This is why James E Cornette is a hall of famer. He watched , believe and live it as a kid. Became the unofficial photographer, and was inches away from Jerry Lawler , and Terry Funk bashing the hell out of each other. Became a manager. Understood the business as good as anyone as a 20 yr old kid. Knew what would bring heat , and did it better than anyone in the buisness of all time. Was alot tougher than he ever got credit for. He took all the bumps. Would juice during matches and jump from scaffolds 24 feet in the air. And he was TERRIFIED of heights! Probably top 3 wrestling historians of knowledge ever. He got to live a dream! And by golly he lived it very well! James E Cornette should be in the Hall of Fame. PS The greatest , and wittiest promo guy hands down! Thank you General. We are the same age. Been there from the beginning. What a ride!
God I wish Corny would just scrap the modern day wrestling reviewing and just do this. Start from his first book and go through them in chronological order. His territory days, JCP WWE SMW OVW ROH TNA. You just know he has detailed books on all of it. Those books are wrestling history
It's incredible to hear how bad Clash of Champions XI did all these years later. That was Steamboat/Flair in a best 2/3 falls match for the title. It went 54 minutes, with Flair SUBMITTING to lose the second fall. You thought Steamboat had won clean at the third fall, but the camera showed flair had his foot on the ropes, which led to Bash 89. Personally, I think that was the single best match I have ever seen, to this day. Really mind-blowing how these great talents pulled this off in the middle of the death spiral.
You meant Clash of Champions IX not XI, XI is Steamboat vs Funk. You also say it did a bad number and that's just not true. It drew a 4.3 rating. Do you know what WWE & AEW would do for a 4.3 rating today? Hell a 4.3 is a good number during the famed Monday Night War. It's all about perspective my friends. It may have been a down number for them at that moment, but it would be considered a MONSTER number today.
@@moriordan85yes..but at THE TIME, on Cable, that was an absolute DRIZZLING fucking shits of a number. Not to mention the attendance in the building, was even more abysmal. It was a very rough time for WCW business wise, even while producing some legendary matches and angles/fueds that are still remembered and always will be.
I was at the Fort Bragg Clash of Champions. It was at this small gym called Ritz Epps Gymnasium. It had no air conditioning and it was North Carolina in June. At 8 years old, i remember how hot it was in there, and how rowdy the crowd was. Those soldiers were going crazy. I went with my pops, who was a retired 1st Sgt. Great show to me.
@@mikecarpenter8022 that's awesome you worked the camera for that card. I'm from Fayetteville, NC and since my pops was a retired 1st Sgt., I was on base all the time as a kid. Ritz Epps Gym was new at that time as well, so I used to go their a lot to play basketball, and when i got older lift and/or play racquetball. But in June, with the gym jam packed, it was crazy. How they fit over a 1,000 people in there blows my mind. I don't know the exact number, but i thought i read before that there was 1,200-1,400 people jammed into that gym. Plus i believe the clash was free to active duty service members, and i'm pretty sure many of them were off that day. I was only 8 years old, but i knew when someone was drunk, lol. And those cats were going wild in there jammed to the rafters and it was over 100 degrees. I believe I went to another WCW show there in 1990 as well. Fayetteville was a hot spot for Mid-Atlantic/WCW for a lot of years.
Completely agree. He actually changed my view on guaranteed contracts for wrestlers. I always thought that was a good thing for someone to have a guarantee on what they were gonna make, but Corny made a brilliant point, if you know how much you’re going to make regardless of how good or bad the house is, then it kills your motivation to go out and give 100%. He may understand the wrestling business better than anyone
@@johnselwitz5362 not really because you're working for a better contract. Funny thing is cornette and the midnight was getting those contracts years before most guys. Even cornettes past comments about guys not working hard or guys working hard and getting 40 bucks kinda counters the point.
Man I'm watching it on Peacock ATM. Ricky Steamboat actually had a Comodo dragon with him! I saw it first so long ago I forgot he even did it. It also reminded me why I loved Sting back then too. All this stuff in full is on Peacock now.
I'm 45 years old. Started watching wrestling in 1985. Crockett promotions was my favorite. When they sold to Turner and the changes from the old studio to Center Stage, losing the Horsemen and poor TV production killed my love
My family moved to USA from UK in 1989 when my father retired from the Air Force. I got into wrestling and immediately loved Sting and the NWA. This was back when we used satellite dishes and would search until we found a match lol. I still look back on NWA years fondly.
They actually did have a Bash show in Greensboro in 87. Flair vs Jimmy Garvin and Nikita vs Luger both cage matches. 11300 fans in attendance. Both matches were on the GAB video cassette. Cornette and the Midnight Express were in Oklahoma City on the same night vs the Road Warriors. Crockett promotions had so much talent after the UWF purchase they often ran 2 shows a night.
He's worth seeing and bouncing questions off of too. I was like a kid in a Candy Store the first time I talked to him and bounced all my Midnight Express Questions off him.
I could listen to Jim Cornette All Day my #3 All Time Favorite Manager behind J.J.Dillion & Bobby The Brain Heenan,Loved him as a color commentator he always had me in Stitches
Not sure which one/where/what, but the Flair vs Funk (I Quit) match - which is viewable here on RUclips - is still a glorious sight to behold even today.
I hate it when we put down the present/future because we can't let go of the past...but Flair/Funk is amazing, it will always be a sight to behold...two of the greatest ever. I wish people would try and let go of nostalgia enough to appreciate and uplift the present. Don't be a stereotype, James Desjarlais.
@@So_Toasty I mean he's not wrong, guys like flair, taker, rock, austin, funk, etc are just bigger stars than the current crop of guys. That's not nostalgia that's just facts. Its facts that wrestling is a lot less popular today than it was when those guys were were doing their thing
@@ajdaking507 I'll always come back to this. Pro wrestling in the 80s was an emulation of a true no rules beat em up. This was why, fake as it was it was more popular. I loved the most when actual pro wrestling moves and holds were used, and not fake punches, and kicks. But 90% were into cheap pops and cheered that stuff. Then enter the UFC, "no face paint, no pulled punches". Their early ad on TV. Do you get the drift what they were competing against? Plus it looks way more real, and even at times uses wrestling, or MMA wrestling like moves. There was absolutely no way pro wrestling would stay as popular. No way. It needs to go back to purer form to grab the guys not interested in the UFC. Fake blood and punches pulled won't do it IMO. Jim Cornette advice is OK 50%, but not a sure fire cure. It just won't be as popular.
I was at the TV taping he speaks about in Amarillo that drew a good house, but that was solely because of the advertised Terry Funk vs Sting match that was NOT taped for TV. When you are in Terry's home town, and Terry is on the card, you are going to draw.
Jim Cornette is truly a wrestling treasure since he kept copious notes and the most minute details of matches and is able to relate them with such clarity decades later!
@@joeygana8864 Summerslam 1989 only had three good matches on it - Hart Foundation vs. Brain Busters, Rockers & Tito vs. Martel & The Rougeaus and the Intercontinental Championship Match. Bash 1989 was a better show overall especially the last 4 matches (Muta vs. Sting, Steamboat vs. Luger, The Wargames Match & Flair vs. Funk (which was a better main event than SS 1989) )
@@joeygana8864 what are smoking. Bash 89 was an awesome show. Summerslam 89 was not that great. Flair vs funk and sting vs muta was way better then anything on summerslam.
Just cause he disagrees doesn’t mean he’s smoking anything , they are two totally differnt types of shows appealing to different people. Although I will have to say I did not enjoy summer slam as much, But they both were great shows .
I haven't watched wrestling since Russo ruined it for me in the late 1990s, and I was still shitting in my britches when these were taking place, but for some reason I'm intrigued enough to listen to Cornette ramble off dates,cards,and revenue. I loathed him at my very young age which meant he did an awesome job with his character
Why can't Jim see that the RNR Xpress wasn't going to draw in 93-94 ? They were done refused to evolve. Grunge and Hip Hop were taking over the culture, and these dudes were still stuck in 83. Just like the Heavenly Bodies vs Rock n Roll received zero reaction at Survivor Series 93 in Boston. They were the epitome of Southern 80's rasslin' which was hokey and lame at that point. White meat babyfaces were being regurgitated on a regular basis by the Audience yet Jim thinks they would've done a buy rate or pop a rating if Smokey Mountain invaded WCW under Watts? No chance. It's one of Jimmy's many blind spots that can make listening to him frustrating at times. He's so damn knowledgeable and funny but boy oh boy does he have blinders on when it comes to certain stuff. Overall these deep dives are WILDLY entertaining and I've probably listened to them all in order 3 or 4 times
Props to the Sheikhster for his lucky draw from the Community Chest pile. "Company Error In Your Favor: Collect 200K". The kind of story that conflates conventional wisdom. You go, Hossien!
Bash 87 in Chicago was a bust also- as the Ric Flair/Road Warrior Animal match never materialized. Having the 4H jump animal before the match to tryn takem out. Idv been livid if id paid to see that show lol. Why would they do that to the fans?? Lol
I got Bash '89 & Halloween Havoc '89 on VHS for Christmas presents in 1992. My very 1st VHS of wrasslin, legitimate event, was Bash 1990, which I ordered after it was released at Blockbuster Video in Gainesville Georgia... By the middle of 1993, I had every wrasslin VHS released at the time. Including the Best of Starrcade VHS special. 👍🏻👍🏻
Actually there was a Bash show in Greensboro in 87. It was Greensboro where they took the United States Championship off Nikita and on to Luger in the cage.
I was at the Bash in '89 in Springfield, MA. Despite the small crowd and miserable $1,100 house, all the guys worked hard and it was miles better than any WWF/WWE show that we were accustomed to seeing. It's just a shame they couldn't gain a foothold in the Northeast, the top talent felt the South was home and didn't enjoy the NY/New England market. At least Boston drew 5,000, so hopefully the guys made their travel expenses. You had the sense it was being mismanaged, but even I wasn't aware things were this bad behind the scenes...
I was at the one at the Boston garden and for someone who has lived in Boston most of my life before moving to Weston mass I don't blame anyone who doesn't like going up here
He's not wrong about the contracts. Had they been written more like NFL or NBA contracts that had kicker incentives in them then maybe you get more out of guys. The moment that whatever amount wasn't just a downside but was what you were making period, then guys stopped caring. Basically what wrestling needs and needed was salesman style contracts. Here's the absolute minimum you are going to make but if you make that too often we gotta get rid of you because you CAN make WAY more depending on what markers you meet. Contracts like that for a PERFORMER make lots of sense. Merch sales, TV Ratings, and ticket sales can all be kicker stuff. It makes sense to me anyway.
I grew up in Greensboro in the 80s and only lived just over a mile from the Greensboro Coliseum. My friends and I would always walk to the Coliseum every time the NWA came to town. Damn, such great memories.
To show how garbage indy wrestling is these days, the July 1st show in Charlotte drew 3,000 people was considered a huge disappointment for WCW standards. RoH, Impact, PWG couldnt draw 3,000 ppl to one show these days unless they had months of hype *cough cough All In cough*. We went from drawing thousands weekly (or daily in the Bash tour) to hundreds monthly and the nerds think wrestling "evolved". That's not evolution, that's de-evolution.
I was given free tix to a ROH show and was 5 rows back from the ring. They're not in as good of a shape as some like to think. The product blows and indie wrestling is hideous to watch.
To follow up on what Cornette said regarding the Bash '89 PPV at the Baltimore Arena, the sellout crowd, the $188,000 house, and the main draw being Flair vs Funk, there was something subtle that didn't happen in the booking leading up to their PPV match that I'm personally convinced helped play an important role in the build-up of the match and selling out that arena (obviously not the sole factor, but a very important one that went unnoticed). After the angle when Funk injured Flair at the Wrestle War '89 PPV in Nashville, between the time of that angle and the Bash '89 match 2 months later, I noticed something. Considering that the promotion was airing anywhere from 4-6 hours of weekly TV (both cable and syndication combined), during the build-up of their encounter over that 2 month period, there wasn't one moment where Funk and Flair appeared together on TV at the same location at the same time. No face-to-face confrontation between Flair and Funk. No angle of Funk jumping Flair (apart from the angle at Wrestle War '89). No angle of Flair chasing or jumping Terry Funk. Nothing. You didn't see them together in the same location at the same time on the same camera shot during that 2 month buildup.... not until the Bash '89 PPV. To not have both men together on TV at the same time must have helped create a very subtle anticipation for what would happen when they would meet again in person (i.e. the sold out Baltimore Arena). That is something that practically never, ever happened in the booking leading up to a big match back in the late 1980s, and that's probably something you don't see happen today. On Jim Ross' web site, I brought up this situation and asked him if this was purposely done in the booking, or if this was an oversight in the booking. This was his response: "After all these years that is news to me regarding the Flair-Funk build. I don't think keeping them separated was originally by design but a variety of circumstances necessitated it at that time. Memorable rivalry between two of the all time greats."
Crusader7077 Great observations!!!! I will definitely remember that event for the rest of my life. My dad drove my brother and I from Philly to that show. That time period can never be repeated.
I think Flair was legitimately injured at Wrestle War when Terry Funk pile drove Flair on The Table. The Table didn't break, so Funk legitimately pile drove Flair on his Spinal Column and I don't know that Flair was in any shape to do interviews, promos and face-to-face confrontations with Terry Funk. Makes me think Flair was doing Physical Therapy and Rehab so he could come back and wrestle.
Well....to me it's booking 101, remember Hogan/Andre, confrontation on Piper's Pit, a contract signing....and then, I HATE wrestling angles where the guys are all over each other weekly.
That pissed alot of people off because I went to every starcade in Greensboro we would buy our tickets a year in advance when they had it so we knew we had seats
“You don’t like an inferior product so you’re out of touch!” Is one of the dumbest things I hear about the crappy modern wrestling. It isn’t as good. Get over it.
I thought that by 1989 The Midnites had been on TBS for too long and should have gone to WWF . They were over exposed in the South . They should have gone away so we could miss them . Even though they were great I was over them .
It's amazing to listen to this, how can a company make so many bad decisions one after the other, not even after I dunno, the 15TH SHITTY HOUSE no-one said "hmmm, maybe we should change things up a bit?"
At about the 1:05:00 mark Jim starts talking about the GAB '88 and how disappointing they draw was. Maybe they should've Incorporated some of the goings-on backstage into the current program. Their failures at the time were completely self-inflcted.
I said this years ago on this vid but looking at the ticket sales in 88 and 89 that were considered disappointing back then, they buried live show attendance in 2019 pre-covid.
You know too, we had that WCW/NWA up here on television and there were defintely fans up in Massachusetts, too! Heck, we had a lot of wrestling shows here like the WCW/NWA, WWF, AWA, Mid South, WCCW, FCW, and even more when you were using a scrambler which we had mainly for catching the shows across the country because this was a wrestling house and we loved it! I am surprised even in 1989 that the shows did poor business up in MA because the fans wanted more of it, but no one knew the shows were even here. I mean really, any match with Steamboat would have sold out in MA, hands down! There are still lots of Steamboat fans who still believe he had some of the greatest matches of all time with Flair and Savage, and Steamboat could sell out an arena wrestling a broom - he was just that good!
that is the most loyal comment here.......but wwf ......best ....you would have been saying .."i wish i saw wwf in ny"...i only grew up in the mid south"
You can find lots of good old Crockett and territory era nwa on RUclips. I have a ton of old wrestling on my RUclips playlists and I enjoy all of it. Mid south, Georgia championship wrestling, wccw, southeastern championship wrestling, Memphis, and old wwe. Love the old school shit. I'm 35 but I love old school wrestling. I watch it from all eras and love it for different reasons. Watch classic bruiser brody. He's always entertaining.
Wrestling nowadays is more athletic but it doesn't have the emotion of the 70s or 80s. It was simple but it was so good. Plus wwe wasnt the only game in town back then. You could find so much variety.
I grew up watching Mid South...live matches at The Houston Coliseum before that in the late 70's... World Class Championship Wrestling with the Von Erichs...it was a great time for wrestling
like your life...like your family...like your bank account......like your health...it takes a bitter one...to see one who tried and are jealous of......
I fucking hated Vickie. She was so annoying with the whole 'excuse me!' thing. Remember that angle (if you can call it an angle) where she beat "Santina Marella" (which was santino trying to be transgender) for the crown of "Ms WrestleMania" or whatever the fuck it was? God that was so horrible. And she also had a thing for younger guys which was disgusting. I'm glad shes no longer in the WWE.
you know what i love about these early engagements is just hearing the great Brian laughing his tits off in the background at times when Jim is cracking - hopefully smoking some quality pukka and having the time of his life
The Ding Dongs would be a top team in AEW 2day.... I keep saying that the Sucks are a new generation version of the Mulkey Brothers lol. With less ability. 🤣🤣🤣
I seem to remember Mark Young having a match or three against Lex Luger. It was a short program. Also found out, trying to research the above, that Mark Young died in 2016.
I love AYBServed. It is one of the best sitcoms ever to have been conceived, along with the immortal Keeping Up Appearances. I'm happy to know that at least some of my fellow Americans know what great, intelligent comedy is.
I get Jim doesn’t like Kevin Nash but please show me one person that wouldn’t take a guaranteed contract over not knowing what you were going to get paid at all. And I know his Internet fans and Dave five star Melzer hates him but the guy showed up to work except for the times he got hurt. Unless you were talking about when WWE bought the company and they were offering guys to come to work for half the money they were going to get if they set home to honor their Turner contracts but by all means if you’re going to call out Kevin Nash for that you have to call out Bill Goldberg, Rey Mysterio, Sting, Flair , etc. And if anyone reading this would take half the money to go to work when they would pay you double to sit home, if you would say you would take half the money to go to work you have never had a bill paid in your life and get out of your parents basement and live in the real world for a couple years and then come back to me with that argument.
Problem is after about 98 Nash was hurt most of the time. Question is was NASH a money maker for WCW in the long run? He cost them a lot money with terrible decisions and not being able to draw money after 98. Fact is he was terrible in the ring and was a major part of bankrupting WCW.
He specifically used Nash bc Nash has been very vocal about being proud of the fact he had a hand in establishing that as the norm. But both things can be true. If the money is guaranteed whether the product is bad or not, there's no motivation to always be the best, while it also being far more secure personally to have that guaranteed check. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Finally someone tells the truth. People are lemmings man, if Corny doesn't like somene, they wont like him. Their is no nuance, of course thats part of Jim's act...but people are not poorly written comic book villians. There is good and bad, merits and flaws. Dullards dont understand this. Jim calls out comedy in wrestling being phony shit, yet loves Bobby's acts (Everyone should). I love Corny, but he can be hypocritical...he is locked in stasis, frozen in time with an era long gone...he forgives anything in that era, hates anything else contemporary. It's sad, Jim could make todays product better with his knowledge. That is not why he called Nash out, Matthew Rock, even so, Nash should be proud of that if he was indeed in the catalyst for pay change in advocating for the boys. Wrestling pay has always been unjustly out of whack in favor of promoters. Just because a wrestler gets paid garunteed money doesnt mean they are going to phone it in. On the contrary, if they are happy, feel secure, and appreciated...most workers performance professionally will only grow.
@@So_Toasty being a fanboy for fucking kevin nash 🤣🤣 holy shit lol. You choose the worst drawing WWE/F champion in history and want to die on the hill that Nash is better than remembered lol. King quad tear was a fucking joke of a wrestler who was even *less physically capable* than the ultimate warrior 🤡. You could have picked anyone else and I'd agree, but kevin nash is a fucking clown. His move set? Big boot, jack knife power bomb, quad tear 🤡. The dudes a fucking joke and sat on his ass and rode the coat tails in the NWO, while crying about not having enough booking power (whilst literally dictating everything he was in). Kevin nash is the biggest embarrassment in WWE history. I'd take fucking Eugene or Santina marrella over "quad tear" nash. Fuck kevin nash and fuck his butthurt fanboys lol.
I just don't get why Corny can't grasp why the business changed. Ask yourself this: You have a company. Would you rather rely solely on the income derived from each customer who comes to see your show or focus on income from TV/ads who want access to you customers, then the money from tickets is extra, and if you get the customer TV wants, you can sell that customer multiple products like toys? I'm not talking as a fan and what I'd want to watch, but just money. Corny experienced the high water mark of Mid South and JCP, but those were proven to be unsustainable in the ensuing years (1984 Mid South was dead just 3 years later, JCP 1986 was dead just 3 years later...) No business can simply hope to continue their best years, they have to evolve as the market does, and more than anything they want to eliminate volatility. TV money is steady, secure, getting fans to buy tickets is volatile, it'll go up/down/up/down. TV just needs people to turn on a channel for 1-3 hours. Why would you design a business to rely on something historically volatile and requires motivating people to leave their house and spend money, when there's so much more money pleasing fewer people who only need to press the remote?
78bcat I'm sure he's fully aware of all that seeing as to how he's worked on a half dozen nationally syndicated wrestling programs! The goal was always t.v. but, a lot of these old territories didn't have that option so they had to rely solely on house shows. I think Jim's main point with the houses is to contrast how well Crockett promotions did in the areas where Jim Herd failed at! As in Herd pulling the shows from the Carolinas where they're making $150,000 plus per show to take them on the road to places like Boston and Chicago and barely break 5 grand! They already had a good thing going and there was no need to try to break into other markets when they could have just traveled two or three states and made millions!
@@wild1420 Most likely I'd never even see any of it in Baltimore. Keep in mind, Cornette wanted it small and how he understood it. Turner put it on the national TV, made it matter. It might have been the reason it survived for 10 years after too. I also think Jim Cornette doesn't understand how cable TV changed everything he might have gotten used to. Look at his own Rocky Mountain thing. He did what he wanted WCW to do. Where is that thing today? Everything you hear from him is his take on every promotion, you don't hear why he was fired from each in turn, or made to leave from people who did it. Maybe their opinions would be interesting too.
@@dodesskiy1 "you never hear why he was fired" bro he's *literally* done a deep dive explaining why he quit or got fired 🤣 you should actually *listen* instead of making asinine assumptions that are literally easily debunked by just sitting and listening 🤡🤡.
When has he said any of that is bad? He just doesn’t like the actual wresting. He hardly criticizes the way the business is handled outside of contracts. Wtf is this?
I did too 83-86. Shaw afb. Then out in the woods near Newman Construction. Sumter dairy farm. Back in there. RE davis 5th grade. Anyway. Memories yeah?
Jim Herd was a horrible manager, but his mandate from Turner is revealing: WWE and JCP were basically equal in ratings, so as far as live event income, they're equal...but WWE had kids, so they're TV was more valuable and generated more ad revenue, while WCW had adults who weren't and didn't. We're not even talking toys, merchandise, ancillary revenue. So if WCW just does what JCP did, they cannot afford to compete, money for talent drops compared to what WWE can offer....but beyond that, Turner wanted a valuable TV property first and foremost, so Herd was directed to get the kids...and Flair, Cornette, JR, Sullivan, Ole, all dragged their feet at every turn.
Herd was a moron re: wrestling, but one thing he was right about: Sting and Luger needed to be the future of the company. Those were the guys that could have appealed to that young audience (not the freakin' Ding Dongs or whatever other moronic thing Herd wanted). The problem is, even when it was still Crockett Promotions, NWA/WCW would not get out of its own way when it came to booking either of them properly. First off, Luger should have went over Flair at the Bash...or Starrcade at the *absolute* latest. Then, when they decided to make Sting the guy instead (to acquiese to what Flair wanted), it led to the TERRIBLE idea of turning the Horsemen heel. It was proven to be terrible when Sting instantly got injured: all of a sudden they had no depth at babyface (which maybe they *would* have had if they could have at least kept Muta....but they didn't)! And Luger was a red-hot heel act at that point and not ready to go back face, so it got rushed. By the time Sting *did* get the belt, both he and Luger's heat was nowhere near the potential they were showing in '88.
I guess he's a legit badass, but I remember being a casual NWA/WCW fan at the time (in WWF territory of Boston) and the rules he laid down seemed really strange. No costumes, no top rope moves, no mats, etc. I can understand trying to be different, but this was't the way to do it.
Old crocket wrestling was my choice as a child. Wwf seemed too cartoonish to even my 8 ur old mind. Hated cornetr and midnight but damn dudes the best in the business. In hindsight. Anyway. I was a rick n roll express gug. Magnum TA. Nikitas turn was awesome. The memories........
He is checking documents that backup what he is saying, and only during the segment where he is listing legitimate attendance numbers from shows. You'll live.
This is like listening to a vaudeville act from the 1940's who just couldn't understand that show business wasn't about filling the hall anymore, that now the camera was the audience because there was more money to be made from those at home. The rise of cable TV and syndication changed everything in wrestling
"Filling the hall" is rather important when part of the actors pay comes from filling those seats. They got paid over their minimums if the houses were pulling crowds, they weren't.
And considering wrestling now is at an all time low with TV and syndication, and the time frame Cornette is talking about it was at an all time high, I'd say it needs to go back to your "vaudeville" act that it once was!!
WWE still run houses though. If you sell a 10k arena out at an average 20 dollaroo a piece, that's 200k. Nothing to scoff at. Allows you to perfect stuff for big tv matches and PPV.
This is why James E Cornette is a hall of famer. He watched , believe and live it as a kid. Became the unofficial photographer, and was inches away from Jerry Lawler , and Terry Funk bashing the hell out of each other. Became a manager. Understood the business as good as anyone as a 20 yr old kid. Knew what would bring heat , and did it better than anyone in the buisness of all time. Was alot tougher than he ever got credit for. He took all the bumps. Would juice during matches and jump from scaffolds 24 feet in the air. And he was TERRIFIED of heights! Probably top 3 wrestling historians of knowledge ever. He got to live a dream! And by golly he lived it very well! James E Cornette should be in the Hall of Fame. PS The greatest , and wittiest promo guy hands down! Thank you General. We are the same age. Been there from the beginning. What a ride!
Corny The King
Commie Cornette should be in the Hall of Fame of Anti American Trash.
God I wish Corny would just scrap the modern day wrestling reviewing and just do this.
Start from his first book and go through them in chronological order. His territory days,
JCP WWE SMW OVW ROH TNA. You just know he has detailed books on all of it. Those books are wrestling history
It's incredible to hear how bad Clash of Champions XI did all these years later. That was Steamboat/Flair in a best 2/3 falls match for the title. It went 54 minutes, with Flair SUBMITTING to lose the second fall. You thought Steamboat had won clean at the third fall, but the camera showed flair had his foot on the ropes, which led to Bash 89. Personally, I think that was the single best match I have ever seen, to this day. Really mind-blowing how these great talents pulled this off in the middle of the death spiral.
You meant Clash of Champions IX not XI, XI is Steamboat vs Funk.
You also say it did a bad number and that's just not true. It drew a 4.3 rating.
Do you know what WWE & AEW would do for a 4.3 rating today?
Hell a 4.3 is a good number during the famed Monday Night War.
It's all about perspective my friends. It may have been a down number for them at that moment, but it would be considered a MONSTER number today.
@@moriordan85yes..but at THE TIME, on Cable, that was an absolute DRIZZLING fucking shits of a number. Not to mention the attendance in the building, was even more abysmal. It was a very rough time for WCW business wise, even while producing some legendary matches and angles/fueds that are still remembered and always will be.
I was at the Fort Bragg Clash of Champions. It was at this small gym called Ritz Epps Gymnasium. It had no air conditioning and it was North Carolina in June. At 8 years old, i remember how hot it was in there, and how rowdy the crowd was. Those soldiers were going crazy. I went with my pops, who was a retired 1st Sgt. Great show to me.
I worked camera at this cotc telecast it was hot as hell I remember
@@mikecarpenter8022 that's awesome you worked the camera for that card. I'm from Fayetteville, NC and since my pops was a retired 1st Sgt., I was on base all the time as a kid. Ritz Epps Gym was new at that time as well, so I used to go their a lot to play basketball, and when i got older lift and/or play racquetball. But in June, with the gym jam packed, it was crazy. How they fit over a 1,000 people in there blows my mind. I don't know the exact number, but i thought i read before that there was 1,200-1,400 people jammed into that gym. Plus i believe the clash was free to active duty service members, and i'm pretty sure many of them were off that day. I was only 8 years old, but i knew when someone was drunk, lol. And those cats were going wild in there jammed to the rafters and it was over 100 degrees. I believe I went to another WCW show there in 1990 as well. Fayetteville was a hot spot for Mid-Atlantic/WCW for a lot of years.
I sweat just watching it bro I can feel the heat though the screen 🖥
I was there too, won the title that night
What made Corny so good was he always looked at " the business" from the standpoint of a true fan, while also having skills of a savvy business man.
Completely agree. He actually changed my view on guaranteed contracts for wrestlers. I always thought that was a good thing for someone to have a guarantee on what they were gonna make, but Corny made a brilliant point, if you know how much you’re going to make regardless of how good or bad the house is, then it kills your motivation to go out and give 100%. He may understand the wrestling business better than anyone
@@johnselwitz5362 not really because you're working for a better contract. Funny thing is cornette and the midnight was getting those contracts years before most guys. Even cornettes past comments about guys not working hard or guys working hard and getting 40 bucks kinda counters the point.
@@scrappy93
You’re an absolutely clueless mark.
I love listening to him talk about the business
This one and the deep dive with Jim Herd 1990 WcW are like bed time asmr stories for me I knock out every time lol
Man I'm watching it on Peacock ATM. Ricky Steamboat actually had a Comodo dragon with him! I saw it first so long ago I forgot he even did it. It also reminded me why I loved Sting back then too. All this stuff in full is on Peacock now.
I'm 45 years old. Started watching wrestling in 1985. Crockett promotions was my favorite. When they sold to Turner and the changes from the old studio to Center Stage, losing the Horsemen and poor TV production killed my love
My family moved to USA from UK in 1989 when my father retired from the Air Force. I got into wrestling and immediately loved Sting and the NWA. This was back when we used satellite dishes and would search until we found a match lol. I still look back on NWA years fondly.
Jim can pull off them Dusty Rhodes impressions lol.
They actually did have a Bash show in Greensboro in 87. Flair vs Jimmy Garvin and Nikita vs Luger both cage matches. 11300 fans in attendance. Both matches were on the GAB video cassette. Cornette and the Midnight Express were in Oklahoma City on the same night vs the Road Warriors. Crockett promotions had so much talent after the UWF purchase they often ran 2 shows a night.
Love this post. It's so entertaining to sit and listen to. Never a dull moment and Jim Cornette can tell the stories so well. Just captivating.
He's worth seeing and bouncing questions off of too. I was like a kid in a Candy Store the first time I talked to him and bounced all my Midnight Express Questions off him.
It puts you backstage and can see it being ran. It’s fascinating
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Bobby Eaton didn't like Byron Scott
That's all you need to know about George Scott's son.
Corny got a road warrior pop when he came out in that tuxedo match
I could listen to Jim Cornette All Day my #3 All Time Favorite Manager behind J.J.Dillion & Bobby The Brain Heenan,Loved him as a color commentator he always had me in Stitches
Not sure which one/where/what, but the Flair vs Funk (I Quit) match - which is viewable here on RUclips - is still a glorious sight to behold even today.
I hate it when we put down the present/future because we can't let go of the past...but Flair/Funk is amazing, it will always be a sight to behold...two of the greatest ever. I wish people would try and let go of nostalgia enough to appreciate and uplift the present. Don't be a stereotype, James Desjarlais.
@@So_Toasty I mean he's not wrong, guys like flair, taker, rock, austin, funk, etc are just bigger stars than the current crop of guys. That's not nostalgia that's just facts. Its facts that wrestling is a lot less popular today than it was when those guys were were doing their thing
@@ajdaking507 I'll always come back to this. Pro wrestling in the 80s was an emulation of a true no rules beat em up. This was why, fake as it was it was more popular. I loved the most when actual pro wrestling moves and holds were used, and not fake punches, and kicks. But 90% were into cheap pops and cheered that stuff.
Then enter the UFC, "no face paint, no pulled punches". Their early ad on TV. Do you get the drift what they were competing against? Plus it looks way more real, and even at times uses wrestling, or MMA wrestling like moves. There was absolutely no way pro wrestling would stay as popular. No way. It needs to go back to purer form to grab the guys not interested in the UFC. Fake blood and punches pulled won't do it IMO. Jim Cornette advice is OK 50%, but not a sure fire cure. It just won't be as popular.
@@dodesskiy1 all speculation with nothing backing it up. No one tries at a high level so we won’t know.
I was at the 1986, 87 bash ans SKaywalkers in Philly it was great....
I was at the TV taping he speaks about in Amarillo that drew a good house, but that was solely because of the advertised Terry Funk vs Sting match that was NOT taped for TV. When you are in Terry's home town, and Terry is on the card, you are going to draw.
Jim Cornette is truly a wrestling treasure since he kept copious notes and the most minute details of matches and is able to relate them with such clarity decades later!
"For Tax purposes"
Bash 89 was is and will always be my favorite wrestling show ever.
Tarek Juman It was great, but Summer Slam 89 was Better.
@@joeygana8864 Summerslam 1989 only had three good matches on it - Hart Foundation vs. Brain Busters, Rockers & Tito vs. Martel & The Rougeaus and the Intercontinental Championship Match.
Bash 1989 was a better show overall especially the last 4 matches (Muta vs. Sting, Steamboat vs. Luger, The Wargames Match & Flair vs. Funk (which was a better main event than SS 1989) )
@@joeygana8864 what are smoking. Bash 89 was an awesome show. Summerslam 89 was not that great. Flair vs funk and sting vs muta was way better then anything on summerslam.
@@joeygana8864 Only because it had Zeus LOL
Just cause he disagrees doesn’t mean he’s smoking anything , they are two totally differnt types of shows appealing to different people. Although I will have to say I did not enjoy summer slam as much, But they both were great shows .
I haven't watched wrestling since Russo ruined it for me in the late 1990s, and I was still shitting in my britches when these were taking place, but for some reason I'm intrigued enough to listen to Cornette ramble off dates,cards,and revenue. I loathed him at my very young age which meant he did an awesome job with his character
Doubt Russo ruined it for you.
@@scrappy93 he did for a shit ton of people
I was there for this one! The crowd was HOT for the Cornette/Paul E. match
ricky was a young boy...he had a heart of stone.....are you sure you weren't hot 4 paul e???
😂😂😂
THE K-D-from A-D I coincidentally watched this last night, those crowds were HOT!
Bill Ding the Evil architect....nice one Disco Inferno..🤣🤣🤣
1:23:42 -"He had more makeup than Muta.."
LMAO
I'm just glad the ding dongs were getting so much work
"im there like a spare prick at the wedding"..LOL 39:58
You are always the spare prick at the wedding
The experience has been especially great the last few weeks. The last thee or four episodes, have me missing JCP.
Stephen M Fitzgerald I miss good wrestling altogether.
Why can't Jim see that the RNR Xpress wasn't going to draw in 93-94 ? They were done refused to evolve. Grunge and Hip Hop were taking over the culture, and these dudes were still stuck in 83.
Just like the Heavenly Bodies vs Rock n Roll received zero reaction at Survivor Series 93 in Boston. They were the epitome of Southern 80's rasslin' which was hokey and lame at that point. White meat babyfaces were being regurgitated on a regular basis by the Audience yet Jim thinks they would've done a buy rate or pop a rating if Smokey Mountain invaded WCW under Watts? No chance.
It's one of Jimmy's many blind spots that can make listening to him frustrating at times. He's so damn knowledgeable and funny but boy oh boy does he have blinders on when it comes to certain stuff.
Overall these deep dives are WILDLY entertaining and I've probably listened to them all in order 3 or 4 times
Props to the Sheikhster for his lucky draw from the Community Chest pile. "Company Error In Your Favor: Collect 200K". The kind of story that conflates conventional wisdom. You go, Hossien!
"Couldn't draw god damn money with green crayons and paper" - never change Corny!
Bash 87 in Chicago was a bust also- as the Ric Flair/Road Warrior Animal match never materialized. Having the 4H jump animal before the match to tryn takem out. Idv been livid if id paid to see that show lol. Why would they do that to the fans?? Lol
Love that Cornette said that Turner Broadcasting still owes him money from 1989.
I got Bash '89 & Halloween Havoc '89 on VHS for Christmas presents in 1992.
My very 1st VHS of wrasslin, legitimate event, was Bash 1990, which I ordered after it was released at Blockbuster Video in Gainesville Georgia... By the middle of 1993, I had every wrasslin VHS released at the time. Including the Best of Starrcade VHS special. 👍🏻👍🏻
Actually there was a Bash show in Greensboro in 87. It was Greensboro where they took the United States Championship off Nikita and on to Luger in the cage.
Those flat payments sound like WCW history a decade before.
I was at the Bash in '89 in Springfield, MA. Despite the small crowd and miserable $1,100 house, all the guys worked hard and it was miles better than any WWF/WWE show that we were accustomed to seeing. It's just a shame they couldn't gain a foothold in the Northeast, the top talent felt the South was home and didn't enjoy the NY/New England market. At least Boston drew 5,000, so hopefully the guys made their travel expenses.
You had the sense it was being mismanaged, but even I wasn't aware things were this bad behind the scenes...
you were there...no one cared
I was at the one at the Boston garden and for someone who has lived in Boston most of my life before moving to Weston mass I don't blame anyone who doesn't like going up here
And btw I saw the matches and the wrestlers worked harder than the booking committee did
He's not wrong about the contracts. Had they been written more like NFL or NBA contracts that had kicker incentives in them then maybe you get more out of guys. The moment that whatever amount wasn't just a downside but was what you were making period, then guys stopped caring. Basically what wrestling needs and needed was salesman style contracts. Here's the absolute minimum you are going to make but if you make that too often we gotta get rid of you because you CAN make WAY more depending on what markers you meet. Contracts like that for a PERFORMER make lots of sense. Merch sales, TV Ratings, and ticket sales can all be kicker stuff. It makes sense to me anyway.
Rock N Roll Express wasnt popping any crowd at this time
His dusty impression Is scary cause I really thought it was really dusty talking
That Springfield , Ma card sounds awesome
I know, right? People are crazy for not going to see that. Card is stacked with legends in their primes.
I grew up in Greensboro in the 80s and only lived just over a mile from the Greensboro Coliseum. My friends and I would always walk to the Coliseum every time the NWA came to town. Damn, such great memories.
To show how garbage indy wrestling is these days, the July 1st show in Charlotte drew 3,000 people was considered a huge disappointment for WCW standards. RoH, Impact, PWG couldnt draw 3,000 ppl to one show these days unless they had months of hype *cough cough All In cough*. We went from drawing thousands weekly (or daily in the Bash tour) to hundreds monthly and the nerds think wrestling "evolved". That's not evolution, that's de-evolution.
I was given free tix to a ROH show and was 5 rows back from the ring. They're not in as good of a shape as some like to think. The product blows and indie wrestling is hideous to watch.
No that's adaptation and now AEW is rivaling WWE.
They haven't even done their first show..
@@MidwestMachete PPV sales. All in. Double or Nothing.
AEW is nowhere near to rivaling WWE consistently
To follow up on what Cornette said regarding the Bash '89 PPV at the Baltimore Arena, the sellout crowd, the $188,000 house, and the main draw being Flair vs Funk, there was something subtle that didn't happen in the booking leading up to their PPV match that I'm personally convinced helped play an important role in the build-up of the match and selling out that arena (obviously not the sole factor, but a very important one that went unnoticed).
After the angle when Funk injured Flair at the Wrestle War '89 PPV in Nashville, between the time of that angle and the Bash '89 match 2 months later, I noticed something. Considering that the promotion was airing anywhere from 4-6 hours of weekly TV (both cable and syndication combined), during the build-up of their encounter over that 2 month period, there wasn't one moment where Funk and Flair appeared together on TV at the same location at the same time. No face-to-face confrontation between Flair and Funk. No angle of Funk jumping Flair (apart from the angle at Wrestle War '89). No angle of Flair chasing or jumping Terry Funk. Nothing. You didn't see them together in the same location at the same time on the same camera shot during that 2 month buildup.... not until the Bash '89 PPV. To not have both men together on TV at the same time must have helped create a very subtle anticipation for what would happen when they would meet again in person (i.e. the sold out Baltimore Arena). That is something that practically never, ever happened in the booking leading up to a big match back in the late 1980s, and that's probably something you don't see happen today.
On Jim Ross' web site, I brought up this situation and asked him if this was purposely done in the booking, or if this was an oversight in the booking. This was his response:
"After all these years that is news to me regarding the Flair-Funk build. I don't think keeping them separated was originally by design but a variety of circumstances necessitated it at that time. Memorable rivalry between two of the all time greats."
Crusader7077
Great observations!!!! I will definitely remember that event for the rest of my life. My dad drove my brother and I from Philly to that show. That time period can never be repeated.
I think Flair was legitimately injured at Wrestle War when Terry Funk pile drove Flair on The Table. The Table didn't break, so Funk legitimately pile drove Flair on his Spinal Column and I don't know that Flair was in any shape to do interviews, promos and face-to-face confrontations with Terry Funk. Makes me think Flair was doing Physical Therapy and Rehab so he could come back and wrestle.
Flair was at home all through the build, nursing his neck injury, not visiting tapings
Well....to me it's booking 101, remember Hogan/Andre, confrontation on Piper's Pit, a contract signing....and then, I HATE wrestling angles where the guys are all over each other weekly.
@@JuliusC1973 no
Greensboro in '87 ran July 11. Flair bear Garvin in steel cage to win Precious. Luger beat Nikita in cage to win US title
Its such a shame because the ppv is the all time greatest ppv I've ever seen.
That pissed alot of people off because I went to every starcade in Greensboro we would buy our tickets a year in advance when they had it so we knew we had seats
Iron Sheik was a hustler lol
He made people humble when he broke their back with the camel clutch
Jim Cornette for President!!! Thanks GOD BLESS!!!
no that would ruin your outlook and love for him
No that would make me love him more.
That Springfield Mass card was stacked.
A great segment and thanks for posting.
Who in their right mind buries the Midnight Express??
Idiot Jim Herd
The reason there was no Bash show in Atlanta in 1988 was because the Omni was hosting the Democratic National Convention.
WCW was no longer company when Turner bought it. So no it didn't go out of business.
Uh?
Jim out of touch modern wrestling but such a great historian. Helps he keep all his old books. You can see them in shoots with kayfabe commentaries
Wrestling Is Still Around?
I ll bet wwe would improve in the ratings if Jm was booking . Track record speaks for itself .
“You don’t like an inferior product so you’re out of touch!” Is one of the dumbest things I hear about the crappy modern wrestling. It isn’t as good. Get over it.
I love me some Corney… I can listen to him all the time.
Lot more in carbondale Illinois these days 😂. I can't believe Jimmy has been to our small college town
Wow. Can you imagine being in wrestling at a time when pain pills are hard to find in a wrestling company
You could've made a fortune sleazy p!!
" I only Potato'd Paul Once, ... It Was Acceptable. "
There was a bash in Greensboro. Luger beat Nikita for the US belt.
I thought that by 1989 The Midnites had been on TBS for too long and should have gone to WWF . They were over exposed in the South . They should have gone away so we could miss them . Even though they were great I was over them .
One of the best ppvs ever, yet George scott booking got boring quick.
I like these podcasts. Thankful for the inside facts of wrestling. Appreciate Jim Corvette for this!
its cornette......but yeah..
That's my new gimmick. Jimmy Corvette!
It's amazing to listen to this, how can a company make so many bad decisions one after the other, not even after I dunno, the 15TH SHITTY HOUSE no-one said "hmmm, maybe we should change things up a bit?"
Great episode
Watts paid 25 thousand dollars for one Heavenly Bodies Vs R&R match..what a sucker!
At about the 1:05:00 mark Jim starts talking about the GAB '88 and how disappointing they draw was. Maybe they should've Incorporated some of the goings-on backstage into the current program. Their failures at the time were completely self-inflcted.
I said this years ago on this vid but looking at the ticket sales in 88 and 89 that were considered disappointing back then, they buried live show attendance in 2019 pre-covid.
You know too, we had that WCW/NWA up here on television and there were defintely fans up in Massachusetts, too! Heck, we had a lot of wrestling shows here like the WCW/NWA, WWF, AWA, Mid South, WCCW, FCW, and even more when you were using a scrambler which we had mainly for catching the shows across the country because this was a wrestling house and we loved it! I am surprised even in 1989 that the shows did poor business up in MA because the fans wanted more of it, but no one knew the shows were even here. I mean really, any match with Steamboat would have sold out in MA, hands down! There are still lots of Steamboat fans who still believe he had some of the greatest matches of all time with Flair and Savage, and Steamboat could sell out an arena wrestling a broom - he was just that good!
I noticed things were looking really different at this time, now I know what happened 🙄
Jim cornette makes me wish I was born earlier and grew up in the mid south 🙏. I only knew wwf in NY.
that is the most loyal comment here.......but wwf ......best ....you would have been saying .."i wish i saw wwf in ny"...i only grew up in the mid south"
You can find lots of good old Crockett and territory era nwa on RUclips. I have a ton of old wrestling on my RUclips playlists and I enjoy all of it. Mid south, Georgia championship wrestling, wccw, southeastern championship wrestling, Memphis, and old wwe. Love the old school shit. I'm 35 but I love old school wrestling. I watch it from all eras and love it for different reasons. Watch classic bruiser brody. He's always entertaining.
Wrestling nowadays is more athletic but it doesn't have the emotion of the 70s or 80s. It was simple but it was so good. Plus wwe wasnt the only game in town back then. You could find so much variety.
I grew up watching Mid South...live matches at The Houston Coliseum before that in the late 70's... World Class Championship Wrestling with the Von Erichs...it was a great time for wrestling
This may be a random question but does anyone know what what type(s) of music Jim enjoys listening to?
Great listen, thank.
I was in Carbondale heck yeah
@47:00 shout out to Carbondale!
It's always fascinating to hear from people who were in privileged positions within a company when it was going down in flames.
like your life...like your family...like your bank account......like your health...it takes a bitter one...to see one who tried and are jealous of......
Everything he said about "woman" is true but.......the screeching she would do during matches got on my last nerve.
That was the point, same with Vicki Guerrero going "Excuse me!"
I fucking hated Vickie. She was so annoying with the whole 'excuse me!' thing. Remember that angle (if you can call it an angle) where she beat "Santina Marella" (which was santino trying to be transgender) for the crown of "Ms WrestleMania" or whatever the fuck it was? God that was so horrible. And she also had a thing for younger guys which was disgusting. I'm glad shes no longer in the WWE.
you know what i love about these early engagements is just hearing the great Brian laughing his tits off in the background at times when Jim is cracking - hopefully smoking some quality pukka and having the time of his life
This is 1989-90 deep dive omnibus part 1
The Ding Dongs would be a top team in AEW 2day.... I keep saying that the Sucks are a new generation version of the Mulkey Brothers lol. With less ability. 🤣🤣🤣
Hey, I live in Goose Creek. That's bullshit
I’m watching this right now, on the Network,
I seem to remember Mark Young having a match or three against Lex Luger. It was a short program.
Also found out, trying to research the above, that Mark Young died in 2016.
ra09.
ra0929 Mark was a pretty decent wrestler & a very nice guy
Chief Jay Strongbow son
When all else fails, Flair and Funk will draw. Who would have thunk it? lulz.
goodvideo
Good only if you consider that they stole this content from Jim Cornette's Talking Sense and ran the poor guy off of RUclips! #RIPJCTS
I think Jim has watched Are You Being Served?
Hell yeah I used to always watch that lol....that was my shit!!!!!
I love AYBServed. It is one of the best sitcoms ever to have been conceived, along with the immortal Keeping Up Appearances. I'm happy to know that at least some of my fellow Americans know what great, intelligent comedy is.
Jim's a funny intellectual and I could certainly see him enjoying these shows, meaning AYBS.
I love AYBS. Been watching it for over 30 years now.
I get Jim doesn’t like Kevin Nash but please show me one person that wouldn’t take a guaranteed contract over not knowing what you were going to get paid at all. And I know his Internet fans and Dave five star Melzer hates him but the guy showed up to work except for the times he got hurt. Unless you were talking about when WWE bought the company and they were offering guys to come to work for half the money they were going to get if they set home to honor their Turner contracts but by all means if you’re going to call out Kevin Nash for that you have to call out Bill Goldberg, Rey Mysterio, Sting, Flair , etc. And if anyone reading this would take half the money to go to work when they would pay you double to sit home, if you would say you would take half the money to go to work you have never had a bill paid in your life and get out of your parents basement and live in the real world for a couple years and then come back to me with that argument.
Problem is after about 98 Nash was hurt most of the time. Question is was NASH a money maker for WCW in the long run? He cost them a lot money with terrible decisions and not being able to draw money after 98. Fact is he was terrible in the ring and was a major part of bankrupting WCW.
He specifically used Nash bc Nash has been very vocal about being proud of the fact he had a hand in establishing that as the norm. But both things can be true. If the money is guaranteed whether the product is bad or not, there's no motivation to always be the best, while it also being far more secure personally to have that guaranteed check. They aren't mutually exclusive.
Finally someone tells the truth. People are lemmings man, if Corny doesn't like somene, they wont like him. Their is no nuance, of course thats part of Jim's act...but people are not poorly written comic book villians. There is good and bad, merits and flaws. Dullards dont understand this. Jim calls out comedy in wrestling being phony shit, yet loves Bobby's acts (Everyone should). I love Corny, but he can be hypocritical...he is locked in stasis, frozen in time with an era long gone...he forgives anything in that era, hates anything else contemporary. It's sad, Jim could make todays product better with his knowledge. That is not why he called Nash out, Matthew Rock, even so, Nash should be proud of that if he was indeed in the catalyst for pay change in advocating for the boys. Wrestling pay has always been unjustly out of whack in favor of promoters. Just because a wrestler gets paid garunteed money doesnt mean they are going to phone it in. On the contrary, if they are happy, feel secure, and appreciated...most workers performance professionally will only grow.
@@So_Toasty being a fanboy for fucking kevin nash 🤣🤣 holy shit lol. You choose the worst drawing WWE/F champion in history and want to die on the hill that Nash is better than remembered lol. King quad tear was a fucking joke of a wrestler who was even *less physically capable* than the ultimate warrior 🤡. You could have picked anyone else and I'd agree, but kevin nash is a fucking clown.
His move set? Big boot, jack knife power bomb, quad tear 🤡. The dudes a fucking joke and sat on his ass and rode the coat tails in the NWO, while crying about not having enough booking power (whilst literally dictating everything he was in). Kevin nash is the biggest embarrassment in WWE history. I'd take fucking Eugene or Santina marrella over "quad tear" nash. Fuck kevin nash and fuck his butthurt fanboys lol.
I just don't get why Corny can't grasp why the business changed. Ask yourself this: You have a company. Would you rather rely solely on the income derived from each customer who comes to see your show or focus on income from TV/ads who want access to you customers, then the money from tickets is extra, and if you get the customer TV wants, you can sell that customer multiple products like toys? I'm not talking as a fan and what I'd want to watch, but just money.
Corny experienced the high water mark of Mid South and JCP, but those were proven to be unsustainable in the ensuing years (1984 Mid South was dead just 3 years later, JCP 1986 was dead just 3 years later...) No business can simply hope to continue their best years, they have to evolve as the market does, and more than anything they want to eliminate volatility. TV money is steady, secure, getting fans to buy tickets is volatile, it'll go up/down/up/down. TV just needs people to turn on a channel for 1-3 hours. Why would you design a business to rely on something historically volatile and requires motivating people to leave their house and spend money, when there's so much more money pleasing fewer people who only need to press the remote?
78bcat I'm sure he's fully aware of all that seeing as to how he's worked on a half dozen nationally syndicated wrestling programs! The goal was always t.v. but, a lot of these old territories didn't have that option so they had to rely solely on house shows. I think Jim's main point with the houses is to contrast how well Crockett promotions did in the areas where Jim Herd failed at! As in Herd pulling the shows from the Carolinas where they're making $150,000 plus per show to take them on the road to places like Boston and Chicago and barely break 5 grand! They already had a good thing going and there was no need to try to break into other markets when they could have just traveled two or three states and made millions!
You mean all the advertising money that never came in
@@wild1420 Most likely I'd never even see any of it in Baltimore. Keep in mind, Cornette wanted it small and how he understood it. Turner put it on the national TV, made it matter. It might have been the reason it survived for 10 years after too. I also think Jim Cornette doesn't understand how cable TV changed everything he might have gotten used to. Look at his own Rocky Mountain thing. He did what he wanted WCW to do. Where is that thing today? Everything you hear from him is his take on every promotion, you don't hear why he was fired from each in turn, or made to leave from people who did it. Maybe their opinions would be interesting too.
@@dodesskiy1 "you never hear why he was fired" bro he's *literally* done a deep dive explaining why he quit or got fired 🤣 you should actually *listen* instead of making asinine assumptions that are literally easily debunked by just sitting and listening 🤡🤡.
When has he said any of that is bad? He just doesn’t like the actual wresting. He hardly criticizes the way the business is handled outside of contracts. Wtf is this?
Vince was a crock blocker
I live in Sumter, SC
Nobody cares!!!
I did too 83-86. Shaw afb. Then out in the woods near Newman Construction. Sumter dairy farm. Back in there. RE davis 5th grade. Anyway. Memories yeah?
Easy on Goose Creek SC
Jim Herd was a horrible manager, but his mandate from Turner is revealing: WWE and JCP were basically equal in ratings, so as far as live event income, they're equal...but WWE had kids, so they're TV was more valuable and generated more ad revenue, while WCW had adults who weren't and didn't. We're not even talking toys, merchandise, ancillary revenue. So if WCW just does what JCP did, they cannot afford to compete, money for talent drops compared to what WWE can offer....but beyond that, Turner wanted a valuable TV property first and foremost, so Herd was directed to get the kids...and Flair, Cornette, JR, Sullivan, Ole, all dragged their feet at every turn.
Herd was a moron re: wrestling, but one thing he was right about: Sting and Luger needed to be the future of the company. Those were the guys that could have appealed to that young audience (not the freakin' Ding Dongs or whatever other moronic thing Herd wanted).
The problem is, even when it was still Crockett Promotions, NWA/WCW would not get out of its own way when it came to booking either of them properly. First off, Luger should have went over Flair at the Bash...or Starrcade at the *absolute* latest.
Then, when they decided to make Sting the guy instead (to acquiese to what Flair wanted), it led to the TERRIBLE idea of turning the Horsemen heel. It was proven to be terrible when Sting instantly got injured: all of a sudden they had no depth at babyface (which maybe they *would* have had if they could have at least kept Muta....but they didn't)! And Luger was a red-hot heel act at that point and not ready to go back face, so it got rushed. By the time Sting *did* get the belt, both he and Luger's heat was nowhere near the potential they were showing in '88.
I guess he's a legit badass, but I remember being a casual NWA/WCW fan at the time (in WWF territory of Boston) and the rules he laid down seemed really strange. No costumes, no top rope moves, no mats, etc. I can understand trying to be different, but this was't the way to do it.
Dave Rindone the "no mats, no top rope" era was Watts, not Herd.
Bryce McNeil Shit, dur! I should never post before coffee. Botcb on my part.
Dave Rindone "First coffee, then words." 🤣
Old crocket wrestling was my choice as a child. Wwf seemed too cartoonish to even my 8 ur old mind. Hated cornetr and midnight but damn dudes the best in the business. In hindsight. Anyway. I was a rick n roll express gug. Magnum TA. Nikitas turn was awesome. The memories........
1:33:00
whats with the super loud as fuck intro
Or whatever the fuck.....
Shhhhh. Please
I dont know what Jim is doing, but am I the only one mildly annoyed with the paper rustling in the background?
He is checking documents that backup what he is saying, and only during the segment where he is listing legitimate attendance numbers from shows. You'll live.
yes u r da only
koooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllll
Corny!!!!
This is like listening to a vaudeville act from the 1940's who just couldn't understand that show business wasn't about filling the hall anymore, that now the camera was the audience because there was more money to be made from those at home. The rise of cable TV and syndication changed everything in wrestling
78bcat 0
"Filling the hall" is rather important when part of the actors pay comes from filling those seats. They got paid over their minimums if the houses were pulling crowds, they weren't.
And considering wrestling now is at an all time low with TV and syndication, and the time frame Cornette is talking about it was at an all time high, I'd say it needs to go back to your "vaudeville" act that it once was!!
WWE still run houses though.
If you sell a 10k arena out at an average 20 dollaroo a piece, that's 200k. Nothing to scoff at.
Allows you to perfect stuff for big tv matches and PPV.
@@ScotisticDad someones not paying any attention to wwes financial numbers. Wwe has been cancelling house shows due to losing money on them
weren't you among the 1sr to take guaranteed contracts so then you are responsible for the downfall of wrestling
My God, so dumb
Damn I wish Brian Pillman would've been WCW 🌎 HWT Champion...Sting has always been my favorite but B. Pillman was a close 2nd for me.