During the latest edition of his podcast, Jim Cornette discussed his offensive joke that led to him resigning from the NWA. Here are a few excerpts of what Cornette said courtesy of ProWrestlingSheet.com:
“It’s a starvation joke, not a race joke. Whether it’s a good joke or a bad joke, it was a joke that has been told on TBS, USA Network, broadcast television stations across America over a variety of locations for the past 30 years.”
“If when I had said it, the producer – one of whom is Dave Lagana, but there’s a variety of people that can talk to us on our headsets – had said, ‘Awww, Jim. Don’t say that.’ ‘Ok, sorry,’” Cornette states. “If after the show, well we’re gonna have to take out that one joke out, ‘Ok, fine, sorry to make you have extra work.’ If anybody called me up and said, ‘Jim, you told that joke you’ve told a bunch of times, well that’s racist.’ ‘Ok, I didn’t know that.’ Cause I was thinking it was f*cking funny cause the people in Ethiopia were hungry.”
“I’m not that sorry, cause it was a joke. And if you don’t like the joke, that’s fine, and I’d even apologize for a bad joke. But this goddamn feedback was above and beyond the offense. And I didn’t mean it in any racist way, for f*cks sake. I think the people that took it instantly as racist think that must be the only thing on people’s minds when they think of black people and chicken. Which, that’s a whole nother issue that you’ve got. Cause I’m going for Starvin Marvin.”
“I, in now way, was thinking in that direction,” he additionally noted. “To anyone who was legitimately offended by a bad joke in kinda sort of a way and would accept a reasonable apology, as humans sometimes do … yes, I’m sorry. Because I didn’t intend it that way.”
Reddit user ipman203 also provided some notes on what Cornette said:
His phone rang at 7:30 on Tuesday, the call was from Lagana that went to dial tone so he left him a voice mail. Ate dinner went off to sleep & checked twitter on Wednesday when everything blew up.
Was surprised that the joke he used back in the day broke twitter again. Says that the joke was about starvation.
David Lagana called him in the morning & blamed All Elite Wrestling fans (called them cosplay fanboy contingent). Said that people described his quote as some weird beastiality thing.
Says with the Jim Smallman incident too, people were butthurt & were trying to get offended about it.
He asked David Lagana that this was taped show & what did you think? Dave said it went right past him. Jim also said that Dave shouldn’t have listened to people on twitter & apologized for it as people will Keep doing it in the future.
He didn’t appreciate being grouped in apologies he wasn’t sorry for & he will not say sorry.
He said he created the Ethiopian joke in the 80s when Ethiopia was in mainstream news & everyone at that time was making Ethiopian jokes. Says that bucket of fried chicken is more funny than a hamburger or a plate of sushi. The visual of a tough guy on motorcycle is funny as well. Starvation was a hilarious topic.
Questions that if it was racist why did no one NWA point it out to him. No one in production called him about the joke.
He didn’t like the apology said that it should’ve been mentioned that it was a joke & it wouldn’t happen again.
Brian had a different point of view. He didn’t find it funny. He said a joke that has pitting fried chicken & Africans is not funny in 2019. He wasn’t offended by it but he didn’t like the joke as he’s liberal. Says that if your aren’t black you can’t be offended or criticize that line. He said the intent wasn’t racist but it should’ve been edited out.
Says ‘f*** you’ to the people who only jumped on this because he criticized your favourite wrestler or politicians.
He apologizes to people who were mildly offended by it & says it wasn’t meant that way.
Says he joined NWA because they don’t make fun of the business like the other cosplay Wrestlers & he doesn’t wanna be there now as it’s not fun anymore. He quit before Lagana could fire him. Says people should still watch NWA.
