The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[The Thread Killer]

On 11/20/2019 at 9:55 PM, C.S. said:

It's amazing how many people I didn't even realize had issues with Cornette.

Exhibit A: Kenny King

Exhibit B: Dixie Carter

The Kenny King deal is pretty well known.  When Cornette was an executive with ROH, the decision was made to put the Tag Team titles on Kenny King and Rhett Titus, even though King's contract was coming up.  King verbally agreed to a new contract (and if you believe Cornette, even shook hands on the deal) so they went ahead and did the title change, but then King apparently went back on his word and refused to sign the actual contract when it was presented to him.  He went to TNA and did a tryout match there without even telling ROH he was doing it, so they fired him.  Then of course, King went on to accomplish exactly jack squat in TNA and ended up slinking back to ROH with his tail between his legs.  As soon as King went back on his word about signing the contract, went to TNA without telling anybody and basically screwed Rhett Titus over, Cornette went ballistic and started burying King in interviews all over the place.  As far as Dixie Carter...well her history with Cornette is pretty much well documented.  She chose Russo over Cornette, and if that isn't going to get you heat with Cornette, I don't know what will. What we all assumed would happen is currently happening...every single Pro Wrestler or executive Cornette has ever criticized or cussed out are now tripping over themselves coming out of the woodwork to condemn him, Austin Aries being the first unsurprisingly.  There is blood in the water now.

 

[The Thread Killer]

5 minutes ago, MoS said:

There's certainly no love lost between Dixie and Cornette, and to be fair, I can see why he would hate someone who liked Russo so much she would literally lie to keep him involved. I don't know the details, but I believe Russo and TNA management did try to screw Cornette.

They agreed that when Cornette left TNA the public story would be that they agreed amicably to part ways. (Pretty much like what happened today with Cornette and the NWA,  I assume.) Then Terry Taylor leaked it to Mike Johnson that Cornette had been fired, after Dixie Carter had given Cornette her word that wouldn't happen.  Cornette called her on the phone to ask why TNA had done that, and Dixie apparently assured him that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and that she was personally going to call Mike Johnson and issue a retraction, which she never did.  It seems like Dixie pretty much told Cornette that they would agree to go with the story that the firing was a mutual agreement just so she could get rid of him, but never had any intention of honoring that agreement, she just did it to get rid of him.  Cornette claimed he didn't even care if they had told everybody that he'd been fired, but he was pissed that it was their idea to claim they'd mutually parted ways, but then lied about it.  I'm pretty sure that incident was the end of Cornette's friendship with Terry Taylor, because Cornette claims to have seen evidence that it was Taylor who fucked him over and leaked the info to PWInsider.

[MoS]

3 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

They agreed that when Cornette left TNA the public story would be that they agreed amicably to part ways. (Pretty much like what happened today with Cornette and the NWA,  I assume.) Then Terry Taylor leaked it to Mike Johnson that Cornette had been fired, after Dixie Carter had given Cornette her word that wouldn't happen.  Cornette called her on the phone to ask why TNA had done that, and Dixie apparently assured him that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding and that she was personally going to call Mike Johnson and issue a retraction, which she never did.  It seems like Dixie pretty much told Cornette that they would agree to go with the story that the firing was a mutual agreement just so she could get rid of him, but never had any intention of honoring that agreement, she just did it to get rid of him.  Cornette claimed he didn't even care if they had told everybody that he'd been fired, but he was pissed that it was their idea to claim they'd mutually parted ways, but then lied about it.  I'm pretty sure that incident was the end of Cornette's friendship with Terry Taylor, because Cornette claims to have seen evidence that it was Taylor who fucked him over and leaked the info to PWInsider.

For being a money mark, Dixie sure got the scummy promoter part just right. 

[The Thread Killer]

I know Bruce Prichard has told a couple of horror stories about what it was like to deal with her, and Bischoff ended up suing her as well.  He refuses to discuss the details, but he does not have flattering things to say about her either.  In fact, aside from Mick Foley I don't know many people who do.

[sek69]

17 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

What we all assumed would happen is currently happening...every single Pro Wrestler or executive Cornette has ever criticized or cussed out are now tripping over themselves coming out of the woodwork to condemn him, Austin Aries being the first unsurprisingly.  There is blood in the water now.

...and little reason why. When your gimmick is being a crank who constantly shits on modern wrestling, and repeatedly has very nasty things to say about people just for the sin of doing wrestling he doesn't care for , people are going to line up to take their shots at you.  He's reaping what he sowed for sure. 

Sometimes people get dunked on for little or no reason, or the response is disproportionate to the crime so to speak. This is not one of those times.  

[The Thread Killer]

He absolutely brought this all on himself and I have no sympathy whatsoever for him. However, I find it humorous to see people like Dixie Carter using this as an opportunity to throw her two cents in.  I wouldn't be surprised if we end up getting a self-satisfied promo from Russo any minute now.  "See bro? Cornette is a bad person, bro! I tried to tell everybody bro, but nobody would listen to me, bro!"

[C.S.]

Just now, The Thread Killer said:

He absolutely brought this all on himself and I have no sympathy whatsoever for him. However, I find it humorous to see people like Dixie Carter is using this as an opportunity to throw her two cents in.  I wouldn't be surprised if we end up getting a self-satisfied promo from Russo any minute now.  "See bro? Cornette is a bad person, bro! I tried to tell everybody bro, but nobody would listen to me, bro!"

I'm not so sure about that, because known Russo acolyte/sycophant and the world's dumbest wrestler, Disco Inferno, is actually defending Cornette.

[MoS]

1 minute ago, The Thread Killer said:

He absolutely brought this all on himself and I have no sympathy whatsoever for him. However, I find it humorous to see people like Dixie Carter using this as an opportunity to throw her two cents in.  I wouldn't be surprised if we end up getting a self-satisfied promo from Russo any minute now.  "See bro? Cornette is a bad person, bro! I tried to tell everybody bro, but nobody would listen to me, bro!"

That's true, but it will be really sad if Cornette's defence and ultimately his appeal comes down to "He is better than Russo." That is a really REALLY low bar to clear. 

[The Thread Killer]

Just now, C.S. said:

I'm not so sure about that, because known Russo acolyte/sycophant and the world's dumbest wrestler, Disco Inferno, is actually defending Cornette.

Well, as bad as what Cornette said is, Russo has said even worse over the past couple of years about women and homosexuals, so I suppose Russo might refrain from saying anything since there are plenty of skeletons in his closet that would not be hard to find.

[C.S.]

7 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

 Well, as bad as what Cornette said is, Russo has said even worse over the past couple of years about women and homosexuals, so I suppose Russo might refrain from saying anything since there are plenty of skeletons in his closet that would not be hard to find.

What did he say?

It really is a shame when someone becomes a Born Again Christian and uses his newfound religion as an excuse to spout discriminatory bigotry.

Note: Just to be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with becoming a Christian or following any set of religious beliefs. There absolutely is not. What is wrong is when that is used as an excuse to disseminate hatred based on gender, skin color, sexual orientation, etc.   

[The Thread Killer]

32 minutes ago, C.S. said:

What did he say?

He said on more than one occasion that Hilary Clinton didn't deserve to be President because she's a woman, and women are meant to be subservient to men...because they were created from the body of man.

"I don’t believe a woman was created to run this country based on the fact that the woman was taken from the man’s rib...Woman wasn’t created first. The man was created first. The woman was created second. I believe that’s how God wanted the pecking order to be."

And of course who could forget this gem:

"I have come to the conclusion if you are part of the NXT crowd, the people who were in Orlando, the ‘This is Awesome’ crowd, you fall in three categories. Its this simple, bro. You’re either A) homosexual. Okay, you like men. For you to react this way, you have to like men. B) You’re either no homosexual but have homosexual tendencies. Or C) You’re in the closet. Its that simple bro, because men do not react to other men that way. It’s not a normal function. Bro, I had someone tweet me after I made a tweet that Finn Balor has to hit the gym. Bro, I literally had a guy send me a picture of Finn Balor with his shirt off. Bro, you are probably a homosexual. If you are searching the internet for pictures of Finn Balor without his shirt on, and taking his time to send it to me, you fall in one of these categories."

In his defense, he did go on to say that he doesn't actually have a problem with gays and worked with a lot of gay wrestlers.

[MoS]

It would be so Russo if he fucked up the climax of Corny getting his comeuppance angle by making it about himself and getting people to focus on his stupidity. 

[Mad Dog]

This is D&D related but my favorite comment someone made about Cornette is that wisdom is his dump stat. 

[Cobra Commander]

For the occasional talk from Cornette on his podcasts about “how can I miss you if you won’t go away”... he’s kinda overexposed himself lately. Moving the JCE from Thursday to Friday to be able to talk AEW/NXT. Probably getting a bit too focused on the modern stuff as opposed to his strengths of historical stuff.

Also, after this week, would it be safe to say that MLW produced Cornette better than Powerrr. And that was sort of a forgettable MLW stint

[Champagne]

If this isn't a work, it should be.

Turn it into a meta-storyline based on cancel culture, trolling and populism with Cornette returning as a man wronged by political correctness who wants to "Make Wrestling Great Again."

[MoS]

Cornette should treat this as a loser leaves town match and plan his triumphant baby-face return for when Vince Russo is dominating the air-waves with his controversial opinions on modern wrestling. 

[Cobra Commander]

"For the next 90 days, The Jim Cornette Experience will be hosted by S. Lee, who is not Jim Cornette at all"

Considering the assortment of Cornette controversies, obviously the best worked way out of this involves Jim Cornette managing Sonny Kiss.

[MoS]

4 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

Considering the assortment of Cornette controversies, obviously the best worked way out of this involves Jim Cornette managing Sonny Kiss.

In a mask, while continuing to rant about AEW on Twitter or podcast and staunchly denying any connection to "that masked goofy outlaw so-called manager moron."

[El-P]

Honestly, lights going off at the end of a Joey Janela match on Dynamite, lights go on and you have Jim Cornette in the ring bashing Janela in the head with his racket like it's ECW 97 would be such an awesome angle. Such a waste...

[Cobra Commander]

Masked Bizarro Jim Cornette sounds like something that would pop up in Chikara.

Another after-effect of the Jim Cornette/Powerrr fallout is that he's gonna stop being diplomatic about Colt Cabana now.

Anyways, there's enough forgiving people that if he just allows for some time for things to cool down, he'll be able to supplement his Collectibles income. Although pretty much his top role right now would involve being paid to stay at home and anonymously provide advice. Like the whole Jerry Jarrett being paid by WCW to talk to Bischoff on the phone thing. There's still technical things that he has done in regards to televised wrestling that has value. It's just that he's a liability to publicly employ. Like Russo was during that period where they secretly kept him around despite the network wanting him out.

[C.S.]

13 minutes ago, El-P said:

Honestly, lights going off at the end of a Joey Janela match on Dynamite, lights go on and you have Jim Cornette in the ring bashing Janela in the head with his racket like it's ECW 97 would be such an awesome angle. Such a waste...

This is something I never knew I wanted.

It would be pure fire.

Corny doesn't like to travel, but that can easily be worked around - PPV-only appearances, pre-taped videos otherwise, etc.

Unfortunately, Corny has worked himself into a shoot, brother, and become unemployable damaged goods. 

[Cobra Commander]

imagine Jim Cornette's quality of life at age 58 if not for the existence of Scaffold matches (which fucked up his knee because they thought Bubba could catch him). Cornette right now is the same age that Bill Watts was in 1997. And Bill Watts didn't have a job in a promotion after he was 56, and Watts was 53 when he was fired by WCW for his unintentionally libertarian comments about Lester Maddox.

I also suspect the last 2 months made it harder for Cornette to get some outside guests to somewhat freshen things up. But then again, moving off of MLW Radio really dried up the quality of guests who would be given to Cornette (because we all noticed how certain wrestling podcasts get some guests on a loop and got some sponsors on a loop).

I say this as somebody who listens to an afternoon radio show that has become really insular because it's 3 very similar guys who really don't have guests or do anything compelling, so they spend like 40 minutes running through a discussion of news stories at 3pm and it's so fucking tedious.

[Champagne]

1 hour ago, C.S. said:

This is something I never knew I wanted.

It would be pure fire.

Corny doesn't like to travel, but that can easily be worked around - PPV-only appearances, pre-taped videos otherwise, etc.

Unfortunately, Corny has worked himself into a shoot, brother, and become unemployable damaged goods. 

Never say never in wrestling.

Just imagine Corny in AEW managing some old school "real" wrestlers against likes of the Riho, Janela, and Stunt. He might even see some appeal in playing an obnoxious Trump-like character who gets his comeuppance.

[The Thread Killer]

Quote

More details have surfaced regarding the situation around Jim Cornette’s resignation from NWA over his comment on this week’s episode of Powerrr. The WON reports that the real issue from NWA’s side over the whole matter was that Cornette refused to apologize for the line, in which he made a comment about Trevor Murdoch being so tough that he’s “the only person who can strap a bucket of fried chicken to his back and ride a motor scooter across Ethiopia.”

According to a person close to the matter, NWA executive Dave Lagana held himself responsible for the line not being edited out of the initial broadcast, which was blamed on exhaustion. That Cornette refused to apologize appears to have been the last straw for a man who has been embroiled in several online controversies as of late.

Among those are his recent comment in which he made comments online toward former PROGRESS announcer Jim Smallman that the NWA referred to as “taken as making light on the subject of suicide,” and saying that Justin Roberts “looks like he ought to be registered somewhere to be around children. He’s so happy. You see a f***ing guy dressed up like that with that big smile coming across his face coming towards your kids, run” which many equated to calling Roberts a pedophile.

The site also notes that there were those in NWA who were not happy that Cornette had become very anti-AEW on his podcast due to the fact that NWA Powerrr and AEW Dark have a strong crossover audience. These comments were viewed as a bad look for the company and he had only been allowed to get away with it until now because of how good he was as an announcer.

As previously noted, Cornette does not seem apologetic and has promised to address the matter on his podcast tomorrow.

- Credit WON & Jeremy Thomas

Well, if Meltzer is to be believed (and in this case he probably should be, because he and Cornette are still friends despite their sniping at each other over AEW) then this answers a few questions.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like they might have given Cornette a pass on this situation if he had been willing to apologize, which he apparently isn't. That doesn't surprise me, but it makes me think maybe he did resign rather than apologize, instead of them just firing him.  I guess we'll get Cornette's side of the story later today, which I'm betting a hell of a lot of people will be listening to.  I know I will, it's like a car crash that I can't look away from.  I'm weak, I know.

Also, this story seems to confirm that it was Lagana's fault the joke stayed on the show.

Also, in context the line: "Justin Roberts looks like he ought to be registered somewhere to be around children. He’s so happy. You see a fucking guy dressed up like that, with that big smile coming across his face, coming towards your kids...run." made me laugh.  That probably makes me a bad person, but I don't care.

[Mad Dog]

ForI could honestly not give a fuck what Jim Cornette has to say. Just fucking apologize for making a bad joke and move on. The guy is only hurting himself. I am tired of his hateful approach to everything. I had already removed his podcasts before this incident from my feeds. Guy needs to just walk away because the character is playing him at this point.