Jim Cornette Says Vince McMahon Has No Excuse To Not Classify Talent As Employees

On a recent episode of the Jim Cornette Experience, Jim Cornette reacted to Wrestling Inc's exclusive report about WWE Superstars receiving an email from Vince Mahon regarding the future and status of their Twitch accounts as well as other third-party engagements. Cornette talked about his dichotomy of wanting wrestlers to stick with their characters when it comes to wrestling but doesn't mind if they do something else outside of wrestling.

"I'm torn on this, as we talked before. I don't believe that these doofuses that are supposed to be one thing on television for the WWE should be completely another person doing completely out of character things for that person to do on another channel," Cornette said. "But if that person is being the person that they are in WWE and being true to that but doing something completely unrelated to wrestling on the side, then I'm on their side because Vince only owns them as far as wrestling."

Cornette used an example from his time where a referee that worked under him had a shoe business in his personal life. However, he stayed true to his character and kept his wrestling life and personal live seperate.

"And a lot of people are saying, 'well, they're being their real selves on these third-party things.' Well, that's the problem I have because everyone's god damn phony," Cornette expressed. "If I was the promoter, I would be more upset about my talent being, obviously, phony by being completely different persons somewhere else other than my television, but if they're not doing anything related to wrestling, f–k you.

"When Brian Hildebrand was refereeing for me in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, his real job was working in a shoe store Pigeon Forge. I didn't tell him, 'Brian, I need a percentage of your f–king money from the shoe store,' or 'I'll take money from the shoe store and give you a piece of it.' But everybody knew he was god damn referee Mike Curtis and he kayfabed, and he didn't expose the god damn business."

Cornette noted that WWE Superstars are independent contractors and should be treated as such. However, he said that if WWE takes the action of taking over what wrestlers do outside of the ring, then they should be employees noting that WWE is the only company in wrestling history with the resources to make their wrestlers employees unlike the promotions in the territories.

"I'm on a couple of different sides on this. Nobody's on my exact side on this, imagine that," Cornette remarked. "I think the guys should be who they're supposed to be in the wrestling business no matter whether they're at the laundromat, playing video games or whatever the f–k in public or in private. If they're supposedly independent contractors and they're doing something outside of the wrestling business, they ought to be able to do it as long as it doesn't get in the way of or conflict with the wrestling business.

"Now if Vince suddenly announced, 'well, we're gonna start a god damn Twitch from scratch, and all will get one and will make the same amount of money as you are now or something like that, but we get a cut, f–k you or make them employees because as we mentioned, WWE is the only company in the history of wrestling that really should be, forced to make it's wrestlers employees. In any other company, especially in the territory days, they weren't really employees and it wasn't feasible, the benefits, and they did have tons of options and they had so much leeway, so you were independent contractors."

Cornette continued naming some of the biggest promotions throughout the past 20-30 years noting that they did not or do not have the ability to make their independent contractors employees. However, he said that McMahon has no excuse to not classify WWE Superstars as employees and noted that former Democratic Presidential nominee Andrew Yang knows that.

"WCW, it was big business for two years, but if they would have made all of those f–king lunatics employees, they'd probably have gone out of business quicker than they did," Cornette pointed out. "TNA never made it financially. The backers had the money, but how much more money do you want to poor down a well? And AEW, I don't what he's (Tony Khan) doing or not doing with the EVPs or the rank-and-file wrestlers, but Jesus Christ, that's pouring more money down a well if you start making every single one of your guys employees and right now only have television and merchandising as a source of revenue and PPV, for what's that worth anymore.

"But Vince has no excuse, and Andrew Yang knows that Vince has no excuse," Cornette said. "And wouldn't you know, Joe Biden better be president in January for all of our sakes, except maybe for Vince's. He might be the only one that comes out worse except for the 'Trumpino Crime Family of Joe Biden being president over Donald Trump."

Yang has tweeted about the situation, and Cornette said that Yang and McMahon should start getting in a comfortable relationship because if Joe Biden were to win the presidency, they could be having a lot more conversations in the future.

"Well, let me tell you something Mr. Yang, no offense, I think's it's time you jump in with this with both feet once we get the inauguration out of the way in January for the new president and start to fix the world and rectify some of the mistakes," Cornette stated. "I think Andrew Yang ought to get on a first name basis with Vince McMahon. They ought to spend a lot more time with each other."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit The Jim Cornette Experience with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.