During an exclusive interview with Liam Alexander-Stewart of Inside The Ropes, Ring of Honor Superstar Kenny King would detail his complicated history with, legendary manager and wrestling historian, Jim Cornette stating that he considers Cornette to be “a butthurt little b*tch.”
Discussing the origins of his issues with Cornette, King would recall his version of events surrounding his 2012 departure from Ring of Honor following issues with the 59-year-old surrounding King’s appearance on TNA whilst holding one half of the ROH Tag Team Championships.
When asked the cause of his issues with the voice behind ‘The Jim Cornette Experience’ King stated that he initially had a strong working relationship with Cornette adding that he even had an open discussion surrounding King’s consideration of retirement from professional wrestling:
“Um, well, that’s okay. Um, to be fair, and to be completely honest, I didn’t think Jim Cornette was a piece of shit until after I left Ring Of Honor, the times that we worked together I didn’t really have any you know, didn’t really have any issues with Jim you know, I don’t say that we saw eye to eye on everything, but for the most part, we had a pretty decent working relationship. And, you know, at one point I even confided in him before any of that like ‘well, you know, I don’t know maybe if I may even want to retire from wrestling’ but at some point we had a long conversation about that.”
When asked what he believes caused the initial issues between the two, the former ROH Television Champion commented:
“The issue was I just I wasn’t- there just, you know, there was a lot of issues that kind of forced my hand in that you know, contract negotiation issues I didn’t really dig the way those were going, I didn’t really like the way Jim would, you know, everywhere every promoter or booker has their favourites or whatever, but the booking it just didn’t line up with the way that I was feeling the Midnight Express was cooking.”
The 40-year-old expanded on the origins of his issues with Cornette adding that he believes much of his anger stems from feeling “outsmarted” by the former ROH Tag Team Champion
“You know our beef really didn’t start until I left you know, and then and then because in my opinion, he just he felt like he got outsmarted, he underestimated me and I didn’t trick or do anything, but I did what’s best for me and my family. I didn’t you know, we never had f***ing handshake deal. It was ‘hey, okay, I might do this or I might not’ and that’s all it really was and to be fair, you know, I did everything that I was supposed to do, I even called when I was doing a TNA trial like who’s gonna call another company and say ‘hey, look, I’m doing this and you know I’m not under contract and I’m not going to throw the Ring Of Honor titles in the trash but if you see me pop up on IMPACT tonight, this is what it is right?’ And that’s really where it started. And he felts outsmarted by me, and he put some press release that sounded like a 16-year-old girl that had seen her boyfriend at the mall holding hands with another girl and it was so stupid that Joe Coff made him take it down and you know it just was the precursor to his all his lame-ass behaviour these days and all his stupid ass outdated views and all this dumb sh*t that he does now it was just you know, I’ve been telling people you know Jim Cornette is an asshole.”
Finally, King would discuss the impact he believes Cornette had on his career comparing the ‘Cult of Cornette’ fan base to that of Beyonce and stating that he believes he did not conduct himself incorrectly in any manner during the end of his tenure with ROH in 2012 before returning in 2015.
“So the negative effect that it has because he has a large group of people that listen to his bullsh*t, without any kind of critical thought or so it did have somewhat of a negative effect on my career like you know I had. Dissing Jim Cornette is like dissing Beyonce right. If you diss Beyonce you’re gonna have a million freaking drones buzzing in your ear. So yeah, it did affect me slightly, but the people that were fans of my work and people were fans of me and had ever heard me speak on the situation realise that I never did anything wrong. If I did anything wrong, well, here’s the number one test between, you know, whether this whether who did something wrong or not? I’ve been back Ring Of Honor for going on six years now, I’ve signed for contracts. Jim can’t even come backstage. So you know what I mean, when Joe Coff reached out to me and said, ‘are you ready to come home?’ That’s how I know I did everything the way I was supposed to do and business is just business, and Jim was just a butthurt little b*tch. That’s all I got to say about that.”
Jim Cornette is regarded as one of wrestling greatest minds and alongside his incredibly successful ‘The Jim Cornette Experience’ Podcast, Cornette also contributes regularly to the smash hit docuseries ‘The Dark Side of the Ring’. In 2019 following a short spell with MLW, Cornette announced that he had officially retired from announcing and commentary and was intending to focus more on his work as part of ‘The Jim Cornette Experience’.
Kenny King returned to ROH in 2015 following a three-year spell away from the company and has had a successful career within the company capturing multiple titles and competing in a plethora of stand out matches. On September 12th at Ring of Honor’s ‘Death Before Dishonor’ PPV, King will team with his La Faccion Ingobernable stablemates to take on the dominant Shane Taylor Promotion’s in a bid to capture the ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Titles for the third time.
Thank you to Ring of Honor for facilitating our conversation. You can watch Ring of Honor online via Honor Club or HonorClub VIP.
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If you use any quotes from this interview please provide a link back and h/t to Liam Alexander-Stewart of Inside the Ropes.