WWE Network... It's Here

[The Chief]

Getting a weird message about a blackout restriction due to content not being available in my area. Directs me towards wwe.com/blackout. Never had this happen before, anyone else?

[sek69]

Cornette spouts as much bullshit as Russo and no one seemed to bristle at the idea of having him record talking head stuff.

 

 

Cornette doesn't have a rep for destroying every company he touches like Vinny Ru does either. It's not just the bullshit with him, it's the bullshit plus the inability to admit (20 goddamn years later) that maybe some of his ideas were less than great, and the gross racism and misogyny that pervades everything he's involved in.

[El-P]

Cornette is also a terrific host of KC's Back to the Territories as he's a true wrestling historian with a passion for pro-wrestling golden days, was a great manager (the greatest ?) for 15 years, one of the best promo ever, promoted a cool throwback territory in the 90's in SMW. No matter how much bullshit he can spill out at times (this is pro-wrestling, who doesn't spill bullshit ?), there shouldn't even be an argument.

 

Russo, for fuck's sake...

[stro]

 

Cornette spouts as much bullshit as Russo and no one seemed to bristle at the idea of having him record talking head stuff.

 

 

Cornette doesn't have a rep for destroying every company he touches like Vinny Ru does either. It's not just the bullshit with him, it's the bullshit plus the inability to admit (20 goddamn years later) that maybe some of his ideas were less than great, and the gross racism and misogyny that pervades everything he's involved in.

 

Cornette as a booker: Failure in WCW in 1990, ran his own company out of business, was only successful in WWF (ironically) alongside Russo, completely killed ROH for the next 5+ years. Arguably, ROH's hype still hasn't recovered from Cornette's run, successful run in OVW on the backs of having 4 surefire superstar talents that barely spent much time with him before getting called up.

 

I'd say Russo and Cornette are basically two sides of the same boisterous, annoying coin. Russo had nothing to do with WCW getting shuttered, TNA is still alive, and WWE is still alive. Yet Cornette's promotion couldn't last more than a few years.

[Beast]

 

 

 

 

Cornette spouts as much bullshit as Russo and no one seemed to bristle at the idea of having him record talking head stuff.

 

Cornette doesn't have a rep for destroying every company he touches like Vinny Ru does either. It's not just the bullshit with him, it's the bullshit plus the inability to admit (20 goddamn years later) that maybe some of his ideas were less than great, and the gross racism and misogyny that pervades everything he's involved in.

Cornette as a booker: Failure in WCW in 1990, ran his own company out of business, was only successful in WWF (ironically) alongside Russo, completely killed ROH for the next 5+ years. Arguably, ROH's hype still hasn't recovered from Cornette's run, successful run in OVW on the backs of having 4 surefire superstar talents that barely spent much time with him before getting called up.

 

I'd say Russo and Cornette are basically two sides of the same boisterous, annoying coin. Russo had nothing to do with WCW getting shuttered, TNA is still alive, and WWE is still alive. Yet Cornette's promotion couldn't last more than a few years.

WTF?

 

Ran his own company out of business? He ran his own territorial company for four years during the '90s down period well after the majority of territories died off. How do you condense years of solid booking into a shot at him for not lasting longer?

 

He was part of the WCW booking committee in 1989 AND 1990. 1989 was killer. 1990 had Ole taking over.

 

You can knock Cornette all you want (RoH run obviously was a big disappointment), but don't act like he and Russo are cut from the same cloth.

[stro]

They're more alike than they are different, which I'm sure is part of why Cornette hates Russo so much.

[fakeplastictrees]

The biggest thing between the two is that Cornette doesn't come off as a huge bigot. He has DEFINITELY had his moments, but they seem to come from temporary anger while Russo's comes from a deeper darker place of pure hate. I am not in any way justifying Cornette's stupid past remarks, but I do not see the PR nightmare happening with Cornette being brought back into the fold. Russo? Give it one year...

 

From a pure 'wrestling' standpoint, WWE needs to feature more people with passion for the business and feature less of those who have nothing but contempt. This would be another point against Russo.

[El-P]

They have nothing in common *at all*.

 

Cornette and Heyman are the different sides of the same coin (for better and worse).

 

Russo has no clue whatsoever.

[stro]

Don't air any bigoted comments if he says them during a talking head segment. Problem solved. My point was both are obnoxious, loud mouthed assholes who have very little place in wrestling today, but people didn't seem to mind the idea of Cornette being a talking head in a heavily edited segment.

[The Thread Killer]

Although they like to hide it or avoid the fact...World Wrestling Entertainment is a Professional Wrestling organization.

 

Whether you like him or don't, you'd have to be a blind fool to not admit that Jim Cornette has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Pro Wrestling business. He also has a clear love and respect for it. He has recently reviewed the recent Dunne/Bate match glowingly, and his love for The Revival is well documented. In other words, Cornette loves Pro Wrestling and can still find some good in it.

 

Based on his history, and things that other people have said about him, I have serious doubts that Vince Russo even truly understands Pro Wrestling. If he does, he obviously doesn't like it very much, at least in it's current form. This is a guy who recently said that if you think a match is "awesome" and you chant that, then it means you're probably a homosexual. Whereas he, (a non-homosexual sports entertainment fan) watches women's wrestling hoping to see a nipple slip.

 

I don't even like Jim Cornette, or at least the persona he portrays in public. He is also close minded and dismissive of others, rude profane and insulting. In that sense, sure...he and Russo are two peas in a pod.

 

Russo's vision of what Pro Wrestling should be, has either come and gone, or it never really came to full fruition. The era of wrestling that Jim Cornette came up in, (and clearly misses) has come and gone. The business has obviously passed him by. So in the sense that neither of them care for the current product as it stands, sure Cornette and Russo have something in common.

 

However the glaring difference between Jim Cornette and Vince Russo is that one loves Pro Wrestling and one does not.

 

That does not make them similar, it makes them dissimilar. And since Pro Wrestling is the main reason that anybody would listen to either of them, in the end that is the only difference that matters.

[C.S.]

Russo as a booker drew money (albeit for a very brief time, and not by himself). Cornette as a booker never has. That earns Russo a spot at the "talking head" table IMO. Both men's flaws are otherwise widely documented, both in this thread and elsewhere, so no need for me to go into that

[The Thread Killer]

Russo had nothing to do with WCW getting shuttered, TNA is still alive

 

This statement bears some scrutiny and is open to debate as well.

 

The main reason WCW died is because AOL Time Warner cancelled all WCW programming, true. It is likely that they would have done that regardless of what shape WCW was in when they took it over. However, the argument can be made that it was his inept booking that led to the loss of money and revenue that made those cancellations such an easy sell. All AOL had to do was point to the books, losing money and point to the ratings, flat-lining, and they had every justification for pulling the plug on WCW. If WCW was stable at that point, or still showing a profit, I am guessing it would have been harder to justify, if nothing else.

 

I'm not saying WCW dying is all Russo's fault, but saying he had nothing to do with it is a bit of a stretch, no?

 

As far as TNA goes, you can't really point to the fact that the company hasn't died yet as a ringing endorsement of Russo's skills. But you could blame him (and Dixie) for getting them thrown off Spike TV. You can't point at the shape ROH is in and blame Cornette, and then turn around and say that TNA is still alive, so at least Russo didn't kill it. I'd argue that Russo did a lot more damage to TNA than Cornette did to ROH.

 

[stro]

Going in either direction, it's hard to pin the blame on Russo. It had operated at a loss for years and years and stayed on the air because Ted Turner wanted it to be and had the stroke to make it so. Even if it was turning a big profit in 2001, it would have been shut down because Ted Turner no longer had the stroke to make it so.

 

If you want to pretend it was bad booking and money loss that caused WCW to get shut down (it wasn't, WCW would still be open if Ted Turner could still make it so), WCW was in a freefall well before Russo came in, and had a (very slight) uptick during Russo's first run before resuming its freefalling it had already been engaged in for nearly a year at that point.

 

Corporate politics killed WCW, not Vince Russo, or any other shitty booker.

[Loss]

Russo as a booker drew money (albeit for a very brief time, and not by himself). Cornette as a booker never has. That earns Russo a spot at the "talking head" table IMO. Both men's flaws are otherwise widely documented, both in this thread and elsewhere, so no need for me to go into that

 

That's not actually true, though. Is the standard for "drawing money" now that unless you were involved in the hottest period in the history of wrestling, then you accomplished nothing?

[El-P]

It's a wee bit easier to draw money when you work in the WWF under Vince MacMahon working with the two biggest stars ever, arguably, in the hottest period for pro-wrestling ever than when you do things on your own on a regional level during the worst period ever for pro-wrestling and you have Brian Lee & Tracy Smothers as aces. Wait, SMW did draw money for a while. So there.

[Loss]

I should add that I've come to see Cornette as a bit overrated as a wrestling mind, and I see him as someone more with good tastes in angles to copy than as someone who can conceive his own original ideas. But was SMW a failure? I guess so, if the standard is that they didn't last forever. That would be the case for all groups but one in the U.S.

 

I guess my point is that while Cornette never filled an arena with 20,000 people, he did outdraw WCW in the same markets at his peak, and that roster had Ric Flair, Sting, Ricky Steamboat, Rick Rude and others. He did draw 5,000 for Night of the Legends, which was a big success that wasn't aiming to be Wrestlemania, but was a big crowd in a market that hadn't seen numbers like that in quite some time.

 

As a wrestling mind, I think Eddie Gilbert was a better Jim Cornette than Jim Cornette. Ric Flair-Terry Funk, which did 15,000 in Baltimore and was the most successful feud WCW had until 1996, was his brainchild.

[C.S.]

At the same time, having the two hottest stars means less than jack shit if they're not put into a position to draw - e.g. Austin in WCW, the entire history of TNA, etc. Right place, right time for Russo? Maybe to an extent. But without him pushing the WWF to go from family friendly to Attitude Era, Austin and Rock are far different characters.

[cad]

It's a wee bit easier to draw money when you work in the WWF under Vince MacMahon working with the two biggest stars ever, arguably, in the hottest period for pro-wrestling ever than when you do things on your own on a regional level during the worst period ever for pro-wrestling and you have Brian Lee & Tracy Smothers as aces. Wait, SMW did draw money for a while. So there.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF.

 

But forget that. The reason Cornette should be on something like this over Russo is that Cornette is a good talker and storyteller and Russo is not.

[C.S.]

But forget that. The reason Cornette should be on something like this over Russo is that Cornette is a good talker and storyteller and Russo is not.

 

When Steve-fucking-Lombardi and various no-name d-list comedians (Ron Funches, etc.) have been talking heads, Russo doesn't exactly have a high mountain to climb.

 

And when did this turn into an either/or argument anyway? No one is saying Russo should replace Cornette.

[El-P]

 

It's a wee bit easier to draw money when you work in the WWF under Vince MacMahon working with the two biggest stars ever, arguably, in the hottest period for pro-wrestling ever than when you do things on your own on a regional level during the worst period ever for pro-wrestling and you have Brian Lee & Tracy Smothers as aces. Wait, SMW did draw money for a while. So there.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF.

 

Not at all. Russo has jackshit to do with Austin cutting his 3:16 promo. And Cornette was still on the writing team as late as mid-1997 FWIW. The only guy who believes Russo created Austin & The Rock is Russo himself. He's been a proven failure for 15 years straight in two major companies (on every level).

 

Who the fuck cares about what this dumbfuck has to say in 2017 anyway ?

 

No, the real heel-freezes-over stuff about this whole deal is to see Cornette on the Network alongside Eric Bischoff...

[Matt D]

I'm happier with the guy as a Pariah.

[Loss]

Cornette actually didn't step aside until 1998. He contributed to the turnaround. I think he and Russo balanced out each other's worst tendencies. And people forget that even in 1996, the WWF was hugely successful in house show business. They were only trailing WCW in ratings, which suddenly became all that anyone cared about.

[PeteF3]

Just for the record, Cornette probably deserves a lot of credit for Kane becoming as big as he did. The Halloween influence, the ripping off of the cage door, the very idea of Hell in a Cell itself...that all came from Cornette, though as Loss alluded to, all of those elements were lifted from elsewhere which Cornette doesn't deny (the cage door rip came from how Doug Furnas debuted in Continental, Hell in a Cell came from the Last Battle of Atlanta).

 

And more importantly than all of that, it was Cornette who kept Kane and Undertaker apart and developed the idea of Kane trying to get at Undertaker by destroying other people. Russo wanted Undertaker to come right back and drive Kane through a table or something like a week after Badd Blood.

 

It's easy to shit on Kane and how stale he got and how stupid some of his angles were later, but a gimmick that initially looked like Black Scorpion Redux became a more-than-useful member of the roster for almost 20 years, thanks a lot to Jacobs' execution but also thanks a lot to Cornette's vision.

[cad]

 

 

It's a wee bit easier to draw money when you work in the WWF under Vince MacMahon working with the two biggest stars ever, arguably, in the hottest period for pro-wrestling ever than when you do things on your own on a regional level during the worst period ever for pro-wrestling and you have Brian Lee & Tracy Smothers as aces. Wait, SMW did draw money for a while. So there.

The part I bolded reads like a pro-Russo argument, considering Russo started out with 1996 WWF and not 1998 WWF.

 

Not at all. Russo has jackshit to do with Austin cutting his 3:16 promo. And Cornette was still on the writing team as late as mid-1997 FWIW. The only guy who believes Russo created Austin & The Rock is Russo himself. He's been a proven failure for 15 years straight in two major companies (on every level).

Oh yeah, the legendary promo that rocketed Stone Cold to a pay per view rematch with Marc Mero stardom, that's what cemented him as an all timer.

 

When Russo started booking no one would have said that having Steve Austin and Rocky Maivia under your control in the WWF was an impossible situation to screw up. They became stars while he was booking. He booked segments and entire shows with the intention of making those guys look like stars. I am sure they could have become stars without him, but I am also sure that bad enough booking could have sunk them. Even with the oft mentioned filters he had there, it is not like Vince McMahon and company have a flawless record of separating good idea from bad ones. Like you said, the man has over fifteen years of failures to pick apart. Why rip him for the one brief period when he actually seemed to understand the wrestling landscape better than those around him?

 

I am also unconvinced by the argument that WWE already employs plenty of boring listens, so why not add another? If I am looking to replace the unreliable meth addict who works at my store, that does not mean that I should consider hiring a serious alcoholic on the grounds that he cannot be any less dependable than the man I already have.

[The Thread Killer]

I should add that I've come to see Cornette as a bit overrated as a wrestling mind, and I see him as someone more with good tastes in angles to copy than as someone who can conceive his own original ideas.

 

You raise a good point.

 

Of all people, I once heard Kevin Nash talk about a conversation that he had with Eric Bischoff regarding the art of booking. Nash claimed that Bischoff's theory (which Nash agreed with) is that there is really only about five different storylines which have ever been successful in the entire history of Pro Wrestling, and every successful angle since they were done first is just a variation on one of those themes. The trick is to do them right.

 

- Partner turns on partner or friend turns on friend (or student on mentor, etc.)

- Babyface pursues heel Champion who repeatedly cheats to keep his title

- Patriotic angles (USA vs. whatever country is the boogeyman at that time)

- Mystery antagonist screws with babyface until finally being revealed

- Outsider from other organization or territory "invades."

 

I guess we could now add "Authority figure abuses roster."

 

He wasn't wrong. I think all good wrestling minds usually end up doing variations on those themes, the trick is to steal the right idea and use it at the right time with the right people. Since Cornette knows so much about the history of the business, I think he's had fairly good instincts regarding when to use these well worn ideas.