Jim Cornette Talks CM Punk's Pipebomb, Vince Russo's Criticism Towards Him, Leaving ROH
Jim Cornette was a guest on Inside The Ropes on Thursday. Here are some highlights:
His thoughts on the criticisms that say he's stuck in the 80s: "I thank my old friend Vince Russo for that one. He started that and people picked up on it so now whenever anyone disagrees with anything I've done or even that I haven't done. It's not about being stuck in the 80's. I'm one of the guys that has pushed, looked for and utilized more young talent for the past ten years. I've been saying lets get the young guys out there, lets push new talent, lets make some new stars, lets expose some new faces."
What led to him leaving ROH: "The thing is, I support Ring of Honor, i love the Ring of Honor talent, I love the Ring of Honor philosophy and I wanted to desperately see professional wrestling taken seriously again after it's been parodied for so many years now. I was talking to a friend the other day and realised there's a new generation of fans that have never seen pro wrestling presented in a serious fashion and that's part of the problem. I had my visions for ROH, I'm not even talking about creative or booking or matchmaking, I'm just talking about the way it could be structured and the things that we could do but I didn't think that everybody in the company was pulling the same rope so to speak, I didn't think we did ourselves any favours with decisions that were made, and gradually I lost the passion that I demanded of everyone else and you know if I obsess about it for 24 hours a day then I sort of demand that everyone around me do that too for the good of the project. So if I'm waking up going "f–k, I've got to do this today" whether it's something somebody's done or an obstacle and it began to be a rib on me. I'm gonna be at the Charlotte Fanfest in August doing a no holds barred Q&A and I plan to give an amusing account of my last day at ROH TV tapings.
CM Punk's Pipebomb in 2011: "He went out there and he said a lot of things that a lot of fans knew to be true. Jerry Jarrett, who was a master booker, always said 'tell the fans the truth as much as you can, for as long as you can because then when you work them, they'll think well A was the truth, B was the truth and C was the truth, then maybe D is the truth too.' Don't give them a bunch of bulls–t from day one. Tell them the truth from day one and then when you wanna work them, then you can slide that little white one in there. That little white lie. And they'll believe it because you haven't bulls–tted them so far.
"So CM Punk, and I saw it, I've been clean and sober from WWE programming for quite some time now, but I did watch that. It was a tremendous performance and it was a tremendous delivery. He said things that a lot of people wanted to say and he made himself in that one night, the new Steve Austin. He did it at a perfect time because his contract was coming up and he didn't really give a s–t because he's careful with his money but at the same time he knew he could get over doing that and somehow he manipulated them into letting him do it and probably took a few liberties out there with a live microphone. Then they had to resign him. Two weeks later when he came out to Cult of Personality by Living Color, because one thing Vince despises is having to pay music rights, I knew that he had basically got everything he had wanted in his contract. Then he was poised to become the next Stone Cold Steve Austin, the hottest babyface in all of pro wrestling, but of course once they resigned him they still had to make the point that they're gonna control everybody and knocked him back down."
To hear the full chat where Jim talks Midnight Express, working with Vader, the Brawl for All, Kevin Steen and much more, head to facebook.com/theinsidenetwork.