10 Early Predictions For The 2019 WWE Hall Of Fame Class
4. Jim Cornette
Jim Cornette is back in the fold, to an extent, having returned to induct the Rock 'n' Roll Express last year and appeared this year on Network shows Table For 3 and Photoshoot, the former of which saw Corny on his best behaviour. Were it a test of his legendarily thin patience, he passed. Admirably.
Confronted with a photograph of John Laurinaitis - a man whose dithering and idiocy overseeing OVW infuriated him so much he ended up "slapping the sh*t" out of Santino Marella - he held his infamously acidic tongue. His assessment - "Johnny Ace was a horrible wrestler" - was kind, by his standards; Cornette is wrestling's foremost character assassin, beating out Stephanie McMahon by virtue of being entertaining and not being tasked with putting over those he incinerates. Confronted with a photograph of Vince Russo, Cornette didn't threaten to murder him but instead, determinedly, refused to say anything.
Since he no longer poses the threat of embarrassing the company, he may have pencilled himself in for 2019. Using an objective metric, he is more than worthy; an excellent, smarmy, cowardly manager, Cornette also, for a brief period, created nostalgia for southern territorial wrestling when time hadn't yet passed to inspire longing for it.
From SMV to OVW - between which Cornette was a major component of WWE creative throughout one of its best ever years, 1997 - he masterminded the early phase of developmental, doing much to safeguard WWE's future.