The Wade Keller Appreciation Thread

[rovert]

Flicking through Howard Brody's book and found this great re-printed quote from the mid 90's by Wade describing Heyman:

 

“Paul Heyman doesn’t spin like a normal person, or even a normal wrestler. Spinning for Heyman is an art form, a challenge for him to prove that he is smarter than the person to who he is spinning. Creative halftruths, variations of the truth, irrelevant truths, the truth, and lies are all mixed until Heyman has his subject so dazed that he or she just gives in to the avalanche of verbiage or, in some cases, refuses to talk to Heyman anymore.â€

Timeless description really.

[Dylan Waco]

The Brody book is a great book btw. Probably could have been 75 pages shorter, but it's one of the best five wrestling books I've ever read

[goodhelmet]

What is the Brody book? What's the title?

[Bix]

Swimming With Piranhas: Surviving The Politics of Professional Wrestling

[Dan]

From the new Keller-Mitchell show.

 

WK: "That's the thing that people don't get when you're talking about wrestling learning from MMA. Everybody - well, not everybody, because people don't know about Pancrase - They say 'Oh! You're endorsing Pancrase!' Which is just so simple-minded as to think that the only way to link pro wrestling to MMA and learn from it. What you mean by learning from MMA is ... it's all about the ability to win or lose. ... One of the ways to make it like MMA make it about wins and losses..."

 

 

Maybe I'm being picky here, but isn't the object of EVERY competition, from Olympics down to Hungry, Hungry, Hippos is to WIN and not lose?

[Bix]

That's amazing. It takes some goofy stupid chutzpah to make these arguments while downplaying the Pancrase link.

 

Also, Hungry Hungry Hippos and pro wrestling are exactly the same thing.

[Dan]

Wade goes into some detail on his relationship with Cornette, which I hadn't heard before. From the 7-19 Livecast:

 

"Haven't talked to him in forever, probably since the SMW days. ... He made some pretty unforgivable phonecalls. In terms of death threats and "I'm not going need an airport because I can take a gun in my car and drive to Minneapolis," and made some sexually and racially charged comments about my mother. It was really him at his worst. So I don't really have a lot to say to him..."

[jdw]

That was Jim going off after Bruce wrote the famous piece on SMW. What he aimed at Wade was batshit crazy, and what he aimed at Bruce was double.

 

John

[sek69]

So I guess that firmly entrenches Cornette in the Hall of People Who Get a Pass For Being Dicks Because They're Good At Pro Wres?

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Cornette once called a black fan a nigger to his face at an SMW show, and Mark Madden claimed that Cornette called his mother and made a comment about her sucking black dick, so whatever he said to Wade doesn't surprise me.

[kjh]

So I guess that firmly entrenches Cornette in the Hall of People Who Get a Pass For Being Dicks Because They're Good At Pro Wres?

Now, now, we all know Wade shouldn't take a promo so seriously.

[rovert]

Did all of Cornette's SMW related antics flew under WWF's radar?

[Bix]

That's a very good question and I have no idea what the answer is.

[jdw]

Does anyone think the WWF gave a shit? They live in their own world, even moreso back the. What Corny did before coming to the WWF didn't matter to them: it's like it didn't happen.

 

John

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

But this was while he was in the WWF, managing the top heel in the company. And today, if anyone in WWE wrote this:

 

I thank you for trying to reach me for comment on the article about the Wise show. I'm sorry I didn't get your message in time. I have written the following so that your readers will know what happened, as I seem to be the only one who was present who doesn't mind telling the true story. This will be my only official comment on the incident.

 

I read your front page story on the incident in Wise, Va. with shock - shock that it must have been a really slow news week for an incident such as this to be front page news. Then, I realized the magic word - racism was used, and you, like every other TV, radio, and newspaper reporter in the country has done so many times, jumped in with both feet.

 

Fans, pick up your copy of Torch #258 and follow along as we pick apart this incident to discover just how this much ado about not much got started.

 

The t-shirt security guard in question, Shonn Bell, (I know his name only from your story) left his position and approached Jimmy del Ray and me as we were "hiding" behind another security guard, who by the way was white, and wasn't protesting. Bell got up in my face, told me, "Take your hands off the fuckin' brother," and I told him to "Get the fuck out of my face." Jimmy then put his hand on Bell's chest and pushed us apart as it looked to him like the guy was going to fight me. Bell began shoving back and yelling, and the other guards moved in to separate Jimmy and Bell, however Bell shoved Jimmy again as the Bruise Brothers, trying to continue the match, grabbed Jimmy. Jimmy broke away and nailed Bell in response to being shoved. It was during this shoving and cussing exchange that the famous word "nigger" was used.

 

I called Bell a nigger since I was following the rules of a cuss fight which state that you say whatever will make your opponent the maddest the quickest. I didn't pick this guy out, he got in my face and if a man has any balls in his body, he doesn't back up from a man in his face, and if Bell expected to come out of nowhere and start bullying me or Jimmy, he is nuts. During the melee, Jimmy and I were both called motherf---ers, but even though we are not now f---ing nor have we ever f-----d our mothers, that doesn't matter since we are white and nobody cares what anybody calls us.

 

After Bell was hit, all the other t-shirt security waded in, most trying to hit Jimmy, and it was left to our partner, Killer Kyle, to go in the pile and help Jimmy escape. Kyle, of course, is black, but that fact emerged nowhere because it damages the case against us as monstrous racists. Bell was hammerlocked and escorted out by a uniformed campus police officer. That should have been the end.

 

But wait. As the battle royal progressed later in the evening, and Jimmy was eliminated, he walked back to the dressing room. From the bleachers he heard shouting and insults, and looked up. Who was it? Our friend Mr. Bell, who had been told to "go back to my dorm until I received a call." The call must have come quickly, as Bell had put a jacket on to cover his security shirt and returned with several friends. Then all of them took seats directly above the heel's entrance. Of course, this strategic position didn't mean they were lying in wait to start trouble, and the Easter Bunny was with them, too.

 

Jimmy cussed them back and several jumped from the stands to fight. The Bruises, seeing this and thinking Jimmy had been attacked, rushed to the scene to help him, as did several other wrestlers, and more students got involved. Somewhere in this either Bell or one of his friends pulled out a knife, (he obviously carried it to the matches to clean his fingernails) and swung it at our announcer, Brian Matthews, who was trying to separate everyone. That's when HE began fighting, with just cause.

 

With a knife being pulled on the Bruises, and other fans picking up chairs, this brought Brian Lee out as well. After a lot of swinging, chair throwing, and yelling but evidently very little damage to anyone's body, the wrestlers were herded into the locker room and the gym cleared. Despite me personally directing campus police to the eyewitnesses to the student with the knife, they obviously chose not to arrest or search anyone, or even have the witnesses give an ID. We all asked for and received an escort out of town to prevent further trouble. Since you've never been in any of these small towns, you don't realize that locals are always right and outsiders can't spit on the sidewalk.

 

It is all too common in this "politically correct" society to make everything racially motivated. If a black man with a criminal record, driving under the influence, leads police on a 100 mph chase, resists arrest, and gets the shit beat out of him, the police become the criminals. If a group of blacks attack an innocent white bystander and nearly kill him, society drove them to do it and it's not a crime. If a black man gets fired from his job, it's racial discrimination. If a woman gets fired, she sues for sexual harassment because someone once pinched her butt. If a gay gets fired, he claims discrimination because of sexual preference. If a white man gets fired, he complains to his dog because no one else cares. And the media eats it all up.

 

To correct and clarify other parts of your story, Bell claims I shoved him and he hit me. False - we never touched each other. Mr. Bentley says no one heard about a knife until after the fact. False - I personally witnessed the Bruises point out to police the man with the knife, but they concentrated on getting the Bruises back in the dressing room instead of going after the guy, who was either Bell or one of his friends.

 

"There is some fear within SMW that the NAACP could get involved." If anyone in SMW is afraid the NAACP will get involved, they need more to do to keep busy while I'm out of town. If the NAACP wants to get involved in something as stupid and insignificant as this, THEY need more to do. And on a purely personal note, I couldn't possibly give a shit WHAT the NAACP thinks of me.

 

Nothing like this happened at the 3 non-SMW shows in Wise because one drew 125 people, and the other two were WCW shows, which meant the crowd was asleep.

 

It seems unusual the Kingsport Times-News, 60 miles away, saw fit to cover this, since they've never covered any of the successful SMW shows in the area that have raised money for a number of local charities and groups, but the "magic word" wasn't involved in those.

 

Mr. Bentley says it was "good to see students... unite on this one night." One would hope they do not unite in this manner often - he makes it sound as though they banded together to repel aliens from space.

 

"Everyone seems to agree, though, that had racial slurs not been used, there would not have been a riot." BULLSHIT! If one security guard hadn't thought his job description included getting up in the heels' faces, pushing them around, and trying to look big in front of his friends, there wouldn't have been a riot. If this same student hadn't been allowed back in after being ejected to stir up more trouble, there wouldn't have been a riot. Racial slurs were not used to start the fight OR to get heat from the fans, they were used in the heat of an argument already in progress. If the guy had been a fat white man, I'd have called him a "fat, lardass bastard," but nobody would have written about it. I'm not a politician or a member of congress, so I don't HAVE to have a "stance on social issues," and I have enough problems of my own without minding everybody else's business, too. SMW has NEVER used one single angle based on anybody's race to try to draw a house, but you wouldn't know that by reading the Torch. If I decide to do one, you know what? I'll do it if I want to if I think it will draw.

 

It is time, Wade, that you and the rest of the media in this country realize that every argument between a white and black is not "racially motivated" and that some people, regardless of their race, color, or gender, are assholes with bad attitudes who like to start trouble. The only comment in the article I agree with is that it was a regrettable, unfortunate incident. But I refuse to stand mute while everyone who has been quoted thus far blows this thing up into a ridiculously monumental, earth-shattering occurrence, when in actual fact it belongs in the category of bullshit that happens, and that's about it.

 

Jim Cornette

Promoter, Smoky Mountain Wrestling

Morristown, Tenn.

They would be gone.

[jdw]

It *might* get someone fired today, but only because Linda is running and the Matel thing... and only if it happened while the person worked for the WWF. If it happened 2 years before they got hired, it wouldn't matter.

 

This was also before Jim went off on Bruce and Wade, which was a result of the famed "Onward Cornette's Soldiers" in Torch #293.

 

John

[Wahoos Leg]

Anyone have a date on the Wise show / newspaper article in question?

[Sean Liska]

This is why I'm so amused to see Cornette as a big Obama supporter, and moreso, to see him call Obama detractors a bunch of racists. It's not one I saw coming.

[Beast]

How does his writing come off as racist? If you have a problem with him using the word nigger, fine, but he gives background on the whole incident and at the end explains how not everything is racially motivated. It doesn't excuse him from verbally assaulting Keller and Mitchell to the extent he did, but I think his piece is extremely low key for what you expect from Cornette.

 

Does it really matter in 2010 what Cornette did in the mid-90's? Obviously WWF employed him for over a decade so they didn't give two shits or some of you are overreacting.

[goc]

Yea, I am really not seeing what is so wrong with what he wrote. Does anyone disagree that the media goes into hyper overdrive when there is anything even related to race to cover?

[Loss]

Yes, the media goes into hyper overdrive. But this is the same Cornette that on his shoot interview around this time said stuff about how black people would be better suited to dress like normal people and speak clearly, or something to that effect, using Snoop Dogg as his example.

 

As far as the article, this was the main quote that stood out:

 

If a black man gets fired from his job, it's racial discrimination. If a woman gets fired, she sues for sexual harassment because someone once pinched her butt. If a gay gets fired, he claims discrimination because of sexual preference. If a white man gets fired, he complains to his dog because no one else cares.

(1) It's overly simplistic to say that all accusations of racial discrimination are false excuse making for people who can't hold jobs.

 

(2) If a woman had her butt pinched at work, she has every right to sue for sexual harassment.

 

(3) Gays can't legally "claim discrimination" because it's still not illegal to fire someone for being gay in most cases.

[kjh]

(3) Gays can't legally "claim discrimination" because it's still not illegal to fire someone for being gay in most cases.

And remember this was written in late 1993! I mean poor persecuted Jim Cornette, he couldn't use the n word in public by that time without being called a racist. He had it hard, real hard.

[Cox]

Cornette's claims that the riot was not racially motivated is kind of laughable. I mean, it may not have started out as racially motivated, but the minute Cornette used the n-word, he made it racially motivated. He escalated this whole thing needlessly, as did Jimmy Del Ray for that matter.

[Dylan Waco]

I'm much more offended by the fact that a grown man and business owner would be engaging in public "curse fights" than the actual content of what was said. I live in coastal South Carolina. Some of the most bigoted people I know are also the most overtly PC. I know guys who drop the N word likes it's standard conversational fare who's best friends are black, live in black neighborhoods and almost exclusively shop at black owned businesses. I know DoCV lesbian couples, that are scoutmasters for Gullah kids, and complain about "lazy black." I gave a favorable speech on John Brown to the local SoCV that was attended by a half dozen NOI members and everyone got along fine.

 

Using racial slurs is stupid and idiotic but it doesn't tell us much about how a person really feels/acts on the matter of race. The issue here is that a grown man/business owner would use a racial slur for the sole purpose of escalating a situation to the point where it would come to blows. Race is peripheral.

[Bob Morris]

To understand Cornette and the tone of his letter... and yes, it was wrong... you have to consider three things about Cornette:

 

1. Like everyone else in wrestling, he's a carny and will spin things the way he sees fit.

2. He has a short fuse.

3. He hates to admit he may be wrong about something.

 

Put those three things together and it's not surprising that this man could drop the N word, then try to cover it up, while turning around and supporting Barack Obama a few years later. A carny with a temper who refuses to admit he may be wrong doesn't equal "racist" but when he does drop a racist remark in the heat of a moment, he'll certainly do everything he can to cover his ass instead of just saying, "I was wrong and I'm sorry."