In this WrestleTalk News, Kenny Omega shoots on Jim Cornette, why an AEW star left, Shotzi
Blackheart deletes her social media and more. Subscribe and enable notifications to always
on for daily wrestling news videos. I’ve always wondered what WWE’s exact
creative process is for when they’re coming up with new merchandise designs. Do they just
have a whole department to generate ideas, completely removed from the wrestler’s input?
Or is it something the wrestlers pitch to the merchandise team, and they go back and
forth on it? According to Kevin Owens when addressing questions
of his new t-shirt design, I think they just make it up on the spot.
“For those asking why there’s a panda on my new shirt on @WWEShop, allow me to explain.
Here’s what happened: Joe: “What do you want on your next shirt?”
Me: “I don’t know. A panda?” Joe: “A panda? Why?!”
Me: “Because pandas rule!” Joe: “Ok!”
Which begs the question, what the hell did the APA pitch?
Kevin Owens, despite his rough exterior, is actually a keen zoo enthusiast and lover of
animals. It marks a welcome, long overdue return to WWE for pandas, which have had significant
backstage heat on them since 2002, when a bunch of pandas successfully campaigned to
get the WWF to change their name. These days, wrestling has a far bigger scourge
than pandas though. Jim Cornette. AEW has a weirdly tense relationship with
Cornette. The kind where they mostly just say nasty things at each other, but at any
moment, they could start kissing. The crux appears to be a difference in wrestling
philosophy. AEW have embraced a very modern style of wrestling that arguably over does
spectacular spots and enjoys tongue-in-cheek, oh but none of this is really real insider
references. This mostly offends Cornette’s old school belief in how wrestling should
be performed. An argument against that being that style of wrestling might not work today,
as the kayfabe and Canadian Destroyers on the ring apron genies are out of the bottle.
On a Twitch stream with CEOGaming, the currently out injured, but still very much co-executive
vice president Kenny Omega, took aim at Cornette and his fans.
“I think Jim Cornette has backed himself up into a corner where, now, he’s found
this group of extremely pathetic human beings who have no other thing to aspire to become,
or no one to base their life off of, no one to listen to, no one to adhere to their commands.
“And so, when it became a character that he could play as though he was still traveling
up and down the strip in the indies, like back in the old days, now he’s got this
group of people hanging off his every word. And all he has to do is sit and talk on a
podcast with some other guy.” Kenny’s accusation is that Cornette doesn’t
actually believe what he’s saying anymore. He’s just saying these things to appeal
to his audience. And in Cornette’s colourful wrestling commentator way, can come across
as personal attacks. “When he realized he could make money by
delivering hateful speech, he backed himself into a corner, and now, if he wants to make
rent, if he wants to buy his fancy McDonald’s double cheeseburger meal, he has to talk about
the things that are going to get attention and a lot of the time, that’s going to be
yours truly.”
Interestingly, Kenny expands on how this isn’t just a public spat, or just affecting him
personally - Cornette’s consistent criticism of AEW’s product has penetrated their backstage
atmosphere. “That seeps into our locker room too. Yeah,
it does. Everyone is so afraid of the f****** cult of Cornette army and people that have
like, you know, anti-AEW sites that they want to be — they want to do whatever the f***
they can to stay safe.” The thing is, that might not be as AEW-wide
as Kenny feels. Sure, wrestlers like Omega, the Bucks and Orange Cassidy are frequently
heavily targeted by Cornette on his podcasts. But you look at some other people on the rosters
and you’re like… they’re probably actually really big fans of him. FTR, a modern tag
team that encapsulates how well Cornette’s old school approach can work in modern wrestling,
appeared on his podcast following their WWE release two years ago. They later admitted
that other AEW wrestlers were “so mad at us” for having appeared on the show.
And at the same time Omega is saying how everyone in AEW is afraid of Cornette and his followers,
Max Caster has released a version of his Acclaimed theme song with Jim Cornette’s voice reading
one of his raps over the top. Spit those bars, Jim.
Although this could be Caster mocking Cornette, as opposed to condoning him.
Kenny, meanwhile, saw his name was trending on Twitter following his fun Twitch stream
and posted: “I trend here often, but it’s usually
during a wrestling event. When I’d heard people were talking about my Twitch stream,
I was excited. I’d thought my sick #SFV play was getting some love. Nope.”
What do you think of the AEW and Cornette clashes? Let me know in the comments.
2022 is proving to be AEW’s difficult third album. After two years of barely doing anything
wrong, giving us all-time great matches and storylines, with top wrestling talent actively
choosing to sign with them over WWE, and all that during a pandemic, the promotion has
experienced a run of departures and controversies: most notably founding member and co-executive
vice president Cody Rhodes leaving for WWE, and MJF’s backstage contract clash, which
has left him off TV for a month now. But one of the OG people to leave AEW was
Awesome Kong. Yeah, remember that. When Awesome Kong was in AEW? Don’t worry if not, I’ve
mostly blocked out the Nightmare Collective too.
But despite being on the company’s first ever pay-per-view, being a surprise addition
to Double or Nothing 2019’s women’s three-way match, and being part of the short lived Nightmare
Collective faction later that year, she was written off TV completely after they disbanded
in early 2020, never to be seen again. She was active behind the scenes, though,
taking on a backstage role for a year and a half. Now speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Kong
has revealed she felt sidelined and unheard while there.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing the crew over there at AEW, especially since
we were just up and running… We were trying to give you something that you haven’t seen.
I felt unheard. I wasn’t in control. I couldn’t get in the room where final decisions
were made. Believe me, [I] stalked that room. I would stay there after big meetings and
pick up the water bottles and cups like, ‘Huh, Y’all need…you need me to go? Okay’.
I tried to get into that last meeting where decisions were made.”
Kong explains that she realised who the company was comfortable with making decisions, and
it wasn’t her. If it was, she said she would have pushed the idea of her 15 Minutes of
Fame, a showcase spot for the women to go and “steal the show from them boys.” [QUOTE]
After a while, in June last year, she made the decision to leave.
One of the most legitimate criticisms against AEW is the disparity between the booking of
their men’s division, and the booking of their women’s division. It sounds like Kong
wanted to change this behind-the-scenes, but the interest from AEW just wasn’t there.
But while emotions are difficult, AEW sure does have some numbers to celebrate!
Wrestling Observer Radio has revealed the Forbidden Door go-home episode of Dynamite
that aired on the 24th June in the UK, has set AEW’s all time record on ITV 4. This
caps a six week growth period since Double or Nothing. And Rampage has finally seen its
viewership jump up, with last Friday’s episode drawing the highest amount of viewers since
April with 486,000. Just a day after telling her critics to “suck
her big giant hairy mangos”, Shotzi Blackheart has deleted her Twitter account.
This comes after her appearance in the women’s Money in the Bank ladder match on Saturday,
where she botched multiple moves. Online accounts began to drag her on Twitter because of that,
which seemingly led Shotzi to post: “I’m not a wrestle robot, I’m human
and slips happen especially in a CHAOTIC UNPREDICTABLE ladder match! I can take a joke and laugh
at myself (One of the first things I said was “I can’t wait to see that spot on
botchamania”) but comments like “you should be fired” and other terrible things admittedly
hit hard. I had to have a few friends wipe the tears
off my face and slap some sense into me and remind me WHO THE F I AM! That being said,
all my haters can SUCK MY BIG GIANT HAIRY MANGOS!”
Shotzi then deleted her Twitter account, prompting concerns over her mental health - which she
addressed in an Instagram story: “I appreciate everyone checking on me, but
I swear I’m fine. I have been going through the toughest year of my personal life so it’s
deeper than nasty comments, but also Twitter has not helped with my already fragile mind
state. Just trying to stay motivated and positive. I am focused on my goals and not what’s
on the Internet.” I know you, dear viewer, aren’t the ones
criticising Shotzi or hounding AEW and Cornette. You’re one of the good ones, you’re watching
WrestleTalk. So here’s some homework: give a wrestler an honest public compliment. I’ll
start, by tweeting someone who hates compliments. Nothing makes me feel the way Eddie Kingston
does when he performs. Not movies, not comic books. Not Stranger Things, not Batman. In
the space of two years, he has become my favourite active wrestler. I am incredibly grateful
for that.” Now you go post one too.
Also, total aside, we have a Kickstarter running right now for our board game channel No Rolls
Barred. Here’s Adam
Blampied to tell you more.