During the latest edition of his “Cornette’s Drive-Thru” podcast, Jim Cornette ripped into the Chris Jericho/Matt Hardy segment from last week’s Dynamite broadcast, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On how the segment buried Tony Schiavone: “Tony Schiavone had to sell it like he was seeing it in person. Not only that this is the most preposterous thing I’ve ever seen, that somebody is teleporting, and not only, it was done obviously with multiple exposures of the camera because at some point you could see Chris’ head suddenly tick a different place and then tick back again, and everyone knows how that’s done. But Tony Schiavone actually said, ‘Am I dreaming? Look what he’s done!’ Tony Schiavone had to call it like Matt Hardy was really disappearing and then appearing in different places simultaneously until he got all the way down to the ring. One of their announcers who is supposed to be their salesman.”
On how he had to turn off the show because he didn’t want to end up hating Jericho and Hardy: “So they just buried their announcer, made their entire program look fucking like idiocy, and before anybody else opened their mouth from there, I turned the TV off while I still like Matt Hardy and Chris Jericho. I have given up on enough old friends for doing stupid, phony bullshit, I couldn’t, no, I could not watch the rest of this or I’ll hate both of them forever.”
On not understanding why Jericho would do a segment like that: “I don’t know why Jericho would put up with shit like this when he’s really having to carry the fucking company on his back, especially as far as the heel side goes. And why? Why would you do this?”
On how AEW has moved away from its promise to be a new promotion centered around analytics: “Real sports analytics. So, next week, Matt Hardy is gonna have a graphic, ‘Matt has only teleported four times in the last week.’ That’s your real sports analytics. Take your real sports analytics, Tony, and shove ’em up your ass. I knew this was gonna happen. I knew it. I knew it. You’ve got a guy that has read newsletters for fucking 40 years and thinks he can do it.”
On how AEW is presenting ‘stupid, phony, silly wrestling’: “All they had to do to change my mind was not present stupid, phony, silly wrestling. And what have they presented since day one? Stupid, phony, silly wrestling. It doesn’t matter if you have a goddamn Shakespearian drama break out at a fucking dog fight out in the alley. Nobody’s gonna pay attention to the fucking Shakespearian actors because they’re in the middle of all these stray, mangey dogs fucking around.”
On how Tony Khan is a ‘nerd with glasses’ and a ‘mark’: “Here’s the thing. You said they needed a booker with backbone. OK, number one, if this was 25 years ago, everybody in the locker room, Tony Khan would have been the guy that they turned upside down and shook for change after fucking school and stole his lunch money. A nerd with glasses that they went up and thumped his fucking nose and gave him a wedgie. And that’s the way they would have treated him because he was a fucking mark that had enough money to get into the fucking business and didn’t know who to get involved with and that’s why they’ve got a shit show now.”
On how the segment ‘killed’ their show: “So they killed their announcer, their debuting new star, and their fucking biggest star, Chris Jericho, all in one fucking segment, and their television program, by just being stupid because it’s a goddamn television show to them rather than a wrestling show and that’s the thing that I’ve been saying from the start, and nothing has changed my mind, these fucking dipshits think they’re back in the fucking independents and everybody wants to giggle.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
