The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[sek69]

Any promotion with Bob Armstrong in a featured role is automatically good TV in my book.

[Mad Dog]

Ron Wright's promos early on are absolutely brilliant. There's one where he put up like a PO Box and said he needed some extra money because he wouldn't afford his heart pills anymore.

[Robert S]

2 hours ago, clintthecrippler said:

A reminder that there are still plenty of people that pine for the Attitude Era now and say it's not as good as it was then are holding onto an era of wrestling that ended 20 years ago this year (if you count Wrestlemania 17 as an end point, which a lot of people do). So Cornette doing an early '80s throwback in 1993 is actually way less further removed than the folks that still hold up the Monday Night Wars era as the last time wrestling was great.

Yes and no. Time distance wise yes, but while the business changed at least twice completely between the early 80ies and the mid 90ies, there was only one big and a smaller, gradual change of mainstream wrestling since the Attitude era (hence the talk that you could watch a 2004 and a pre-COVID Raw back-to-back and besides having the wrestlers being exchanged, would not notice a huge difference).

[MoS]

Corny also started going toe to toe with actual wrestlers more and more since he turned face with the Original Midnights angle. It's ironic given how he is constantly trashing the Bucks and many others for not looking tough or believable. 

[El-P]

Oh yeah, that was bad. Let's face it, the last year or so of SMW was not good. Maybe it has something to do with Kane being part of the roster. It has to.

[Coffey]

9 minutes ago, El-P said:

Oh yeah, that was bad. Let's face it, the last year or so of SMW was not good. Maybe it has something to do with Kane being part of the roster. It has to.

The original Festus!

 

[El-P]

I had forgotten this promo... I know why. Actually, I gotta say this, I was quite underwhelmed by Al Snow in SMW too. Snow is a guy who had that reputation and got over like crazy in ECW thanks to the Head gimmick, but the more I actually watched his stuff, the less I thought of his work. Maybe Foley was shooting when he was shitting on his work and sense of humour...

[CarpetCrawler]

On 2/23/2021 at 7:34 PM, Loss said:

There was an audience for that in 1993, especially with wrestling in such a dark age everywhere at that point.

There absolutely was.  I almost always forget that the only reason Cornette was able to get SMW off the ground was because Rick Rubin came up to him and had this exact same complaint: that wrestling wasn't the same as it was in the territory days, and that he was helping back SMW solely because he wanted to watch a promotion that was like that.

[El-P]

And then Rubin asked for a mummy.

[C.S.]

Jim Cornette isn't even bothering to hide or "code" his blatant homophobic comments against Kenny Omega anymore.

Quote

"And Harpo Finger F*ck who made his biggest name in Japan sticking his finger up other mens a**es and having contests with s*x dolls..."

https://itrwrestling.com/news/jim-cornette-on-aew-revolution-explosion-yall-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself/

Kind of ironic coming from a guy whose character was a walking 1980s gay stereotype himself.

[Dav'oh]

In Cornette vs Omega, Cornette will always be the malfunctioning ACME products to Omega's meep-meep. You ain't catching him, Jim - not with that arsenal.

[El-P]

20 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

In Cornette vs Omega, Cornette will always be the malfunctioning ACME products to Omega's meep-meep. You ain't catching him, Jim - not with that arsenal.

You made me laugh out loud legit with this one ! Funniest analogy I've seen in a long loooong time ! 

[Dav'oh]

I've really enjoyed your Undertaker series so it's nice to give a little back.

Jim really has hitched his wagon to AEW while side-trading in history. Smart move. When people think AEW and more specifically Omega and the Bucks, a lot of them immediately think Cornette. I think he sees himself as the yin to their yang, rather than the Wile E. to their Accelaratii Incredibus, and a lot of his fans probably do, too.

One of many problems is, those fans don't call him out on that homophobic, sexist and racist bullshit, they just repeat it on Facebook and Twanker. So yeah, smart move leeching onto the people who leeched onto the Bullet Club in the first place, but instead of refreshing his beyond-stale gimmick he says increasingly dickheaded things like an indy wrestler having to add degrees to a five-forty double-footstomp (now, there's a comparison he'd hate.)

But I'm not telling youse anything youse don't know, just rambling at 3am...

[Loss]

Cornette tends to think any insult against a person you don't like is justified because you don't like them. He's wrong, but that's been true about him as long as I can remember. 

[Mad Dog]

2 hours ago, Loss said:

Cornette tends to think any insult against a person you don't like is justified because you don't like them. He's wrong, but that's been true about him as long as I can remember. 

He is also king of projection. When he gets on his political rants he's more often than not describing himself. 

Brian Last has kind of steered him into shock jock radio. All they need is some naked chicks and they might as well be Howard and Robin. 

[Loss]

I wish he'd at least add another show to the lineup where he leaves the gimmick at home and just talks about the wrestling he loves and gives history lessons. Whether that Cornette can draw or not, that's absolutely the best Cornette. We see him less and less.

[Mad Dog]

26 minutes ago, Loss said:

I wish he'd at least add another show to the lineup where he leaves the gimmick at home and just talks about the wrestling he loves and gives history lessons. Whether that Cornette can draw or not, that's absolutely the best Cornette. We see him less and less.

That was what the Drive Thru originally was but it's all bled over there.

[joeg]

On 3/11/2021 at 11:46 PM, C.S. said:

Jim Cornette isn't even bothering to hide or "code" his blatant homophobic comments against Kenny Omega anymore.

https://itrwrestling.com/news/jim-cornette-on-aew-revolution-explosion-yall-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself/

Kind of ironic coming from a guy whose character was a walking 1980s gay stereotype himself.

well Omega did have a match with a blowup sex doll in DDT. And in his time in DDT he was in a tag team called the Golden Lovers and he did work against Danshoku Dino and Michael Nakazawa quite frequently.... not saying that Cornette's comment's aren't crude or offensive, but they aren't innacurate. When Omega first got to Japan, he was involved in a lot of bad comedy wrestling that leaned heavily into stereotypes of homosexuals. That's true. This is another one of those, "you aren't wrong Walter, you're just an asshole" moments that Cornette has so frequently. 

I never read Cornette's gimmick as a gay stereotype... I always took it as every negative characteristic I'd want to punch in the face rolled up into one person. Entitled. Inherited wealth. Sharpe tounged. Incredibly obnoxious. Narcissistic. Unprincipled. Cowardly. I mean, he wasn't well dressed and singing show tunes every week, that might have gotten laughs not boos. He was being a horrible person on TV every week. And it made him good money. The combination of being obnoxious and funny is still making the guy money with his podcast.

 

[joeg]

9 hours ago, Loss said:

I wish he'd at least add another show to the lineup where he leaves the gimmick at home and just talks about the wrestling he loves and gives history lessons. Whether that Cornette can draw or not, that's absolutely the best Cornette. We see him less and less.

I thought that was the purpose of Drive Thru, but it wasn't doing as well numbers wise so he's been doing his shtick more and more with Drive Thru. Best thing to do is go on youtube and pick and chose the segment or topic. That's what I've always done, so I mostly miss the obnoxious stupid shit he says.  

[sek69]

14 minutes ago, joeg said:

I never read Cornette's gimmick as a gay stereotype... I always took it as every negative characteristic I'd want to punch in the face rolled up into one person. Entitled. Inherited wealth. Sharpe tounged. Incredibly obnoxious. Narcissistic. Unprincipled. Cowardly. I mean, he wasn't well dressed and singing show tunes every week, that might have gotten laughs not boos. He was being a horrible person on TV every week. And it made him good money. The combination of being obnoxious and funny is still making the guy money with his podcast.

The name James E. Cornette was a rib on James E. Barnett, and Bill Watts was sure to always use terms like "sissy" to make it clear what you were supposed to think about the Cornette character. It did gradually morph into more of a rich and spoiled mama's boy by the time he was in JCP though, but even then they'd hint at it when he'd be feuding with Baby Doll.

[joeg]

@sek69Huh. I never knew it was a rib on Barnett and I never thought of it as gay. I always thought Watts was calling Cornette cowardly, weak, entitled. I always took the terms sissy and punk literally as a less vulgar ways of calling him a pussy. Saying he was too cowardly to fight his own battles and needed somebody else to do it for him. Which happened quite frequently in his storylines. Cornette was never the most masculine guy, but at no point did they come out and say it the way they did with Adrian Street for example.  

But I've been proven wrong. I learn something new on this board all time.

[PeteF3]

Watts once told Cornette, "Keep your hands off me, sissy, 'cause I don't want to have to get my blood tested." Cornette was sometimes more of a misogynist than straight-up gay but when talking about Baby Doll once remarked that other than doing dishes, he "couldn't think of any other use for a woman anywhere in life." It wasn't exactly Adrian Adonis but it was 100% there for awhile.

[joeg]

Damn... I don't remember those one liners at all. Its crazy to see the zingers that were ok for TV in the 80s. I think when The Network moves over to Peacock in a week or two I need to re watch some Crockett from 85-86.    

[Mad Dog]

6 hours ago, joeg said:

I thought that was the purpose of Drive Thru, but it wasn't doing as well numbers wise so he's been doing his shtick more and more with Drive Thru. Best thing to do is go on youtube and pick and chose the segment or topic. That's what I've always done, so I mostly miss the obnoxious stupid shit he says.  

Same. I actually wish he would talk more about comic books because I would be fascinated to see his collection but he talks about that maybe once or twice a year. 

[NintendoLogic]

Cornette tries to kiss David Crockett at the end of this promo.

There were references to him being gay or at least effeminate well into the 90s. During the MX/R&R's match at Wrestlewar, JR says that "Cornette could probably tell us" if Stan Lane had sustained bruises from Ricky Morton kicking him in the backside. And when Arn Anderson debuted in SMW, he said that if Cornette tried to use his racket on him, he'd have to go to a gynecologist to have it removed.