Jim Cornette on WrestleMania Memories, OVW and WWE Developmental

Fred: He’s a true professional wrestling legend. He’s been a booker, a manager, he’s wrestled a little bit too, and he knows how to use a tennis racket pretty damn well. He’s the man they call James E. Cornette. Mr. Cornette, how are you today?

Jim Cornette: Fred, I’m excellent. How are you?

Fred: I’m doing quite well. A lot of listeners may not know this, but I was lucky enough to be cast as Vince Russo for your roast DVD a few years back, where I had a bucket-list moment: You took me out with a tennis racket shot. Do you have any memories of that moment?

Jim Cornette: I’ve slept since then, but I do remember it. I blame Zeb Colter for the whole incident, that dirty Dutch Mantell. He was the instigator in arranging for you to be the sacrificial Russo for the conclusion of the roast. I hope you recovered sufficiently. I understand you spent about six months in a wheelchair.

Fred: I did. It was rough, but it was well worth it. I asked Dutch what to say, and he said, “Just do your Russo impression.” So I came out on stage and said, “I invented Steve Austin, The Rock, Billy Kidman.”

Jim Cornette: And then I hit you so hard. Andy Kaufman didn’t wear the neck brace that long after Lawler piledrove him. You were incapacitated and hooked up to tubes.

Fred: I was dragged out like a sack of potatoes. It was a tough crowd, bro. On a more positive note, you’ve been doing a whole lot these last few months: a UK tour, podcasting, hosting shows. Can you tell fans what you’ve been up to?

Jim Cornette: My schedule the past couple of months has been ambitious, to say the least. We did the Cornette UK tour in February. We were over there almost three weeks total, with some sightseeing, and we did the Jim Cornette Experience live in London at the Leicester Square Theatre, in Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Wales, and Glasgow, Scotland. A bunch of great guys put the tour together. I hosted an episode and appeared on another episode of “WrestleTalk TV” on Challenge while I was over there, and they just aired to critical acclaim. When we got back, we went straight to the Lexington Comic and Toy Convention at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, for a book signing and merchandise. The following week, I was an emergency replacement at Cape Comic Con in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, for Jerry Lawler, who couldn’t make it, and I did the podcast live there that night.

I’m fixing to go to New Orleans for a week, including the Mid-South Wrestling Legends Fanfest on April 4, with the Midnight Express, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, Bill Watts, Bill Dundee and the Fantastics. The following weekend, I’m the special guest general manager at DreamWave Wrestling on Saturday, April 12. On April 13, I’ll be at the Squared Circle restaurant in Chicago, owned by Victoria, Lisa Marie of WWE, where I’ll appear with Svengoolie to eat the scariest burger in Chicagoland, with cameras there for his nationally syndicated horror movie show. Then I’ll be at Star City Wrestlefest on April 26 in Salem, Virginia. In May, June and July, I’ll probably take time off and not leave the house, because I’m supposed to be writing some books. That’s in addition to my podcast, the Jim Cornette Experience, every week on MLW.com, or you can go to JimCornette.com for the podcast and a complete lineup of appearances. One-stop shopping. I’m too old for this. I’m going to retire again soon.

Fred: You parted ways with Ring of Honor last year. Is this the longest you’ve gone without being involved with a promotion?

Jim Cornette: It’s been the longest I’ve not been involved in wrestling, and it’s been wonderful, with the exception of the wrestling legends fanfests and get-togethers of that type that I truly enjoy. I have not done a wrestling event for a year and a half now. I’m doing the DreamWave job because it’s their fifth anniversary, and they’ve been very nice to me, but I look at that as primarily a book signing and meet-and-greet. Then I’ll make some rulings, and whether or not they’re followed isn’t up to me to physically uphold.

Fred: WrestleMania is right around the corner. I know you don’t watch much of the product these days, and admittedly, for somebody like you who knows what you’re doing, it can be hard.

Jim Cornette: I’m overqualified.

Fred: If you try to watch wrestling with too much logic, it does hurt your brain. You were not only involved in WrestleMania as a talent but also on the creative side with the WWF for a number of years. Any fond WrestleMania memories?

Jim Cornette: I’ve told this story before, but it’s amazing that the first time I ever walked into Madison Square Garden in my life, I walked in to manage the WWF Champion in the main event of WrestleMania X. A series of events led me there, which you can read about on JimCornette.com. I actually managed the champion twice that night. There was the match with Lex Luger, with Curt Hennig as special referee, where Yokozuna retained after Luger gave me a very questionable-looking punch that I was ready to fly for. Then Yoko lost the title to Bret Hart later that night, and Roddy Piper knocked me out. So I got knocked out by Roddy Piper at Madison Square Garden in the main event of WrestleMania X, my first time in the building. That’s cool.

My greatest memory of WrestleMania, just because it’s so outlandish, is that I actually wrestled at WrestleMania. Jerry Lawler hadn’t wrestled at WrestleMania until his match with Michael Cole a few years ago, and that was such a terrible match that we’ll pretend it didn’t exist. It took him until he was in his 60s. But I wrestled at WrestleMania X-Seven in Houston, in the gimmick battle royal. That was the biggest-grossing pro wrestling event up to that point, with Steve Austin and The Rock in the main event, and here’s how hard it was to get booked on the undercard: I was on the phone with Bruce Prichard, because Danny Davis and I were scheduled to come down from Louisville for meetings with talent relations about the developmental program. Bruce said, “I’m in this gimmick battle royal. They’re bringing all the old-timers back in the personas they had in the WWF, and I’m in it as Brother Love.” I jokingly said, “Well, you ought to put me in it, and I’ll get in the corner and beat you up so we’ll stay safe.” He said, “You want to be in it?” I said, “Is it an extra payoff?” He said yes, and I said OK. People dream their entire lives of getting to WrestleMania and never do, and I got there by being a smart-ass. Those are probably my two favorite memories.

Fred: You were also part of OVW for a number of years when it was WWE’s developmental territory. It’s nice to see WWE put millions of dollars into the Performance Center and NXT and realize it should invest in the future, but does it piss you off that they didn’t do this 10 or 15 years ago, when they had more veterans and talent to work with and were putting about $75,000 a year into developmental?

Jim Cornette: Obviously, but that was the bone of contention that led to me leaving that situation to begin with. The WWF, or WWE, did not own Ohio Valley Wrestling. It was our promotion, our training facility and our television production, and we contracted with Jim Ross to provide a developmental program for the WWF, giving guys experience on television, working live events and training in school. We would have liked them to spend more money for that privilege, but we never wanted them to buy our company, because we wanted to do our own thing. Ultimately, they wanted to exert all the influence over us and not let us do our own thing, but they wouldn’t pay us enough to just give up everything else we wanted to do.

Now they have a great, state-of-the-art facility, but nothing can replace doing television. I know they’ve got NXT, but it’s on the internet. Doing television for local people on broadcast TV, running live events around the area with guys they see on their local television, building a pecking order, teaching guys how to be stars, how to be opening-match guys and middle-card guys, and moving them up through the system is what I think OVW did well, and that’s what they should concentrate on with their training center, in my opinion.

Fred: Do you feel like TNA missed an opportunity when it was working with OVW? That relationship started, they did the Gut Check thing, and then after all the budget cuts, they cut ties with OVW.

Jim Cornette: I understand the Gut Check principle, even though I wasn’t watching with bated breath. For one thing, a lot of the talent TNA had on Impact every week still needs good training. Secondly, they didn’t have the money, the resources or the commitment to have a great developmental program. They had some talent training in Louisville on their off days, but it was limited involvement, as I understand it, not a full-fledged commitment to a developmental system, because they were still trying to finance keeping their main program afloat.

Fred: When I told fans Jim Cornette was going to be on The Sports Courier, we got an overwhelming number of questions. This first one is actually a comment from Antonio “The Promise” Thomas of the Heartbreakers: “Tell Jimmy I said I love him.”

Jim Cornette: I love him too, in a purely platonic and manly way. The Heartbreakers were one of my favorite teams in Ohio Valley Wrestling, Antonio and his partner, Romeo Roselli, who has since moved on from wrestling to acting and modeling, and thank goodness for him, because it’s probably easier to get a job and they pay better. They were only the Heart Throbs once WWE got hold of them.

Fred: Who came up with the idea of your infamous tennis racket?

Jim Cornette: I did. I was going to Louisiana to start managing the Midnight Express, and I saw one of those popular ’80s teen movies where the rich kid carried a badminton racket around in every scene. Managers had carried umbrellas, canes, suitcases and briefcases, but nobody had ever carried a tennis racket, and it would give me a couple of feet of reach on the fans, who were very violent in the Louisiana territory. It worked for both purposes.

Fred: J. George asks: “I heard on Jim Ross’ podcast that NXT trainers should have a goal of creating three or four main eventers per year. Do you agree?”

Jim Cornette: If they could do that, that’d be great, but I don’t know that you really can, because of the work you have to put into training a main event talent, the spots available for main event talents and the number of guys who actually get over as true main eventers. That number ain’t that big. If they did three or four a year, as Nick Gulas used to say, they’d be farting through silk.

Fred: Paul asks: “Is Jim actually any good at tennis?”

Jim Cornette: No. I’ve never played a competitive game, only practiced my craft of swinging at people.

Fred: You’ve worked with some of the best wrestlers in the world. Who was the easiest to work with, and who was the most difficult?

Jim Cornette: There were a lot of difficult people, as in Shawn Michaels-level difficult in his day. There were also easy guys. You can talk about Eddie Edwards in Ring of Honor, a guy who, when you explain what you’d like, says yes, goes out and does it to the best of his ability, adds a bunch of his own stuff and is never a complainer. Wonderful to work with. In his day, Bobby Eaton was one of the easiest: “Bobby, go be great.” Boom, done, and he had time for a sandwich. But there are a bunch of those guys, and if I start naming people, I’ll leave some out, and I haven’t had time to research it.

Fred: Former ROH Champion Kevin Steen apparently got himself in good shape and had a WWE tryout. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall. What are his WWE chances? Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards apparently had a great camp, too, and got a tryout match, but they weren’t signed.

Jim Cornette: First, the Wolves. Like I said, I’m a big Eddie Edwards fan. I don’t know if Davey said anything that worked against him while he was there. As for Kevin, the idea of losing weight and getting in shape, I wish I’d thought of that four years ago. Oh, wait, I did. I haven’t seen him, so I have no knowledge of how he did, but I hope he does well.

Fred: Justin asks: “Were you surprised WWE never called Chris Hero up to the main roster or even brought him in for dark matches or house shows to help young guys work?”

Jim Cornette: Am I surprised? No. Do I think it’s ridiculous? Yes. Those are two different questions. I was a big fan of Chris when he was in the Kings of Wrestling. I thought he and Claudio were the modern-day Midnight Express, the best heel tag team in wrestling in any company, with what they could do and the way they presented themselves. When they signed developmental deals, I was happy for them that they might make some money, but sad as a wrestling fan that I wouldn’t get to see any more Kings of Wrestling matches. I always thought Claudio had the inside track, because he has the look they like, and that it would be an uphill climb for Chris, because while he has so much experience and helped train Claudio and a bunch of other guys, he doesn’t look like what they traditionally look for. I don’t know why you wouldn’t take a guy with that much experience, who’s still with it on the modern scene and can relate to the young guys, and make him a head trainer for the guys coming in from the independents. It’s not my week to watch him.

Fred: Anthony asks: “You know John Cena quite well. Is he at the stage where he should be helping WWE make new guys for the future?”

Jim Cornette: You can always be in a position where, at the right time, you help make a new guy, but that depends on whether they ask you to. I don’t think John would ever have a problem doing that, especially with somebody he believed in, but I don’t know that they’re ready to ask him yet. Part of it is whether the guy is ready to jump that bridge from main event guy to top-level star and beat one of the faces of the company. I’m always in favor of making new guys, because people always want new talent, but if it’s not the right situation, you try to make a new guy, end up hurting the guy you had and still don’t make the new guy. You don’t just say, “I bet Joe’s going to be good. Let’s put him over Cena.” You’ve got to get a guy over first. You can get over by beating the rank-and-file members of the roster and doing some entertaining stuff, but you don’t get over and stay over as an icon, a legend and a money guy unless the right opportunity presents itself, like Mick Foley bringing Triple H along around 2000.

Fred: Another guy who knows how to get talent over is our mutual friend Dutch Mantell, the first cousin of Zeb Colter. Dutch was in TNA for a long time along with you, and I find it hard to believe nobody there thought to have him manage one of their wrestlers. He leaves TNA after almost a decade, does indies and conventions, pops up in WWE and is one of the hottest heels in the business.

Jim Cornette: He could have popped the popcorn, too. During his tenure with TNA, Dutch was on the creative team and was one of the producers of the television program. He helped lay out a lot of the matches and supervised the commentators. I’d be sitting in front of him, and he’d be feeding the commentators information while I was telling the director what was happening in the match. He was very instrumental. We were among the first ones there and the last ones to leave at TV tapings, and then Dutch went back to Nashville and spent time in the office and in postproduction. I don’t think anybody ever came up with the idea of having him be a manager, because he was already such an important part of the process.

Fred: Paul Heyman and Dutch are under contract in WWE, and neither is involved in the creative process, except maybe for their own programs. Would it be in WWE’s best interest to get them involved in creative?

Jim Cornette: They’ve ridden that horse with Heyman, I think, and it’s one of those relationships that drives both sides mentally insane. With Dutch, definitely yes. He’s got a lot to offer and could give some experience to whoever is on their writing team these days, pretty much none of whom are actually wrestling people. They’re all writers, and Dutch knows how to book wrestling, but that may not be what they’re looking for. In the last couple of years we were dealing with them, the WWE writers would come down to visit OVW maybe once a year, and I’d tell Danny Davis, “I either need three minutes to say hello or three years to have them follow me around, because anything in between ain’t going to do either of us any good.”

Fred: For those who don’t know, when you were in OVW, they’d change storylines on you. I remember Damaja, who later became Danny Basham, was in a blood feud with Doug Basham.

Jim Cornette: I know where you’re going with this. I’ll lead the charge. I’d been pushing Damaja and Doug Basham as one of the top athletic young heel teams in the business that had not been on national television. They were excellent in the ring and having wonderful matches, but they weren’t guys WWE found originally. OVW found them, and WWE put them under contract but never used them. After a year and a half as a team, I pulled the trigger on breaking them up for all my summer shows at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, with main events against each other and tag matches where each would have a WWE star as a partner. Then, the week after I did the angle in OVW, without even telling me, they shaved Doug’s head and made them a brother tag team. I saw it on television. All summer long, I had to use the cover story that Doug Basham had secretly gotten to John Laurinaitis in talent relations and bribed him to force Damaja to either team with his brother because of his contract or quit wrestling, and damn it, he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. In OVW, where that wasn’t in effect, they could beat the hell out of each other, and it worked. They drew money all summer long, we had great crowds and they had great matches, and then they took them to the WWF as a team and completely messed them both up.

Fred: And you actually got John Laurinaitis on the air.

Jim Cornette: By the time we got finished with him. Every time they’d bring up OVW original Nick Dinsmore, who the fans loved, our top babyface and OVW champion, they’d make him a guy named Eugene. The OVW fans were so mad, because they loved all these wrestlers who had great matches, and then they’d go up there and either get some stupid gimmick or not be acknowledged for who they were. I had to give the fans a scapegoat, so I blamed John Laurinaitis of talent relations, and by the time he came down and made an appearance on our TV, he had more heat than any heel we’d ever had. Then I brought Jim Ross out to overrule him, because J.R. is an icon, and the place blew up. They threw babies in the air. It was hilarious.

Fred: WWE owns the older OVW tape library, with guys like John Cena from when you were booking, right?

Jim Cornette: Yes, we made that arrangement with them a number of years ago. Even if they don’t put it on the Network, I have VHS copies I watch in my own house for enjoyment, and a photocopy of the check I got as a result of them owning the others.

Fred: I think you’ll be glad to hear Nick Dinsmore is now a trainer for NXT.

Jim Cornette: Finally, they smartened up. Nick’s a dedicated kid and a very talented kid, and for his age, he’s a very experienced trainer, because he was an assistant trainer at OVW from his early years in wrestling. He’s definitely an asset.

Fred: Another OVW original, Rob Conway, won the NWA title and has been a regular for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He’s another guy who’s had a career renaissance after WWE brought him onto the roster and did nothing with him for a while.

Jim Cornette: In some cases, not a lot unfortunately, you can make it work for yourself without having to subsist on the WWE dole, as they say.

Fred: Jim, I really do appreciate the time. Fans can get more information at JimCornette.com, follow him on Twitter and check out the Jim Cornette Experience on MLW.com. Anything else?

Jim Cornette: I think that’s about it, except if you do yard work, apply at my house by the end of April.