Take up thy wrestling boots and walk - Smokey Russo Wrestling
Submitted by Pt2 on Wednesday, February 21, 2007 at 9:44 PM EST





This column is not anti Vince Russo. I think what he did with WCW in its dieing days was, as most people now agree, shambolic, and that he definitely a massive part in the demise of WCW. The argument has been made that although a lot of work would have had to be have been done, WCW could have been saved prior to Russo’s appointment, and I tend to agree that it is a possibility, while you couldn’t have saved it after his work there if you took the best bits of McMahon, Gagne, Rhodes, Heyman, Bischoff, Von Erich and Crockett and mixed them all into one big, gooey delicious wrestling promoter.

In spite of all that, I must say I like a lot of Russo’s work. I thought his stuff in the early days of TNA, with Sports Entertainment Xtreme, was superb. Despite the stupid acronym and the obvious throwback links to pop culture, I think the Raven title chase was the most intriguing television that company has offered us in their relatively short history. Unlike when he was removed from authority in WCW, when he left TNA and was replaced by Dutch Mantell, I was a little bit disappointed and in hindsight, I think they’ve been struggling to put the stories together to go with an in ring product ever since.

So, to reiterate, this column is not anti Russo. He’s done some things I didn’t like, and he’s done some things I do.

But one of my favourite people in wrestling is Jim Cornette.

The outspoken mamma’s boy, wrestling’s Louisville lip, former owner of Smokey Mountain Wrestler, Former manager of the Midnight Express, Former leader of Camp Cornette, Former trainer at OVW and the ‘management director’ of TNA Wrestling, the man brings the NWA back to TNA, and if you’re an old school fan, his involvement in TNA makes you sit up and take notice.

He gives TNA something that no one else manages to; Jeff Jarrett as a top star doesn’t work for them since he’s always been considered minor league by the majority of wrestling fans. Raven, as talented as he is, will always be cast as merely a hardcore wrestler in the minds of old school fans. Christian Cage, despite his superb in ring ability, has often been considered too small. Scott Steiner, a great worker in his youth, embarrassed himself the last time he got truly national exposure, by being barely able to move….. in short, anyone with any star-power they have fails to give them any legitimacy; even Kurt Angle, the Olympic gold medallist. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone knows he was released from the WWE because of the state of his health, he’d give them legitimacy in spades, but as it is…. Well, the majority of Kurt Angle fans I know didn’t follow him to TNA.

Cornette doesn’t have to wrestle and he gives them that legitimacy, because with his microphone ability and his tremendous career in wrestling, he just carries an air with him. But this isn’t what I wanted to talk about, and I’ve gotten sidetracked into E-Sucking his dick. What I meant to talk about was the recent revelations of the Cornette/Russo situation in TNA.




In a nutshell, apparently they aren’t getting along. Anyone surprised? I seem to remember something about them having a little bit of history as well. Here’s a few extracts taken from an outspoken interview with Jim Cornette back in the days when he was working at OVW, and WCW was still a lumbering, flatulent dinosaur rather than just a memory.

“Speaking of balless gutless *****, Vince Russo, Hello Vince! The balless, gutless *****, do you know how he quit the WWF? Do you know that story?” He was running a video store before Vince let him write for the magazine….

“I’m not saying he’s never had any good ideas, but you know what the problem is? All the good idea’s he’s ever had is from watching the god damn cheap ass B-Movies that he used to rent in his goddamn loser video store! He doesn’t know anything about wrestling, y’know, d’ya hear ding ding ding! Immediately followed 60 seconds later by ding ding ding! Keep the matches short as possible because when that bell rings Vince Russo is lost. Vince Russo is a babe in the woods, Vince Russo is a deer in the headlights, as long as there is a wrestling match going on”

“Vince Russo’s one true talent is to believably lie and say that he is qualified to do something when he is not”

“He didn’t like JR, because JR would tell him when he was full of ****, and so would I. And he didn’t like me either ‘cos I wanted to do wrestling, well goddamn, so we’re a wrestling federation, why not put a little wrestling in there Vince, Russo, every once in a while, what do you wanna do ****** holiday on ice with Chimpanzee’s? As a matter of fact I probably gave him his next Pay Per View”.

It will surely come of little surprise, then, that in light of these comments one of the things that Cornette is doing, if you are to believe the reports, is to call Vince Russo on it when his ideas don’t make sense to Russo. This is obviously going to be a tense working environment.

But if the TNA management can control it, and not let the lid fly off, I don’t see why this can’t be used to the infinite benefit of TNA. It’s generally agreed that Russo wasn’t, as he once claimed, the driving force between the success of the WWE during the attitude era, but lets face it; he did provide a lot of ideas, and play a pivotal role, in the WWE’s most successful years post Hogan/Warrior. While he was too manic and uncontrolled in his time at WCW, when he was controlled during his WWE run (and during his first TNA run) he provided programming that (while it may not be for the wrestling purist) sold a lot of tickets, and that is what all wrestling promoters want first and foremost, followed by their wives to stay faithful in a distant second place.

Jim Cornette, as crazy as it sounds, can be that controlling influence.

I know anyone that remembers the manic tirades of Jim Cornette as being any kind of controlling influence must think I’m mad right about now, but hear me out. Cornette already doesn’t like Russo, and by his own admission has a history of calling Russo on things that he thinks doesn’t make sense, or aren’t right for the company. So he’s certainly not likely to be afraid, or try and suck up to the guy, so politics are much less likely to come into it right there.

Second, TNA is based in Nashville, Tennessee. It tapes it shows in Florida. Its next Pay Per View is scheduled to take place in St. Louis, Missouri. Could this company be any more southern? It has basically taken the place of WCW and the NWA before it in playing to that southern crowd. St. Louis is the HEART of the old NWA, and that audience has never truly taken to the WWE like much of the rest of the country, so as a much smaller company holding a PPV there, TNA management must be one of three things: Ballsy, stupid, or they know their audience.

How much more southern can you get than Jim Cornette? And I’m sure from hearing him speak that he’s damn proud of it. He used to open his OVW shows with “Hello Kentucky-ana!” and by his own admission “doesn’t want to open shows with hello Detroit!” With years spent working in the old NWA in virtually every southern territory and wrestling town, Jim Cornette will know exactly what will fly for an NWA audience. He’ll know exactly when to put the leash on Russo, and exactly when to take it off. In effect, he’ll be performing the same role as Vince McMahon, back in the late nineties.

Of course, with all that tension, there will be a lot of pressure on TNA management to keep it all in check. It won’t be easy, but I think the rewards will be there if they can.

After all, I’m sure we all remember what happened the last time a wrestling company tried to combine the traditional elements of wrestling with the innovative, and tape their shows at Orlando. It sounded a little bit like NWA, but not quite, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Agree/disagree? Major/minor? Yin/yang? Contact me at takeupthywrestlingboots@gmail.com.

Take care, and support your local wrestling promotion.

Pt2


In memory of Mike ‘Awesome’ Alfonso.









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