The Thread Killer

One thing occurred to me today. I guess this whole thing pretty much scuttles whatever small chance there was of The Midnight Express ever getting into the WWE Hall of Fame. Jim Cornette has said many times that he'd probably accept if it was offered, but he'd be basically doing it for Dennis Condrey, Stan Lane and especially Bobby Eaton, because there is a payday involved. Cornette himself doesn't care if he gets in. A lot of guys (Steve Austin being one of the most notable ones) have been vocally campaigning for a while to see The Midnight Express get in. There was even the theory that WWE wanted to see how Cornette behaved himself when he inducted the Rock and Roll Express as kind of a test when deciding if they would induct The Midnight Express. After this latest incident, Cornette is pretty much radioactive and I'd be shocked if WWE touched him now. Remember how people reacted to the Moolah Battle Royal? Imagine if WWE announced Jim Cornette was going into the Hall of Fame. His detractors would be out with their knives in full attack mode, and there is no way a publicly traded company like WWE would want to touch a situation like that. If they erased Hulk freaking Hogan from history for three years, no way in hell Jim Cornette gets in. Which is sad for Condrey and Eaton, since they are both in very poor health and might enjoy the benefits of a HOF induction. According to Cornette, Stan Lane is totally out of the business and has no idea what is going on in the industry now, so he likely wouldn't care.

I guess your definition of "a whole lot of bookings" and mine are different. He was scheduled to do a meet and greet before the NWA PPV (which is obviously not happening now) and aside from that he isn't booked anywhere until some fanfest in February 2020. Before this mess blew up, he had been claiming that he probably wouldn't be appearing anywhere until the Spring of 2020 at the earliest. He refuses to fly, and there are a bunch of States he won't go to anymore (New York chief among those.) He's said it a million times on his podcast, he isn't doing any more autograph signings, conventions, personal appearances or stuff like that unless it is somewhere within reasonable driving distance of his home (like The Crockett Cup and NWA 70.) He has said he will make exceptions for two reasons, if it is a favor for a friend (like the WWE HOF for the RnR's or MLW for Court Bauer) or if they make him a financial offer which is so large he can't afford to turn it down. When Brian Last asked him what that figure would be, Cornette said it would have to be six figures - which is probably bull, but still. There is a big benefit as a tribute and to raise money for Bobby Eaton coming up in December, (www.DontTellBobby.com) which Cornette said he was going to have to miss because he was going to be working for the NWA. I am curious to see if he goes to that event now, because he had mentioned that he wished he could be there. All I am saying is that in this particular case, I believe what Cornette is saying. Jim Cornette is full of shit just as much as all people involved in the Pro Wrestling business, but in this case I think he's telling the truth. After the whole suicide controversy last month he claimed that while he was actively working in the Pro Wrestling business, he had to bite his tongue all the time and keep his opinion to himself (?!) in order to avoid conflict and presumably costing himself work. For him, I think the turning point was when he quit Ring of Honor in 2012. Cornette claims that once he made enough money to retire he made the conscious decision to start speaking his mind about the Pro Wrestling business, regardless of what the consequences would be to him professionally. He said this during the same segment where he said he didn't really care if the NWA fired him. Without getting into specifics, he has claimed that aside from his collectibles business and podcasts, he invested his money wisely enough that he doesn't have to work anymore. He has claimed multiple times that since quitting ROH he has never once had to go looking for work, the work comes to him and he has the luxury of turning a lot of it down. I know a lot of people want to "cancel" Cornette in response to his comments about modern Pro Wrestling over the past couple of years and especially in light of this latest controversy. They want to see him lose work and be exiled from the business. My main point is that he has already pretty much exiled himself. I've said it before and I think it bears repeating, I honestly don't think Cornette gives a shit about the consequences - which is why he says a lot of the shit he does. People who already love him are just going to love him more, and people who already hate him are going to keep hating him. It's natural to want to see him held accountable for his words. It's always satisfying when somebody does something wrong and we get to see them suffer the consequences of their behavior. I'm not convinced that is going to happen in this case. I'm not sure what they can take from Cornette that he actually wants.

The Bucks do vanity searches and then block people who say anything negative about them, even if it isn't directly at them.

I tried following Cornette for about a day before I unfollowed him. If his tweets weren't bad enough, the responses from his fans were enough to make me vow to never make that mistake again.

I have to interject here...there is no way in hell Cornette would have ever wanted to appear on that pointless WWE show anyhow. He has turned down multiple chances to go back to WWE for a variety of reasons in the past. He has zero love for that company and most of the people in it. It was only the Rock n Roll Express getting inducted into the Hall of Fame and them wanting Cornette to induct them that got him back there the last time. While he was there, he shot an episode of Table for 3, Photo Shoot, and they got his comments on a bunch of topics for DVD's and documentaries they were doing. People are already starting to act like this whole situation is going to cost him bookings when he's made it abundantly clear over the past couple of years that he doesn't want to be booked anywhere. I'm sure Cornette couldn't give less of a shit what somebody like Renee Young thinks of him.

Yeah, I was going to say...on the occasions that I listen to The Jim Cornette Experience I usually have to sit through at least 10 minutes of him ranting and raving about how much he hates Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party in general. It's pretty tiresome, actually.

That has to be when the Rock n Rolls won the NWA Tag Team Championships, I would assume.

I'm very disappointed that this whole situation arose, with Cornette for making the joke and then with the NWA for not editing it out when they had plenty of time to do so. Having said that, I can't honestly say that this is going to keep me from being a fan of the NWA, watching Power or ordering the PPV. We've discussed this multiple times before here at PWO, but it bears repeating now...I think in order to be a fan of Professional Wrestling you have to be able to separate your feelings about the performers and the performance. Or especially the management and the product. I've come to accept that Pro Wrestling is pretty much a scummy business run and inhabited by scummy people for the most part. We all have our own personal line and breaking point of course, but for me...this incident wasn't it.

In the NWA thread I suggested Dutch Mantell. I don't know if you ever heard him when he did color back in WCW after Turner bought JCP but before Bischoff came in, but he was great. Knowledgeable, and really funny. He was also the Color Commentator on the infamous "Heroes of Wrestling" PPV back in 1999...not that it should be held against him.

I'm betting they don't name, shame and fire the person responsible for letting the joke stay on the show because I'm betting the person responsible either has the last name Corgan or Lagana.

Well, either they fired him or he quit (odds of either are 50/50 to me, since he made it pretty clear last month after the whole "suicide" controversy that he'd be okay with not doing the December tapings if that kind of situation arose again, which it has) but the bottom line is now he's gone. They're announcing it as a "resignation" and we won't have long to wait to hear his side of the story, as he's going to be addressing it on his podcast on Friday. The NWA apologized again when they made the announcement, for those who weren't satisfied with the apology from last night. I believe you are 100% correct sir. When he announced he'd be addressing the situation on Friday he certainly sounded neither conciliatory or even remotely apologetic. Sad thing is, I bet his podcast on Friday sets new records for listeners. Many of those will be his fans listening to get his side of the story, many others will be his detractors ready to transcribe any fresh outrage and spread it across Twitter the moment he says it. What's amusing to me is the reaction to his "resignation" online. It seems split into three groups, NWA fans who were threatening to boycott the NWA and are now mollified, Cornette fans who are now outraged and are claiming they'll be boycotting the NWA now for losing Cornette, and special third group who are claiming that this is a good step but it's not enough and they are demanding whoever in the NWA that allowed the comment to get through editing and air be named and fired as well. I am hoping that this Friday Cornette saves his vitriol for the people who complained about him and "misinterpreted" his "joke" but that he doesn't rip into the NWA. I am hoping he discourages his idiot fans from boycotting the NWA or going after Lagana and Corgan. I wonder who they're going to get to replace him? I am hoping there might be a decent retired or inactive Pro Wrestler out there who actually has some experience in the industry (preferably a heel) who can be moved into the Color Commentary position. I just hope and pray they don't get somebody who sucks. Joe Galli the play-by-play guy is okay, but they could really use somebody with experience in there with him. You know who would be outstanding? Dutch Mantell. He's an outstanding heel color guy.

Yeah, the clip of Cornette using the exact same joke in the WWF in 1995 is all over Twitter right now.

Nick Aldis released a statement tonight condemning Cornette's joke, so it seems clear that the NWA isn't going to shield him from the fallout of this situation. Problem for the NWA is, even if they decide to go public tomorrow and fire Cornette, they still have three more weeks of shows to burn through before the PPV and the next set of Power tapings. I wouldn't be surprised if they announced that Cornette will not be the Color Commentator for the PPV and on Power from now on, but there is not much they can do to scrub him from the upcoming shows. He does interviews from the podium and even if they tried to get clever and edit his commentary out or have somebody else do a voice-over, you'd still see him sitting there in the studio...it's too small an environment to try and cut all the scenes where he appears. It's not like they're going to scrap the shows. So they're pretty much stuck with him for the next few weeks, whether they like it or not at this point.

Yeah it was Pete, he wrote pretty much all of their lyrics and in the mid-seventies he was into that objectivism stuff, but I have seen him say in interviews that got way overblown because they dedicated an album to Ayn Rand in 1976 or something. From that point on, a lot of people liked to paint them as rabid Libertarians or something but as I said, I really don't think that represents any of their political views now - not that it matters anyhow because they're retired. And you are correct, Neil Young also has to cancel out a lot of crap we have unleashed upon the world. And no, you're not wrong for liking the Crash Test Dummies. As I recall, I had their first few albums on cassette!

Yeah but then that sets a precedent and I'd have to apologize for Celine Dion and then Justin Bieber...it never ends. Thank God we gave the world Shatner. Luckily he makes up for pretty much everything.

The whole "Rush are huge fans of Ayn Rand" thing got blown way out of proportion and is from literally over 40 years ago. I am pretty sure their political positions evolved over the years since then. And I'm not even saying that as a huge Rush fan, because I'm not. However, as a Canadian I am constitutionally bound to defend them while at the same time disavowing Nickelback.

I listened to the entire interview Mike Johnson did with Billy Corgan, who more or less admitted that they were learning as they went along with the first set of tapings. I am hoping that next month, now that they have had a chance to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't (as well as who) we will see some significant adjustments during the second set of tapings. Corgan basically said as much.

I was disappointed with how long the match went, absolutely. I thought what they gave us was very good, which made the fact that it was too short all the more disappointing. I think that match should have been the Main Event and should have gone 5-10 minutes at least. I'm going to chalk this up to the fact that they taped all of these episodes in two days. Not only did they have to make sure to not overwork these guys, I'm going to assume that they didn't know what they had yet in Murdoch...maybe they didn't know what kind of shape he'd be in, how rusty he'd be (he was essentially retired prior to these tapings, I think) and how popular he'd be with the NWA fans in the studio. That is the one advantage to booking a show week to week and not taping two months at a time, you can adjust on the fly and react when something gets popular. (Unless you're WWE in which case you ignore the fans and continue to ram bullshit down their throats.) I am just guessing here, but I think they went into these tapings with a predetermined plan for Murdoch mapped out for all the tapings and didn't know what they had with him. I am hoping he has a much more prominent role at the next set of tapings. If he doesn't, then they're idiots because this guy was made for the NWA and he has been gold so far. WAY better than guys like Anderson, Cabana and Storm who have all been featured more prominently than he. In fairness, my complaint about matches being too long and too competitive does not just apply to AEW, either. It applies to NXT as well, and I've loved that show since it debuted on the USA Network...but I still think these guys are going way too long, doing way too much and are doing too many dives, high impact manoeuvres and false finishes. Same goes for Raw and Smackdown, but I don't watch that crap so stuff them. But I'd like to think there is a happy medium between a lot of what we're seeing on Dynamite and NXT every week, and these short matches on Power. That's one thing that sucks about having an hour long show, they are trying to cram everything in. The show flies by for sure, but matches like this one get shortchanged. As I said, that disappoints me.

He barely gave me 24 hours after making this post to go and prove me wrong, I guess. Just to echo what everybody else has said...this was at best a stupid, insensitive and racist comment to make, but how the HELL have they had this episode in the can for almost two months and they didn't edit it out? Either Corgan/Lagana are incompetent and didn't notice, or they're stupid and thought it wouldn't be a problem. Either way...yeeesh.

Please Pro Wrestling Gods, let them give The Revival vs. O'Reilly & Fish lots of time with no screwy outside interference. This match could be so damn good, if they let it be.

I've been loving NXT since the USA Network show debuted, so I'll actually watch the PPV this weekend because of the NXT involvement. Since it is a "Main Roster" show I am sure they'll screw it up terribly, but I want to see it anyhow. I am also looking forward to War Games III as well.

This sounds like a good idea to me, if for no other reason than it will attract guys who are totally unknown. The NWA needs brand new fresh faces who are totally unfamiliar to fans, and this is as good a way as any to find some. They need some fresh new blood to mix in with the veterans they have, rather than relying solely on guys who are WWE or TNA castoffs. El-P mentioned Al Snow and I would love to see the NWA work with Al Snow and OVW as well, Snow has a ton of unknown talents and new students he trained, he could really benefit from the NWA, just as they could benefit from OVW.

I'm not surprised by that news. I have seen interviews where both Drew Galloway and Matt Hardy talked about how much they loved working with Billy Corgan when he was with TNA, and how if he hadn't left TNA (and sued to get his money back) they never would have left. So of course, Dixie Carter had to go and be Dixie Carter and fuck it all up for everybody.

At this point, I'd rather watch the shittiest, biggest mismatched NFL game you could imagine than I would a standard episode of Raw.

For real? Fuck yeah, that match could and should be outstanding. Hell, I wouldn't mind seeing those guys working a program against each other. Count me in.