The Cancellation of Jim Cornette

[NintendoLogic]

The deal with Cornette and Justin Roberts reminds me of a couple of months ago when some people were trying to make a big deal out of Nyla Rose responding to a transphobic troll on Twitter by asking if he was molested as a child. It's all bullshit on both sides. Completely insincere weaponized outrage.

[Mad Dog]

It didn't bother me much other than being another in a long line of shit head comments he has made lately. It was more tiring than anything else. 

[El-P]

Count me in for not giving a fuck what Corny is gonna say in his podcast. Who cares ? He has worked himself into a corner. Tough shit. 

[MoS]

Meltzer also reported that some people have said that there was also heat on Cornette because they felt that his constant criticism of AEW was having a negative effect on their product, given that AEW Dark and NWA Powerr have a lot of overlapping viewers. 

It really seems as if cutting ties was a matter of when, not if.

[Coffey]

50 minutes ago, MoS said:

Meltzer also reported that some people have said that there was also heat on Cornette because they felt that his constant criticism of AEW was having a negative effect on their product, given that AEW Dark and NWA Powerr have a lot of overlapping viewers. 

Man, I would have never even thought of that. That's a good point.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, MoS said:

Meltzer also reported that some people have said that there was also heat on Cornette because they felt that his constant criticism of AEW was having a negative effect on their product, given that AEW Dark and NWA Powerr have a lot of overlapping viewers. 

It really seems as if cutting ties was a matter of when, not if.

But everyone in the NWA had to know exactly what Cornette thought of AEW before hiring him. 

Cornette deserves and gets no sympathy from me, but he's not the only one to blame here.

There is a staggering lack of accountability and responsibility all across the board. 

[Mad Dog]

I disagree with that slightly. I don't think they could have predicted the obsession he has developed with AEW. I think even a year ago that Jim was as still a safe pick to be an announcer. He really didn't go totally off the rails until about six months ago. 

[C.S.]

1 hour ago, Mad Dog said:

I disagree with that slightly. I don't think they could have predicted the obsession he has developed with AEW. I think even a year ago that Jim was as still a safe pick to be an announcer. He really didn't go totally off the rails until about six months ago. 

Was Jim hired a year ago though? He was still in MLW then, and the idea of the NWA running a weekly show was probably only something written in a notebook at that point.  

[Mad Dog]

No but I bet they had him wrapped up around May, right before he started becoming a huge liability.

[C.S.]

Even by May, the momentum for AEW's debut was building up to a fever pitch. 

[JerryvonKramer]

My prediction is that this won't be the last time Corny resigns / gets fired from a pro wrestling promotion.

[C.S.]

Cornette's side of the story:

https://www.mandatory.com/wrestlezone/news/1154413-jim-cornette-addresses-nwa-resignation-controversial-nwa-powerrr-line

He's still wrong, but he's not the only one. Like I said earlier in this thread:

5 hours ago, C.S. said:

Cornette deserves and gets no sympathy from me, but he's not the only one to blame here.

There is a staggering lack of accountability and responsibility all across the board. 

Cornette makes a very good point about Lagana IMO.

[El-P]

Well, Corny's making much more sense than I thought he would, even offering some reasonable kind of apology. And he's not wrong piling on NWA's management either on this case, as they should have edited the stuff before airing it.

Now let's wait until next week when someone tags him with the IMPACT cosplay (I can say it because it's a legit one) show including Sami Callihan dressed as James E. Cornette so he can lose his mind again. Or maybe understand that he should not take things so seriously after all. Dunno... 

[C.S.]

Lagana should just stop talking. The more he opens his mouth, the less credible he sounds.

 

[MoS]

I mean, he also made the standard "people who think this is racist are the one stereotyping so who is the racist here?" bullshit argument, so it's not as if he did not say anything stupid. "People who escalated it to being racist must only have this in mind when they think of black people or chicken."

That said, NWA and Dave Lasagna are absolutely not the victims here. Between this and ROH, it's not been a great week for wrestling management. 

[The Thread Killer]

On 11/22/2019 at 6:51 PM, El-P said:

Well, Corny's making much more sense than I thought he would, even offering some reasonable kind of apology. And he's not wrong piling on NWA's management either on this case, as they should have edited the stuff before airing it.

One of the things that struck me when I listened to the podcast was that Cornette seemed uncharacteristically calm about the whole situation.  He got a little fired up, but I expected him to go into full on insane rant mode.  I thought his apology was actually fairly reasonable.  If he had done that on Wednesday this might have actually blown over, but from his perspective I can see why he didn't.  He was right about one thing, this kind of thing was just going to keep happening until he got fired, so it's just as well that he quit.

There were two things Cornette said that I liked.  Firstly he talked about how this whole controversy was overshadowing the NWA and taking attention away from the promotion and the workers and one of the reasons he quit is because he didn't want to do that to them.  Secondly, he encouraged his fans to continue to support the NWA and he even reiterated that point at the end of the show, so that was good I thought.

One thing that really surprised me was Brian Last during that podcast.  He told Cornette flat out that he thought the joke was inappropriate and he could absolutely see why people would think it was racist.  He did say that he doesn't think Cornette is a racist person, but the joke was bad and he never should have made it.  I respect Brian Last for being so blunt about that.  I can only imagine how Alice Radley would have reacted.  Well, I guess I don't have to imagine that...when something similar to this happened when she was co-host, she quit.

[peachchaos]

Everything Cornette said in his explanation seemed reasonable enough and I'm a little less dejected than I was when the whole thing was going down. If anything, it all just serves to make me loathe where we are as a culture even more. It's been said but this was always an untenable situation for NWA for many reasons. The backlash from some of the AEW audience is, to me, just another sign of the times. I'm a huge fan, going to Dynamite on Wed, and admittedly Cornette is beyond harsh with some of his criticism, but I'm able to see that for exactly what it is: the opinions of a respected wrestling performer and critic. His opinions do not threaten my fandom in any way. It's like when Roger Ebert shat on Wet Hot American Summer in his zero star review. I've probably never laughed more or harder than I did at that film and Ebert didn't get it. Did that change my opinion of the film or the critic. Not in the least. But we're through the looking glass in every aspect of society at the moment and I fear there will never ever be "pro wrestling only" again. 

Anyway, Cornett'es stable in AEW should be Murdoch, Manders, and the Briscoes. 

[War is Raw]

I find it ironic that the 1980s retro show had a casual racism joke in it. You would think the NWA Powerrr studio would be praised for being 100% authentic to the era it is mimicking. /s

For all his supposed high IQ, Cornette is clueless about racism and sexism unless he's just working the heel manager routine. Mark Henry should have been invited on JC's podcast to educate him about why a joke about "fried chicken" and "Ethiopia" was inappropriate while announcing.

Brian Last said white people have no right to complain about it, and Dave Lagana and Cornette believe this was an "AEW SJW" setup. Actually, the person who first tweeted the offense was an African-American NWA fan, and Mark Henry via TMZ said it was offensive as well.

[C.S.]

2 hours ago, War is Raw said:

Dave Lagana and Cornette believe this was an "AEW SJW" setup. Actually, the person who first tweeted the offense was an African-American NWA fan, and Mark Henry via TMZ said it was offensive as well.

Dave Lagana looks worse and fucking worse every time he says something. Just shut the fuck up, Dave!

[The Thread Killer]

2 hours ago, War is Raw said:

For all his supposed high IQ, Cornette is clueless

Uh...what?

I'm as big a Cornette fan as you're likely to find (especially here at PWO) and even I don't think he has a high IQ. He's one of those people who knows a ton about one particular subject, but outside of his comfort zone he really isn't all that much smarter than your average man on the street.  In fact he's probably dumber, if it comes to that.  Jim Cornette is pretty much a savant when it comes to his knowledge of Pro Wrestling history, due to being an accomplished and experienced archivist.  But get him talking about pretty much anything else and it becomes clear he really isn't of above average intelligence.  He is famous for his political rants, but his overall understanding of politics is incredibly two-dimensional and frighteningly simplistic.

[ragemaster]

 

[War is Raw]

3 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

Uh...what?

I'm as big a Cornette fan as you're likely to find (especially here at PWO) and even I don't think he has a high IQ. He's one of those people who knows a ton about one particular subject, but outside of his comfort zone he really isn't all that much smarter than your average man on the street.  In fact he's probably dumber, if it comes to that.  Jim Cornette is pretty much a savant when it comes to his knowledge of Pro Wrestling history, due to being an accomplished and experienced archivist.  But get him talking about pretty much anything else and it becomes clear he really isn't of above average intelligence.  He is famous for his political rants, but his overall understanding of politics is incredibly two-dimensional and frighteningly simplistic.

I was trying to communicate that he thinks he has a high IQ. 

 

[The Thread Killer]

Very interesting episode of Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru this week.  Normally he just takes fan questions (which seem to be getting progressively dumber the more popular Cornette's podcasts become...he used to get really interesting questions about Pro Wrestling history...a couple of weeks ago somebody asked if John Cena should be in the WWE Hall of Fame) but during this week's episode he used the same format he does for the Jim Cornette Experience.  There will not be a new episode of The Experience this week, due to the Thanksgiving Holiday in the States.

Cornette responded to more of the fallout from his quitting the NWA in this episode, specifically in three different areas.  Firstly, he once again reiterated and emphasized to all the people who keep claiming that he is "finished" in Pro Wrestling due to this joke, that he was already finished because he hasn't worked full time in Pro Wrestling since 2012, and he doesn't want to. This really hurts the whole "Cornette will never work again" narrative that some people are pushing but as proof he goes into great detail about how he has been drastically cutting back on his appearances over the past few years.  Even in 2019, he only actually attended a grand total of nine Pro Wrestling shows and he attended even less in 2018 (not counting conventions and fanfests.)

Secondly, Cornette issued a rebuttal to Dave Meltzer.  I guess Cornette's quitting the NWA was major story in the most recent issue of the Observer.  Even though they are friends, Meltzer apparently never called Cornette to get his side of the story or any comment from him. Meltzer also pushed the "Cornette is finished in Pro Wrestling" narrative, and went so far as to suggest that this situation with the NWA pretty much killed any chance Cornette had of working in AEW(?!)  This comment almost gave Cornette a stroke.  He once again told the story about how he was one of the first people Tony Khan met with when he first decided to form AEW, and how that meeting and subsequent conversations went. The end result was that Cornette could have worked with AEW but made the choice not to do so, long ago. Cornette did admit that if The Revival had ever gotten free of WWE and went to AEW, he would have agreed to manage them for a couple of months, but that was the only scenario where he had ever seen himself working with AEW.  Cornette has a further rebuttal to Meltzer's points about Cornette's opinion of modern wrestling.

Finally, I guess there have been people trying to claim that Cornette has a long history of getting fired and burning bridges in Pro Wrestling, so he literally goes through every major job he ever had in the industry and recaps if he was fired, quit and if he said "Fuck you" on the way out.  It's quite interesting, especially his recapping the end of his time with ROH and his time running OVW.

If anybody is interested in hearing any of this, his official YouTube channel has each individual topic broken up into separate videos, so if you want to hear his rebuttal to Meltzer that's one video, or his leaving ROH that's another, etc.  It makes it much easier to listen to, especially if you don't want to listen to the whole show.

[The Thread Killer]

I have a question...

Not to turn this into the PWO version of the infamous DVDVR Sleaze Thread, and not to be too salacious...but what the hell is up with the banana jokes about Jim Cornette?  I remember after his famous anti-Kliq rant on Raw back in 1997, DX responded by eating bananas during an entire segment, which was allegedly some sort of dig at Cornette.  And then this week, Joey Janela (who totally doesn't care what Jim Cornette thinks about him) drops this line in an interview with WrestlingInc:

"Fuck you Jim Cornette… Hopefully one day, Jim, I can join the other wrestlers in the hot tub while you sit down with…I’m not gonna even go there. Banana Boy! Banana Bitch Boy! You’ve got me riled up. The OVW jacuzzi days, I know about that Jim. The OVW jacuzzi days with the banana boy.”

What the hell is that all about?  At this point, Janela may as well paint a giant red button on his forehead with a sign saying: "Jim Cornette, press HERE to get a reaction." 

As much as I dislike Kenny Omega, I have always admired how he generally takes the high road when it comes to Jim Cornette, unlike guys like The Young Bucks, Joey Ryan and Janela.  It's pretty much a fact that the best way you can get under Cornette's skin is to make it clear you don't care what he thinks about you, shrug it off and ignore him and his fans.  Too bad Janela can't seem to figure that out.  Cornette insults him and baits him, Janela responds and the cycle goes on and on...

But what the hell is up with the banana stuff?  Do I even want to know?  I remember reading at The Smarkboard that it has something to do with the details of his divorce from his first wife, but now Janela is going on about OVW so I don't know about that.

[The Thread Killer]

Ugh.  I just googled "Jim Cornette Banana" and now I really wish I hadn't.  I want to take a steel wool pad to my brain to get that story out of there.

Although having read that...it still doesn't explain what the hell Janela was talking about.