![]() However, since 1993 Cornette had also been working as an on-camera manager for Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (now WWE), in order to facilitate a talent exchange between SMW and the Connecticut-based WWF. SMW had success in it's main markets, including crowds of over 4,000 for it's major events in Knoxville and high local TV ratings, but was burdened by rapidly rising TV air time costs and an inability to break into new markets, and closed down in 1995 after a four year run. Cornette served as promoter, matchmaker, TV producer and on-camera manager, with a talent roster mixing veterans like Bob Armstrong and Terry Funk with promising newcomers getting their first breaks, like Glen Jacobs, who would become famous as Kane in the WWF. With financial backing from legendary record producer Rick Rubin, Cornette launched Smoky Mountain Wrestling, based in Knoxville, Tennessee, in early 1992. For a time, Cornette served on the matchmaking committee as well, but disagreements with upper TBS management led him to quit the company in October 1990.Ĭornette's next project was to bring Southern-style territory wrestling back to an area with a rich grappling tradition, East Tennessee and Eastern Kentucky. Jim famously blew out the ACL in his right knee when falling twenty feet from the scaffold.ĭuring this time, Cornette also served as a color commentator on TBS and syndicated broadcasts, as well as Pay-Per-View events beginning in 1988 when Crockett was purchased by Turner Broadcasting and became WCW. The Midnight also faced the Road Warriors in the feature match at Starrcade 1986, a Skywalker Scaffold Match, that drew 60,000 fans between the live and closed circuit audiences. Seen several times per week on Atlanta's Superstation TBS and a strong syndicated network, the team spent the next five and a half years with Crockett Promotions and its successor, World Championship Wrestling (Stan Lane replaced Dennis Condrey in 1987).īecoming two-time NWA World Tag Team Champions (for a total 8 months) and three-time NWA United States Tag Team Champions (total 16 months), the Midnight also rekindled their Mid-South rivalry with the Rock and Roll Express, and set numerous attendance records across the country in a tag team rivalry still viewed as the in-ring gold standard to this day. In July, 1985, the Midnights and Cornette debuted in the Charlotte-based Jim Crockett Promotions, and their careers skyrocketed. Their tenure included championship matches before 18,000 fans in Reunion Arena and 20,000 in Texas Stadium. ![]() Hot off this success, the team spent the first half of 1985 in the Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling, reigning as American Tag Team Champions and getting their first national TV exposure through WCCW's syndicated network. The team clicked with Mid-South fans, and the Express with Cornette, over the next twelve months, reigned as Mid-South Tag Team Champions twice for a total of 6 months, set box office gate records in 14 Mid-South markets like Houston, Oklahoma City and Little Rock, and main-evented before nearly 25,000 fans in the New Orleans Superdome while propelling Mid-South into having it's most successful financial year ever. In November 1983, Mid-South Wrestling promoter Cowboy Bill Watts imported a number of wrestlers from Memphis to his Louisiana-based circuit, pairing Jim with wrestlers Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey as the Midnight Express. Making his Memphis TV debut on August 21, 1982, Cornette spent the next 16 months managing a variety of wrestlers in towns large and small, getting valuable on-the-job training from veterans like Jarrett, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee and more. Jumping at the chance, Jim forsook his photo business and dove head-first into his new career. In 1982, just a month before Cornette's 21st birthday, Memphis Wrestling owner Jerry Jarrett offered him the chance to be an on-air manager. Over the next six years, literally hundreds of thousands of those photos would be sold to fans all over the Memphis Wrestling circuit Cornette's photography would be featured in major wrestling magazines including the London Publishing titles led by Pro Wrestling Illustrated he would become a regular freelancer for GONG magazine in Japan write the arena programs sold in the Memphis area write and publish his own magazine exclusively covering the Memphis territory and end up working on three to four live events per week as a photographer or ring announcer by the time he turned 20. ![]() By age 12 he began attending the weekly live matches at Louisville Gardens, and within two years, he was made the official ringside photographer by local promoter Chrstine Jarrett, who began selling his pictures at the souvenir stands at matches in Kentucky and Tennessee. At age 10 he discovered pro wrestling on TV and was instantly fascinated. Jim Cornette was born Septemin Louisville, Kentucky.
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