#33 Jim Cornette on the History of Pro Wrestling
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2016
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There's a good chance you don't appreciate how engrained professional wrestling is in American history and culture, and this episode is about to change that. We didn't know all this either until wrestling legend Jim Cornette was kind enough to spend an hour taking us from wrestling's origins in the late 19th century up to the sport as it exists today. Jim knows the sport like no other- he's been part of the professional wrestling scene since the 1970s, and currently hosts the tremendously popular podcast The Jim Cornette Experience. Jim has also been ringside (and sometimes in the ring) for some of wrestling's greatest moments, including the April 5, 1982 showdown between Andy Kaufman & Jerry "The King" Lawler (that was his first time on national television), and his storytelling is second-to-none.
This episode also features wrestling aficionado Jon Burr making a special appearance as guest co-host. Jon is the host of the NBA podcast Fastbreak Breakfast, the front man for the band How I Became the Bomb, and Ben's friend & neighbor.
More on this episode and The Road to Now can be found at our website: www.TheRoadToNow.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming up on the road to now. |
| 0:03.0 | So the carnival might send an advance guy into town where he would act like one of the folks around town for a few days or a few weeks or whatever. |
| 0:12.0 | And then when the carnival came and the wrestler was challenging people from the crowd, the guy would speak up and he'd say, I think I can take you. |
| 0:20.0 | It's the only book written at the time or written account at the time of the formation |
| 0:26.0 | of the way that we came to view professional wrestling. |
| 0:29.0 | So it's great historical information, but in the meantime, people may know there's something |
| 0:33.0 | going on, but they will come unless you prove it to them. |
| 0:38.7 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:40.6 | And I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:43.4 | Ben, you and John Burr spoke with Jim Cornett. |
| 0:50.0 | That's right, we did. |
| 0:51.2 | We spoke with the legend Jim Cornett. |
| 0:53.5 | And I hate you couldn't be there for it. |
| 0:55.2 | It's one of those ones where I always feel bad when Bob can't be there for an interview, |
| 0:59.0 | but it's easy for me to forget about when these interviews are incredible. So it was so good. |
| 1:05.2 | Jim Cornett, for those of you guys who don't know him, he's been a part of professional wrestling |
| 1:09.8 | since the 1970s. |
| 1:11.7 | He has an incredible podcast called The Jim Cornett Experience. |
| 1:16.1 | And this guy is, he knows professional wrestling inside out. |
| 1:21.6 | And as we spoke a little bit earlier on with Charles Hughes, |
| 1:26.0 | wrestling really reveals a lot about American culture, |
| 1:29.3 | and it has changed, and the way wrestling has changed has gone along with American politics. |
... |
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