Jim Cornette has given his thoughts on former WWE Superstar Rob Conway who came through the company’s developmental territory OVW while Cornette was in charge there.
Conway competed in Ohio Valley Wrestling from 1997 until being called up full time to the WWE roster in 2003. His debut on Raw saw him as a plant in the audience dressed in American military gear where he was hounded by La Resistance – Renee Dupree and Sylvan Grenier. The Dudley Boyz came to the apparent airman’s rescue and brought him in the ring to celebrate. Conway then attacked the Dudleys revealing himself to be a member of La Resistance.
Dupree soon left the group and together Grenier and Conway won the WWE Tag Team Championship three times. This was to prove to be the highlight of Conway’s WWE career as he began to fall away into obscurity. After appealing to WWE fans to ‘Just look at me’ Conway was fired on-screen by Vince McMahon on the New Year’s Day 2007 edition of Raw after losing to Jeff Hardy in 21 seconds. Conway was released by the company five months later in May.
Jim Cornette worked with Conway during his time in OVW and discussed the star on his ‘Jim Cornette’s Drive Thru’ podcast. Taking questions from listeners, Cornette was asked why he rarely mentioned Conway in comparison to some of the other OVW competitors he had worked with.
For Cornette, the answer was simple:
“Well, I think the only reason I don’t talk about how they f*cked Conway up is because compared to the other guys he got somewhat of a run. Part of it had to be being Sylvan Grenier’s babysitter. […] They didn’t f*ck Rob over as bad as the other guys, especially the Bashams. Rob was there for quite a while, he had the tag team title, he was involved in sh*t, I didn’t watch every single bit of it so I don’t know if they may have f*cking buried him on the air in some cases but I don’t know. But the point is, they used him better than they used some of these guys.”
Cornette then gave his take on the assertion made by current WWE executive Bruce Prichard that Conway didn’t have any good ideas:
“[…] Yes, Rob Conway was a great guy and an exceptional talent. I don’t know what was up Bruce [Prichard]’s ass that he – every time somebody didn’t want to do some stupid sh*t that they wanted them to do they say ‘Well they had bad ideas.’ I don’t recall Rob having [any]. Rob liked Shawn Michaels, Rob’s epitome of a wrestler was not Ric Flair, it was Shawn Michaels. That’s the only screwy thing that I ever could f*cking remember about him as far as wrestling. He’d be like Lou Thesz compared to the crowd today.”
“Whenever they give somebody – as we’ve seen with Terry Taylor and the Red Rooster – a stupid gimmick that doesn’t work, people laugh at it, Bruce will say ‘Well they didn’t embrace it right’ or ‘They didn’t give it everything they have’ or whatever the case. It can’t be ‘Well this was a stupid thing we told this guy to do.'”
Summarising his experience of Rob Conway, it was a positive one for Jim Cornette as ‘The Con-Man’ was someone that could be counted on for any occasion:
“But Conway was very good, he was always helpful. The Ironman Rob Conway in OVW with that sinister glove that could be loaded and used for a variety of purposes. You could always count on him if you needed three minutes or thirty and it didn’t matter. It was always going to be good. He stayed in shape.”
Credit: Jim Cornette’s Drive Thru