Jim Cornette painted a bleak picture for the wrestling business while comparing WWE and AEW wrestlers on his podcast, Jim Cornette’s Drive Thru.
“The WWE, they’re Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” he said. “They’re going to goddamn amaze you with their precision and their smoothness and their whirlwinded-try.”
Despite what sounded like a glowing review, he described WWE’s product as boring and fake. His take on AEW, though, was harsher.
“AEW is a bunch of goddamn ’90s mosh pit dancers where they’re just
going to beat the shit out of each other with no fucking thought or technique whatsoever until they drop,” Cornette said before concluding, “Wrestling is gone from either side.”
Cornette’s co-host, Brian Last, said there seem to be only two paths into pro wrestling: WWE recruits talent into its system, or hopefuls work their way up through the independent scene. Either way, each path shapes what fans see on television.
The one positive that Cornette saw was that WWE still produces stars he believes fans aspire to be like, citing Rhea Ripley, Cody Rhodes, and CM Punk as examples.
“You got these stars that you could still say, ‘Well, people might want to become wrestlers to be like them,’” he said. The problem, as Cornette sees it, is that becoming a star at the level of Ripley or Punk is “minuscule.”
Referring to wrestling’s independent scene, Cornette said prospects can “work on shows easier than you can get a job at fucking Walmart.” That makes AEW, which recruits heavily from the indies, seem like a more attainable destination for the average person breaking into the business.
However, the legendary manager-turned-podcaster was not impressed with the current crop of talent in AEW, either as stars or in-ring performers.
“They are a group of stupid people doing stupid shit that’s probably going to end up with somebody breaking somebody’s neck,” Cornette said.
Continuing about AEW’s stars, he added, “I don’t want to be like those people. I don’t even want to watch those fucking people.”
While Cornette was pessimistic about wrestling’s future, the current product offers a contrasting outlook.
TKO, WWE’s parent company, boasted about the success of last Saturday’s Night of Champions, which it said sold out Kingdom Arena in Saudi Arabia in a recent press release. The company also highlighted digital numbers, adding that Night of Champions generated almost 187 million social video views.
Following last Sunday’s Forbidden Door, AEW boss Tony Khan was already looking ahead to August as AEW prepares to return to London for All In.
“It’s going to be the biggest night in AEW wrestling,” Khan said on the Forbidden Door post-show. “There’s a lot of excitement and a lot of prestige around AEW going back to Wembley Stadium. And I think it’s going to be a great, great night for AEW.”
