The Thread Killer

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.)

Depending on your opinion of him and his "relevance" this might not deserve it's own thread...but I'm going to start one anyhow. Chris Hyatte died today at the age of 50. I know the membership here at PWO tends to skew a bit older, so it's likely a number of you remember his name, even if you might not have thought about him for years. For those of you who don't know who he was, Chris Hyatte was a Pro Wrestling columnist during the infancy of the so called "Internet Wrestling Community." When I first went online in 1996, there were only a small handful of sites devoted to Pro Wrestling, as hard as that is to imagine now. One of the biggest sites devoted to Pro Wrestling at that time was called "Scoops." I first discovered that site in early 1997, when Scoops started to run recaps of the two Monday Night Pro Wrestling shows, during the thick of the "Monday Night War." The recaps were called "Mop Ups" and they were written by Chris Hyatte. During his Mop-Up, Chris Hyatte would recap what had happened on the previous night's show, but that was only half the story. Chris Hyatte interspersed his reports with liberal doses of his own unique brand of humor. As the so-called "IWC" grew, it got to the point where you could easily find out what happened on Raw or Nitro on Monday Night from any number of sources, but there was only one Chris Hyatte. Whether it was because the world of Pro Wrestling fandom online was so much smaller back then, or because he was a really good writer, or maybe because he was just really good at grabbing your attention...whatever the reason...Chris Hyatte's Mop Ups quickly became extremely popular. Before long, it became a regular occurrence to see signs prominently displayed in the crowds on both Raw and Nitro emblazoned with the words MOP UP or HYATTE, or some variation thereof. ("MCMAHON FEARS HYATTE" for example.) In a statement on Facebook today, the former owner of Scoops Al Isaacs freely admitted that Chris Hyatte's Mop Up became the most popular column on his site, and was responsible for a large amount of the traffic and attention Scoops ended up generating. Chris Hyatte's writing was not for everybody. I am betting that if anybody does bother to respond to this thread, some will be critical or will not have been fans of Hyatte. I have seen Hyatte described as the "Howard Stern" of the IWC. That is an over-simplification, but in fairness it must be admitted there was some validity to the comparisons between Chris Hyatte and Howard Stern. There is no denying that Hyatte's columns contained a lot of sophomoric and crude humor. There was a lot more to Chris Hyatte’s work than just dirty jokes, but even his biggest fans would have to acknowledge Hyatte's material was often shocking or sensational. Some of Chris Hyatte's most notorious stunts include the time he posted Bob Ryder's personal phone number online, or when he recruited a female fan to "catfish" a popular writer from a competing website and then recapped the results. (Hyatte became famous for his feuds with competing writers and other websites. Over the years, Scott Keith, Sean Shannon and many others became the object of his ire.) Hyatte faked his own death (tongue firmly in cheek) and allowed others to report his death when he was taking one of his many sabbaticals from his weekly column. Another memorable incident came when Hyatte announced he was now running a website devoted to Sabu, "Sabu.com" and provided a link in his column. Turns out at that point, "Sabu.com" was actually a graphic gay porn site...and some of Hyatte's readers were not amused when they clicked the link, especially if they were at work when they decided to check it out. There was one incident for which Chris Hyatte became most infamous, and this will probably be what he is most remembered for. Chris Hyatte was not a fan of Tony Schiavone. Specifically, Hyatte (and many of his readers at the time) hated Schiavone's screaming hyperbole, relentless hype and frequent cries of "this is the greatest moment in the history of our sport" every Monday on Nitro. After a particularly annoying episode of Nitro which was packed with Schiavone's patented bluster, an aggrieved Chris Hyatte placed a mock "bounty" on Tony Schiavone. And his family. By this time, Hyatte was very popular and had a very large, very rabid fanbase. (A good comparison from today would be "The Cult of Cornette.") The reaction to what was meant as a comedy bit was reportedly a lot more serious than anticipated. Apparently, Chris Hyatte's "bounty" on Tony Schiavone resulted in a significant amount of harassment and caused such a backlash that Turner Security ended up involving law enforcement. Hyatte supposedly communicated with Tony Schiavone personally and apologized. He also retracted the so-called "bounty" but Tony Schiavone understandably bears some hard feelings to this day, as evidenced when he referenced the incident on his podcast. As the Internet Wrestling Community grew, Hyatte managed to maintain his popularity. But eventually and probably inevitably, some cracks started to appear. Scoops began to edit Hyatte's columns after one too many controversies and complaints, supposedly in fear of legal repercussions. Hyatte left Scoops as a result, and ended up migrating to a succession of different sites. He went from writing for some of the most popular Pro Wrestling sites online, to working for lesser sites with much less traffic. Every time Hyatte moved from one site to the next, it seemed to result in the law of diminishing returns, to a degree. But Hyatte kept at it as only he could, and changed up his approach as well. Hyatte was not a one trick pony. He went from doing recaps, to a news column, to an opinion column, and even to doing an advice column. Regardless of the theme, his work was always technically excellent, if not inconsistent. It has always been my impression that in time while Chris Hyatte maintained a loyal core of fans, as he moved from site to site, controversy to controversy and feud to feud, his readership started to fall away. This can probably be attributed to the fact that Hyatte's act started to get a little old after a few years, and it didn't help that Hyatte's own interest in Pro Wrestling began to lessen. His columns started to become infrequent, and sometimes weeks would go by with nothing new. The last major site Chris Hyatte worked for was 411 but by February 2007, after about 10 years of writing he finally retired for good. In his last few columns, Hyatte was upfront about the fact that he no longer enjoyed writing about Pro Wrestling, a fact which had become evident to even his most loyal readers. Hyatte admitted that a lot of the time he was now just going through the motions, and his work had suffered as a result. Hyatte also seemed slightly bitter that some people had actually generated income from his work, while he himself had never been paid for it. The man who had brought undeniable attention and plenty of precious “clicks” to a number of Pro Wrestling websites had made other people money, but he had not shared in those profits, and he had finally had enough. And times were changing. Hyatte referred to the early days of the Internet as "The Wild West." You could get away with saying or doing almost anything, but after ten years there were things you could no longer say. Chris Hyatte's time had passed. Some years later, Chris Hyatte briefly reemerged as a blogger. Hyatte generally ignored Pro Wrestling by this point, and it seemed obvious he had more or less lost his taste for it. He alluded to other projects he had in the works, including a novel. But by this time he only had a very small, loyal group of fans. Most fans had either forgotten who Chris Hyatte was, had tired of his act or just weren't able to find him. Hyatte blogged for a while, but eventually he even gave that up, and finally vanished for good with little fanfare. "Where is Chris Hyatte" was a frequently searched phrase on Google. Chris Hyatte's whereabouts became the subject of speculation, but he was gone. Not too long ago, Chris Hyatte reappeared on Twitter. Hyatte apparently had the Twitter account for some time, but had only been active sporadically. But less than a year ago, Chris Hyatte ended up sharing his real name and some personal information, in order to prove that it was really him. (Due to his level of infamy, a number of "fake" Chris Hyatte accounts had popped up on Facebook and Twitter.) Hyatte had been notoriously private about his personal information. "Hyatte" was actually his pen name, and he had never allowed his picture to be shown. But now, he revealed that his real name was Chris Gaudreau and allowed his picture to be displayed. Chris Hyatte also shared the unfortunate news that he was in very bad health. He was suffering from Kidney Failure, Congestive Heart Failure, and Diabetes. Chris Hyatte was in rough shape. He had to have his foot partially amputated, and ended up staring a GoFundMe account to ask his former readers for financial assistance. The response was significant, if not overwhelming. Hyatte ended up using his Twitter account as a means to keep his fans updated on his health. He required dialysis three times a week, could not walk and was basically housebound. And then a few weeks ago, Chris Hyatte shared with his followers that he had made the decision to stop treatment and that he wanted to let "nature take it's course." Hyatte explained that he was tired of being so sick, and for all intents and purposes he just wanted to die. Hyatte posted a rather lengthy "Tweet Storm" where he explained the reasons behind his decision. On May 15, he announced that he had finished his final round of dialysis and that he expected to live anywhere from two days to two weeks. This morning his cousin announced that Chris Hyatte had died. Chris Hyatte's death has really affected me, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had a minor relationship with Hyatte at one point (not that he would have remembered me.) I was a regular reader of his column, and found him to be extremely funny. I ended up emailing him, and during our ensuing correspondence I made an offhand joke he really liked. Hyatte liked my joke so much that he asked if I would mind if he used it in one of his columns. I was happy to agree. Shortly thereafter, Hyatte announced that he intended to use his column as means to discover new Pro Wrestling writing talent, and asked for submissions. I submitted a column and was flattered when my column was the first he selected to be printed on 411. As a result, I was offered my own column at 411 and began a very brief tenure as a writer for that site. Since my column was introduced by Chris Hyatte, I had a brief glimpse into the almost bizarre amount of attention and adulation he was getting from fans at that time, and this was hardly his heyday. Just because I had first appeared in his column and he gave me the Hyatte stamp of approval, I got over a hundred responses to my first few columns, many of which were alarmingly flattering and I assume just a fraction of the amount of attention and praise Chris Hyatte got on a weekly basis. But that is not the main reason I am so affected by his death. I had pretty much forgotten about Chris Hyatte before he reappeared on Twitter last year and his GoFundMe began to circulate. I began to follow Hyatte and found some startling similarities between his situation and my own. We were both in our early 50's, single and in poor health. Like Chris Hyatte, I am also on disability and suffering from Congestive Heart Failure. I found his reflections on his own mortality and his imminent death to be starkly and unsparingly honest. Hyatte speculated on the possibility of life after death, and was characteristically blunt about his decision to end his treatment and essentially end his own life. As always, his writing came across as real and it grabbed me. Due to my own health problems, Chris Hyatte's ruminations on his impending death really struck a chord with me. About a week ago, Hyatte tweeted saying that he had just eaten his last Reuben Sandwich and drank his last Pepsi, and at this point every time he did something it would probably be the last time he ever did it. There was something about his uncharacteristic vulnerability that really resonated with me. My situation is not as dire as his was (yet) but there are still a shocking amount of similarities between us. Middle aged white guys, with no families, living in isolation and housebound. Aspiring writers who never quite made it. I know Hyatte hoped to be professionally published, he said as much on more than one occasion. Like Hyatte, I've been told by other published writers that I have the required skill to be published but for whatever the reason much like him, I have never seen it through. Hyatte frequently referenced projects he was working on, that he hoped to see published. He never did. I myself have no less than three partially completed novels gathering dust. In the end when you come down to it, we both seem to be destined to end as Pro Wrestling fans who loved to write but never took that next step. Looking back at our lives and wondering what (if any) legacy we leave behind. During his final months, Chris Hyatte stated wistfully that he had never saved any of his past work but wished he had. It seems that for all his ego, he may really not have known how important his work truly was. He was still being constantly asked to write "one last" Mop Up, but he refused. One of his more devoted fans scoured the net (using the "Wayback Machine" I imagine) and actually managed to put together a fairly impressive archive of Chris Hyatte's work. Hyatte claimed shortly before his death that "93%" of his work had been discovered and archived. He thanked the fan who had done it, and asked that his Twitter followers share his work with others. I found this to be equal parts sad and moving at the same time. Chris Hyatte knew he was just days from the end of his life, and his last request to his once massive fanbase was that they share the record of his work. I wish I could say that I didn't know what it feels like to be a man his age with nothing more to show for your life than a handful of Pro Wrestling columns and a couple of writing projects that never saw the light of day - including novels that seem destined to remain unfinished...but sadly I do. If the unrealized potential of an unfinished novel isn't an apt metaphor for the life and death of Chris Hyatte, I don't know what is. Make no mistake about it, Chris Hyatte was a bit of a jerk. He was rude, egotistical, condescending, touchy and frequently inappropriate. A lot of people hated him. Yes, you could hate him, but if you were being honest you could not deny the obvious talent that was there when you read Hyatte's work. Hyatte himself realized that a column like his would have no place in the year 2020 and admitted that in the 23 or so years since he had risen to "fame" for writing a Pro Wrestling column, he had obviously matured. 50 year old Chris Hyatte would not find the same things appropriate or funny that his much younger self did, obviously. If he tried even half the things now that he did with regularity back then, he would very quickly find himself being "cancelled" or maybe even sued. Hell, he'd never find a Pro Wrestling site that would publish one of his columns in this day and age, in all likelihood. His humor at the time was replete with jokes that would now be rightly viewed as both racially and sexually offensive, if not totally inappropriate. But at the same time, and for his time...he was very honest. You never got the sense reading a Chris Hyatte column that he was putting on an act or playing a character, unlike the feeling you get reading one of his countless imitators. If you read between the lines, Hyatte actually sought and nurtured a connection with his readers. He challenged them, and he clearly didn't care if they always agreed with him. But in his own unique way, he always told the truth. Chris Hyatte was an original in the world of Pro Wrestling fandom. He was the first to do something that countless have attempted to copy, without success. How often is a person who is the first to do something looked at as the best? Hyatte was. There was no improving on Chris Hyatte. To this day there are columnists and recappers who work for the very sites Hyatte helped popularize who are nothing more than pale Chris Hyatte imitators. Even when he was "phoning it in" he was vastly more entertaining that any Pro Wrestling columnist that I have read in recent memory. And many of those columnists walked through doors that Chris Hyatte opened first and now sit at a table that he set...whether they know it or not, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. Perhaps the biggest testimony to Chris Hyatte's talent is the fact that people still remember him, long after he stopped writing. Of the hundreds and now thousands of writers and so-called "journalists" who have devoted millions of words to Pro Wrestling online...how many will actually be remembered, especially 13 years after they stop writing? A handful, if that. In the end, it seemed clear that it was important to Chris Hyatte that he be remembered. He will be. From my own personal perspective, what is most important is that Chris Hyatte was a damn good writer and he was very, very funny. It was not unusual for me to read his Mop Up column on a Tuesday morning and end up laughing out loud several times. I still remember one of Hyatte's recaps, where he suddenly diverted from the play-by-play and claimed that he was going to take a moment to dance around the room with his penis tucked between his legs, like the killer Buffalo Bill in the movie Silence of the Lambs...because it made him feel SEXY. His humor was ridiculous but as I said, it was frequently laugh-out-loud funny. But you don't just remember jokes after all this time. There was substance to Chris Hyatte. To write Chris Hyatte off as nothing more than the Pro Wrestling equivalent of a "shock jock" is (in my opinion) failing to give him full credit for his talent. The man had skill, he could write, and he was smart. He was well read (and frequently recommended books and authors to his readers.) At the end of the day, he died leaving behind a small but devoted base of fans who will remember him. Whether it was 20 years ago or yesterday, to me that is the type of legacy that actually means something. I look at what is going on in the world around us right now, and I think if you could actually bring some laughter and entertainment into the lives of people...even if it was for writing about Pro Wrestling...then maybe you actually did accomplish something. Chris Hyatte's Twitter account can be found here. His old blog can be found here. His archive can be found here. "As I move onto wherever I'm going, with peace in my heart, I leave you pretty much my entire life's work...and if you take your time and savor them, you're looking at at least a year's worth of "it's been so long it's new!" material from me. And that's everything. There's nothing left." - Chris Hyatte, May 25, 2020

If they ever are planning on doing something with Keith Lee, they should probably strike while the iron is hot and do it sooner rather than later. The guy is already 35 years old, and I can't imagine that a guy his size who works the style he does and incorporates some of the higher risk manoeuvres like he does will last all that long after 40. They need to push him pretty much they way the pushed Batista, taking his age into account. Minus the "Deacon" gimmick of course. I really don't get the Dijakovic call-up either. I really like the guy, but his promos are average at best and even as a fan of his I think he comes across as a bit gangly and awkward at times. I don't know that he is smooth and polished enough for the main roster. But who knows.

I am thinking it's more the former rather than the latter. I don't think Cornette's anti-AEW fans are current WWE fans, because he rips into WWE almost as much as he does AEW.