The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[Loss]

I'll also add that he misunderstands Becky Lynch's appeal. He thinks that she's bad in the ring, but got over as the female version of Steve Austin. There are elements of Austin's character to her act for sure, but it's not a direct analogy at all. And the defiance was definitely a key part of her rise, but that's not really how she has been presented since getting to the top.

[El-P]

25 minutes ago, Loss said:

Even the idea that they conceal that Seth Rollins isn't single so they don't hurt his appeal to women is such an outdated lens.

Wait, he said that too ? Holy shit, welcome to the past. It's time for pro-wrestling to grow the fuck up. Thankfully, it seems like it does, slowly but surely. Corny won't.

[NotJayTabb]

Corny also needs to accept that there's a difference between opinions and facts, especially when it comes to modern wrestling, which isn't his wheelhouse. Describing the 4-way tag at MITB as "John Morrison and 7 underneath guys" shows that Corny might be the only person in the world who thinks JoMo is a bigger star than Kofi Kingston or the Miz, and he really seemed to underestimate the popularity of the New Day as a whole.

As I said, I do on the whole like listening to Cornette, but man my heart sank when this weeks Drive Thru included a MITB (though listening to someone who'd never seen a Tamina match have to review one of her matches was quite fun)

[SirEdger]

Another day goes by and Cornette proves he's the absolute last dinosaur of the wrestling business.

[The Thread Killer]

I'm usually the first one to defend Jim Cornette when fans of so-called "modern" Pro Wrestling or the AEW Twitter Brigade get easily and repeatedly offended by his opinions.  Not this time.

I heard this episode of The Jim Cornette Experience and yeah...he's pretty much out to lunch on the issue of Becky Lynch's pregnancy.  He seems totally baffled by the fact that a woman would want to have a child when she's 33 years old, just because she also happens to be in a top spot in WWE.  Cornette's analogy that Lynch choosing to get pregnant at this point in her career is the equivalent of Steve Austin deliberately breaking his own leg at the height of his run, is just flat out ignorant.  His further statements that Vince McMahon should put a pregnancy clause in the contracts of his female talents, and his claims that this is the reason female wrestling was never heavily featured during the territory days are just...antiquated. 

I know Cornette actually respects Becky Lynch's work, he has been quite complimentary toward her in the past.  And I know his underlying point is that he thinks she should make as much money from Vince McMahon and WWE while she can, and then walk away and focus on her family.  But he just can't seem to grasp that maybe, just maybe there are things in life more important than being a WWE Superstar, or even filthy rich.  If Becky Lynch chose to have this baby and walk away from the business forever, nobody will ever be able to take away what she accomplished. For a guy who loves to trumpet how much he is "pro choice" and that he supports women's reproductive rights, he sure doesn't seem to respect Becky Lynch's choice to focus on her family and walk away from her career, for now at least.

If nothing else, one major indicator that Cornette was way off base here is the fact that Brian Last stayed pretty much silent during Cornette's entire rant. When Brian Last gets quiet and doesn't encourage Jim's insanity, it's usually a good sign he thinks Cornette has gone too far.

Now if you want to make the argument that Becky Lynch choosing to have a child with Seth Rollins is stupid...I'm all in on that argument.  If this child is really the genetic offspring of Seth Rollins, I anticipate that during the delivery, the newborn will only sell the slap on the backside for two seconds, and then totally forget about it.  The child will then execute an unnecessary and superfluous triple somersault, and accidentally injure the doctor.  And then cut a promo complaining that nobody appreciates him.

[Coffey]

1 hour ago, The Thread Killer said:

Now if you want to make the argument that Becky Lynch choosing to have a child with Seth Rollins is stupid...I'm all in on that argument.

Regardless of how I feel about Seth Rollins professionally, it is pretty hard in my mind to justify dating/marrying/having a baby with an adulterer that cheated on his wife with a Nazi. But, whatever, it's their life to live.

[El-P]

Just now, Coffey said:

it is pretty hard in my mind to justify dating/marrying/having a baby with an adulterer that cheated on his wife with a Nazi. 

[FMKK]

5 hours ago, Loss said:

It was a baffling thing to say. And the idea that they should have worked an injury angle and hidden her pregnancy -- that might have worked 30 years ago, but there's no way it would in 2020 when information flows so freely. The world has changed, and he refuses to accept it. The things he loathes are a mix of the world changing and incompetence from people who produce pro wrestling, and he often conflates the two. Even the idea that they conceal that Seth Rollins isn't single so they don't hurt his appeal to women is such an outdated lens. You can debate whether it's for better or worse, but it's just not what wrestling is now.

So many of his criticisms about how modern wrestling is presented I agree with, but the idea that you can hide things from fans just doesn't fly anymore. You can bemoan that, which he has done, or you can come up with a paradigm shift that acknowledges that, which he is incapable of doing.

They'll make more money selling motherhood related Becky Lynch merchandise than they would in doing a phoney angle to set up a comeback match in like a year. People are into the human interest stories in their wrestling, which is something WWE itself completely misunderstands a lot of the time, but not in this instance.

[Loss]

He thought the sentimentality killed what made her cool as a star. WWE has way too much faux sentimentality these days, but come on, she's pregnant. She reacted like a human being.

[Coffey]

We also shouldn't glance over that as popular as Becky is, as big as a star as she became, her main eventing Wrestlemania as the top woman (with Ronda & Charlotte)... was all because the crowd refused to let her be turned heel by WWE. Because they wanted to turn another great babyface heel for... reasons.

 

[C.S.]

Glad to see even Jim Cornette's most sycophantic followers on this board are no longer excusing his toxic bullshit because he once managed their favorite rasslers. 

Well, hot on the heels of his disgusting comments about Becky Lynch, he strikes again:

"Dana Brooke's entire face looks like it was remodeled after somebody set fire to it and put it out with an axe. What the fuck has happened? Did she do that on purpose or was she in a horrible accident, What the fuck!"

(Actually, I'm not sure he said this before or after the Becky Lynch comments, but those got more play because Becky is the top female star of her generation and Dana Brooke is a utility player.)

Dana's response:

 

[sek69]

I mean, it seems pretty clear Dana's had some work done and you could argue it maybe wasn't the best idea, but Jesus Christ is that the worst possible way to say it. 

[El-P]

5 hours ago, sek69 said:

I mean, it seems pretty clear Dana's had some work done and you could argue it maybe wasn't the best idea,

Quite honestly, that's the first thing that jumped to my mind when I saw her at MITB and that's the least you could say. Of course, everyone does what they want with their bodies and if she's happy with it, more power to her and whatever.

On the other hand the whole "spread positivity" millenial bullshit sounds really dumb when doing stuff like this may encourage younger women and girls to have that kind of work done for futile reasons (and think they must abide to some kind of normative look of big boobs and big lips and whatnot). Reminds me of famous actress Emmanuelle Beart who had her lips done, it looks like crap and really has ruined her looks, she knows it, she has said it, said that she regrets it and warned people about the danger and consequences of doing stuff like this. Spread intelligence instead of idiotic "positivity". Of course Corny's post is anything but intelligent, but the point remains, when I saw Dana my reaction was "WTF happened ?".

(oh, and don't anyone give me the whole "oh you can't say anything about someone's body, that's bodyshaming" when those people are spending their time on Instagram posting selfies all the time for narcissistic reasons and to feed their vain ego, it's such an hypocritical point to make)

[sek69]

Yeah, what bothers me is while it's one thing to respect everyone's choices to do what they want with their bodies it's also clear that WWE pressuring women to get cosmetic work done is the female equivalent to encouraging the men to get on the gas. It causes a situation with cases like Dana and Charlotte where they practically look like different people, but you can't make any mention of it without getting dogpiled from all sides.  Then you have cavemen like Corny out there making sure any talk about it at all is more radioactive than Chernobyl and Hiroshima combined. 

[MoS]

To be fair, there definitely is a double standard as far as reaction: women undergoing such cosmetic surgeries are analysed (and mocked) far more than the men who do so. Not to turn this into the 2020 sleaze thread, but, for instance, it is evident that Rock got some cosmetic work done on him as he was transitioning to Hollywood in 2003-04, but people never really talked about it. 

[El-P]

26 minutes ago, MoS said:

To be fair, there definitely is a double standard as far as reaction: women undergoing such cosmetic surgeries are analysed (and mocked) far more than the men who do so. Not to turn this into the 2020 sleaze thread, but, for instance, it is evident that Rock got some cosmetic work done on him as he was transitioning to Hollywood in 2003-04, but people never really talked about it. 

Come on, people made fun of him wearing the T-shirt back in 1999. People have been mocking Mickey Rourke (who does look like a car accident) for decades now. Of course there's a double standard, as there is from pretty much *everything* in society. But that's not the point. Plus the social pressure on getting work done in waaaaaaaaaay heavier on women than on men (yes, double standard, again). I don't think being a good little soldier of that normative pressure is exactly what I'd call "spreading positivity". Well, actually it is, because the whole "positivity" thing is the latest mental avatar of über-capitalism (and which is why at times DDP annoys the fuck out of me on his DDPY app, which still is really good).

[MoS]

That IS the point though.

Steroids are a different thing in my opinion cuz Vince in the 80s changed the perception of what a good pro wrestler is by marketing roided up freaks as the premier athletes. Because of decades of debating about steroids and the bodies they produce, discussing steroids and their effects have become commonplace in pro wrestling. That includes making fun of wrestlers for getting bitch tits while proclaiming in public interviews that they are clean. 

On the other hand, womens' cosmetic discussions are centred on the same societal prejudices that affect them in every other industry. I don't know if I am communicating my point well, but that makes the reaction to women particularly noxious. That is not to say that men don't get the same treatment ever, but I do feel it's different.

[El-P]

Well, that's YOUR point, the one you choose to make, and it's a totally valid one I might add, but that's not what I was going for.

One : Corny's an idiot.

Two : Dana Brook should find much better arguments than "spread positivity".

Three : people on social networks who spend their time posting selfies of themselves in "Look at me, I'm so hot" pauses (generally speaking, not talking about Dana Brooke specifically), especially when they are public figures, have no business telling other people not to comment on how they look, whether they are men or women.

[Loss]

Cornette's comments were out of line there. Way out of line. That said, Dana Brooke has never struck me as very smart. That doesn't mean she deserves to have her looks made fun of in public. Her tweet in response just sort of highlights her basic incompetence at pretty much everything, which is a separate issue. When she was the statistician for the Prime Time Players, she couldn't even pantomime typing.

[MoS]

Yeah my comments were not intended to be a defence of Dana Brooke in particular. Cornette was out of line yeah, and I bet he keeps cutting promos about this for weeks now. 

[El-P]

47 minutes ago, Loss said:

Her tweet in response just sort of highlights her basic incompetence at pretty much everything, which is a separate issue.

Well, it is and it is not. When you're hired for a job only because of your looks, and when years after years you display pretty much incompetence at anything other than looking the way you do (and by the way this has been a constant criticism of male pro-wrestler for years and years, way before women in wrestling became a serious matter) it becomes part of the issue. From what I saw during the MITB debacle (granted, it's not very much), Dana Brooke still isn't good at doing jackshit apart from flexing muscles. How long has she been part of the main roster now ? While "lesser looking" girls on the indies/small companies are a hundred times the workers and characters. So yeah, when all you got is your look, expect people to comment on it because that's pretty much all you bring to the table and this is why you are making money.

[Loss]

The match Asuka had with her on her debut in retrospect is a miracle match.

[C.S.]

7 hours ago, El-P said:

Quite honestly, that's the first thing that jumped to my mind when I saw her at MITB and that's the least you could say. Of course, everyone does what they want with their bodies and if she's happy with it, more power to her and whatever.

 On the other hand the whole "spread positivity" millenial bullshit sounds really dumb when doing stuff like this may encourage younger women and girls to have that kind of work done for futile reasons (and think they must abide to some kind of normative look of big boobs and big lips and whatnot). Reminds me of famous actress Emmanuelle Beart who had her lips done, it looks like crap and really has ruined her looks, she knows it, she has said it, said that she regrets it and warned people about the danger and consequences of doing stuff like this. Spread intelligence instead of idiotic "positivity". Of course Corny's post is anything but intelligent, but the point remains, when I saw Dana my reaction was "WTF happened ?".

(oh, and don't anyone give me the whole "oh you can't say anything about someone's body, that's bodyshaming" when those people are spending their time on Instagram posting selfies all the time for narcissistic reasons and to feed their vain ego, it's such an hypocritical point to make)

Okay, but there's a difference between "Did Dana have work done to her face? I noticed that!" and "She looks like her face got smashed in by an axe." You're on the right side of that - Jim Cornette is not.

 

[Loss]

If I remember right, Dana Brooke was hired and has gotten so many chances because Vince and HHH are really big fans of her background in competitive bodybuilding. But it hasn't translated at all, as we know.

[ButchReedMark]

Hasn't she a rep for being incredibly hard working which has resulted in her being kept about and gotten opportunities too? Not that that's a bad thing, hard work should be rewarded.