During the latest edition of his “Cornette’s Drive-Thru” podcast, Jim Cornette commented on the WWE Brawl for All tournament, Vince Russo’s claim that he came up with the idea, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how MMA/UFC must have sparked the idea in either Vince McMahon or Vince Russo: “I guarantee you that one of the Vinces, probably Russo, saw some television piece, somehow, on mixed martial arts, Ultimate Fighting, or even a Toughman contest, because you know how people get a germ of an idea, and then somebody else says something and you’ve seen something on TV and whatever the fuck, and that’s the way songs are written and books are written, etc.”
On how he tried to get WWE to do Severn vs. Shamrock 3, Bruce Prichard explaining Brawl for All to him: “I tried to get them to do Severn and Shamrock 3 on PPV, and had sent copious notes on what you could do with Dan Severn, what you couldn’t do with Dan Severn, etc., but that had never manifested itself. But then suddenly we hear, ‘Well, we’re gonna have a Brawl for All,’ and I remember Bruce explaining it to me because he’s always the explainer, he’ll explain it exactly like Vince wants it explained. I said, ‘You gotta be out of your fucking mind.’ ‘Oh no, it’ll be great Corny.’
On how Vince McMahon must have taken the MMA idea and thought of it like boxing because that’s the only type of “real fighting” he knew about: “Vince Russo had the barest idea that there was something going on called Ultimate Fighting, I don’t even know whether they were calling it mixed martial arts yet. This is still before Dana White bought the company, when they had been kicked off PPV but they had done those massive PPV buys, and there was an underground buzz about it. And if he was keeping up with ECW, then he probably knew something about this. But because Russo didn’t know anything about the rules of pro-wrestling to begin with, he definitely didn’t know anything about mixed martial arts fighting or what the UFC was legitimately doing. And I’m sure when he pitched it to Vince McMahon, Vince always like, ‘Oh yeah, they’ll really be laying the leather in there, pal!’ Because he was a boxing guy, if he’s thinking of real fighting, he’s thinking of boxing, because he’s been a PPV promoter and at the time, that’s what ruled PPV, was boxing.”
On how neither Vince McMahon or Vince Russo knew anything about MMA or UFC: “Basically you had two Vinces, together, that neither one of them knew anything about the burgeoning mixed martial arts scene, Ultimate Fighting Championship, what it was really about, doing some kind of weird offshoot with all the supposed tough guys that they had on the roster, and all those guys were tough in their normal elements.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
