Jim Cornette Responds to Controversy, Apologizes to Anyone “Legitimately Offended”

Jim Cornette took to his podcast today to respond to the controversy from earlier this week that led to him resigning from the NWA as their color commentator. While on commentary on Tuesday’s episode of NWA Powerrr, Cornette said, “Trevor Murdoch is the only man that I’ve ever known that can strap a bucket of fried chicken on his back and ride a motor scooter across Ethiopia.” This led to backlash online and to NWA vice president Dave Lagana apologizing and pulling the episode to edit out Cornette’s comments.

Cornette quit while on the phone with Lagana. According to Dave Meltzer, the NWA wanted him to immediately apologize, but he wanted to hold off to explain himself on his podcast today, or at the NWA PPV on December 14. The NWA also wanted him to take a temporary hiatus and with that, he quit and hung up the phone.

Here’s the basic gist of what Cornette said on his podcast, which you can listen to in the video below.

– He said that his intent for the joke had nothing to do with race, and it was “a starvation joke, not a race joke.” He brought up the “Starvin’ Marvin” character on South Park and said he was a big fan of that. He said that he’s been telling the joke since the 80s because back then, everyone was telling Ethiopian jokes because an Ethiopian famine was a big mainstream story. He said that he used “fried chicken” because it’s a funnier visual than “a plate of f*cking sushi.”

– He said that no one mentioned the joke to him when he said it or during editing and if any producer told him to not say that, he’d say “OK, sorry.” If they told him that they’d have to take it out after the show, he’d say “OK, I didn’t realize and I won’t bring it up again. Sorry to cause you extra work.”

– He said that while on the phone with Dave Lagana, he got “terse” and hung up on him, and he later apologized for that. He said he told Lagana on the phone, “You don’t want this, I don’t want this, I’m fucking sick of it, I’m done” and hung up on him.

– He felt that NWA’s statement amplified the controversy and called attention to it, making it sound like he did some unspeakable thing. He said that if they simply put out a statement saying that “one of the announcers told an old joke and it was probably in poor taste, and we sure do apologize and we don’t do that again,” he would be on board with that.

– He said that he was doing the show not as a career, but because he likes the NWA and wanted to have some fun. He said that if it stops being fun because he has to apologize for something every two weeks that he doesn’t feel that sorry for, he doesn’t need that.

– He didn’t want to overshadow or hurt the promotion, and still strongly supports the NWA and encourages people to still watch.

– He felt that a lot of the backlash was from people who are out to get him because they hate him for “telling the truth about their favorite wrestlers.”

– He said, “To anyone who was legitimately offended by a bad joke in kind of 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.” Then added, “For people who think that I was expressing Nazi ideology and hate for a variety of people and should be boiled in oil and have my fat sold for soap for a bad joke, fuck you. And I don’t care if you don’t like me.”