Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru Episode 72
Release date: November 5, 2018
Recap by: Paul Briody
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
Top stories/moments of interest:
• Brian Last asks Jim Cornette listener questions about current wrestling and wrestling history with great chemistry between the two.
0:00 – Intro. The Drive Thru is back! They run through Jim’s recent activities and maladies as well as a US election discussion and a progress report on the holiday sale at jimcornette.com.
16:10 – From a kayfabe standpoint, why aren’t more referees fired considering their many errors? Jim: “You are correct, sir… the referees have to have credibility.” You want the heat to be on the heels and not on the referees (because they come across as a blithering idiot). Jim even concedes that his beloved Memphis wrestling was guilty of under-protecting referees. Interesting discussion about the use of special guest referees.
27:40 – Jim talks about his promos during the 1980s. In one he talked about giving The Road Warriors a copy of a biography of Brian Bosworth (an NFL star who was in the news at the time for testing positive for steroids) and Hawk wasn’t too happy. Jim: “That earned me a private conversation with Hawk… he said “Look, I know it was witty… but we gotta walk through the airport… so cool it.”” Jim would often think of a good idea and then “find something to bolster the promo.” Interesting stuff.
33:10 – Bobby Lashley is athletically gifted but has limited charisma, what should bookers do to work around this? Jim: “He’s a great guy, he’s an intelligent guy but he’s not an over-the-top guy, he’s not a wildfire personality… you have to market him somehow based on what he is for real which is one of the baddest a** athletes and fighters on the planet… If he’s gonna be a babyface there’s ways that you can still put stumbling blocks in his way, especially with all the f*****’ giant behemoths and f******’ great athletes that have got in the business in the past ten years and if he’s a heel… a heel manager takes advantage (of him)… you get this guy over as a heel because he does this f******’ evil p****’s bidding and then when (he) feels like he’s been taken advantage of then he turns on the manager and now you’ve got a babyface.” Leaving WWE for TNA after being in the main event of one of the biggest PPVs of all time and taking time away from wrestling to focus on MMA have also been a hindrance.
39:01 – What is the ‘zabeda’? Jim: “Zabeda is whatever you want zabeda to be… the meaning of that depends on who you’re talking to or who’s saying it.” It can be a particular spot, or an object etc.
40:00 – Any thoughts about Roman Reigns’ leukemia diagnosis? Jim: “They (WWE) could’ve played that card but they didn’t so that does say something good about them” and “I hope, obviously, that he comes back and I hope he can come back and he will be a raving babyface and they can actually do some good with that, even if the good they do as an office isn’t necessarily all for good purposes.”
43:33 – Are there any other times a disease like Roman’s has stopped a wrestler’s career in his/her prime? Brian suggests Jesse Ventura having to quit due to the affects of Agent Orange and Matt Capotelli’s brain tumor. Kenta Kobashi had cancer. Buddy Rogers dealt with heart disease at his apex. Jim: “When you think about it, it’s (wrestling) been lucky.” It’s amazing that there aren’t more examples. Joe Doring also came back from a brain tumor to win All Japan’s Triple Crown Championship.
49:20 – What does Jim think about Roman Reigns’ breaking kayfabe on Raw last week? Corny has no problem with it in principle, “he should’ve been as real as he wanted to be,” but didn’t see why he had to be shown hugging so many heels backstage: “it should’ve been on f*****’ top heel… they can do that behind the scenes, for heaven’s sake.”
53:52 – Has Ric Flair’s legacy been affected by him agreeing to do so many jobs? Jim: “Ric’s thing was he always wanted to make the other guy a star too and make the other guy look good and he took the idea that the world’s champion’s job… was to come in and make the local babyface look like a world beater and escape by the skin of his teeth with the belt so business stayed strong in that territory. Problem was Ric… was the first champion… on local TV every week and facing the local star every week, in effect. And then him getting beat up and abused and maligned and doing all those classic angles just constantly, if it hadn’t have been for the face that Flair was so f*****’ good it would’ve killed anybody else… he would’ve been as a draw, I think, stronger if he’d have kept himself stronger and not shown so much vulnerability… but now his legacy couldn’t hardy be any better.” Jim confirms that there were grumblings in the Crockett locker room about them killing the title by making Flair look so weak. Jim: “Flair could’ve thrown a lot more weight around in the 90s and he should’ve.”
57:33 – The WWE Network has just added a bunch of episodes of All-Star Wrestling, daring back to 1975, and before main events the ring announcer states that the match is “scheduled for one fall or to curfew.” Can Jim explain why? It was a union rule in the North East that no boxing or wrestling can take place after a certain time, 11 p.m. for example.
1:01:24 – Are Stan Lane and Lex Luger related? No, not in any way.
1:02:20 – What does Jim think of Don West? Some of Corny’s best memories of working in TNA are sitting down talking wrestling and sports trivia with Don and Mike Tenay. Jim: “I love Don West… he was genuinely excited about s*** and he did try to learn about the guys and what was going on and try to get better in terms of getting better but also he was just ‘being Don’ calling wrestling… I loved being around Don West, never had a crossed word with him.” West was present the night Jim spat in Ed Ferrara’s face.
1:05:20 – What does Terry Funk have against eggs? “An egg-sucking dog, as everybody knows, is a dog that hangs around the farm and will go in early in the morning, before you get a chance to, and get the eggs out from underneath the chickens and start sucking on them and then you got no eggs and it’s all the fault of that egg-sucking dog.”
1:07:08 – What did Jim think of the WWF Hardcore title and it’s 24-hour defense stipulation? Jim: “Hated it. Bogus bulls***. Stupid. Basically written by adolescent minds who don’t understand how to present an athletic championship just so that they can write a bunch of f*****’ foolish f skits like they’re a bunch of Saturday Night Live f*****’ writers.”
1:09:16 – It has been reported that Jim was offered a contract by WCW in 1991 to come back and manage Rick Rude. Corny declined and Paul Heyman was given the job and they would eventually spin into the Dangerous Alliance. Is this true and would it have lead to the original Cult Of Cornette? Jim turned down “some overtures” but no specifics were given and he was about to set up Smokey Mountain Wrestling anyway.
1:13:55 – Outro.
Plugs: Twitter: @TheJimCornette, @GreatBrianLast #CornyDriveThru; CornyDriveThru@gmail.com; JimCornette.com; 605pod.com; kfrpod.com; tinyurl.com/cornyyoutube; the law offices of Stephen P. New: newlawoffice.com, Arcadian Vanguard Podcasting Network.
Rating: 7.4
Timestamps:
16:10 – Refereeing errors
27:40 – Jim’s promos
33:10 – Bobby Lashley
40:00 – Roman Reigns
53:52 – Ric Flair
1:09:16 – 1991 return to WCW?
About Paul:
I’m just a guy, from England, who watches wrestling and listens to podcasts!
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