Jim Cornette was a featured guest on the latest edition of Figure Four Daily on F4WOnline.com and discussed various subjects including life after professional wrestling, his memories of the late Mae Young, Ring of Honor and much more.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On life post-wrestling: “2013 was the first year that I could actually say, in a long time, that I achieved everything that I wanted to do in the course of a year. I lost over 50lbs, I got down to 195lbs, I was absolutely skinny in the summertime, however I’m back to 205lbs because of the winter weight, but I’m eating clean apparently, even though I’ve had the world’s worst diet for the past 30-40 years, I’m somehow in somewhat good condition. I got of the road. I put 35,000 miles on my vehicle in 2012 and 7,000 in 2013, that was a goal. I reduced 100+ nights in a hotel to about 18, that was a big goal.”
On his memories of the late Mae Young: “What an incredible life, story, woman, etc. Moolah and Mae at one time ran the Ladies International Wrestling Association out in Vegas. She did one in Boston and honored Killer Kowalski and she asked me to come up because she knew I was a mark for all the legends. I have a picture of me, Moolah, Mae and Kowalski, I did not deserve to be there, but I got that picture, but then they had the wrestling show and Mae worked on it, she was 74, she took a slam off the top rope, like Ric Flair, she literally bounced like you had thrown a piece of meat on a hard marble surface, but then got right back up. The guys weren’t working that hard in this ring.”
On his time with Ring of Honor and his departure: “You had to be competitive on television, we knew we didn’t have a WWE budget or even a TNA budget, but the television had to look like we were trying. We didn’t have touring locations that would stand up to scrutiny on TV. The original concept was to do what we did in Ohio Valley Wrestling, but on a bigger scale. Find our own facility, whether it be an old Target store or a warehouse, paint it black, wooden risers, bring in chairs, customize it to seat 750 people, colored lights and decorations, wire the building for audio, etc. That facility would have housed the offices, editing equipment for post-production, storage for equipment all under one roof where you could have your tapings whenever you wanted them. This is the manner in which I thought the TV show would be shot and then people just stopped talking about the building.”
