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Jim Cornette Commentary On The Current Wrestling Scene, McMahon, Kozlov, Managers And More

Posted: May 4th 2009 By: CMBurnham

Jim Cornette appeared on The LAW Sunday night to promote his new book "The Midnight Express 25th Anniversary Scrapbook" available at www.jimcornette.com.

The topic for the night was favorite managers and Cornette stated that the ones who influenced him were the likes of Sam Bass, "Sir" Steve Clemons (Tennessee based) and "Crybaby" George Cannon but the biggest influence was Bobby Heenan. Cornette said he is in his hotel in Orlando and watching some old Chicago wrestling featuring Heenan bumping and looked fantastic and was the greatest manager of all time. He said of his contemporaries he ranked Jimmy Hart very highly for his work in Memphis and made a big impact and unfortunately today you don't have them.

Host Dan Lovranski discusses the need for managers for certain talent that cannot talk and cites Vladimir Kozlov as a character that seems to scream for a manager. Cornette replies that the fans are screaming for their money back and doesn't know if a manger, a lion tamer or what could help someone like Kozlov. Discussion continues with Kozlov and the character he portrays -- Cornette says it isn't necessarily a bad gimmick that hurts a performer but a bad wrestler playing the gimmick and then clarifies that WWE does find some terrible gimmicks for performers. Cornette says The Undertaker is a fantastic gimmick but there needed to be a performer like Mark Calloway to pull it off and make it work. Cornette goes back to the commentary he wrote on his website and stating that it isn't about writers finding characters for people to play but for bookers to be good judges of talent, who have a great character within them. He says today developmental is structured to find talent to fill roles and a bad gimmick can curtail the career of the talent.

Discussion moves to Vince McMahon running away from formulas that have worked in the past. Cornette compares the state of the WWE to a problem that dates back to Nick Gulas with the kids running away with the company. Cornette says Vince has gotten so far away from their core business and is ashamed to be "professional wrestling". Cornette says that TNA is the only group now that calls itself "professional wrestling" and mentions how no body ever asks "if you saw the sports entertainment matches from last night?"

Cornette described "The Midnight Express 25th Anniversary Scrapbook" as an idea that started a year and a half ago. He kept gate receipts, schedules and notes and attributed that to a bit of OCD on his part. He wanted to put together a booklet for their 25th anniversary and it grew from there into a full book project. He mentions the value of some of the content as a learning tool such as a memo from Bill Watts about cutting promos sent to the talent. He says that the internet has opened up the business where fans know everything but back at this time in history people didn't have that information and that you can't expose the business anymore but you can explain it and teach how the business works. He said he told the Midnight Express story in this book and how it begins right before Hulk Hogan won his first WWF title and the war between WWF and NWA began, and continues on with TBS buying out Jim Crockett Promotions and the evolution of "Starrcade". Cornette says that people say Vince McMahon killed the business but he feels Jim Herd deserves that honor.

Ryan from Gainesville, Georgia has a question on the phone and asks about Cornette ever wanting to work as a babyface manager. Cornette says he did play babyface when Paul E. Dangerously brought in the original Midnight Express in WCW and Cornette wanted to play face despite management not feeling he would want to do it. He says you can be a babyface manager if you can cut a good promo people want to hear and have a person in the opposite corner that people dislike.

Cornette said what connected the Midnight Express with the audience was that Cornette cut promos stating they were the best team in the world and they backed that up in the ring. He said there were a lot of great tag teams but for a heel team with innovative maneuvers that the ME were looked at as the best tag team and made people want to come back and see them.

Ken in Scarborough asks Cornette if he sees anyone in the industry that has the makings to be a great manager if managers were to make a comeback and Cornette says you can't tell because there aren't any managing right now. They discuss Larry Sweeney and Cornette says he was very good at capturing that flavor and also mentions Jim Mitchell, who Cornette thought he could add some range but was very good. Cornette adds there is no opening for managers because Vince McMahon has told the audience that managers are supposed to be girls with fake tits that look great in bikinis such as Sable. Cornette calls Sable "the female Ultimate Warrior" and that Vince is a master of hypnosis because Warrior and Sable were able to make a large amount of money in this industry and were the two most untalented people to make money.

Cornette says the most successful program the Midnight Express had was with the Rock-N-Roll Express. He said they sold out in Mid South as well as the Carolina's and mentioned that the ME and Rock-N-Roll Express drew approximately 43,000 paid for about $400,000 over four shows over a ten week period in the Charlotte Coliseum in 1986. Cornette also would have liked to have continued the program with the ME and Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson that began just prior to Arn & Tully going to the WWF and that they could have possibly broken some of the records set with the Rock-N-Roll Express.

Matt in New Jersey is the final call and says he was at the "Hard Justice" event last month and loved the show. Cornette discusses the TNA product and says that yes the Main Event Mafia are on top but TNA is aggressively pushing A. J. Styles, Samoa Joe, Beer Money Inc. etc. He says if there was one guy he could manage today it would be Matt Morgan. He says people want to see new faces and trained properly and says Morgan is seven feet tall, athletic, can cut a promo, can pass any test in the world and compares him to Don Leo Jonathan. Cornette is shocked that WWE let him go and tried to kill his career.

Tags: Jim Cornette, Midnight Express, WWE, TNA, Bill Watts, WWF, NWA, Ultimate Warrior, Rock-N-Roll Express, A. J. Styles