Billy Corgan appeared on today’s Busted Open Radio to promote the Hard Times 3 pay-per-view.
During the discussion, Corgan addressed the criticism he’s received for not planning another NWA Empowerrr show.
“Nothing is more dumb than trying to spin a guy like me who ran an all-women’s pay-per-view, which was a huge success. I built it around Mickie James as a talent and personality, I endorsed the whole thing, I let her build the card, I lost money doing it, but now I’m against women’s wrestling? Come on. This is silly. The conversations with Mickie were about running a subsequent EmPowerrr. I said, ‘If it’s not going to be as good or better, we probably shouldn’t do it right now.’ If people remember what I said, and they obviously don’t, ‘there isn’t enough top available talent on the market right now.’
“Tony Khan has signed a tremendous amount of top female talent. I’m not in a working relationship with AEW, I can’t just pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, can you send me some people?’ Part of that was Tony trying to take credit for what Mickie had accomplished. We were in discussions with IMPACT about doing something. I’m not a miracle worker. If I’m going to say ‘this is about empowerment,’ which to me is about people who have not had an opportunity to speak at the grand stage before.
“EmPowerrr, isn’t just about all females, it’s giving different people with different voices an opportunity. That was part of the discussion with Mickie. It doesn’t have to be built around you, there are other ways to do this. We didn’t agree on the business part of it. We tabled it and wanted to do it at a later date. If she took that wrong, I apologize. Let me say one thing personally. I’ve known Mickie James for 20 years. I’ve only been in the wrestling business with her for a few years. I think of her as a friend first and I think if Mickie has a problem with me, she should pick up the phone and go, ‘I didn’t like the way this went down.’ The issues with Mickie never came up with Nick in the last six months. If it’s this huge issue, it never came up, not once. If it was an issue from when it started, around NWA 74, he’s worked for the company another 10-15 times and been paid. People are throwing logs on the fire to create smoke to divert from the fact that they’re on about something. It seems obvious they’re after something. She doesn’t work for me, he does. They want to get out early, just say you want to get out. It’s this weird thing of, ‘I have to be babyface and bury the company.’ It’s bad conspiracy stuff. Now I’m in a position of defending something that doesn’t need to be defended.”
You can listen to the complete show below:
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
