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Recap of Jim Cornette Interview

Posted: Aug 10th 2006 By: mikeiles

On Wednesday night, August 9, Jim Cornette joined hosts Brian Fritz, Dickerman, and Vito DeNucci live on Between The Ropes on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team to talk about everything in wrestling as well as his work in TNA and Ring of Honor and his appearance at this weekend's Capitol Wrestling Legends FanFest in Rockville, Maryland.

Don't forget that you can now pick up your copy of the critically acclaimed Between The Ropes: Wrestling's Greatest Triumphs and Failures book at retailers, both online and in your neighborhood. Order through the www.BetweenTheRopes.com website and receive a free 'Best of BTR' CD of classic interviews with every book purchase.

Jim started off talking about the FanFest this weekend in Maryland. He's looking forward to seeing Superstar Billy Graham and Ernie Ladd since he has items he wants both of them to sign for his personal collection. All three members of The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton, Dennis Condrey, & Stan Lane) will be in attendance as well. Jim will be doing a Q&A with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan on Friday night. On Saturday, he'll be taking pictures with the fans with the other members of the The Midnight Express. He joked that he's not expecting to see the Insane Clown Posse at the Q&A and surmised that ICP stirred up trouble with him at a previous Q&A "because they got the recent sales reports on their record. You know those records weren't released, they escaped. They released it and it went plywood. It was on the verge of becoming sheetrock, but sales fell off."

The talk shifted to Jim's run as director of authority in TNA. He said it's been really positive so far. He knew a lot of people involved with the company going back to when he broke into the business over twenty years ago. He knew a lot of wrestlers from Ring of Honor. He plugged the Sting vs. Jeff Jarrett match this Sunday at the Hard Justice pay-per-view as one of the biggest main events in company history.

Asked if he's had any involvement behind in the scenes with TNA creatively, "Everybody keeps asking me that. I've tried to back away. You know fifteen years straight of booking is enough in wrestling. But at the same time, everybody knows that I'm not a person to just go ahead and stick my nose in and offer my opinion if I see something, you know what I'm saying....I want the relationship with TNA to be positive on all facets so any way I can help the company, I'm going to be more than happy to do so."

The guys discussed the perceived leveling off of TNA's momentum recently and what it would take to get the company to the next level. Cornette talked about Raw doing a 3.0 or so rating in the mid-90's and then after Austin 3:16 caught on, the ratings hit as high as 8.0's later in the decade. WWE had been on television for fifteen years by that point. So the reason for the jump was that something came along that caught people's attention. Now, the ratings are back in the 3.0's and 4.0's after the people became disinterested in the WWE product. They haven't been searching their television listings to find an alternative wrestling product, but instead have moved on something else. For TNA, according to Cornette, it's going to take time for growth to occur while people slowly learn that there's another wrestling organization on another cable network.

Cornette was asked what happened to the wrestling fans from the Monday Night Wars era and what it would take to bring them back. Jim said a lot of them were old time wrestling fans who don't see old time wrestling on TV anymore. A lot of them were new fans because of Steve Austin and The Rock and when the product no longer became interesting because of creative, they stopped watching wrestling altogether since there was no other option with WCW and ECW gone. TNA came along on Spike TV less than a year ago, but a lot of those late 90's wrestling fans no longer watch. To get those people back for TNA, the new breakthrough star is going to have to come along and catch people's attention as Steve Austin did.

Jim felt it wouldn't be a good idea for TNA to run head-to-head with WWE on Monday nights. He didn't think it would be wise to split the audience because people aren't running to watch WWE to begin with. He thinks TNA's current identity on Thursday nights with a UFC tie-in is the way to go.

The discussion turned to whether TNA has a guy who could possibly be the breakthrough star. Jim says A. J. Styles has the physical talent to do what a Chris Benoit has done and, for all the talk about size, is bigger than Rey Mysterio. Jim said the fans will be dictating who will be the breakthrough star and the fans seem to be behind Samoa Joe as the potential guy.

The guys discussed Cornette's work with Ring of Honor. Jim said guys working ROH or other independent shows doesn't effect their marketability one way or another on a national level with TNA. Cornette said he's in favor of wrestlers working as much as possible. Twenty years ago, guys would work five nights a week and become polished wrestlers within a few years. Now, working once or twice a week is considered full-time and by the time the guys are ready in the ring, their bodies are broken down.

Jim talked about the state of tag-team wrestling. He feels tag-team wrestling will never again be what it was fifteen or twenty years ago. WWE never focused on tag-teams to begin with dating back to the late 50's northeast territory. TNA does have more of a bit more interest in pushing tag-teams. But tag-teams can never be as good as they once were because teams used to be able to go from territory to territory to hone their skills and that option is no longer available.

The interview wrapped up joking about the upcoming return of The Boogeyman. Jim's reaction, "We'll all clap for The Boogeyman."

Jim Cornette will be appearing at the Capitol Wrestling Legends FanFest from August 11-13 in Rockville, Maryland. Other stars appearing at the convention include Bret Hart, Superstar Billy Graham, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Jim Neidhart, Stan Hansen, Abdullah the Butcher, and dozens more. For more information, visit www.capitollegends.com.

To listen to the Jim Cornette interview and the entire August 9 edition of Between The Ropes in streaming audio or to download the full show in MP3 format to listen to on your iPod or MP3 player, visit the show online at http://www.BetweenTheRopes.com. Don't forget that Between The Ropes: Wrestling's Greatest Triumphs and Failures is now available in book stores, online retailers, and also at www.BetweenTheRopes.com exclusively with a free 'Best of BTR' CD. Join us for Between The Ropes for two hours every Wednesday night at 10:00pm ET on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team and worldwide on www.BetweenTheRopes.com.