The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week: Jim Cornette and the NWA

The 411mania Dumpster Fire of the Week

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week. I’m Bryan Kristopowitz.

With American Thanksgiving coming up this week, it seems like a good time to ask just how many people reading this who actually celebrate Thanksgiving celebrate it by eating turkey on Thanksgiving day. That’s what I tend to do, but I know that there are people out there who celebrate Thanksgiving by eating something else, like ham or lasagna or, in some cases, roast beef.

Turkey is, obviously, traditional. It’s what people likely think of when they think of Thanksgiving, even if they don’t actually eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Ham would seem like a close second (is ham first for Christmas, or is turkey still king for that holiday, too?). What comes in third? Is it roast beef or is it lasagna?

And how many people eat stuff like fish for Thanksgiving? Anyone out there eat pizza (not take-out pizza, but the kind of pizza that you bake in the oven. Unless you buy something like Pizza Hut on Wednesday and save it for Thursday)? And what do the vegetarians/vegans eat?

And how many people celebrate Thanksgiving on some other day, like Friday or Saturday?

Well, regardless of what you all do/don’t do, I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving, or at least try to. That’s what I plan to do. You know, give it a shot.

And now onto this week’s Dumpster Fire of the Week.

This week, the 411 Dumpster Fire of the Week goes to pro wrestling legend Jim Cornette and the National Wrestling Alliance, or the NWA, for the whole “Cornette said something offensive” thing . Because, really, the whole thing, from what Cornette said to the way the NWA handled it, was just terrible.

It all started with the joke that Cornette made while doing color commentary on a recent episode of the NWA YouTube show NWA Powerrr (is it really necessary to have three fucking R’s in the show’s name?) where, during a match between Nick Aldis and Trevor Murdoch, Cornette said “Trevor Murdoch is the only person who can strap a bucket of fried chicken to his back and ride a motor scooter across Ethiopia.” The line, which many people online perceived as racist, immediately went to social media to complain. As a result of the controversy, the NWA removed the episode from YouTube to edit the line out and, apparently, asked Cornette to apologize for the offending line, which Cornette refused to do. Eventually, the NWA publicly apologized for the incident, and Cornette resigned from the company. This past Friday, Cornette used his podcast The Jim Cornette Experience to explain his side of the story. According to Cornette, he didn’t think the line, or joke, was racist (he claims that the joke was about hungry people and that it was a throwback to the 1980’s, when stand-up comedians made “hungry Ethiopian” jokes). Cornette also said that the NWA was fine with the line when he said it, and that the Powerrr episode had been “sitting in the can” for six weeks and that the company could have removed the offending line during that time but didn’t because the company didn’t think anything of it (an NWA official Cornette talked to allegedly told Cornette that the line went right by him while the show was being recorded).

Now, was the “joke” racist? Basically, yes. I believe Cornette when he claims that, at the time he said it, he didn’t think the line was racist. He just thought that the line, which he claims to have used multiple times in the past, was just ridiculous and funny. I don’t think that Cornette, or really anyone involved in the wrestling business, would do or say anything overtly racist (unless it was part of a storyline or something like that, but that’s a totally different thing than what happened here). However, not being racist at the time or not, the line sounds racist, and, ultimately, that’s enough to condemn it. And while I understand Cornette’s reluctance to apologize, when he was made aware of how offended some people were, Cornette should have just apologized, said he didn’t think, at the time, the line was racist but understands why people are offended, and that he will do better in the future when “trying to be funny.” Doing that would have stopped a good chunk of the controversy from becoming any bigger and the world could have moved on. Making any sort of joke about black people and fried chicken, even if it isn’t meant to be racist, is always a bad idea and should just be avoided. It’s just not worth the controversy it will no doubt generate. Cornette, one of the best talkers in pro wrestling, can, and should do better.

At the same time, why didn’t the NWA catch the offending line before the episode was put out into the world? Why didn’t anyone catch the line during the taping of the show? Yes, putting a TV show on can be a chaotic experience, live or taped, and mistakes are made, but someone involved in the production of the show should have caught the line while the show was being taped. And if that didn’t happen, someone involved in the post-production process should have heard the line and raised an objection. And if none of that happened, the top NWA officials that watch the show before putting the show on YouTube should have caught the offending line and removed it.

I mean, the NWA has people who watch the show before putting it on YouTube, right? Isn’t that all part of the quality control process?

As for the way it handled the aftermath of the incident, the only good thing the NWA did was pull the episode and remove the line. Everything else the company did was bad. The company’s apology could have sounded a little more heartfelt instead of ass covering, and the company could have approached Cornette, professional to professional, and figured out a way for everyone to apologize, to make amends, and move on. None of that happened, though. The NWA panicked and, as a result, it’s just made things worse. Now people are taking sides and being extreme about it, regardless of their position (the NWA is now a new front in the ongoing battle between the “they’re all racist” people against the “they’re all delicate snowflakes” people).

The line/joke was terrible. Cornette’s response to the situation was terrible. The NWA’s response was terrible. The whole thing was terrible. And stupid. It should have been avoided.

We all really can do better.

**

And now for this week’s honorable mentions…

–The Republican Party, for its ongoing disinformation campaign regarding Ukraine. Because that’s what it is, a disinformation campaign. If the Republicans have evidence that Ukraine is responsible for the 2016 hack, they should put that evidence out into the open. People, documents, video, whatever they have. Show us all what you know. Prove the big hooha international conspiracy out to get big Don. Otherwise, accept the fact that the guy you have as your leader is a criminal and defend that reality. You don’t want to do that, though, because, as they all know, defending a criminal is always a bad idea.

-Dumpster Fire Hall of Famer, 2018 Dumpster Fire of the Year, and (Jesus Christ) 45th President of the United States Donald Trump, for his latest “I don’t know him very well” claim regarding his European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland. The President seems to do this every time anyone affiliated with him makes him look bad, and it’s always ridiculous, especially when it comes to a guy like Sondland. If you don’t believe me check out the story at the link and ask yourself “How many times are Trump’s fans going to fall for this shit?”

–These celebrities who keep getting arrested while protesting against climate change, for for getting arrested for protesting against climate change I get why they’re doing it, but is this really the best way to get people rightly worried about climate change? I mean, look at the coverage of the arrests. Are the arrests getting the message out? Not really, no. It’s just some ridiculous celebrity bullshit. I think it’s high time these celebrities come up with a new way to make people aware of climate change.

–Tesla, for its disastrous Cybertruck reveal. The truck’s “armored glass” was supposed to be unbreakable, and while demonstrating just how unbreakable the glass was… well, it didn’t go well at all. Just go ahead and read the story at the link. Amazing, isn’t it? I will admit that the truck looks cool.

**

Thanks for reading. Agree? Disagree? Sign up with disqus and comment. You know you want to, so just go do it.

Please “like” The Gratuitous B-Movie Column on Facebook!

Oh, and B-movies rule. Always remember that.