10 Most Infamous Wrestling Shoot Interviews

10. The Original Jim Cornette Shoot

If you haven’t seen the shoot, you have almost certainly seen the GIF. 

It’s of Jim Cornette, and his incredulous fury at Vince Russo’s harebrained creative. The man looks so baffled by it that his mouth gurns into an unnatural direction. 

Filmed in 2000, it’s a scorching, relentless, 45 minute-long rant. Cornette’s seething hatred of Russo was as much a source of energy to him as food. Cornette accused Russo of sabotaging his career, killing the business, and ignoring his children’s baseball games to suck up to Vince McMahon.

This shoot helped shape the industry - ironic that the old school Cornette would be the one to do it, but they’re all carnies - and catalysed the longest-running feud in pro wrestling history. Narrowly edging out Miro and Kip Sabian Vs. Best Friends, Cornette versus Russo, which eventually incorporated death threats, was also the most believable. 

Much of the language has not aged well at all, not that that is an issue for him, but you can see why Cornette was able to make this sort of thing his full-time gig. 

The rhythm and wit of his rant was hypnotic. Lines like the following very much helped, too:

“They brought Ed Ferrara in from California because he once wrote ‘Duckman’, I don’t f*ckin’ know. Maybe he once f*cked Duckman, maybe he once was Duckman.”