Jim Cornette hasn’t held back on Excalibur, accusing the AEW announcer of only getting his job because of his friends.
The masked play-by-play commentator has been behind the All Elite Wrestling announce desk since the promotion’s debut with Double or Nothing back in 2019 and has been the voice of Dynamite almost every week since then.
However, Cornette isn’t a fan of the star, something that came to the fore as he reviewed Forbidden Door.
Jim Cornette claims Excalibur should have handed announcing duties to Kevin Kelly for AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door
Speaking on his Drive Thru podcast, Cornette questioned Excalibur’s credentials for leading the Forbidden Door commentary when the company has now hired NJPW’s English language announcer Kevin Kelly as the voice of Collision.
“He had to do all of the Forbidden Door PPVs they had done up until now because of course he’s the lead announcer.
“Even though in the past Jim Ross has done New Japan announcing and even though he is a f**king Japanese mark and even though his friends gave him this job even though he had never done a television show in his life before he debuted on TBS. But now they have legitimately hired NJPW’s American announcer currently, he’s been doing it for the past 3,4,5 years, Kevin Kelly.
Going a step further, the legendary manager says the man in the mask should have handed his role over to Kelly for the broadcast while claiming he was “a mark who got lucky.”
“Yet when they do a co-promotion between AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Kevin is there alright but he’s sitting in the B-chair, next to sock face who’s never worked a f*cking day for NJPW in his life, because he still doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to say “‘You know what, you know what you’re doing here and I’m a mark who got lucky so since you’re here Kevin you can do the show.'”
During the same episode, Cornette blasted AEW for not protecting NJPW’s Ace, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and went against popular opinion by accusing Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay of looking “phony” in their acclaimed IWGP United States Championship match.
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