10 Most Infamous Wrestling Shoot Interviews

The professional wrestler is an inveterate carny. 

The same person who once resolved never to let slip the murky old secrets of the business, or betray the code of brotherhood within the sanctity of the locker room, quickly realised that somebody would pay them a decent wedge to go into gory, granular detail about their life in the business. By this point, yes, there were few if any secrets to maintain - but it’s still funny. The change in attitude was beyond stark; the real-life version of a do-gooding hero suddenly becoming a cowardly and less talented wrestler purely because the script demands it. 

In their defence, these wrestlers were ageing, and, with WWE having recently monopolised the industry, there were few other avenues through which to earn money. 

And thus, the 2000s shoot interview circuit was born. 

The circuit was, well, it was insane. These people - often relics of an unhinged 1980s era - were not media trained. They had little awareness of the norms and values of the outside world, often portraying vile behaviour, even outright crimes, as hysterical road stories. 

The shoot evolved into the podcast, but the controversy simply transitioned to a different platform…

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.”