13 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: The Original Sheik

You really can't put a price on the wealth of wrestling knowledge men like Jim Cornette have. Sure, he opens himself up to online criticism due to his unapologetically outspoken nature, but nobody can claim Cornette doesn't know his wrasslin. He proved his worth yet again by revealing to VICE's producers that The Sheik wasn't the one to invent what's now known as hardcore wrestling.

Sheik "popularised" a hardcore brawling style during his epic career, but it was actually a worker called Bull Curry who started doing it in the 1940s. Hardcore graps in the 40s - imagine! Whilst it's doubtful that Curry was hurling foes through tables or using plastic light tubes aplenty, he did revolutionise the business by pushing things to the extreme.

Cornette said Sheik “made it more mainstream - he made it more profitable”. That couldn't have happened without Bull setting the scene first, but you don't hear a lot of people talking about how Curry paved the way towards WWE's future Hardcore Title or the unruly ECW style Paul Heyman pushed in the 1990s. However, you would hear the same peeps praise Sheik for laying foundations.

That's slightly unfair, being totally honest about it. If Curry was the one to do it first, then he deserves to be recognised for that. It's possible to both applaud Sheik for his part in things and tip a cap towards the originator behind everything. Good on Jim Cornette for showing his geekier side and setting the record straight.

Sheik was a revolutionary, but he followed somebody else's lead.