On the latest episode of his Drive-Thru podcast, Jim Cornette evaluated the universally acclaimed promo segment between Cody Rhodes and Paul Heyman on this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW.
Jim Cornette praised Paul Heyman’s talents as a performer and promoter, calling him a genius. He stated that the promo segment between Heyman and Cody Rhodes was a work of storytelling art, blending truth and fiction seamlessly to create a believable scene. Cornette also noted that both The American Nightmare and The Wise Man delivered the 17-minute promo flawlessly, making it one of the realest promos in wrestling history. He said,
“Honestly, from that point on, from the time that he [Paul Heyman] started talking and came to the ring, I didn’t make a goddamn note. I didn’t jot anything down. I didn’t stop looking at the facial expressions and reactions that each one of them had, the stuff that the other would say, and Paul’s trembling hand every once in a while. And just the it was incredible because Heyman is the cunning linguist, the verbal master, and Cody is telling his story, and he loves the personal aspect. That was the point, the promo lasted for 17 minutes which flew by, and you didn’t want it to end. And people were glued, I would assume, to what they were hearing because it all made sense, and it was f**king perfectly done. And there was so much truth in it that you couldn’t visually or verbally discern where the truth ended and the work began. It’s a masterpiece of a confrontation without being a confrontation, and they didn’t have to be mad in this instance.
“The whole thing was about even Paul’s affection for Dusty Rhodes, and that Cody had to shake his hand and thank him for helping the Rhodes family when they were down and Dusty went to work for ECW. He didn’t do it for love of the game. And then they just weave back and forth, and finally told the story. When you thought that Paul, as he usually does, had gotten a verbal zinger in at the end, Cody had the perfect final words for a babyface. He backed Paul up into a corner, made him shake his hand, and gave it to him. He said, ‘Everybody’s given me a lot of crap because I’m just trying to win a wrestling championship, but if you want to make it personal, then that’s what we will do. And it won’t be personal between me and you, it’ll be personal between me and Roman, because you’ve made it personal.'”
Cornette further went on to compare the theatrical spectacle, emotion, production, and skillset to a Broadway production. He continued,
“They shot this well, these guys if they hit their marks, if they walked through it enough to have marks, which I’m pretty sure they did because it was staged pretty well, too. There wasn’t any wandering around. Then these guys ought to be on Broadway. They hit their f**king marks. But I can’t honestly think of the last time I saw or heard a promo segment on a wrestling show that had as much realness to it.”
Jim Cornette then cited a few promos by CM Punk and MJF in AEW as being comparable to the segment between Cody Rhodes and Paul Heyman, and noted that this was perhaps among the best segments in the history of Monday Night RAW.
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