Listening to Jim Cornette’s review of Double or Nothing was really sad to listen to. Look, I had a lot of respect for him as a character and a historian, but some of the things he said about the Battle Royale were really tasteless and his comments about Kenny Omega saying he will never like him because of what Omega did in the past really put me off. Your review has lost credibility if you already have put out a personal hatred and bias against some of these wrestlers. This just continues to proves that he is behind the times. I would love John and Wai to cover this on the Double Shot sometime and discuss this.
Corny is still upset that wrestlers broke kayfabe. Supposedly, it’s not “believable” anymore because of Joey Ryan or some sort of bullshit.
Jim talked about this the next week. The Sonny Kiss thing, he apologized to him if he hurt his feelings, but also said he should get thicker skin because he’s in the wrestling business. As far as any potential homophobic or transphobic comments, he later talked in the show of his own ignorance towards something like say, he looks like a transvestite. His mindset was his girlfriends and wives were all fans of the Rocky Horror Picture show, so that’s the first word that popped into his head.
His main issue with the battle royal was he wasn’t really explained who anyone was. Sonny Kiss from reading his twitter, seemed to be most annoyed that he had to be “explained”. The problem was, everyone did. Why was there a guy with no legs in the match? Why is this guy wearing yellow face paint, why is this wrestler using baby oil, why is this guy in a dinosaur mask, why is this guy smoking, why is this guy using a staple gun, etc. The Battle Royal was a mess. Coming out in 5 made things worse because again, you have a hodgepodge of guys randomly coming out and you as the viewer should just know who they are off the bat, despite this being their first pay per view.
Jim has also talked about not being able to get into Kenny Omega matches. When he reviewed the Jericho/Omega match from Wrestle Kingdom, he talked about some issues that I have with Kenny too. His goofy faces. I swear, if you just stood there and made random faces, you would have a Kenny Omega match. It’s also not his cup of tea. He’s put him over for his athletic ability.
I’ve actually really liked his match reviews. He’s reviewed Gargano vs Almas and gave some detail about who he thought lead the match, critiques of Gargano’s facial expressions, etc. It’s really detailed. But yeah, I liked the review. I’m surprised the most egregious thing though was completely lost and people have ignored it because of the Sonny Kiss stuff or in this case, Kenny Omega is a big star. His take on Aubrey Edwards being the referee for the Sabian/Guevara match and how she shouldn’t be in it. She should be afraid she might get hit. And I definitely agree that we should look into the logic of matches, and why things are happening and things making sense, but you’re not supposed to hit the referee. Even running into them accidentally is just this phony rasslin bullshit that shouldn’t exist anymore and it’s as bad as overly fake look spots.
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He had some points. AEW should be trying harder to appeal to normal people. Realistically, a lapsed fan is only going to recognize Jericho on the roster. They’re not going to know who anyone else is. AEW doesn’t have to win over the hardcore faithful. They did that with All In. They need to shift focus and try to entice lapsed and new fans to tune in.
However, I think he was completely wrong about Excalibur. Excalibur is one of the best on commentary today.
He talked about the reaction to what he said the following week. Anyone that listens to him regularly knows that he’s not careful with the words he uses and that was the case here regarding Sonny Kiss and he apologised if the specific words he used were considered unacceptable. His issue wasn’t to do with Sonny Kiss being gay but Sonny Kiss being a joke wrestler. Anyone that listens regularly also knows of his deep dislike for that type of wrestling which sometimes borders on ridiculous when he talks about “exposing the business” but sometimes he also makes valid points on the matter. He’s also a left winger but not a super sensitive left winger.
His overall review of the Battle Royal was spot on. His point about Nyla Rose being made to look small next to Awesome Kong who does her gimmick better was spot on as well. As you’d expect though, he was totally unfair on The Bucks & Omega.
His critic for the most part was spot on even to the point where he talk about how AEW fans would focus more on the negative stuff then on the positive.
He’s been critical of today’s wrestling scene in general for years now, mostly because a lot of the current talents would rather do everything to please fans then actually sell and tell a story. He’s also critical of guys that realistically shouldn’t be in the business in the first place and are there only to realize there dreams. Again, he right about this. I get that you had a great story to tell with the wrestler with no legs, but he really had no business being in the ring in the first place and if it was any other sport he wouldn’t have been put in the position.
Like he mention in the podcast, this was the first ppv for AEW and it served as a introduction to the new product and just with the battle royal and the lack of introductions of the characters and the “outlaw mud show” feeling it gave like he said, it made a bad first impression to first time viewers especially old school fans of his generation that was hoping to see a old scholl style wrestling promotion and got a modern style wrestling promotion instead.
AEW is what it is, they going to please who they want to please and will have their detractors as well especially when the honeymoon phase is over. But cornette was right in a lot of his review and while he should have chosen is words more careful, that’s not cornette. He’s there to do a show and a entertaining show at that. Is points of view on current wrestling will always be polarizing but it wouldn’t be cornette if they weren’t and that’s why his podcast is one of the more popular podcast in wrestling.
I thought he was spot on on the battle royale and wrong about most other things, as far as what I am looking for from a promotion. If you dropped the pre-show I would have been 100% happy with what I saw (it wasn’t perfect but I wasn’t put off by it). One major issue I had with the battle royale is that it was essentially a spot fest and it was full of talent that isn’t even on their roster (according to their own web page)
here are the competitors (might be missing 1 not sure):
Brandon Cutler,(AEW)
Glacier, (Not on Roster)
Sonny Kiss, (AEW)
Ace Romero, (Not on Roster)
Sunny Daze, (Not on Roster)
Brian Pillman Jr.,(Not on Roster)
MJF, (AEW)
Joey Janela, (AEW)
Dustin Thomas, (Not on Roster)
Billy Gunn, (Not on Roster, he has a behind the scenes role I believe)
Jimmy Havoc,(AEW)
Michael Nakazawa,(AEW)
Jungle Boy, (AEW)
Luchasaurus, (AEW)
Isiah Kassidy, (AEW)
Marq Quen, (AEW)
Shawn Spears (Tye Dillinger from WWE),(AEW)
Tommy Dreamer, (Not on Roster)
Marko Stunt, (Not on Roster)
Orange Cassidy (Not on Roster)
Adam Page (AEW)
SO from this list 12(13 if you count Gunn) of the 21 guys I listed are on their roster and the rest are not including some who got a decent amount of focus (Dreamer, Glacier, Dustin Thomas, Orange Cassidy) what was the need for a battle royale if you don’t really have the roster to pull it off especially when you could have spend more time highlighing guys from your own roster. Or have a smaller battle (13 guys each draw from a deck with a single suit give each guy their own entrance and short intro from Excalibur, give each more time to shine. You’d still have some comedy or “Guerrilla Wresting spots”, but it wouldn’t feel like one transitioning into the next. For example not knowing anything about the character I went back and watched some Sunny Kiss matches, and it is serious actual wresting, sure there is a character there that is as was shown, but that is fine with me if the in ring is good. But in the battle Royale all I really go to see was a move ramming someone into his ass.
So the match just did a really poor job IMO of establishing their lesser known talent, and spent too much time on comedy spots.
Now maybe other people want that but as an intro match it wasn’t what I was looking for as someone not familiar with most of the guys in the ring.
When Jim Cornette doesn’t like something, he hates it. He has no “in between” (same when he’s talking about Vince Russo).
That also seems to be true his review was either
It was great, or it was the worst ever.
Lets all remember that the battle royal was changed after they lost the Pac vs Page match. When they first announced it it was mot for a title shot. That was added last min.
To me that really doesn’t help much as far as my view on it other than removing the concerns about “why are these joke guys in the running for the title.” It still didn’t really let me get to know any of the competitors very well. Also if you know it is a joke, then don’t add Page and make it for the title shot or book it around more serious spots and less about having everyone get their gimmick spots in.
You are right they should have made smarter decisions when things changed.
Cornette is kind of like that crazy old uncle who is set in his old-timer ways and bluntly speaks his mind to the point where it is overbearing. He definitely seems to have a lot of anger management issues.
Yeah, he comes off like a lunatic in some of the stories from guys like Bruce who worked with him.