10 Plain Wrong Wrestling Myths Perpetuated By The IWC
7. Jim Cornette Is Out Of Touch
Wrestling has apparently moved on since Cornette's day. Selling, a sacred tenet of his, is treated as an inconvenience, but chill out guys. It's only entertainment! Who cares?
Wrestling has moved on - for the worse. Since the 1990s, its North American audience has been reduced by two thirds. It has grown internationally, but all available data indicates that it simply is not as popular as it used to be.
Cornette receives a lot of stick in some quarters, especially for his admonishment of the Young Bucks, but he has a legitimate point to make. Suspension of disbelief is something Cornette hammers home the importance of constantly. But how much does it matter? The Bucks clean up on the Indy scene despite or even because of their patently ridiculous superkick parties. But where does the next generation of talent go from there?
Look also at Cena (and not for the first time on this list). His offence looks almost insultingly unrealistic at times. There must be some connection between his ubiquitous presence and the dwindling mainstream audience.
When Cena runs through his Five Moves Of Doom, you can hear the discerning, older portion of the audience audibly groan. Bret Hart had a similarly structured routine - the quote was made by Scott Keith about Hart - but was never met with the same apathetic response. That's because his looked believable.
These fans who roll their eyes at Cena and the endless, contrived clusterf*ck segments are the fans who've almost reluctantly stayed the course. It's very likely that those who didn't have patience saw through Cena's routine.
Jim will probably be the first to tell you that he is in fact out of touch - and proud of it.
Depressingly, this one probably is true. But it shouldn't be.