Kayfabe Commentaries Presents: Breaking Kayfabe with Jim Cornette
By Scott Keith on January 16, 2014
It was released on January 7th, 2014
Sean Oliver starts off by saying how Cornette’s wrestling character is almost identical to how he is in real life. He then jumps right into the beef these two had, dating back two years ago when Sean shot the live “YouShoot” with Vince Russo. Cornette was asked by Sean to contribute and Cornette was on the road with Ring of Honor at the time so he left Sean a message stating that he would talk to him later but that he wouldn’t help Russo earn a dime for the wrestling business. Cornette said that he never agreed to do anything for the shoot when he left the message. While on his laptop that he had to have in RoH and saw the trailer for the YouShoot, which Cornette saw hints that he had special guests. Sean said during the shoot, he never went over answers with him before hand because he wanted it to appear unscripted when they went live. Sean said that he asked Russo if he expected anyone to ask him something and Cornette, using a Russo impression, describes how Russo said there was a guy from the South with a tennis racket and when Cornette saw that, he was livid that Russo was promising people that Cornette was appearing on his shoot and he was then pissed at Sean after asking him to be on the shoot after all of this aired. Cornette said he was also irritable from being on the road too and called up “Kayfabe Commentaries” and was irate. He then was offended by Sean leading people to believe he was on the shoot, claiming he was practicing the business principles of Russo. Cornette says that he loves him and that they have made up a while ago, admitting that he went overboard during that whole situation.
He now talks about the November TV taping in Bell Vernon, PA. Cornette told Sinclair that he wanted to do something big for WrestleMania weekend in 2013 by bringing in the Japanese talent, which would get over huge with the fanbase. He said the cost is the main issue, namely getting the working papers together, which is apparently more than the plane ticket and their payoff combined. Greg the Office Boy said they could sell out on their own and didn’t need outside talent. Cornette then said he leaned over the table and told Greg that he knew what he was fucking talking about, as Greg never heard of Japanese wrestling. At the end, they ended up not getting them.
DISC TWO
We start the disc off with Cornette talking about how at the meeting before the November TV, the had a plan for Nigel to replace Cornette as the match-maker and for Adam Pearce to be the new color commentator. Cornette then says that he is going to back-track here but it will be worth the time. He said his original vision of RoH was to have the announcing duo of Kevin Kelly and Adam Pearce to be the wresting version of UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan. The problem with Pearce was that he left on bad terms as a booker with some of the office guys after sending Cary Silkin an e-mail that bashed two office workers, which caused him to lose his job as booker. Cornette told Silkin that Pearce would apologize and shake hands and do whatever it takes. One guy was fine but the other guy, Ross from merchandise, said that Pearce was a cancer and would not agree to the apology. Apparently, Cornette said that he wanted to do the right thing by having everyone get on the same page but word got back to the office and they did not want to give the job to Pearce, because Ross was going to file a complaint with Sinclair’s Human Resources about not feeling safe at work and that led to the decision. They called Nigel, who was still under contract with TNA, and tried to see if he could get out of the contract. He did but Joe did not like Nigel, stating he was not enthusiastic enough, despite the fact that the fans loved the duo. Cornette tried to go back and get Pearce, gives him a job and Ross gets wind that he is the surprise for the first TV taping of 2013 and complains to Human Resources about feeling unsafe. Cornette believes that Ross was doing this in part to get some money as he wanted out, because sales were down as Greg raised the prices and lowered the quality, which led to Sean mentioning that they were giving RoH a good deal on merchandising at the time but they ended up pulling the rug out from them anyway. Cornette then rants again on Ross, calling him a pussy among other things and laughs at the notion that the guy who sells T-shirts has the power to dictate who does color commentary for a company that broadcasts on 60-70 TV affiliates. He even said that there is still a hole in his garage after he punched the wall due to hearing what happened.
He finally goes back to the Bell Vernon taping. He said that Greg wanted to do the taping there after being in Pittsburgh, which was nearby, after drawing 500 people. Cornette said that it was because Bruno Sammartino was signing autographs. They booked an ice rink for the tapings in a shitty building with the equipment in Baltimore. Cornette said this was done to save about $20,000, which is peanuts for Sinclair. Cornette said that this started his therapy as he was “wrestling crazy.” His wedding anniversary is on Halloween, which is his wife Stacy’s favorite holiday. He told his friend Gary Jester that he was not going to argue with Greg on a conference call as he was going to spend time with his wife before going off on the road for a week, telling him how Greg was alienating everyone as no one could tolerate him at all. He then checked an email, because he was not on the conference call, that read they would have a PPV on Saturday night then tape TV Sunday afternoon in the same building in order to save money, not even bringing up the fact that they would need to do promos on Friday. Cornette called Jester and told him it was a shitty idea, citing the fact that after beating the shit out of each other on a PPV they have to get their the next morning and the production crew would stay in the building for 36 hours, nevermind killing the house of at least one, if not both shows. After asking Gary why they let Greg get away with this, he said it was because he was not on the call and Cornette yelled at Gary and asked why grown men couldnt have stood up to Greg. He says that this news ruined his anniversary as he was livid and got the call that Brad Armstrong passed away in his sleep then Lawler had his heart attack, which had in him a bad mood. They get into the ice rink which had concrete bleachers and a bar with flourescent lights. Cornette was then told that there was no drape to cover the pipes so the buidling was not going to sell out and the drape was to not make it look empty because Greg said it was not in the budget. He was about to snap as Joe from Sinclair was following him around and asked if he was okay. He told Joe that Greg was an asshole and the problem but he would talk to him later as he had a show to put together. They had about 325 people in a building that sat 1,000 and the building was so cold that you could see steam from the tops of people’s heads who were not wearing ski caps. The director was bullshit because it came off as low rent and you saw empty seats no matter where the camera was showing, prompting Cornette to say that he had Smoky Mountain shows that looked better. He learned later that they could not turn the heat on because the ice set up was not like that of a professional rink and it would melt, as the ring was on top of the ice. Cornette then had to give money to the ring crew and some of the wrestlers as they had no gas to get home and he was dealing with Steve Corino who was potentially paralyzed after taking a suplex on the guardrail as everyone else left and after this all happened, he said he broke down in tears and called his wife, telling her he needs to leave as this company was a failure and would never become successful as fans blamed him for the booking and Greg was making it impossible to run a wrestling company and felt like the whole experience was like a giant rib on him. Joe gave him a call and said he couldnt threaten office employees and Cornette told him it wouldnt be a problem and he was going to quit and he could even fire him if he wanted but he was going to go home to Louisville.
Cornette then talks about his “rehab” which consisted of him staying at home. Sean then talks about how he is gad that Jim is calm now because they will be talking about Jim Herd for three hours (Cornette filmed a timeline for 1989 WCW which will be released in early 2015).
Sean then asks Cornette how his marriage was able to work. He said his wife hates wrestling more than he does now and she got into it as a teen because her friends were fans (his wife was Synn in OVW).
He is then asked about being in the WWE Hall of Fame. He said that he would like to go as part of the Midnight Express, stating he would absolutely do it as he felt that it was his best work. He might consider it if he was getting inducted by himself, stating it would depend on who approached him and how it would be done.
Cornette talks about what he now watches on TV. He loves anything that Gordon Ramsey does and calls Family Guy the funniest show on the air. He calls Bill Maher the American he admires the most. He also loves Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire but states that True Blood jumped the shark a long time ago. He also talks about wanting to do a podcast on pop culture, stating he has an entire wall devoted to it at his house. He also loves politics, stating he got involved heavily in 2007-2008 and saw how George Bush fucked everything up and said that working for TNA gave him the free time to study what else is going on in the world and puts over Barack Obama for being level-headed and cannot stand the right-wing lunatics from the right.
He says that organized religion has caused more suffering to the world than any other ruler or natural occurence of any kind and goes off on Bush for starting the war in the Middle East for his religious beliefs. He thinks anyone who believes they will be going somewhere better after they die is scary, because they want to hurry things up so they get there. He says he is prolonging his time here because all he has waiting for him is a box in the ground filled with worms.
The interview closes with the “Final Five.”
Dead or Alive, Person You Would Want to go to Dinner With: Alfred Hitchcock
Most Illegal Thing Attempted: Trying to run over Terry Landell in Knoxville, after he pissed him off
Most Irrational Fear: Flying
One Thing You Would Tell “Young Jim Cornette”: Warn him of all the “stupid shit” that he did
If Went to Heaven, What Would Think Your Maker Would Say: Doesn’t know, wouldnt lose sleep over it though.
Final Thoughts: First off, I do not get why this was a “Breaking Kayfabe” shoot. The stuff about Cornette’s personal life, which is the basis of the series, was just tacked on for the last several minutes of the shoot. This was entertaining but a little too long and they were better off releasing this as a Cornette shoot about Ring of Honor because no one needs to hear more of his rants on Russo.
Speaking of Cornette in RoH, this truly was a failure from day one. Cornette has been in the wrestling bubble for far too long and does not have the slightest clue about how corporate America works. Add that to the fact that Sinclair hired someone who was trying to save a buck in charge that had no concept of how wrestling worked and you have the perfect recipe for failure. Greg the Office Boy also sounds like a huge asshole.
Also, Cornette’s goals seemed flawed to me. Doing local promotion like he did in West Virginia is fine but besides only a few other markets, that isnt going to bring in new fans. This isnt the 1980’s anymore. Wing eating contests at the local chain restaurant will probably only work in West Virginia. Also, it seems like he wanted to book a promotion for people who still believed that wrestling is real. It has changed and Cornette, who at the end of his run in RoH seemed to realized, has been passed by the business. Sports Entertainment is what people recognize now and the fans that left have moved on and will most likely never come back. I actually feel a bit sorry for him in that he nearly drove himself insane in the process.
I recommend this shoot but I do not give it a 10/10 rating like everyone else seems to be giving this. More like 8.5/10. It ran 45 minutes too long and like I said, was better off being a shoot about RoH. I give credit to Sean for challenging Cornette, especially about his hatred for Russo which comes off more childish everytime I hear about it and about his anger management issues in general.
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