Sometimes a sabbatical is a good thing.
It refreshes the mind, relaxes the body, rekindles the creative urges… and in the case of writing a column on professional wrestling, helps bring back some of the enjoyment involved in watching. My hope was also that it would do the aforementioned creative rekindling so that I could get back into the swing of things without resorting to yet another “WWE/TNA what the hell are you thinking†column, but before it really could, something miraculous happened.
TNA reported Jim Cornette to the Federal Government as a terrorist.
No, really, they did.
When you get done laughing, you can read all about it on Cornette’s own website, where he posted both the email he sent to Terry Taylor that set all this off, and the reply he received a month later from TNA’s attorneys. The long and short of it is, he sent a personal email to Terry Taylor’s TNA email address, in which, amongst a litany of his usual complaints and a few apologetic paragraphs about not wanting 99% of the people at TNA to take his criticisms and comments personally, was a brief paragraph in which he voiced his hatred of Vince Russo in the clearest way possible: he said he wished he could kill him, that he in fact often dreamed of doing so.
No, really, he said that. Go see for yourself.
Somehow this email ended up in the hands of the TNA hire ups (according to Cornette, the copy of the email that came with the letter from TNA’s lawyers showed that Taylor had forwarded the email to Russo, who then moved it up the ladder), and in return Cornette received a letter from TNA‘s lawyers that, while not wishing death upon him, was equally as outlandish as the original email, claiming that that it had been forwarded to both Federal and State law enforcement agencies, as it constitutes a “terroristic threat“ against the entirety of TNA and it‘s employees.
No, really, it said that. Again, go see for yourself.
Was he serious? Is Jim Cornette seriously going to murder Vince Russo? Of course not. I think every single one of us knows that. But based off the majority of the internet reaction, you’d think none of us had ever heard a James E Cornette rant before. People keep saying that even though he’s not really going to try and kill Vince Russo, this still means that he’s lost it, that he needs serious help… yet were this in an audio format, we wouldn’t even be blinking. We’d be laughing in agreement along with the hosts of whatever show he was on. In fact I feel like I’ve even heard him say words to a similar effect before, about Vince Russo and others. He’s not even the first wrestler to wish Russo dead: Bret Hart once said Russo should be taken out and hung by his neck in a parking lot. I highly doubt that was meant as a chiropractic suggestion.
Look, any wrestling fan worth his salt knows that Jim Cornette is a temperamental guy prone to over blown hyperbole. No matter what he’s talking about, the man ends up worked into a lather and cutting a promo. It’s one of the reasons he’s so damn interesting to listen to. And it shouldn’t be surprised that he has this much venom towards the former Vic Venom; outside of Vince McMahon (a man who Cornette once said he would give every penny he had to see broken in the gutter; as of this writing he does not appear to have spent any of his pennies towards that end), Russo is arguably the biggest proponent of “sports entertainment†programming that there is. His name is practically synonymous it. And if there’s one thing Jim Cornette hates more than Vince Russo, it’s sports entertainment, a concept that he sees it as killing a sport and a business that he has dedicated his entire life to.
No, we shouldn’t be surprised by these statements at all. Were they ill advised, given that it’s 2010 and people have long forgotten the childhood mantra of “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me†in favor of unnecessary legal action? Certainly. Was it even more ill advised to send such statements through a TNA email server? DEFINITELY. That’s really the only thing Cornette did wrong here. Was he wrong to say it? No. Like what he said or not, think it’s indicative of needing anger management or not, we still have freedom of speech in this country, and you are still allowed to want somebody to die. It’s not very nice, but it’s not illegal, and as Cornette noted in his email to Taylor, saying it out loud is undoubtedly more healthy than pretending it doesn‘t exist. The problem is that he sent it to a work email address. That opens a legal door or two, doors that TNA has shown itself to be happy to walk through. But the scale of the response is laughable. Completely and utterly laughable.
If the internet knows that Cornette isn’t actually coming up with a Dr Doom style plot to murder Russo and get away with it, you would think that people who have worked with and known the man for decades would as well. And in a year full of tea party protesters with Death To Obama signs and death threats on Senators over health care, the TNA higher ups and lawyers can’t possibly really think the Feds are going to look into Jim Cornette’s big mouth. To me, what this really is, is a giant bluff; an attempt to silence perhaps the loudest and most outspoken critic of the company, who has now lent his talents to what some would consider their REAL competition: Ring Of Honor.
Will it work? Will Cornette keep his mouth shut from here on out? Will the Feds now come knocking on his door to question him every time a TNA employee gets in a fender bender or to drag him to jail every time Vince Russo stubs his toe?
Come on.
Those things are about as likely as Jim Cornette actually killing Vince Russo.
