Episode 4 - Jim Cornette

Episode 4 of the 6:05 Superpodcast had a number of firsts: first guest, first use of a catchphrase, and first mentions of legendary promoter - and eventual recurring show topic - Dennis Coralluzzo.

Timestamps
 0:00:00 : Preamble 

TGBL: I introduced you as James from Kentucky – do you know anything about – there used to be a caller on the old Wrestling Observer EYADA show ; one of the very few callers that Dave Meltzer banned from the show named James from Kentucky…It’s pretty funny. This guy just started calling one day and his first time, Billy Graham is on the air and he calls up, very mild mannered, and it’s funny - the things that upset Dave Meltzer, cause he goes (high pitched voice, Jim Ross esque) “Hey Dave? I got a nickname for ya. Dynamite Dave!” and that was enough to infuriate Dave Meltzer (laughs).

 0:28:07 - On Satoru Sayama's legitimacy and the recent backlash on him being in the WON HOF (based on his career period of 2 years) and wrestlers like Ole Anderson and JYD aren't 

Cornette: It was the gimmick! Hamada (Gran Hamada) was - even to me - more athletic than Sayama. Hamada didn’t have the pretty mask, pretty tights, nor smooth body. Fujinami (Tatsumi) was a bit too white-meat plain old regular fella and then became a nice heavy-weight but they had a comic book hero that all the kids knew. You put a costume on him, and fulfilled a Bruce Lee fantasy and he’d even worked the Bruce Lee Gimmick in England before he came back, and he was so fucking fast. It was right place, they wanted the kids hero, a flashier star, he was homegrown – wasn’t like they were bringing in Dynamite or Steve Wright – all those people were foils for him because he was a Japanese superhero. The only way they could fuck it up was Inoki fucking up his money – he was bulletproof!

 0:34:30 - On Tape-trading and jury-rigging his command center when he went to Mid-South 

Cornette: I’ll tell you exactly what I fucking did. I had a VHS, a BETA and a secondary VHS – my tapes stay with me…I set up a command center and I had one machine set because in Alexandria, LA, we got TV from Lafayette, Alexandria, Munro – the cities weren’t far. Anyway – I’d set one machine for one show, and another for another one, and I set the machines and I started getting tapes from Bruce Prichard regarding the Houston shows…when I went to Dallas, same thing. I taped every show. If I was on the road, I set the VCR and the Carolinas – you should have seen my setup. It was a challenge because back then, the cable systems were fidgety maybe you could only record what your cable box was set to and I had a variety of splitters that allowed me to go into the tuners on each VCR – I was taping the Saturday night show, the hour Sunday night TBS show, two hours of syndication on two stations that Crockett had and then Sunday super-show – that was every weekend. I had hundreds of tapes living in Charlotte until 1990…at that point, the level where we were at working with Crockett, I watched back every single TV performance we ever did to critique – was my promo good? What matches are getting over, which aren’t? – and I watched the other tag teams for promos but to see what their styles were, but to see if we were still doing better than they were!

 1:05:26 - On wrestling terminology evolving along with backstage etiquette 

Cornette: The handshake thing! Here’s the deal – the handshake thing; if you shook with a light grip it was a sign you’re a worker… at the same time, if you’re shaking with a normal person, you’d grip strong…If you came into the locker room and said hello to everyone, it was a nice idea to shake everyone’s fucking hand, right? But that was when there was 15 guys on the card, the babyfaces were in one locker room and heels in another and that’d be done with it. You didn’t find EVERYBODY related to the promotion from the guy who sets up to the ring, to Vince McMahon himself. I would have never dreamed if I came into a TV taping or an arena and there was Jim Crockett and Dusty Rhodes huddled up in a corner discussing something, even when I was a main event talent, I’d never dreamed of going up and got in between them, shake their hand let them know I was here, they would have said “good, now fucking leave because you’re fucking fired because we’re talking about the god damn territory!” Fuck, if the important people wanted you, they knew you were there and they’d find you. You sat in the corner and shut the fuck up. Now everybody, I have to get there 2 hours early to discuss whatever I’m doing with the boss because I know everyone from the ring guy to the popcorn guy would come in and shake our fucking hand while we’re talking!

 1:09:37 - Dennis Coralluzzo and his bombastic personae 

Cornette: I remember – it might have been one of the Eddie Gilbert memorial shows – when I was up in Connecticut, I would go down a lot more often ‘cause I was right there for Dennis’ shows, and at one of the big ones he had… the Presidential Suite at whatever hotel it was, you know, and it had a conference table in it. As I walk in the room, he’s sitting there at the end of the table in the big padded chair, he’s got a big cigar, he puts his feet up on the table – he says “James, I wonder what the poor people are doing these days?

 1:28:27 - Live-watch of El Pibe Diez '83  Cornette: The wrestler is trying to pick him up; he’s completely unconscious; the kids are dumbstruck; there’s the screams of small children – they’re going wide now, folks, It’s a wide shot –…they’re carrying this mother fucker out like a dead fish. The opponent and the children are carrying out the man who was dancing so effortlessly moments before, to the shock and amazement of the crowd here…why did they show that on television…? (laughs)

Notes:

 * This was the first episode to use the popular catchphrase that would be spoken by TGBL at the beginning of every show: "Hello again, friends, and you ARE my friends."


 * Following this episode - at the suggestion of Jim Cornette following a lengthy discussion - the Dennis Of The Week is introduced as a recurring show segment.