Jim Cornette has not shied away from giving his thoughts and opinions on the polarising use of zombies during Damian Priest and The Miz’s match at WrestleMania Backlash.
The match was set to be a lumberjack match with Priest picking that stipulation after defeating Miz’s tag team partner John Morrison on Raw. What nobody could have foreseen was the zombies would be taking on the role of the lumberjacks as part of the promotion around former WWE Champion Batista’s new movie, Army Of The Dead.
Talking on an episode of his ‘Cornette’s Drive-Thru’ podcast, the opinionated Louisville Lip gave his thoughts on the zombies.
Jim Cornette began:
“Anyway speaking of keeping going, I almost didn’t at this point, coming up next because that’s when John Morrison goes to find the lumberjack’s locker room and opens the door and it’s full of zombies. We’ll have more on that later because then they go directly after you see a roomful of zombies, then they go to the Uso’s and Reigns’ locker room talking real seriously about family drama. And we’re supposed to take that seriously after we’ve just seen a room full of zombies.”
“So, by them not even being able to f*cking format the show properly, they have to put guys that are on in the main event angle of the top guy in the company right after a room full of zombies. Just to make sure that we remember that nothing you are to see tonight is in any way serious or important or you shouldn’t give a sh*t.”
Jim Cornette then singled out two people he thinks should be less than happy about the presentation being done in that way:
“Roman Reigns and Heyman ought to be p*ssed off, but he’s not going to f*cking register that because he knows the cause is lost. But it’s you know, Paul E’s probably the smartest guy there at this point. He knows it just makes Reigns look like a goddamn goof.”
“Then after the Usos talk, Morrison is back telling Miz that the lumberjacks are zombies and of course Miz doesn’t believe him. As Miz has been more fortunate than the rest of us, he didn’t see this sh*t to begin with. As they leave, then the camera pans over and the zombies walk through, including zombie Elvis.”
For Cornette, a former promoter himself, he could not fathom why, in his opinion, WWE would sacrifice the opportunities of a current star for a former one:
“It was a lumberjack match with Damian Priest against The Miz and this is why I feel bad for the few guys that still want to get in this business. Damian Priest has been around for a while, he’s in his thirties, he’s worked hard. Obviously, he’s transformed his body and he’s really got not only the personality of a star, the promo of a star, but he can work. We’ve been a fan of his so just to make sure that he doesn’t become the next face of the company, the next big star.”
“They decide just because Dave Bautista, who’s never going to come back and fart in their face whether they want him to or not. Just because his movie is buying advertising, they gotta bury a guy that might in the future be another star on the level of Batista or all the ones they’ve lost, just to f*cking do this stupid, comedy movie plug tie in that some of their f*cking comedy writers did.”
“Obviously, the zombies surrounded the ring, the announcers got scared and left and they had smoke and weird music and Miz and Morrison, well Miz has never been alive to begin with to be killed off. But Morrison I’ve always liked. But they’re complete f*cking bumble f*cks now. They’re acting afraid of the phone zombies and the bell rang nd their newest star, Damian Priest is now completely worthless. Might as well pack up and go home and work at a goddamn car wash because he’s in the middle of this sh*t and he’s not a star yet. He should be and he would have been, but they decided he’s the one they’re going to sacrifice for the dumb movie tie-in.”
Jim Cornette then compared WWE to AEW, reports suggested that some WWE officials had said AEW’s Blood And Guts match had set the business back 30 years:
“So here’s the problem. They’ve got their heads so far up their ass that ‘This is the biggest company, publicly-traded company, and biggest wrestling promotion in the world and we are bringing wrestling forward.’ And they said that AEW st wrestling back 30 years. Which they do but not for the reasons the WWE people [think].AEW has set wrestling back 30 years for the same reason that WWE has set wrestling back 30 years.”
“Actually, since more people view the WWE matches, they’ve set wrestling back 50 years. They’ve set it back far enough that it’ll never recover. Both of those companies and not with blood or chair shots to the head but with f*cking phoniness. Burning people alive, pulling out their ping pong eyeballs, zombies, crash pads, transformations in ice machines, teleportations. Obviously, phony sh*t is what sets wrestling back and both companies do it.”
For Jim Cornette, it’s realism that he craves from wrestling:
“You know what we need? We need more blood and violence in a convincing fashion done by professionals as part of an angle or the story of a f*cking match. Not the death match bullsh*t which is just as phony in its own way. A bunch of mutants, a bunch of f*cking scummy human beings, trash mutant freak organisms bashing each other over the head in an obvious co-operation-fest just to do it. While another bunch of scummy, disgusting, scum-sucking pond dwellers watch it and some f*cking avaricious and greedy f*cking slime ball promotes it.”
“That’s just as phony because it doesn’t look like a contest or a struggle. It looks like two f*cking meth heads bashing each other over the head with sh*t and cutting each other open. Not that kind of blood and violence. We don’t need any more phony sh*t. We don’t need phony silly, we don’t need phony comedy, we don’t need phony bloody, we don’t need phony violent. What we need is somebody to take this sh*t seriously and athletes to have a goddamn match that toy could f*cking believe or not be slapped in the face with that it’s bullsh*t. So as far as I’m concerned what both these companies and every other wrestling promotion in America and in the world does in 90 percent of their activity is set the business back.”
To summarise, Jim Cornette compared using the zombies to the infamous Brawl For All tournament that took place in the late nineties. In Cornette’s opinion, both of these events have cost Vince McMahon a considerable sum of money.
Cornette explained:
“So that’s what I think of your f*cking zombies. I think that nobody on the WWE f*cking writing staff needs to worry about zombies because zombies eat brains. So therefore, they’re invulnerable that writing staff. If I was there right now I would go up to Vince McMahon and I would say ‘Well, as much as the idiot that you used to employ cost you $5 million in one night 25 years ago when he killed off Dr Death with his stupid f*cking Brawl For All tournament. Some f*cking moron in your advertising department just ruined Damian Priest’s career, where you could have made a fortune off of him because he was standing in the middle of this horse sh*t.'”
“But apparently, nobody wants to tell Vince the shocking, awful, horrible truth that’s right under their f*cking noses. So after I’ve finished writing notes on everything that I just said, I looked up and the zombies were eating The Miz. So if he’s really gone, it wasn’t a total loss. But if he comes back, I’m going to assume that either Miz has a twin brother or those weren’t real zombies. Imagine that.”
The Miz might not be seen for a good while in a WWE ring, zombies notwithstanding, reports have suggested that he suffered a serious knee injury during the bout with Priest.
Credit: Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru