Jim Cornette recently spoke with Donald Wood from Bleacher Report and Ring Rust Radio on his career, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Vince Russo and more. Here are the highlights from the interview and audio below:
Favorite Role in Wrestling: “That’s difficult. My first love obviously was being a manager, and with the Midnight Express it was so easy because all I had to do was say ‘hey, this is the greatest team in wrestling” and they proved it. Then I had a second career when I got into booking and match-making and I actually had a third career as a television announcer that I very much enjoyed as the lead announcer for OVW for so many years. So managing was my first love but at the same time I haven’t missed for the last 15 or 20 years not getting beat up and thrown around. So managing was my first love but I loved everything I was doing when I was doing it.”
Opinion on the state of TNA: “At this point, can you fuck TNA up any more than its already fucked up? TNA, besides an inexperienced owner, had everything that they needed. Jeff Jarrett wanted the company to succeed and he’s grown up in wrestling all his life and the problem I had with Jeff is that he’s the one who hired Vince Russo, which came to bite him in the ass. They have the television, they have the roster, they had the money behind them, yes Dixie doesn’t know shit from apple butter about the wrestling business but she should have stayed out of it and let the people who knew what they were doing run it. The problem was that Jeff hired Russo. Russo gave them the TNA stench from the start that they have retained, they lost their chance to make a first impression which is a shame because no one will ever be that close to challenging Vince McMahon again.”
Using honesty in wrestling today: “The right kind of honesty but just the stupid shit about ‘we’re going to do a worked shoot’ that’s come along recently or shit that nobody gives a shit about or doesn’t understand because it’s ‘too inside’. Jerry Jarrett looked at it very philosophically; he had two top stars named Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee. And while they respected each other they had problems with each other and were completely opposite people and there was a edge that you could feel even when they were partners. Jerry Jarrett always said with anything he did in wrestling he wanted to tell the truth and what people knew was the truth for as long as he possibly could. Then, when you throw in the work, then people say ‘well A was true, B was true, C must be true too’. But when you are just preposterous from the start no one buys into it because its preposterous or when they do these ridiculous ‘inside’ things almost as a rib on the talent, the fan doesn’t know what’s going on. Tell a simple story, tell it logically and make it credible and somewhat believable. Then get two guys who can carry it off on the microphone and in the ring; that’s how you draw money.”
