[1995-01-21-SMW-TV] Interview: Jim Cornette & Heavenly Bodies

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Jim Cornette shouldn't discuss race. Ever. Even when wearing an awesome tie with Marilyn Monroe's face on it. He says some white people don't like black people, and New Jack just makes its worse. He says when an average white guy turns on the news in the evenings, he doesn't see that 9/10 black men have a job, work hard and take care of their families, and he doesn't see that their children play sports, make good grades and stay away from drugs. Instead, he sees misfits, criminals and loudmouths -- in street gangs and taking drugs. He sees sports heroes and rappers being arrested for rape, robbery and murder. He sees Al Sharpton suckering someone else into paying his salary by accusing someone of discrimination. He then has the nerve to accuse New Jack of attempting to profit from racial tension (OH BOY ...) before finally getting around to doing a wrestling promo.

 

I, of course, take exception to this, because we learned in Beyond the Mat that New Jack would make a good friend for Denzel Washington.

 

Anyway, yes, this is probably how most SMW fans in east Tennessee viewed these things, but why exploit it?

[Tim Evans]

Prichard and Del Ray look so uncomfortable when Cornette talks about race. Meltzer was right when he said this feud just doesn't work. I guess this is better than when Ron Fuller ran the area and had Ron wright wearing a nazi hat and calling Ron Fuller a "Long Legged jew" while putting the Nazi flag on the announcers table.

[El-P]

Great (?) awkward promo. Cornette exploits the race card while trying to say he's not, cattering to the racist tendencies of his audience. AWKWARD !

[PeteF3]

Cornette skirts the line between making some decent points (or would be decent in a shoot setting and not said by a guy who's profiting more from white vs. black tensions than the guy he's feuding with) and ramping the Uncomfortability Meter up to 11. He's not a fan of Al Sharpton, or of reparations for slavery, apparently. And the attempt to justify some whites just plain not liking blacks is probably the most eyebrow-raising statement of all. The wrestling promo portion of this is much better. Note that this was clearly a WWF TV setting--in the Observer Meltzer remarked how shocked the backstage people were at the content of this promo. For an employee only exposed to New Generation WWF this stuff would certainly be quite the jolt.