Jim Cornette Discusses Big Bossman in The WWE Hall of Fame, Says He Preferred Him as Big Bubba Rogers

– Jim Cornette recently spoke with Pwinsider.com, here are the highlights…

On Big Bossman Going Into The WWE Hall of Fame: Well he was the fourth Midnight Express member for acouple of years and I wrote quite a bit about it in The Midnight Express Scrapbook and I’ve done some columns for Fighting Spirit Magazine. I encourage everybody I do a monthly column for Fighting Spirit Magazine in the United Kingdom. You can also read them on my website JimCornette.com, but I did a column about Bubba once. He was one of the fastest learners and if you go back and look through recent wrestling history over the past fifty years I think he was probably the quickest main event star, even quicker than The Rock. The quickest main event star in professional wrestling at that level, literally three months after he debuted on television he was main eventing with Dusty Rhodes, and in six mans with The Midnight Express against guys like The Road Warriors and The Rock N’ Roll Express. He set an attendance record in Pittsburgh in February of 1987. He hadn’t even been a pro for a full year yet and set an attendance record in Pittsburgh at the Civic Arena with Dusty that still stands. He picked things up incredibly quick he had the advantage of working with, you know, the best in the business at the time but Dusty saw something in him on that original time he came to TBS and did jobs as Ray Traylor one time and he took him off TV three months and brought him back as Big Bubba Rogers and he told him what has gimmick was and then let Bubba figure out how to portray it in the ring, I mean obviously gave him advice but you know Bubba figured that sh** out, and he figured out how to be that mysterious bad man that never spoke and he would sell but nothing could hurt him. So a lot of people say, “Well he didn’t sell some things right when he wasn’t supposed to” but in a match he learned how to sell as a huge giant monster and it was action but still be strong. It was incredible for a guy at that experience level, and he just, you know, by the time he was working really in Japan in what the early 90’s after he was Bossman and left the WWF he was the best big man in the business.

On Big Bubba vs. The Bossman: Big Bubba Rogers, in my opinion, I always liked Bubba as a gimmick better than Bossman but he made more money as Bossman. But I really don’t know who comes to mind as the perfect person to do it because as somebody mentioned a couple of his best friends also were Curt Hennig, up there, and Rick Rude and they’re gone. My Twitter lit up, a lot of people. I said, ‘No they did not ask me because they’re not nominating Big Bubba Rogers also because I wouldn’t think if they were drowning they’d ask me to throw them a rope!’ You know the annual letter…I told this story but the annual letter supposedly I guess ex-talent gets telling people about the drug rehab and you know if you have any problems, let us know we’ll take care of everything, I worked there as the manager of all of their champions, at various times, I even wrestled a couple of matches, but was a manager, was a talent, was also an announcer, was also a member of the creative team, and was also a general office gopher and flunky. So by any of those jobs, I’ve never gotten a letter! (Laughs)