Cornette has resigned.

https://www.nationalwrestlingallianc..****ing-alliance

I'll miss his commentary, but his stupid comment was bringing so much negative attention to the promotion that imo resigning was the right move.

Have a bad feeling that this is the beginning of the end of this reboot... just feels pretty catastrophic for the brand. There's going to be a lot of negative buzz, a lot of the people watching the show are the types fed up by this "PC" stuff and won't like it, and just the loss of Cornette as a talent is quite damaging. Hoping I'm wrong since I've really been enjoying it.

Pretty sure this will just be a blip on the radar. I'm not saying NWA will be successful but if they aren't it won't be because of this. With Cornette resigning the issue has already been nipped in the bud. Judging by comments it appears most fans didn't care about the joke or didn't even know about the controversy. With Cornette resigning even the outraged fans have a reason to come back. With that being said, I'm sure this caused a very small subset of fans to stop watching NWA altogether but the # has got to be pretty minuscule especially since this is very early and the fanbase isn't anywhere close to as big as it will need to be for NWA to be successful, IMO.

The loss of Cornette will be the bigger obstacle. It will be interesting to see who they replace him with. Cornette had both fans and detractors. I have no clue how many of each he had but regardless Cornette was a big name that helped credibility to the promotion and that will be missed.

I understand this fear, and I'm not happy that Cornette did this to himself since I really enjoy him, but I don't agree that this is the likeliest scenario.

People attracted to NWA are attracted primarily by its style, a style that isn't being done by any other major or mid-major company. There isn't another place to turn for this particular genre of wrestling, at least that I'm aware of. I'm sure a non-negligible chunk of the fanbase will be annoyed at the company for pushing Cornette out, but they have nowhere to go unless they're just willing to give up wrestling altogether.

Pretty sure there won't be a Cornette-level name out there. Nabbing somebody like Kevin Kelly seems fine to me.

I think they taped eight episodes up front, so Cornette is probably still on the next one? The action gets close to the announcers, so they can't just retape and pretend he wasn't there.

I'm reassured a bit, I guess, assuming Cornette doesn't go scorched earth on them on his podcast or anything. I'm in a bit of a lefty bubble online so probably am overestimating how much people care and the degree of the reaction.

Corny also apologized on Instagram, though in a way where he didn't really admit to being racist:

I think that was a smart way for him to handle it. I've found that the desired apology is usually a no-win scenario for whoever is doing it.

The thing is that Cornette himself is an outspoken obnoxious liberal, so even any criticisms he levels are unlikely to be political in the way you might see if he was a conservative being taken down by so-called cancel culture. Cornette loyalists that will care the most are either agreeable with or accepting of his politics, as they will certainly have been exposed to his politics on numerous occasions.

I don’t doubt that he has significant frustrations with the PC crowd, but if he feels like he was done wrong, I would think his gripe is more likely to be leveled at the social media mob that mobilized and put NWA in a spot where they had to consider doing this.

Who would people like to see replace Cornette?

Tim Storm might be great as a guest announcer when he's not wrestling on the show.

Given his history with the NWA title, Shane Douglas might work in showing the NWA has resurrected.

Others I think might be good: D'Lo Brown, Dutch Mantell, Jim Duggan, Sean Oliver, Raven.

How about Arn Anderson? I just looked him up to see what he's doing, and I see he did some announcing on AEW Dark, but I assume that means he's still free to sign with NWA.

One of my favorite stick men of all time, and he's also more over with old-school NWA fans than anyone.

Given the company's emphasis on mic skills, I wouldn't mind rotating some of the talent on commentary, either show-by-show or even segment-by-segment. They don't have tons of time each week, so it could be a good way to develop characters and create more action/conflict. The only downside is sometimes it can distract from the match and sometimes even guys who are good on the mic aren't naturals on commentary.

Arn would be the best replacement imo. Good call.

I just finished episode 5. I love the small things like "weighing in at an amount he refuses to disclose" which enhances the characters even further. I also really liked the Starks/Stevens 2 out of 3 falls match. Having the Stevens get caught twice on a sneak attack attempt and after distracting himself with the crowd was a nice touch and I am always a huge fan of 2-0 sweeps in a 2/3 falls match. Really, really enjoyed that.

Both of these sound like good ideas to me.

I don't really like the idea of rotating the talent through on commentary. I'd rather see the commentary's focus be on putting over whatever is in the ring, and it feels like an active talent hanging out on commentary is going to put too much of the focus on their character development. Also makes it hard to stay away from cliched sequences where too many matches end in schmozzes when a wrestler gets physical with an announcer.

one of cornette's defenses is that everybody made ethiopian starvation jokes in the 80's

problem 1) nobody under 40 knows what the **** you're talking about and
2) THEY ARE STARVING TO DEATH HILARIOUS HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT THEM GOING HUNGRY HAHAHAHAHAHA

Suffice to say, that is not funny, at all.

Our culture both has gone several steps forward in this area and is versus a serious backlash against those steps at the same time.

(I might be wrong but I get his point about the chicken bucket--the picture he was painting is the most ridiculous and simple to visualize with a fried chicken bucket than any other food product) I don't believe his brain had any clue fried chicken in the context he was going for (since he's kentucky) was going to immediately spark that level of backlash.

Arn's a cool idea. Good talker and solid cred. He's a bit "back" with his podcast, but does he want to come further back? He sounds happy with his life at the moment.

What the hell is this ****? They erase their own show less than 3 weeks out from their first PPV? Whatever fallout they would have gotten from an already taped Cornette appearance would be less than what they get from this strung together crap. I'm not even sure I'm going to watch anymore after this.

EDIT: If they really wanted Cornette's voice off the show they could just do another audio track with somebody else. It couldn't have been worse than what they went with.

Apparently the matches they announced for next week are pre-taped and have Cornette on the call, so I guess this show probably wasn't a reaction to his departure? Still, it was disappointing to get ambushed by a clip show. If they didn't have enough in the can to get to the PPV, there's no reason they shouldn't have just aired episode 1 a week or two later.

They haven't done a good job building storylines to this PPV.

Question Mark vs Trevor Murdoch? There could be an interesting storyline that comes out of it but it seems like a bizarre matchup. Aren't they two faces?

I think they will really miss Cornette - he just really fits this.

Yeah this is exactly what I was worried about. Not even opposed to an hour without wrestling if it's really focused on developing the characters and stories, but this just seems like a waste of time. I guess the Melina interview was something.

I also think I would have kept the Thunder Rosa stuff off the show. I don't really get what it has to do with the actual on-screen narrative being presented and it's awkward that she lost.

Yeah, I'm still inclined to buy the PPV, but this took a lot of the wind out of the sails. Felt like Tim Storm was a centerpiece of the biggest storyline, and he seemingly isn't going to wrestle on the show? Guessing he interferes to help Aldis beat Storm, but him not showing up for weeks now sucks.

I simultaneously enjoyed the Thunder Rosa stuff while seeing it as problematic for them to babyface the **** out of her while she's part of a heel stable that the women's division is built on.

I figured they just did a clip show because it's Thanksgiving week.

**** it, they should just bring Cornette back as a heel manager/announcer/whatever.

Haven't watched yet but TNA gave it a shot -

Ep. 9 (season finale) thoughts, puked out with minimal thought or editing as I watch:

So from this being the season finale, and the PPV being 11 days away, I take it we don't get a real episode next week either? I really don't get why they didn't drop the debut episode two weeks later.

Aron Stevens strolls out after the opener is announced as a non-title match and then bitches about just anyone getting title matches. Seems legit. Anyway, I'm relieved to see the substitution of Stevens into the match, as Colt Cabana vs. Ricky Starks is about the least interesting matchup NWA could possibly put together. ... Okay, now I'm less relieved because of how brutally stupid that match's ending was.

James Storm's promo was pretty rough. So many stumbles for a pre-taped segment. Also I definitely wasn't prepared for "pick your referee" meaning "just pick some rando from the referee staff."

Melina/Allysin Kay was the first segment I liked. While I like the idea of the stable, there's another part of me that wishes they had kept Melina apart from Thunder Rosa given that Rosa seems to now be a second banana.

Nick Aldis continues to be exude star power that makes everyone, including James Storm, look weak by comparison. Tim Storm being the referee for the second fall at Into the Fire is interesting, though it only makes it weirder that Storm just rolled with Brian Hebner.

Confirmed: we don't get a new episode next week. Sucks.

I got spoiled on the main event result on Twitter. Needless to say, I disapprove. Obviously it doesn't help that I didn't grow up on NWA and thus don't have Rock 'n Roll Express nostalgia at all, as the story of the match was pretty reliant on that. That said, the celebratory moment with Cornette at the end was cool. They need to take the belts back off them at Into the Fire though.

I'm intrigued about Stu Bennett being the new color guy. Obviously loved him in WWE, but it's not as though the "bad news" gimmick carries over.

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that Into the Fire is a fairly weak card. I've wanted to buy this PPV, but I'm going to have a tough time pulling the trigger on paying $20+ for it. If I buy it, it's going to be out of a feeling of wanting to support this project since it's the only wrestling show I look forward to right now.

Aldis' promo might have been the best of the show so far. Storm's was just weird and the whole unaired match angle is quite bizarre. Can't tell if something was off with the match so they decided to can it or if it was always the plan.

The main event should be good and I imagine shenanigans will be afoot with a possible Tim Storm heel turn (please no) and with Kamille's allegiances up in the air. Unfortunately the rest of the card doesn't seem like anything special. It was kind of a weird build since they spent the first few episodes establishing all the characters instead of building clear feuds.

I knew the Rock and Roll Express thing was happening a few weeks ago (avoid Wikipedia with this show) and was dreading it. It wasn't a terrible match but the way they showed up and got a shot felt very random when it could have been more like Tim Storm's story.

Thought the Cornette thank you was a classy gesture, though I'm sure the internet hated it because we're supposed to hold eternal grudges against anyone who says something offensive.