10 Times Jim Cornette Got It Absolutely Right
Vince Russo sympathisers may wish to look away now...
For somebody as forthright and plainspoken as Jim Cornette is, a lot of people somehow manage to misunderstand him.
The perception of Cornette in some quarters of the wrestling fandom is of a bitter old-timer, whose anti-modernity diatribes stem not from sincerity but from bias. As some would have it, he criticises modern mainstream wrestling because he is not a part of it.
But Jim Cornette would not work for WWE if you paid him Brock Lesnar money. He hates their "sports entertainment" vision for pro wrestling, and did so before WWE even coined the term. He doesn't want a return to four hour George Hackenschmidt marathons - he just wants what he is passionate about to make sense.
Like the best brains in wrestling, he has ensured his longevity by carving out a hugely entertaining secondary career as a shoot video specialist - an inimitably grouchy, hilariously verbose vanguard against the dumb*ssery prevalent in wrestling.
Yes, he's a little on the unhinged side. Yes, his hatred of Vince Russo borders on the unhealthy. But he is a veritable treasure of the wrestling world, and he should be celebrated. And even when he's wrong, he's damn entertaining with it.
Here, though, we discuss just some of the many times he was absolutely spot on in his damning indictments of the wrestling landscape...
10. The Ryback Payment Plan
Ryback made waves across the wrestling world by suggesting that wrestlers should get paid - equally regardless of whether they win or lose.
You can almost see the logic - or at least, the thought process, myopic though it is. Ryback would have received less pay than CM Punk for wrestling him in the same match. Punk's supposed injuries notwithstanding, who watched the Ryback Vs. Punk matches for Ryback?
The former Ryan Reeves - Ryback, like the Ultimate Warrior before him, has changed his name - is right in one respect. But it's pretty much by accident.
There are pay disparities in WWE. If one is to believe AJ Lee, their female talents earn a "fraction" of what their male counterparts do. Her husband, CM Punk, is one of many to point out that the issue of Pay Per View appearances - which already had been calculated by an inscrutable algorithm - should be addressed, given that talents haven't yet been told how their salary will be augmented in the Network era.
That said, Cornette, with his winning use of analogy, summarised the idiocy behind Ryback's argument. "That means that the Shakespearean actor who gets a bit-part walk-on in a Schwarzenegger movie should get Arnold's money. He's a great actor, but he ain't the star of the movie. He's a f*ckin' bit-part player!"