Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru Episode 53
Release date: May 14, 2018
Recap by: Paul Briody
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
Top stories/moments of interest:
• Usual format in which Brian Last asks Jim Cornette email questions from fans about current wrestling and wrestling history with great chemistry between the two.
0:00 – Intro starts with Jim bemoaning Brian’s busy schedule affecting their recording. The gardeners in upstate New York use drones to survey their work! To a little old Englishman that was truly mind blowing. Corny’s podcasts are now not a part of the MLW network but there’s no heat there and nothing has really changed in terms of availability, contacting the show and timetable. The Drive-Thru has retained its sponsor, the law offices of Stephen P. New.
12:48 – Is Stephen P. New a real lawyer? Yes! Jim talks about PN News wrestling in WCW and Paul Heyman, who was on color commentary, said: “His name is PN News and he raps all the time, but the funny thing about him is the raps don’t rhyme, we know he can sing and we know he can dance, but with a belly like that how do he make romance?” They then talk about locker room thieves (which were surprisingly rare) and gimmick/stipulation matches. Corny lists some of the items he’s lost during matches over the years and then talks about whipping Magnum T.A. with a belt during a match between The Midnights and Magnum and Mr Wrestling II in 1984. Jim’s “aim may have been off” for some of the belt shots.
25:40 – Why did Shawn Michaels pass out during a match against Owen Hart (with Corny in his corner) in 1995? It was a work! Jim: “It was well known that he had had the concussion… they wanted to make it look like he had really passed out.” Owen and Jim reacted like it was legit, and it worked. Jim talks about Bill Watts’ influence in the WWF at that time and confirms that he loved Shawn Michaels “as a worker.” He wouldn’t have liked his antics just a few years later but at that time that side of him wasn’t as prominent as it would grow to be. Jim: “After Hall and Nash left I think he stepped up and tried to take all the ‘a******-ishness’… and he succeeded.”
32:34 – Any experiences with/stories about Prince Neff Maiava? He’s a legend in Hawaii but there’s very little surviving footage of his matches. Jim: “I don’t think that he’s overlooked for any reason otherwise that it’s been so long.” Jim has never met him or heard any stories about him.
35:43 – If Jim was given the WWE, what would be the first three things he would do? You can’t “put the toothpaste back in the tube” so it’d be hard to go back and “do professional wrestling” instead of sports entertainment, which Jim would ideally want to do. He’d “weed out the talent” and would want to study how a wrestling company makes money in 2018. Jim, in response to the amount of TV time: “just send some people out to get over, and beat some people up… some of the roster’s job is to have a good match and get their a** kicked.” Today’s WWE “doesn’t have the grit of a UFC presentation… it’s like a goddamn comic book come to life. All I’ve seen is New Day throwing f*****’ cereal in the air, and confetti, and I’m like ‘what the f***’? I’d dirty the s*** up a little bit, take some sandpaper to it and rough their cheeks up.” Brian dubs this the ‘WTF era’ of wrestling.
41:36 – Ole Anderson has stated that he found out that Jim Barnett was stealing money from the Georgia Championship Wrestling offices. If anyone else had found this out would there ever have been a ‘Black Saturday’? Jim: “The justification that I got was that, sure, Barnett had dipped in and taken some money from the company account but by the same token no one said anything when he put it in or when he had it put in.” Under Barnett, Georgia was a successful territory and he used the company account as if it was his personal account, at times. While Barnett was overseas, in Hong Kong, Ole Anderson strong armed his way into power in Georgia, claiming Barnett had been stealing money, which lead to Barnett joining the WWF and ‘Black Saturday’ when the WWF took GCW’s TV slot. Brian: “Ole really f***** a lot of s*** up.” Interesting ‘what if’ discussion, it was undoubtedly a major event, possibly the most important ‘behind the scenes’ event of the 1980s.
47:45 – How would Jim have booked a Hulk Hogan vs Bruiser Brody Wrestlemania main event and was it inevitable if Brody had lived? Jim: “It was a dream match and it was possible” but it wasn’t set in stone. Jim thinks that Brody wouldn’t have caused as many headaches for management in that instance, as is his reputation, mainly due to him being ready to retire and the amount of money that would be on the table. Brody wouldn’t have any problem doing a job to Hogan under those circumstances. Brian states that he would’ve loved to see a Hogan vs. Stan Hansen program and Jim agrees.
50:25 – What was it like working with Big Bully Busick? Corny worked with him in Global and didn’t know him well but “thought he was a very nice guy… I thought the bully gimmick was cartoon but I liked him as a wrestler… he was powerful, had the big barrel chest and I thought he was a good worker.” He lost interest in wrestling when they wouldn’t really push his bully character.
52:45 – Has Jim ever saw a wrestler mess with the wrong fan and had he ever seen fan involvement affecting a match? Jim: “Well Jesus Christ, of course!” “The conventional wisdom always was: somebody hits the ring… whoever’s closest to him, get the m*****f*****, unless he’s got a knife, then you have to survey the situation.” Jim talks about Ole Anderson being stabbed close to his heart by a fan in Greenville, South Carolina. Going into the crowd is asking for either a fan attack or a lawsuit.
1:03:17 – Jim’s asked about his non-PC rants being edited out of the WWE Network version of Clash of The Champions 10. Jim didn’t know about it but that’s the world we in today. Profanity rules on TV have loosened but restrictions on the content of speech (e.g. racial jokes, gender jokes) are much tighter. Good discussion about close-to-the-bone promos from back in the day including Waldo Von Erich making an anti Semitic joke in the late 50s/early 60s which led to the company losing their TV slot in “Buffalo, or Cleveland, or somewhere in upstate New York.” In fairness, Corny’s not completely sure if that story is true.
1:08:30 – What are Jim’s thoughts on legalizing marijuana? In short: “It’s ridiculous that it’s not legal… you can go to jail, for a period of years, for doing, or possessing or using the same thing that a guy seven miles away… is doing legally and there’s no f*****’ issue.”
1:10:57 – Is is ever ok to use a wrestler’s death for heel heat? Citing the example of Paul Bearer, Jim: “You realize how big a kick Percy Pringle would’ve got out of the fact that he was still in the middle of a f*****’ WrestleMania angle after he was dead? He would’ve loved that… If the people who are close to the guy ain’t in on it or it’s not a situation where you know the guy himself would’ve been in on it, they don’t need to do it.” Brian talks about Andy Kaufman would’ve loved his posthumous involvement in an angle with Jerry Lawler in Memphis.
1:13:32 – Where Hall and Nash undercover agents sent by Vince to damage WCW?? No! Conspiracy theories like this are put into the same category as flat Earthers by Corny.
1:15:25 – Outro
Plugs: Twitter: @TheJimCornette, @GreatBrianLast #CornyDriveThru; CornyDriveThru@gmail.com; JimCornette.com; 605pod.com, kfrpod.com, tinyurl.com/cornyyoutube, tinyurl.com/cornykickstarter
Rating: 7.33
Not quite as funny as last week, not quite as many stories from yesteryear but still an entertaining and informative listen.
Time stamps:
0:00 – Intro
12:48 – PN News, gimmicks in matches
25:40 – Shawn Michaels vs Owen Hart, 1995
32:34 – Prince Neff Maiava
35:43 – Jim in charge of WWE
41:36 – Ole Anderson/Jim Barnett
47:45 – Hulk Hogan vs Bruiser Brody
50:25 – Big Bully Busick
52:45 – Fan altercations
1:03:17 – Promo editing for 2018
1:08:30 – Marijuana
1:10:57 – Using death for heel heat
1:13:32 – Hall and Nash undercover in WCW?
About Paul:
I’m just a guy, from England, who watches wrestling and listens to podcasts!
Be the first to comment