[1994-01-15-SMW-TV] Interview: Jim Cornette

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The aftermath of an SMW board meeting. Bob Armstrong said if he could get a match where if he won, he'd get his commissionership back, he'd agree to anything Jim Cornette wanted. So Cornette decided that he'd have to beat Terry Funk, and if he doesn't, The Bullet must unmask, kiss Jim Cornette's feet and then leave SMW forever. Great Cornette promo.

[Kevin Ridge]

Cornette is very happy after the board results. His mom is on the board after all. Terry Funk. Cornette's choice here is Terry Funk. Bullet gets rid of his mask if he loses. Some feet kissing here.

[shoe]

Great Cornette promo and a nice piece of business.

[Exposer]

Really great Corny promo. The angle is good too.

[soup23]

Yeah this was classic Cornette being loud and annoying before the big match.

[El-P]

Another great Cornette promo, but I'm getting tired of all the gimmick and stipulation matches. On the same TV show we also get to hear a promo about a "football helmet on a pole" match. Jeeez...

[PeteF3]

So the Bullet-Murdoch match did end in bullshit--Murdoch won, but Bullet fulfilled his obligation to "take his mask off," only to have another mask on underneath. Repeated failure to adhere to match stipulations and the consequences of gimmick bouts in general was one major failing of Cornette as a booker.

 

The apparently vacant SMW commissionership is about to be settled--I guess this the time when they were planning to have Bill Watts take the role, but instead they're creating an opening to put Bob Armstrong back in the spot. Probably just as well, to be honest. Cornette is bringing back Terry Funk to take on the Bullet--with Armstrong's commissionership up vs. whatever Cornette and his mole on the Board of Directors want. Bullet must unmask and show his face (emphasized by Cornette) and leave SMW and kiss Cornette's feet. I do like the touch of bringing back Funk, the man who sent Armstrong out of SMW to start with. Cornette was great here as usual, full of fire but also getting off some funny lines including a direct shot at WCW.

[GSR]

Cornette’s just come out of a meeting with the Board of Directors and is a happy guy. A couple of weeks back The Bullet, who everyone knows is Bob Armstrong, made a little offer that if he could have a match where Bob Armstrong could be Commissioner again, he’d do anything else he asked, would face any challenger and would do so under any stipulation. He had a think about it and his close personal friend Harry White, who is on the Board of Directors now, assisted him in the process. First of all he had to choose an opponent, and while he has access to those who are under contract to the WWF, the one man who Bob Armstrong has never defeated is Terry Funk, and Terry Funk will do anything for the right price (especially for a good friend like him). As for the stipulations, he thought long and hard about it and came up with something that would hurt Bob Armstrong worse than anything else. If Terry Funk beats The Bullet, then The Bullet must take off his mask and show his face to everyone in the Coliseum and he must leave Smoky Mountain Wrestling forever. However before he does so, he must get on his hands and knees, and in front of the fans that have supported him for the last 25 years, any family members he cares to brings, friends, the wrestlers and the photographers, crawl across the ring and kiss Jim Cornette’s feet.

 

Great, gloating promo from Cornette and I had no idea about the idea of putting Watts into the Commissioner's role.

[garretta]

I'm not sure how well the Cowboy would have gotten over in Knoxville. Bullet Bob had wrestled in the area a lot over the years and was well-known there, which is why Corny used him in the first place. Maybe if it had been a Tulsa or Oklahoma City promotion, Watts would have been okay, but not in Tennessee, especially since he would have been just a suit like he was for Turner.

 

I actually don't have a problerm with how they got around Bullet Bob losing; the double masks is a classic spot used when promoters need a masked guy to unmask, but don't want to reveal who he is. Of course, it's a heel spot for the most part, but I'll bet the fans loved The Bullet making an idiot out of Corny like that. Now, if he does the same thing again this time, that'll be too much, but I have a feeling that it won't come to that.

 

I still can't figure out why Corny didn't use Yoko for one of these matches. Just make it non-title so Vince doesn't have to worry about Bullet Bob as WWF champion. Using Terry's great, but Yoko would seem a lot more logical since there's already a known, permanent professional connection between the two of them.