Jim Cornette addressed the latest accusations that were made of him on the most recent edition of his Drive-Thru podcast.
As usual, Cornette was joined with Brian Last and the two talked about the recent controversy that he and his wife Stacey allegedly coerced talent at OVW to engage in sexual activity in order to not have their careers jeopardized. Cornette starts off by addressing the accuser, stating that he didn’t likely have too strong of ties with the promotion aside from training there briefly in 2017.
“He did apparently train in the OVW system at some point around 2017 and that’s the only other wrestling connection that I’ve been able to find is that one of his social media accounts, his profile picture is a meet and greet pose with Sami Callihan. That’s very interesting.”
Before Cornette continues on, he states that to give his point context, he alleges that this individual, @AKI_Evolution, has photos of another wrestling talent that he somehow acquired.
“This guy’s got somebody else’s shit in wrestling that he don’t want them to have and don’t know how that he got, so obviously he’s starting a career here. I don’t want to go into that any further cause it’s not my place, but this other guy’s probably going to go into this further if anything else happens.”
As far as his work with OVW goes, Cornette talks about his initial 1999 to 2005 run with the promotion and says how he only pushed the top talent and gave other talent the opportunity to perform on television.
“I pushed all the people I should have and half the people I shouldn’t have, but everybody got a shot and it was not given out on any fears or favors for anything. And it’s never been said before in the 15 years since. The only problem I had when it came to pushing talent was when they were telling me to push the talent was when they were telling me to push the talent that had never been in front of an audience before, that got a little unpalatable, but that had nothing to do with the accusations of which we speak.”
“You don’t think that these guys who became the most powerful wrestlers in the largest promotion in the world, especially during a period of time where John Lauranitis wanted to get rid of me, get me out of the way here at OVW, wouldn’t it have given him some help?”
“This wouldn’t have come up by now, as many fuckin’ horrible things? Not one person that I ever supposedly made that offer at that time, ever privately, publicly stated it to anybody, eccetra.”
Jim Cornette then talks his 2010 return to OVW after Danny Davis lost his affiliations and was going through a rough spot. Cornette said that he agreed to write TV for him once a week. This was around the time when he was in ROH and he was just working on the Sinclair purchase so he was home a lot. One night a week, Cornette was writing the TV and trying to help teach talent how to perform on television. Cornette stated that there was nothing on the line for talent as their was no affiliation. OVW at that time was only a straight wrestling school and he said there was only about four guys that could likely get a contract with anybody. He also says that he didn’t book the house shows because Davis was never sure who would be able to show up due to work obligations.
“So the idea that there was anything to withhold or reward anybody with, you people don’t know how the fuckin’ wrestling business works,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound like a high-pressure environment where, ‘Hey, come bone my wife or I’m gonna fuckin’ take this goddamn giant opportunity away from you’ might be existing at that point, does it to you, Brian?”
“It does not. No,” said Last.
Cornette said that time was his last creative stint he had with OVW and did a couple of outside deals here and there. He claims that he hasn’t paid any attention to the OVW product since.
Regarding the idea of him bribing the Kentucky Athletic Commission, Cornette said it would be ridiculous for him to go to a government official and ask him to for favors because that would be a crime for said official.
“I’ve never asked the Commissioner or the Representative of The Commission of the state of Kentucky to test, fine, suspend, harass, cuss out or in other way, mistreat anybody or do any favors for anybody in OVW or any other company.”
“I’ve applauded him a few times fining or suspending some of these promotions, but I’ve never asked him to do it,” he adds.
Cornette then flat out denies any sort of bribery or blackmail from talent.
“I have never offered any wrestler, male or female, preferential treatment, a job a contract or push or anything else related to their employment or threatened the same or the opposite if they would or would not engage in ribald relations with me or my wife. No quid pro quo, not tit for tat as they say in some of these cases.”
To clear all the controversy, Cornette also states that he’s never done any of the activity that’s been accused of some other people in the wrestling industry during the #SpeakingOut movement.
“If you take out the manipulating people’s jobs accusations’ which we’ve just basically drawn and quartered as they say and illustrated was fuckin’ ca-ca, what you’ve got left is I’ve been charged with having an interesting sex life!”
What Cornette mostly took exception with was the idea that he’d tamper with the business operations of his job or jeopardize anyone else’s in wrestling.
“That was how it hurt me the worst cause of course, you know me I don’t have human feelings and I don’t give a shit of what people say, but I was indignant that people would say that I’ve monkeyed with my job or the business or other people’s jobs, but then it becomes ‘Oh my God, they’re crazed sex maniacs.'”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
Jim goes into further detail on the matter and you can listen to it all below:
RELATED: Jim Cornette And His Wife Accused Of Grooming OVW Talent, Trading Sex For TV Time
