The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[MoS]

49 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

I couldn't agree with you more.  The whole "Jim Cornette ruined ROH" talking point is just flat out false.

Jim Cornette was (and still is) close personal friends with Cary Silkin.  Silkin was hemorrhaging money running ROH and was seriously considering shutting the company down, because it wasn't financially viable anymore and was going to personally bankrupt him.  After Cornette got fired from TNA (thanks to Vince Russo, by the way) Cornette agreed to try and help Silkin recoup his losses and avoid going bankrupt. Cornette personally wrote up a detailed business proposal for Sinclair Broadcasting.  He proposed making radical changes to ROH, including establishing a home arena and wrestling school, he basically used the same business model he and Danny Davis had proposed to WWE when they first established OVW.  He knew it would work because OVW was functional and self-sustaining aside from the money WWE was investing.  ROH would operate primarily out of this new location, where they could also have their own television production equipment and studio.  He submitted the proposal to Sinclair hoping to get them to invest in the company. They liked Cornette's proposal so much they bought ROH. Cornette basically brokered that deal and saved Silkin from going broke and shutting down ROH. I honestly believe if it wasn't for Cornette ROH wouldn't even exist right now.

When Sinclair hired Cornette, they didn't hire him to be in charge of creative.  They hired him to produce TV and basically be the liaison between Sinclair and ROH.  Hunter Johnson was in charge of creative.  Cornette had a lot of input and say in what happened creatively, but at the end of the day the main force behind ROH creative was Johnson.  Cornette really likes Hunter Johnson but he has openly stated that he didn't agree with a lot of the creative decisions Johnson made.

His decisions regarding talent have also taken a lot of criticism, some of it is absolutely justified but a lot of it is unwarranted. 

Both Kevin Steen and Sami Zayn have claimed that Jim Cornette didn't like them so he wouldn't book them in ROH, and that isn't true.  Cornette has repeatedly stated that he had three issues with Kevin Steen.  Firstly, he wanted Steen to lose 30 pounds and get in better shape. Secondly he wanted Steen to stop taking so many insane bumps and high risks because he thought it was overdoing it, and desensitizing the fans...not to mention putting himself at unnecessary risk for injury. Cornette was always maintained that Steen was an excellent worker, but he was "doing too much." Finally, Cornette claims Steen was basically a pain in the ass backstage and wanted to book his own angles and only work with his friends.  Cornette wanted Steen to stop arguing with creative all the time, and do what he was asked. Steen wouldn't do any of those things, so Cornette stopped using him. 

As far as "El Generico?"  Jim Cornette had two really unreasonable requests for him, both of which Generico refused to do.  Cornette wanted him to unmask, and stop being silent.  He wanted him to cut promos, because in Cornette's words "the kid could talk his ass off." As soon as Steen and Generico got hired by WWE and had some success, a lot of ROH fans (and Steen himself) took that as some sort of vindication and tried to rub it in Cornette's face, claiming he had missed the boat or been wrong about them.  Cornette pointed out that it was he who had been vindicated, since WWE had made Steen get in better shape, tone down the pointless high risk stuff and he was damn sure not booking his own angles.  Meanwhile, Generico had unmasked and started cutting promos.  Cornette claims that if they had been willing to do that in ROH, he wouldn't have stopped using them.

The whole Young Bucks deal has also been driven into the ground, and a lot of the popular narrative about that situation is bullshit.  Which makes sense, because a lot of the popular narrative about the Young Bucks comes from them.  Cornette freely admits that he didn't think the Bucks were all that great.  He says they don't look athletic enough, they don't sell enough and they're too reliant on doing spots.  But he also admits they were popular with the ROH fans.  The problem was that one of Cornette's main jobs was to keep costs at a minimum.  The Bucks had to be flown in from California to work in ROH.  They weren't local, and that was costing ROH a ton of money. Cornette would have kept using The Young Bucks if they had been closer, but they weren't so he didn't.  Granted, he didn't lose any sleep over that decision because he really didn't see much in them, but he has repeatedly claimed that the main reason he stopped using them was due to travel costs.  The Bucks got butthurt when Cornette stopped using them. Even their biggest fans have to admit The Young Bucks are notoriously thin-skinned and sensitive to any perceived slight or hint of criticism. So they started slagging him in interviews.  Cornette slagged back.  He ran into them at an indy show and made a joke about the fact they'd be better off working an angle because at least people believed in the heat they had with each other.  The Bucks grabbed that and ran with it, telling anybody who would listen that Cornette didn't see anything in them and talked shit about them, but then wanted to work with them when he saw how popular they'd become.  And now they have a book coming out, so I shudder at the commencement of fresh hostilities.  You know The Bucks are going to eviscerate Cornette in their book and you know Cornette will respond in kind on his podcast.

The main voice behind the whole "Cornette ruined ROH" mantra is Austin Aries. He's the one who has told anybody who would listen that Cornette ruined ROH and tried to turn it into "Smoky Mountain of Honor."  And why?  Because Cornette fired him.  Austin Aries was the highest paid member of the ROH roster, but he wanted to stop wrestling and become a manager...and he apparently openly slagged the company every chance he got in the locker room, and encouraged dissension among the other wrestlers.  Cornette and Hunter Johnson asked him to stop doing that, and Aries himself admits that his response was "you're not paying me enough to be quiet."  So they fired him.

Look, I'm not going to deny that Cornette has made some questionable decisions when it comes to talent.  Hell, in ROH he basically wanted to focus a lot of the attention around Eddie Edwards, Davy Richards and Michael Elgin.  Are they Main Event level guys, in my opinion?  Edwards, not really. Richards, no.  Elgin, you've got to be fucking kidding me.  Cornette is absolutely still stuck in the mindset from the 70's-80's where guys had to look a certain way to be big stars.  A lot of his worst decisions have been based around that dated perception.    If you watch the "Breaking Kayfabe" shoot interview Cornette did with Sean Oliver he goes into precise detail regarding what went wrong with ROH. @Big Pete is right, he basically ended up quitting because Sinclair bought the company based on his business proposal, and then proceeded to basically ignore 95% of the stuff Cornette recommended in that proposal. But bottom line is, you can't lay any of ROH's current day problems at the feet of Jim Cornette.

I am not going to go into the details, because I don't know enough about the off-screen dealings of RoH, but it is very illuminating when the standard defence by people like Cornette and Bischoff against "popular narratives" mostly is "I never had that much power this was not on me!!!" But the same people never have issues claiming credit for all the creatively acclaimed things that did happen in that time period. It makes them look hypocritical. (Not at all a shot at you, but at wrestling people who put themselves over in shoot interviews.) Cornette is an all-time great mic worker, so even I myself would believe him a lot more than I would ever believe, say, Russo. But it is fundamentally the same kind of defence imo.

Cornette could have had a bunch of reasons for not booking Steen and Generico as much as he should have - and it is clear by the way you talk about Generico that you completely agree with his reasons. I don't care if the reason he did not book them was not that he did not like them. His motivations are irrelevant to me, as is the Bucks thinking Corny is devil incarnate. Fact is they were over enough to warrant a more prominent push, and that did not happen. Yes, you can argue that Generico should have unmasked and started cutting promos cuz he could talk his ass off. It does not change the fact that with his mask on and without talking, he built a fan following that, as you yourself say, the likes of Michael Elgin did not. Yes, you can argue that Steen should have lost weight. Dusty gained quite a bit of weight in his legendary 80s run compared to his 70s Florida run, when he looked more like a big athlete. He was still effective. (Not for a second am I trying to argue that Steen was as talented as Dusty, but what someone can be should not become an enemy of what someone already is.) 

Cornette himself has said that Bill Watts always taught him that the only hard rule in wrestling is what gets over and draws money is the correct approach. He became blind to that in RoH. It's unfortunate because he showed in OVW that he could be a lot more flexible. But by the late 2000s, he had a gimmick and an image to protect and nurture as well. Baba was always disappointed with Taue because Taue was the most naturally talented of the 4 pillars and yet he would not train hard the way others would. That did not stop him from pushing him prominently and making him a pillar. Hell, he was more flexible in his SMW days. My thought has always been that he is an excellent producer and an all-time great at producing coherent formats (not scripts, cuz that would drive him crazy) for television shows that look good on camera and logically and competently execute a vision or an idea. But he is narrow-minded and not the greatest at actually thinking of a grand idea or vision. My argument - and I am open to being corrected - is that his general vision of what RoH "should" be was counter-productive and overshadowed some really good individual booking programs that he came up with. 

It's a pity that he is as deep in his own hole as he is, cuz when I watch Dynamite, I often feel they would benefit greatly from someone like Cornette, who has a ton of experience booking wrestling TV for international cable and who is good at logical A to B to C booking, to complement the general idea/vision that Tony Khan and the promoters have.

[Big Pete]

4 hours ago, MoS said:

If Corny pushed Richards solely because he was the biggest star in the company, surely he could have found ways to make Generico a centerpiece, despite not approving of his gimmick. Corny clearly had an issue with over acts who did not fit his vision  of what wrestling should be.  

Generico could have been booked better but he was still figured pretty highly on the card. At the first Final Battle Jim was in charge of Steen/Generico was the main event and Generico was consistently booked in marquee matches all the way till Wrestlemania Weekend 2012 where they were trying to re-sign him to a contract but Generico rebuffed them so he could sign with the WWE. So they capped the Steen/Generico rivalry there with a Last Man Standing match most fans didn't get to see because GoFightLive couldn't get their act together.

There were some aspects of Generico's run that could have been handled better in my opinion. I wasn't a fan of how they had him drop the TV title to Lethal in a babyface vs. babyface deal because it hurt Jay and put an unnecessary mid-card stink on Generico, especially when he found himself working three-ways with Lethal and Bennett. However, he was basically out of the door and at that time it was Davey's time.

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Both Kevin Steen and Sami Zayn have claimed that Jim Cornette didn't like them so he wouldn't book them in ROH, and that isn't true.  Cornette has repeatedly stated that he had three issues with Kevin Steen.  Firstly, he wanted Steen to lose 30 pounds and get in better shape. Secondly he wanted Steen to stop taking so many insane bumps and high risks because he thought it was overdoing it, and desensitizing the fans...not to mention putting himself at unnecessary risk for injury. Cornette was always maintained that Steen was an excellent worker, but he was "doing too much." Finally, Cornette claims Steen was basically a pain in the ass backstage and wanted to book his own angles and only work with his friends.  Cornette wanted Steen to stop arguing with creative all the time, and do what he was asked. Steen wouldn't do any of those things, so Cornette stopped using him. 

Not to mention Steen wanted to return ASAP after losing a Mask vs. Career match. Cornette was happy to go along with the stipulation with the idea that Steen would come back in better shape and help drive the product forward, but Steen didn't get it and couldn't understand why Cornette wouldn't want to use somebody of his star power.

When Steen came back, he lost some weight, some not all and disappeared again because he was an outlaw and he'd only work the big shows. The next time Steen returned, he was even heavier than he was when he was initially fired. Even so, Cornette still went ahead with his run towards the title.

The whole situation came to a head when Steen and Richards did a shoot interview together on highspots to settle their differences and they both buried Cornette when all three of them were working together in the same promotion. Some of the complaints they had were valid, but it was completely unprofessional to do that, not to mention counter-intuitive to the business.

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As far as "El Generico?"  Jim Cornette had two really unreasonable requests for him, both of which Generico refused to do.  Cornette wanted him to unmask, and stop being silent. 

Jim didn't even bother to bring up the mask thing, all he asked was for Generico to cut promos because they were on television and needed to connect with a mass crowd and Generico refused. It's worth mentioning despite hating the gimmick and finding him a pain in the ass to deal with he still wanted to sign Generico to a ROH deal but Generico became skiddish because he was chasing a WWE deal so they moved on.

As far as his choice of main event talent, it's hard to say for sure since he's never really gone into detail about his plans, but I believe Eddie and Davey were merely placeholders while he worked the roster into shape. Cornette was clearly high on Lethal and I wouldn't have been shocked if the plan was to put the title on him at Final Battle, for better or worse.

 

[SirEdger]

12 hours ago, Big Pete said:

Generico could have been booked better but he was still figured pretty highly on the card. At the first Final Battle Jim was in charge of Steen/Generico was the main event and Generico was consistently booked in marquee matches all the way till Wrestlemania Weekend 2012 where they were trying to re-sign him to a contract but Generico rebuffed them so he could sign with the WWE. So they capped the Steen/Generico rivalry there with a Last Man Standing match most fans didn't get to see because GoFightLive couldn't get their act together.

There were some aspects of Generico's run that could have been handled better in my opinion. I wasn't a fan of how they had him drop the TV title to Lethal in a babyface vs. babyface deal because it hurt Jay and put an unnecessary mid-card stink on Generico, especially when he found himself working three-ways with Lethal and Bennett. However, he was basically out of the door and at that time it was Davey's time.

Not to mention Steen wanted to return ASAP after losing a Mask vs. Career match. Cornette was happy to go along with the stipulation with the idea that Steen would come back in better shape and help drive the product forward, but Steen didn't get it and couldn't understand why Cornette wouldn't want to use somebody of his star power.

When Steen came back, he lost some weight, some not all and disappeared again because he was an outlaw and he'd only work the big shows. The next time Steen returned, he was even heavier than he was when he was initially fired. Even so, Cornette still went ahead with his run towards the title.

The whole situation came to a head when Steen and Richards did a shoot interview together on highspots to settle their differences and they both buried Cornette when all three of them were working together in the same promotion. Some of the complaints they had were valid, but it was completely unprofessional to do that, not to mention counter-intuitive to the business.

Jim didn't even bother to bring up the mask thing, all he asked was for Generico to cut promos because they were on television and needed to connect with a mass crowd and Generico refused. It's worth mentioning despite hating the gimmick and finding him a pain in the ass to deal with he still wanted to sign Generico to a ROH deal but Generico became skiddish because he was chasing a WWE deal so they moved on.

As far as his choice of main event talent, it's hard to say for sure since he's never really gone into detail about his plans, but I believe Eddie and Davey were merely placeholders while he worked the roster into shape. Cornette was clearly high on Lethal and I wouldn't have been shocked if the plan was to put the title on him at Final Battle, for better or worse.

 

While I agree with Cornette that Generico was one helluva talker back then (he was working 2 different gimmicks in smaller promotions as Stevie McFly and Big Larry around the same time he started getting over in Quebec as El Generico), I just didn't really understand what was his obsession with having Generico to talk. He got so freaking over without doing so and had a connection with the crowd like seldom few could have back then. I'm always of the mentality of "don't fix what is broken" and I kinda feel like this is also part of a pattern with Corny during his run in ROH.

[sek69]

It sometimes gets overlooked because most of it didn't age well, but Russo was such a breath of fresh air for a company that was still being booked like an 80s promotion well in to 1996. They needed someone who wasn't and old school rasslin' guy to come in and shake things up/give fresh perspective, and for better or worse he did that. I honestly believe that's why he ended up with the opinion of old school wrestling he did, his job was to drag these dinosaurs into modern times, and I'm sure he got a lot of resistance over it.  

In the end, Russo was the wrestling version of a "system quarterback". He believed his own hype and thought all of the WWF's success was due to his brilliance, and got exposed badly in WCW (and everywhere else after that). It shouldn't erase the fact he did what he was originally brought in to do. 

Also yes, Russo is a trash person with trash opinions. No argument.  That's hardly an exception in this business. It's not an excuse or a defense, it's just what it is.  He''s a guy who did what he was brought in to do a job, did what he was supposed to do,  and then let his ego take over. And like most things from the 90s in wrestling, it aged about as well as a loaf of bread. 

[MoS]

I give him credit for making Sable a huge ratings draw  

[Loss]

It also explains why Russo thinks nothing matters at all except ratings. Because Vince wanted him laser focused on ratings and basically taught him that nothing else mattered. But that's the WWE management style -- you don't get out of your wheelhouse and try to understand other aspects of the business. You focus solely on doing your own job.

We're now in an era where ratings matter more than they have maybe ever, but Russo has argued that for years when it wasn't always the case.

[Big Pete]

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While I agree with Cornette that Generico was one helluva talker back then (he was working 2 different gimmicks in smaller promotions as Stevie McFly and Big Larry around the same time he started getting over in Quebec as El Generico), I just didn't really understand what was his obsession with having Generico to talk. He got so freaking over without doing so and had a connection with the crowd like seldom few could have back then. I'm always of the mentality of "don't fix what is broken" and I kinda feel like this is also part of a pattern with Corny during his run in ROH.

That's interesting, I only started following Generico late in his independant run so I only really know him for his work in ROH, Chikara and PWG.

Cornette saw Generico as one of the biggest stars on the roster, the problem is that to an attract a larger audience you need somebody to cut promos. ROH had a real dearth of quality promos on the roster, so he needed his stars to be able to be willing to talk. It was fine when Generico was facing Steen who could do enough talking between the two of them, but when he needed Generico to feud with other wrestlers like Roddy it could be a problem.

Again, Jim was happy to sign Generico to a contract until Generico rejected them so he could join the WWE.

[Big Pete]

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The whole situation came to a head when Steen and Richards did a shoot interview together on highspots to settle their differences and they both buried Cornette when all three of them were working together in the same promotion. Some of the complaints they had were valid, but it was completely unprofessional to do that, not to mention counter-intuitive to the business.

Actually this is wrong. The heat started because Kevin Steen released an ROH Straight Shootin DVD that managed to piss both Cornette and Richards off. Steen was heavily critical of Cornette's 'cheesy' booking and called Davey Richards a dud champion because he was more committed to NJPW than ROH. These comments were supposed to be cleared with Richards before it was released, but Davey found out later and returned to receipt calling Kevin lazy.

Things developed from there but eventually Kev picked up the phone the two hashed it out and released a highspots DVD together because that's wrestling.

I've been watching their shoot interview to remind myself of Steen's criticisms. He had general criticisms like Cornette relying on run-ins and using lame slogans like 'The Battle of Richmond' to sell PPVs, but the biggest criticism was his feud with Davey. Kev didn't like how Davey was being booked as Jim's lap-dog and how Steen would hit him with all these home truths and Richards had to take it and be a company guy.

Kevin felt Jim was out of touch because he gave Steen carte blanche to say anything he wanted but didn't extend the same courtesy to Davey. Then when the fans turned on Davey and started cheering Steen, he couldn't believe that Jim wanted to keep him full blown heel.

Outside of his booking, Kev just couldn't believe Jim's temper and gave his own version of the Corino incident which was ultimately the last show Cornette worked. As the EMTs were loading Corino onto the stretcher Jim was losing his mind in the background and making life difficult for the EMTs. Steen jokingly said they'll probably have to comeback for Jim which they weren't happy about and they said they'd get one of their partners to do it because there's no way they'd want anything to do with that lunatic.

For Kev, that was a typical Cornette meltdown and he was surprised by how put off regular people were.

As for Delirious being the booker, that was true initially and the boys were happy with the arrangement. However over time, Jim took control over everything including the booking which is when Steen started having issues.

[The Thread Killer]

1 hour ago, Big Pete said:

Outside of his booking, Kev just couldn't believe Jim's temper and gave his own version of the Corino incident which was ultimately the last show Cornette worked. As the EMTs were loading Corino onto the stretcher Jim was losing his mind in the background and making life difficult for the EMTs. Steen jokingly said they'll probably have to comeback for Jim which they weren't happy about and they said they'd get one of their partners to do it because there's no way they'd want anything to do with that lunatic.

For Kev, that was a typical Cornette meltdown and he was surprised by how put off regular people were.

That story about Corino's injury, Cornette's subsequent meltdown and quitting ROH is one of those Pro Wrestling stories that sound too unbelievable to be true, but it's been verified by several people who were there.  The sad thing is, (if you believe Cornette) that wasn't even the first time that something major happened during a Ring Of Honor show that required management intervention, only for everybody to find out all the office staff had left early and the wrestlers were basically on their own.  Cornette claims he had gone out of pocket on several occasions in ROH after Sinclair took over, because people needed to be paid and there was nobody there to pay them.  Not to mention the kicker, which was that show had been taped in a hockey area where they discovered that the building staff were refusing to turn on the heat out of fear that it would melt the ice under the arena floor, so the arena was literally freezing and the fans and wrestlers all had to keep their winter coats on during the whole show.

[WrestlingPower]

A few points I wanted to touch on.

Knocking SMW is fighting words to me.  But saying the booking there can be totally discounted because it was a "redneck hillbilly" promotion or whatever the words were is totally unfair.  I don't disagree with that terminology though.  That's what Southern wrestling is.  Cornette knew his audience and what to sell them.  Stories and personalities with issues and history is what sold, not workrate.  He will readily admit that Gangstas was a miscalculation on his part.  He didn't realize booking them caused heat that people didn't want them in their town and stayed home rather than paid money to see them get beaten up.  The booking was really never the same after that point.  He clearly got burned out by 1995, trying to run the promotion pretty much by himself and already having a foot in the door in WWF.  If you want to criticize 1995 booking in SMW, I think you're on target but 1993 may be my tippy top thing from my fandom.

As far as ROH, I can see both sides of this and struggled myself at the time as did lots of hardcores.  I was a big Cornette fan and was resistant to changes he was trying to make but deep down knew he "wasn't wrong".  His rationale of trying to grow the business beyond its current audience and doing things he thought needed to be done only pissed off the audience further.  I was pissed off but also struggled knowing I wanted ROH to grow too.  Wrestling has never been very good at this struggle.  I would argue AEW is struggling with that now and seems to be leaning more toward satisfying the current base rather than trying to reach a larger base.  Is someone "out of touch" for trying to take what's working and try to educate fans to something that may have a broader appeal?  It seems the common conclusion folks have come to is yes when really the trick is to try to do both.  Wrestling shouldn't just give into what the fans want, you should book in such a way that fans come around to wanting what the promoters want them to want.

Finally I totally understand that you can't pick and choose what offends people.  But at the same time, is it not unreasonable to also think that people have gotten way too sensitive and have become thought police?  I wouldn't argue with you that Cornette is "out of touch" but I also would argue that some of these outraged people are way too sensitive and not as mentally tough as people from years gone by.  Those 2 things aren't mutually exclusive.  To me the best way to desensitize people is to offend them.  I don't see his mindset as any different from most people as they age.  People naturally become out of touch as they age and think things were better in the olden days.  The older I get I think that opinion is justified.  Thinking Cornette should be anything other than out of touch at this point may be a bit curious.  To me that's a better place than being so hard-up for a position in the business that you give up your principles.

[sek69]

The only problem is when people start playing the "thought police" card, 99 times out of 100 it's people complaining they can't be racist/sexist/homophobic anymore without being called out on it. 

Now yes, there are absolutely the performative woke crowd who try to hard to get people canceled, but honestly those are a small minority and shouldn't be used as a strawman to excuse bad behavior from the people crying "thought police". 

[C.S.]

4 minutes ago, sek69 said:

The only problem is when people start playing the "thought police" card, 99 times out of 100 it's people complaining they can't be racist/sexist/homophobic anymore without being called out on it. 

Now yes, there are absolutely the performative woke crowd who try to hard to get people canceled, but honestly those are a small minority and shouldn't be used as a strawman to excuse bad behavior from the people crying "thought police". 

Agreed. No one here had any issues with Jim Cornette commenting for the NWA despite being out of touch and/or having differing opinions. It was only when he told a racist joke on the air that we raised some objections. Even then, Dave Lagana and others were blamed equally for allowing that to remain on a taped show. 

[Laz]

On 4/21/2020 at 9:30 PM, WrestlingPower said:

As far as ROH, I can see both sides of this and struggled myself at the time as did lots of hardcores.  I was a big Cornette fan and was resistant to changes he was trying to make but deep down knew he "wasn't wrong".  His rationale of trying to grow the business beyond its current audience and doing things he thought needed to be done only pissed off the audience further.  I was pissed off but also struggled knowing I wanted ROH to grow too.  Wrestling has never been very good at this struggle.  I would argue AEW is struggling with that now and seems to be leaning more toward satisfying the current base rather than trying to reach a larger base.  Is someone "out of touch" for trying to take what's working and try to educate fans to something that may have a broader appeal?  It seems the common conclusion folks have come to is yes when really the trick is to try to do both.  Wrestling shouldn't just give into what the fans want, you should book in such a way that fans come around to wanting what the promoters want them to want.

Finally I totally understand that you can't pick and choose what offends people.  But at the same time, is it not unreasonable to also think that people have gotten way too sensitive and have become thought police?  I wouldn't argue with you that Cornette is "out of touch" but I also would argue that some of these outraged people are way too sensitive and not as mentally tough as people from years gone by.  Those 2 things aren't mutually exclusive.  To me the best way to desensitize people is to offend them.  I don't see his mindset as any different from most people as they age.  People naturally become out of touch as they age and think things were better in the olden days.  The older I get I think that opinion is justified.  Thinking Cornette should be anything other than out of touch at this point may be a bit curious.  To me that's a better place than being so hard-up for a position in the business that you give up your principles.

To the first point (quoted, can't knock anybody for having a favorite product), I'd argue that ROH never should've "grown" in the first place. We've already seen companies with smaller budgets hold onto their spot in the pecking order by sticking to their guns and staying true to their audience (CZW, ironically enough), and that, at least to me, is more important than having a mainstream appeal. Especially so when the company in question was birthed as the antithesis of the mainstream.

WWE had wacky gimmicks, short matches full of punch/kick, and interference roll-up finishes? ROH gave us WORKRATE~ and MOVESETS~ and promised clean finishes more than not. WWE was polished and overproduced? ROH was raw (heh) and grainy. 

It's easy to forget, given the difference between presentation and product focus, that ROH was born in the ashes of ECW, right down to who booked it and who ran the financials/distribution in the early days. This is a key reason, IMO, why Corny's ideas on how to "grow the product" were failures, even beyond taking a beloved talent like Generico and trying to change parts that folk loved about him, beyond pushing Dan Severn being Eddie's second as though he mattered to all but the most ardent of NWA fans in the crowd. His critical points are almost always valid, sure...but you could say the same about those posited by Vince Russo, or Shane Douglas, or any other "the business left me behind" creative types. The only real difference is that Corny has seniority and a certain subset of the fan agrees with him more than not. In practice, however, his ideas on how to present a modern product have been failures for 25 years.

25. Years.

As for the second point, I like to go back to a common counter-argument made by folk of my generation and the one right after. People today get offended and raise a ruckus over some pretty silly shit, sure, but that's how it's always been, and if you look at what really drove Corny's generation and regional cultures crazy - interracial relationships, same-sex relationships - over what the "sensitive" people today really loathe - bigotry - and you want to side with the former? Pal, you aren't going to have too many willing to back your case. My favorite related joke about this is when you'll hear "Archie Bunker wouldn't be allowed on TV today," and it has the easiest counter I can think of: Eric Cartman. 

Kids today aren't "too sensitive" or "as mentally tough" as yesteryear's because they hold different values. Not when yesteryear's kids blew a gasket over somebody dating somebody with a different skin color. 

[Big Pete]

The problem was that the old ROH model wasn't sustainable. The promotion was a money hole and Sinclair was sending himself broke before they sold to Sinclair with the idea that they could have a relatively low cost promotion that could help drive ratings and attract sponsers in the long term.

The move was always going to alienate the old contingent of ROH fans to some extent but that was fine because ultimately they were trying to reach a wider audience that enjoyed Pro Wrestling and didn't like the Sports Entertainment both WWE and TNA were producing at that time.

The issue is that Sinclair didn't come through on their end and the production was terrible and to make matters worse their streaming service which was to make the entire promotion far more accessible couldn't get their act together. Whatever publicity ROH was generating at the time was completely over-shadowed by those issues.

What ultimately cost Jim his job is that he was a ticking time bomb and eventually he was going to explode. Jim didn't have the composure to manage the transition and things came to ahead because Sinclair didn't show enough interest in the product. It was one thing to give them dodgy equipment and not support their vision of having a headquarters, but when none of them went out of their way to assist the most respected wrestler in the locker room, Jim lost control and it was for the best for everyone that he moved on.

However, he's a key reason why ROH is still around today and he really wasn't wrong on a lot of wrestlers. His biggest mistake was the Young Bucks and letting them walk to PWG because they didn't fit his aesthetic. Stuff like Severn or the ether rag were neither really here nor there by comparison.

[sek69]

Wrestling opinions aside, dude also has a history of being unable to control his temper to the point of unprofessionalism, no matter if he's right or not in the reason he got mad. 

Like he was 100% justified at being pissed at Sinclair, but the way he dealt with it didn't help the situation at all and probably made things worse since I'm sure it made Sinclair less willing to invest in the company if loons like that were around. What ROH needed was a guy who liked wrestling but knew how to handle the suits, and for better or worse someone like Joe Koff was much better in that role. 

[C.S.]

11 hours ago, sek69 said:

Wrestling opinions aside, dude also has a history of being unable to control his temper to the point of unprofessionalism, no matter if he's right or not in the reason he got mad. 

 Like he was 100% justified at being pissed at Sinclair, but the way he dealt with it didn't help the situation at all and probably made things worse since I'm sure it made Sinclair less willing to invest in the company if loons like that were around. What ROH needed was a guy who liked wrestling but knew how to handle the suits, and for better or worse someone like Joe Koff was much better in that role. 

Imagine how Jim must've come across to those suits: like a raving mad, uneducated, unhinged, Southern lunatic - basically the worst stereotype of every wrestling fan imaginable. Obviously, he is educated (at least in the wrestling business) on his podcast, interviews, etc. - but I doubt he appears that way when he's throwing one of his famous massive shit fits.

[Loss]

On 4/21/2020 at 8:30 PM, WrestlingPower said:

As far as ROH, I can see both sides of this and struggled myself at the time as did lots of hardcores.  I was a big Cornette fan and was resistant to changes he was trying to make but deep down knew he "wasn't wrong".  His rationale of trying to grow the business beyond its current audience and doing things he thought needed to be done only pissed off the audience further.  I was pissed off but also struggled knowing I wanted ROH to grow too.  Wrestling has never been very good at this struggle.  I would argue AEW is struggling with that now and seems to be leaning more toward satisfying the current base rather than trying to reach a larger base.  Is someone "out of touch" for trying to take what's working and try to educate fans to something that may have a broader appeal?  It seems the common conclusion folks have come to is yes when really the trick is to try to do both.  Wrestling shouldn't just give into what the fans want, you should book in such a way that fans come around to wanting what the promoters want them to want.

This post touches on something important. The balancing act between making current fans happy and trying to pull in new fans. Almost no wrestling company I can recall has ever gotten that balance completely right.

[Loss]

Also, we should stop using Southern as a derogatory term. Just putting that out there because I'm seeing it a lot in this thread. Large parts of the South suck, but so do large parts of the Northeast and the West Coast.

[C.S.]

3 hours ago, Loss said:

Also, we should stop using Southern as a derogatory term. Just putting that out there because I'm seeing it a lot in this thread. Large parts of the South suck, but so do large parts of the Northeast and the West Coast.

Not using it as a derogatory term, just identifying - correctly - that an uneducated Southern redneck what most people stereotype wrestling fans as. Right or wrong (obviously wrong, in PWO's case), that is how non-fans tend to view us.

[Loss]

That feels like an outdated stereotype in some ways though. It feels like the modern stereotype is that wrestling fans are incels who don't know how to relate to women.

[sek69]

12 minutes ago, Loss said:

That feels like an outdated stereotype in some ways though. It feels like the modern stereotype is that wrestling fans are incels who don't know how to relate to women.

 Yeah at some point (probably when wrestling stopped being territorial) the fan stereotype changed from "poor, uneducated rednecks" to "incel neckbeard who is also probably poor and uneducated".  Which IMO was just non fans realizing wrestling was popular in other parts of the country. 

[Dav'oh]

17 minutes ago, sek69 said:

the fan stereotype changed from "poor, uneducated rednecks"

I wonder what the stereotypes are in other countries? Here in the antipodes, it was basically "you enjoy wrestling? You must be really stupid", without geographical or cultural markers.

How does Mexico label its lucha aficionados? Or Japan its puro fans? I know there's Brits who post here, so I hope someone can tell me how their country viewed/views the graps crowd.

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, Loss said:

That feels like an outdated stereotype in some ways though. It feels like the modern stereotype is that wrestling fans are incels who don't know how to relate to women.

Yeah, it's very possible my frame of reference is outdated. I don't generally discuss wrestling all that much outside of the internet and forums, and the last time I told someone I was a wrestling fan, it was a person older than me who thought it was rednecky and possibly doesn't know what an incel is. 

33 minutes ago, Dav'oh said:

I wonder what the stereotypes are in other countries? Here in the antipodes, it was basically "you enjoy wrestling? You must be really stupid", without geographical or cultural markers.

How does Mexico label its lucha aficionados? Or Japan its puro fans? I know there's Brits who post here, so I hope someone can tell me how their country viewed/views the graps crowd.

This just turned into a very interesting discussion...

@KawadaSmile @El-P, I know you are two of our international members. How is wrestling perceived in your countries?

[BigBadMick]

I'd say in Ireland and the UK wrestling really doesn't have a strong stigma anymore. It could be because it was massively popular in the early 90s, and everyone's grown up with some familiarity to it. Often, you'll get someone slag it off to you, and within a few minutes they're talking about Austin, Rock, Hogan...

[El-P]

I honestly don't really know, as I have had zero contact with the french pro-wrestling crowd. It (meaning, WWE) has been pretty popular with youngsters during the big Cena days, even my nephews at that point watched it, but apart from that. I feel like the perception is still pretty outdated though when it pops up in the media. There was this wave of lucha libre being cool at one point, which I never got since it was never showed here, but you had a lucha libre bar in Paris for instance. And also a few mainstream movies with wrestling references. As far as the cliché of the average pro-wrestling crowd, no idea really.