10 Funniest Wrestling Shoot Stories
4. Jim Cornette And The Boogeyman
No article about amusing wrestling anecdotes would be complete without mention of Jim Cornette, the reigning, undefeated champion of the shoot interview.
When he was running Ohio Valley Wrestling, WWE sent him Marty Wright, a failed Tough Enough entrant that they saw some promise in. Cornette was simple told that, “He’s The Boogeyman. Use him.”
Cornette had absolutely no idea what to do with such a weird-ass gimmick, the old school booker that he was. Finally, he decided to warn the live audience that Wright was a crazy dude who thought he was a Boogeyman, attempting for at least the semblance of realism to allow their suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, Wright’s early Boogeyman costume involved a set of antlers.
When the Boogeyman finally made his attack on the show from underneath the ring, he was wearing said antlers, which kept falling off. Added to that, his voodoo stick wasn’t spreading dry ice around as it should, causing him to wave it around violently to try to get it to work. To the bemusement of all, Wright tried to cut a promo… but kept failing because he was too busy trying to stick his antlers back on.
Relying on his bizarre appearance, Wright then tried to freak out the crowd, and was getting some traction: all except for a guy in the front row, smirking and no selling the Boogeyman. Cornette tried to help Wright out by screaming at the crowd: run away, he’s dangerous. Unfortunately, he’d been on a liquid diet due to a dodgy stomach, and had sucked down over a dozen fizzy drinks before the show. When he jumped up to scream at the crowd, Cornette found that he’d crapped his pants. Only a little, but a little is more than enough.
In case you’re interested – yes, that was the same night that he lost his rag and slapped Anthony ‘Santino Marella’ Carelli. Carelli was the OVW trainee who’d no-sold the Boogeyman in front of the paying audience, and Cornette, red of face and brown of trouser, paintbrush-slapped his face in rage. WWE would ask him to step down as head of OVW shortly afterwards.