The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[El-P]

Super classy. And what if she had more dicks in her than a urinal at MSG ? None of anyone's fucking business and that would not make her or anyone male or female any less of a dignified human being. Yeah, slut-shaming alert.

As far as not seeing her on a pro-wrestling show, yeah, she's only improved by leaps and bounds over the last year and a half and I really wish she would get more focus on her as a performer than being a valet for Marc Me Kip Sabian.

[tallmike]

I think both what Cornette said was really gross, and that a lot more people know about what Cornette said today than they did a few days ago because by engaging, they gave him a MAJOR signal boost.

[Loss]

I thought Cornette's whole thing was not being a prude and being into wild sexual stuff with his wife. Yet here he is going after Penelope Ford for what he thinks of her personal sex life. It goes back to my earlier thought that his guiding principle seems to be that if you don't like something or someone, you can say anything you want to make them mad, and it doesn't matter if there's a consistent logic to it or not. She is in AEW, therefore she's bad and all insults are justified, the end.

[joeg]

This whole thing made me laugh then wonder something out loud. How exactly does Cornette use public restroom facilities? Personally I try to stand as far away from the urinal as possible without spraying the guy next to me. I know Cornette is into some kink, but to actually insert yourself into a public urinal is something I've never heard of and don't comprehend how one would do it. But to each his own. 

[Log]

10 hours ago, CarpetCrawler said:

Bingo.  Not saying anything makes them think it's OK to keep doing it because you won't do anything about it.  That's what always blew my mind about school bully logic from adults.  We all saw bullying in our lifetimes in school, and I even worked in a school system for a brief period of time.  I've never seen a bully actually stop bullying someone because they ignored it.

Exactly right. I have, however, seen a bully stop bullying once he got his ass kicked. 

[tallmike]

52 minutes ago, joeg said:

This whole thing made me laugh then wonder something out loud. How exactly does Cornette use public restroom facilities? Personally I try to stand as far away from the urinal as possible without spraying the guy next to me. I know Cornette is into some kink, but to actually insert yourself into a public urinal is something I've never heard of and don't comprehend how one would do it. But to each his own. 

A lot of arenas have the trough style urinals, and while some people will be mindful of other's personal space... others are just trying to piss and get back to the game and will basically go shoulder to shoulder to get in.

[sek69]

I get the feeling Jim was trying to find a female version of the "that guy gets more ass than a public toilet seat" joke and failed to stick the landing. He managed to get his point across while still making everyone thing "wait....what?" about how he said it. 

Also, while I don't believe two wrongs make a right you can't have your own sexual activities be open knowledge and criticize someone else's alleged ones without thinking people will throw that shit in your face. 

[Coffey]

The big difference between the bully comparison is that as an adult, if you punch someone in the face, you have to deal with real world consequences, like assault & battery charges. As a child punching a kid in the nose, you're just getting a detention. 

[El-P]

The big difference is that Cornette would never say 1/10 of what he says to the people in person.

..........

wait....

 

[Laz]

On 3/15/2021 at 4:23 PM, Coffey said:

The big difference between the bully comparison is that as an adult, if you punch someone in the face, you have to deal with real world consequences, like assault & battery charges. As a child punching a kid in the nose, you're just getting a detention. 

Oddly enough, this can entirely depend upon the actions taken prior to the bullied throwing the punch. "Fighting words," legally speaking, are not covered under the First Amendment (defined as any language intentionally designed to provoke physical action), and there've been cases where the provocation to the attack was so strong that the assault and battery charges were dropped. 

[joeg]

2 hours ago, Laz said:

Oddly enough, this can entirely depend upon the actions taken prior to the bullied throwing the punch. "Fighting words," legally speaking, are not covered under the First Amendment (defined as any language intentionally designed to provoke physical action), and there've been cases where the provocation to the attack was so strong that the assault and battery charges were dropped. 

No way! That is actually a thing? He had it coming can actually be used as a defense in court not just in musicals?! Where can I find something on such cases?

[MoS]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words 

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/959/fighting-words

A couple of easy-to-read primers 

 

[sek69]

Not to mention if the bullying was egregious enough most courts would be loathe to punish anyone who struck back unless you were unlucky enough to draw a hardass judge. 

[Petey]

On 2/23/2021 at 8:12 AM, El-P said:

What is Corny's timeline of him being involved in the WWF creatives ? I know he's gone sometime in 1997 (I guess not too long after Russo gets in, although he's now officially credited for the idea for the Montreal Screwjob), but I'm not exactly sure when he got involved. I would guess after SMW closed down shop. I believe the whole stop-start dynamic of the Vader vs Micheals match at SummerSlam was his, and it was a terrible idea which hurt the match even more than Micheals acting like a douchebag.

To the best of my knowledge, he joined the creative team at some point in 1996. I believe the team at the time was he, Bruce, and Vince (I think Pat was semi-retired). In Cornette's 1997 WWF Timeline video he did with Kayfabe Commentaries (which is an excellent video), he talked about how he and Bruce would be writing television at Vince's house. I think Russo kinda/sorta joined the team at the end of 1996 but not in any meaningful way until after the Raw from either Germany or Johannesburg in either March or April of 1997. The rating was bad and it looked like crap on TV, so that's when McMahon put Russo on the creative team in a more prominent position and it became Russo and Cornette writing TV with McMahon for the remainder of 1997 until the very end of the year. Cornette said that he took a week or two off at the end of 1997 and suspects that in Corny's absence, Russo gave McMahon a "either he goes or I go" ultimatum since they really weren't getting along. McMahon went with Russo and when Cornette came back from vacation, he was told he wasn't needed in the office and that was it.

[Loss]

The lesson there is that Vince managing the creative tension between Cornette and Russo was a viable enough model to lay the foundation to spark a hugely successful period. Sometimes, Russo's vision was right and sometimes Cornette's was right. Sometimes, Vince took what he wanted from both. There is no newer generation of wrestling minds that I know of that has such sharp differences in philosophy that could be leveraged this way. 

[El-P]

18 minutes ago, Petey said:

I think Russo kinda/sorta joined the team at the end of 1996 but not in any meaningful way until after the Raw from either Germany or Johannesburg in either March or April of 1997. 

Yeah, I think it was Johannesburg.

13 minutes ago, Loss said:

The lesson there is that Vince managing the creative tension between Cornette and Russo was a viable enough model to lay the foundation to spark a hugely successful period. 

But was it really ? If you don't have the rise of Steve Austin due to the great feud with Bret Hart and the most promising rookie ever showing up at the same time (and almost tanked due to really tone deaf booking at first), does the hugely successful period happens ? I guess Russo has more to do with DX's rise in the fall of 97 since it was more his style of bullshit, but when Russo really takes over, Austin is already on a launchpad and nothing is gonna stop him while The Rock found himself already and it was a matter of time. If Russo isn't there and they don't do the crash TV shit in 98/99, doesn't the huge successful period still happens because Austin was just red hot and the Mr. McMahon character (who stemmed from the double cross which was designed by Cornette) was just the perfect foil ? 

[Loss]

Without 1997 table setting, you don't have a red hot Austin, Rock and DX to keep building up. It was, yes. It took about a year to really start bearing fruit.

[El-P]

That it took 97 is undeniable, that's well established. My question is, has it really that much to do with the fact both Cornette and Russo were involved ? The Austin push happens because of Bret wanting to work with him. As far as the TV goes, I haven't watched it since it happened and probably won't ever watch it again, but I don't think it was setting the world on fire apart from the main stuff. The undercards were brutal (GANG WARS !!! With babyface white powers bikers). As a matter of fact that was the talk of the day, WCW had the hot under/midcards and big angles and shitty matches on top while it was the opposite in WWF (that is, until those dreadful Taker matches in 98), with the little difference of WCW main events actually drawing big then. The hot stuff in WWF was only at the top of the card (Austin vs Bret, Austin vs Hart Foundation, Michaels vs Taker, Michaels vs Bret), and we know Vince was always all over this more than anything else. 

[Migs]

41 minutes ago, Loss said:

The lesson there is that Vince managing the creative tension between Cornette and Russo was a viable enough model to lay the foundation to spark a hugely successful period. Sometimes, Russo's vision was right and sometimes Cornette's was right. Sometimes, Vince took what he wanted from both. There is no newer generation of wrestling minds that I know of that has such sharp differences in philosophy that could be leveraged this way. 

There are absolutely new generations of wrestling minds - the problem is that in the intervening 20 years, the Cornette "old school" side of the equation has gotten so cranky that they can't have a productive conversation with anyone. I don't know if JR has any role in AEW creative - I'd guess pretty minor - but even he really doesn't seem to be able to engage in conversations about modern wrestling, and he calls the shows!

[Loss]

Who are they?

[El-P]

I'd much hire Scott D'Amore than Paul Heyman in 2021.

10 minutes ago, Migs said:

There are absolutely new generations of wrestling minds - the problem is that in the intervening 20 years, the Cornette "old school" side of the equation has gotten so cranky that they can't have a productive conversation with anyone.

I wonder were you got that impression from... 

Meltz posted funny bits of on old interview with Karl Gotch bitching about the young guys (from the 80's) not knowing how to work and making things unbelievable and doing trampoline shows instead of legit looking pro-wrestling and how that is killing the business. Like, word for word the same stuff we hear today. 

Meanwhile, I'm currently going through Rikidozan matches and I see soooo much totally ridiculous stuff even by today's standards. The idea that pro-wrestling was ever "believable" in and out of itself is ridiculous. What should be studied is the sociological profiles of audiences over times and places and the relationship they had with the idea of believability in such a spectacle, all of that wrapped up in an ever changing context of entertainment industry. That would be much more interesting than shouting at clouds because "young guys can't work and are killing the business".

[Migs]

3 minutes ago, Loss said:

Who are they?

The people who are heavily involved in producing the show. Tony Khan. Cody. The Young Bucks. Kenny Omega. Chris Jericho. They got ROH hotter from a business perspective than it had ever been with YouTube videos. They popped New Japan's biggest interest in the US ever. They parlayed all that into their own PPV and then their own major show with Khan's backing. These are very, very smart wrestling minds who looked at the landscape, applied their vision to it, and succeeded.

Could AEW benefit from some tension between old and new school like you described above? Maybe. I'm just not sure who that would be who could come in and work productively (although, from the 1997 story, maybe it was impossible even then). The older guys mostly seem to be there as agents and characters - no one's pushing them to the side, but I don't think Arn is writing TV.

[Migs]

2 minutes ago, El-P said:

I'd much hire Scott D'Amore than Paul Heyman in 2021.

Maybe they'd be a good pair!

Part of the difficulty here is that old school has changed. Paul Heyman is pretty old at this point! If you could team him up with younger talent, maybe that's the mythical Cornette/Russo pairing that would work.

[Loss]

The key would have to be that either they are willing to learn from each other or you have someone refereeing who brokers compromises. But I do think there's something to that approach. No one is always right. 

[El-P]

8 minutes ago, Migs said:

The people who are heavily involved in producing the show. Tony Khan. Cody. The Young Bucks. Kenny Omega. Chris Jericho. They got ROH hotter from a business perspective than it had ever been with YouTube videos. They popped New Japan's biggest interest in the US ever. They parlayed all that into their own PPV and then their own major show with Khan's backing. These are very, very smart wrestling minds who looked at the landscape, applied their vision to it, and succeeded.

You're absolutely right. And that doesn't mean they are genius (which don't exist) or that they don't screw up and have terrible ideas at times. Like every successful booker had. The greatest minds also did some awful stuff (Gedooooo, what's up with Great O Khan and EVIL ?). There's not one great of even good pro-wrestling mind that is not gonna make really bad mistakes (Hey Choshu, wanna put someone from UWF-I over ? No ? Really ? Ok). 

6 minutes ago, Migs said:

Maybe they'd be a good pair!

Part of the difficulty here is that old school has changed. Paul Heyman is pretty old at this point! If you could team him up with younger talent, maybe that's the mythical Cornette/Russo pairing that would work.

Agreed. Also, Heyman working for so long in WWE may be pretty much set in his ways in more ways than one, so having him around really should never be about giving him full creative. He still has an eye on younger/fresher talent as showed by the guys he wanted to push last year in WWE, so there's that.