Jim Cornette gives his thoughts on the hottest topic in wrestling today, Hogan and Bischoff joining/running TNA, at his Q and A page. He’s not too thrilled:
Oh, this whole thing reminds me of why I hate corporate wrestling. I must admit there are bright spots, like imagining Vince McMahon’s face and blood pressure when he heard the news, or hearing Hogan bitchslap Vince Russo by saying they’d be OK if “he stays in his place.” Can TNA make their minds up, LAST month everybody had to be “100% behind Russo’s creative direction” and THIS month they hire a guy who once SUED him for his lousy booking? They have reunited the same team that helped WCW lose more money than any wrestling promotion in history.
But it’s not all bad for TNA:
In all seriousness, of course Hogan’s presence will boost ratings, at least in the short term, and one or two PPV appearances over six months or a year will do buys far beyond anything TNA’s ever done on PPV. He can get publicity like no one else associated with TNA. Bischoff has proven he can get television deals done, just possibly not GOOD television shows MADE.
And yet, he’s still not thrilled:
But to me there are still issues. Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara are still writing the show. If a lot of people are looking at a turd, does it smell better? This is not a company-making move unless the extra viewers see a product they can get hooked on when Hogan isn’t there or gone. It doesn’t speak well for the policy of the youth movement and pushing new faces and making new stars. Talk about a Bush-Clinton dynasty, how long has it been since someone not named McMahon, Bischoff, Hogan and Russo has been in charge of wrestling in this country, and the business is a lot less popular in the US than it was 10 years ago. Will Hogan do anything to make even one young talent like Lashley, or Morgan, or “Desmond”, a star, or just drop the leg in each appearance to make the “fans happy”? A lot of questions about whether this is a good move for TNA will be answered by what both Bischoff and Hogan do for TNA instead of themselves.
He also talks about why he thinks ROH is the future, bringing MMA in to the discussion:
The rise of UFC in particular and MMA in general has shown that people have a desire to strip away the hokey bullshit and get back down to the base of it–two guys are gonna fight, who’s gonna win? Whether it’s “real” or not is about number 5 on the list of reasons the UFC is kicking wrestling’s ass. People want to see two guys, charismatic, colorful, and athletic, engage in an exciting contest with flashy moves or hard strikes ending with one guy winning, sometimes in a controversial fashion and often necessitating a rematch. That describes both MMA and pro wrestling. They will pay to see that when properly promoted. They will watch sports entertainment on TV for free, but it’s getting harder and harder to get people to get attached enough to “sports entertainment”, presented outright as scripted entertainment and generally comedic in nature, to buy it on PPV or at the arenas.
ROH is, in my opinion, the wrestling of the future because it’s the only promotion now concentrating on the product, letting the wrestlers wrestle and letting the fans decide who gets over. The stars are young, athletic, dedicated and hungry.
He also weighs in on the WWE Hall of Fame. Guess what? He doesn’t like that either!
So seriously, even though there have been some genuinely great moments at the dinner, that was due to the talent themselves and not the prestige of Vince’s HOF. There are certainly people in there that would be in any HOF, and some that wouldn’t. Overall, I am prouder of both myself and both versions of the Midnight Express being in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, because in that one, you are actually VOTED in by people in and around the sport.
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I’ll give Cornette this. This post is a lot less ranty than I’ve read in the recent past. He does a good job of staying out of wild speculation regarding what Hogan will do in/for TNA.
And he puts forth a really good question about “how long has it been since someone not named McMahon, Bischoff, Hogan and Russo has been in charge of wrestling”. Personally, I don’t even know why Russo has made (and stayed on) the short list for as long as he has. But maybe that’s just me.
Cornette makes a really good point regarding UFC. Personally, I think if “sports entertainment” were to cut out the BS and go toe-to-toe it would put a serious whooping on UFC. UFC and related MMA promotions are slowly sinking into the same heat death that boxing has turned into a perpetual reality.
Pro wrestling emerged from the lessons learned in a non-worked combat sport. And the carnival. Let’s not forget that.
UFC is re-learning all those lessons that guys like Joe Stecher, Frank Gotch, George Hackenschmidt, multiple Strangler Lewises and there respective bosses all learned almost a century ago.
Pro wrestling, done right, encapsulates the drama of a “sport” while guaranteeing a good storyline or feud will progress to a climax. No 30-second knockouts here. Or, well, there shouldn’t be.
One glaring mis-statement by Cornette is in his pitch for ROH. I wasn’t surprised because he is once again affiliated with Ring of Honor. But to exclude promotions like Dragon Gate USA, PWG and Chikara from any discussion of the potential future of pro-wrestling is pretty short-sighted.
Chikara is, hands down, THE kid-friendly PG wrestling style for the next era. ROH is the more MMA-themed wrestling for the sophisticates. And Dragon Gate is spotfest cruiserweight craziness with a nod to ring psych that makes it seem less like a WWE cruiserweight fatal fourway. Mainly, DGUSA is redefining the cruiserweight style in the US (with the help of Chikara and some of the best indie talent out there today).
I don’t think people are going to buy a Race-Backlund mat war in this day and age. But Cornette brings up some good points about the state of the industry, who’s in charge and possibly how to get things back on track.
And regarding his “wrestling was more popular 10 years ago”, that’s a bit of an incoherent statement because the 5 people mentioned as dominating the wrestling world were in charge a decade ago as well.
Larry Matysik does a really good job of pointing out that, even at the height of the Attitude era, there were actually LESS people watching wrestling on a regular basis than there were in the territory days. He presents a strong argument with conservative numbers.
Of course, there are a couple of minor holes in his assumptions. But he presents a good case for the swerves, comedy skits and poor booking having hurt the business as a whole over the last two plus decades. So Cornette’s “get back to basics” comment is worth consideration, in my opinion. He just fumbled on the “10 years” thing.
I mean, over the summer Smackdown got really, really good. And what were they doing? Pretty much just what Cornette said. Getting back to the basics of building a feud (between Punk and Hardy) and putting on good matches. Skits were de-emphasized and things were chugging along. Anyone willing to propose (seriously) that things are better now that the Undertaker, Vicki and Batista are back, skits eat up approximately 150% more time than they used to and CM Punk is wrestling a referee?
How long before Hornswaggle starts squashing Punk?
Will someone please explain to me how ROH is so much like MMA other than a few of the wrestlers adopting holds that are common in MMA? I’m really having trouble seeing it. Then again, I have heard the term “shoot-style” thrown around to mean just about anything. If you throw shoot kicks and use a jujigatame or triangle choke, then you are considered to be shoot style by some.
With some of the things I’ve read from Cornette lately, he seems to think wrestling should be more like MMA to attract those fans. MMA fans like the fact that their sport is legit. They are paranoid about anything being rigged. Why would they accept known worked matches even if they looked realistic?
Hi John:
I can’t speak for others. But what I meant when I classified ROH as “MMA-themed” was exactly what you said and a little more. You see more MMA-ish submission-style holds in ROH. You see more MMA-style strikes in ROH.
And up until the last few years, ROH was more about wins/losses and the matches featured clear winners and losers. Much like MMA. Until recently, as well.
So I qualified ROH as an example of what pro wrestling could look like if it were skinned with some of the trappings of MMA. I have no axe to grind on the shoot style issue.
I think Cornette thinks pro wrestling should adopt more of the stylings of MMA. And like him, I think that would draw in some of the fans of MMA. I think lapsed wrestling fans — driven towards MMA by horrible booking, insulting storylines and an abandonment of respect for fans — would come back if the pro wrestling industry threw some props their way.
Certainly not all MMA fans would be interested. But I think more than a few would be.
As per MMA being legit and the paranoia its fans hold on that topic, I think the day is not far off where some MMA organization or another is revealed to have rigged or worked a match. It’s inevitable, really, and I think goes hand-in-hand with combat sports.
Especially given the points system everyone seems to be up in arms about lately. And the fighters’ seeming willingness to work a match for points and give themselves an (understandable) sabbatical from some of the more intense fighting that helped put MMA on the map. And, of course, the judges’ willingness to work points to get the “right guy” over.
When Cornette and Matysik and others qualify MMA as just an extension of pro wrestling, I don’t think they’re far off. MMA is going through the pains of figuring out a lot of the lessons that the actual sport of pro wrestling learned a long, long time ago.
MMA will either lean towards boxing and thus drift into the same sort of sport-demimonde with an occasional work as boxing has. Or it will go full-on worked with its own closely guarded sense of kayfabe, albeit with a much, much stiffer style.
It’s really just history repeating itself. MMA fans may not like to hear that. But we’ve all been here before.