR made a point of saying that they did not envy either Prichard or Heyman for having to answer to Vince McMahon. When asked, they claimed that they had barely seen or interacted with Eric Bischoff during the very brief time he worked for WWE. - They were asked about the incident at the Hall of Fame last year, when Wheeler punched out the fan that attacked Bret Hart. Cornette asked if Wheeler got any praise or a bonus for that, because he would have back in the territory days. Wheeler said that he had met with Vince McMahon who was somewhat concerned about the incident and they watched the tape of the incident together. Wheeler point out that by the time the wrestlers dragged the fan away from Bret Hart, security or the police still hadn't intervened and it was just the wrestlers rushing the guy away. Wheeler claimed the fan's hands were still free, and was still screaming and carrying on, so Wheeler punched him to subdue him. - Brian Last asked FTR what percentage of current WWE talent actually studies old footage or takes advice from veterans. This is when the Ricky Morton story came up. They claimed that one day while they were in NXT, they came to the Performance Center, and Ricky Morton was there. He had been booked as a guest trainer, but was just standing there by the ring all by himself, and nobody was talking to him even though the entire NXT group was there. Harwood claims he went to Matt Bloom and asked what was going on. Matt Bloom reportedly agreed that it was disgusting that everybody had the chance to work with Ricky Morton, but nobody would talk to him. Bloom gave Harwood permission to call a general meeting, and everybody gathered around. Harwood claims he gave a big speech where he got so emotional he ended up getting teary eyed, because one half of the greatest Tag Team of all time was there, and the greatest seller of all time, but nobody would be bothered to ask his advice or get his feedback. FTR made it pretty clear that there are some talents who do study old footage and seek feedback from veterans, but that the percentage is very small. - They were asked about how important Arn Anderson had been to their careers. They actually got a little emotional when talking about Arn. They claimed that Arn had never even seen them wrestle before they got called up to the Main Roster, because he didn't have time to watch NXT while working as an agent for Vince. They said that once Arn produced their matches on house shows (especially the series with Roode and Gable) Arn became one of their biggest advocates, and started heavily promoting them to Vince McMahon. They brought up the fact that Arn heavily pushed for them to be featured on Raw this past February against Roode and Gable, and that Vince acquiesced, gave them the time and told them the match was "good shit." Arn recently told this exact same story on his podcast. Conrad Thompson has talked about how Vince McMahon came to dislike Arn Anderson so much, that when Arn would advocate for a talent, it would actually end up being held against the talent in question and end up hurting their career, not helping it. Brodie Lee confirmed this recently too, and said that Arn told him that he was going to stop praising him to Vince McMahon, because it might be hurting him. I got the strong impression from this interview that the way WWE treated Arn Anderson may have factored into FTR's decision to walk away from WWE. I know @rovert claimed he heard a lot of the talent were very upset at how Vince McMahon treated Arn, and I got that impression here as well. - FTR heavily put over all the veterans how came before them and talked about how much respect they had for guys like Arn, Bobby Eaton, Ricky Morton and Jim Cornette himself. There was a great deal of complimenting and mutual admiration during this interview, as you would expect. Jim Cornette said he had sworn off AEW but he would be watching anything FTR were involved in. - They were asked about their relationship with Triple H. They claimed that they liked Triple H and appreciated everything he had done for them. At one point, he considered them "his boys" but that an incident occurred at Raw 25 which changed that to a degree. They reunited The Kliq, both the nWo and DX together and the two groups ended up beating up The Revival and basically made them look like a joke. They claimed they had no problem "doing jobs" but they had been made to look like fools basically, and afterwards all of them walked right by without thanking them or even looking at them. The only exception was Sean Waltman, who thanked them for taking the beating and said he was a fan of their work. If you watch that segment, you're talking about Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Waltman, Triple H, Michaels, Hall and Nash who gave them the beating...and they're claiming the only one who thanked them was Waltman. Harwood claims afterward he was so humiliated and upset that he ended up punching the wall in anger. You would think that since Road Dogg, Triple H and Michaels all knew them and worked with them that they would have thanked them...but that is not the impression that I came away with. - The interview ended with them talking about AEW. They talked about how The Young Bucks have been claiming they are the best Tag Team in Pro Wrestling for a few years now. They pointed out that it was the fans and the internet that started claiming The Revival was the greatest team, and insinuated that made the Bucks jealous. Cornette discussed with FTR how The Young Bucks have a reputation in the industry for being very sensitive to criticism and jealous of other talents. FTR claimed that The Bucks had taken shots at them on their YouTube show but never talked to them about it before or reached out to them. FTR also claimed they were upset with Cody Rhodes because he told Sam Roberts on his radio show that The Young Bucks are the greatest team because The Revival practices all their matches beforehand at the PC. They managed to actually sound legitimately pissed at that, although I am sure this portion of the interview was all a work. FTR claim they have not actually signed AEW contracts yet, and are working with AEW on a handshake agreement. They claimed that there are a lot of teams not in AEW around the world that they want to work with, but they are open to signing AEW contracts. They claimed that the proof they hadn't signed actual AEW contracts is that they were appearing on Jim Cornette's podcast. - FTR put over Tony Khan for being very generous financially and offering talent creative freedom. Jim Cornette asked them if that meant we could expect to see FTR teleporting around with Matt Hardy or magically changing costumes in an ice machine. FTR implied this would not be the case, and joked about if they did sign contracts, having it written into their contracts that they will not be taking part in angles like that. - Cornette pretty much ended the interview by encouraging FTR to kick The Young Bucks in the balls.

So did anybody hear Cornette's interview/lovefest with FTR? I thought it was a pretty good interview, although the last few minutes they were clearly working...which I was somewhat surprised that Cornette went along with. I guess he really does like those guys, because I don't believe for a minute that there is legit heat between FTR and The Young Bucks, or that FTR is working on a handshake agreement and haven't signed contracts yet. The line about the proof that they hadn't signed with AEW officially is the fact that they were appearing on Cornette's podcast did crack me up. I found a couple of FTR's stories pretty revealing, especially about Ricky Morton getting ignored when he was a guest trainer at the PC, and all the members of the Kliq (minus Sean Waltman) totally ignoring them and treating The Revival like glorified enhancement talent at Raw 25. I also found it interesting that Harwood has clearly gotten his hands on a number of @goodhelmet's DVD sets.

The one with hair is Dan "Cash" Wheeler and the bald one is David "Dax" Harwood. (They are using their real last names now.)