Recently, Netflix hit the lights, turned up the entrance music, and welcomed the wrestling-centered comedy GLOW to its original programming library. Customers and critics alike have been heaping praise on creator Jenji Kohan and the talented ensemble, but someone you might not hear any kind words from is legendary pro wrestling manager and promoter Jim Cornette, whose active disinterest in GLOW is bigger than the TitanTron. And it's entirely based on his hatred for the original Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling TV show. In his words:
People have asked me, 'What do you think of this fuckin' new GLOW [on] Netflix?' No! I didn't want to see the original shit. I don't want to see this shit.
As wrestling fans are fully aware, Jim Cornette has been one of the most outspoken personalities in the industry for decades, and he's just as quick to talk trash about his old WWE cohorts as he is about anything else that's bothering him. And grudges don't die easy in Cornette's brain, as his abhorrence of the 1980s G.L.O.W. series comes to him as easily as the instinct to blink. It's apparently strong enough to warrant an immediate dismissal of the new and even-more-fictionalized take, even though it's on the always dependable Netflix and boasts slew of smart people on camera and off.
Now, to be fair, The Jim Cornette Experience podcast's co-host Brian Last attempts to win Cornette's favor by bringing up how good Netflix's GLOW is, going into the salient point that Jenji Kohan and the show's creative team didn't just treat wrestling the way TV comedies usually treat whatever occupation its lead characters are involved in. GLOW isn't interested in insulting wrestling fans either, offering up genuine respect and understanding for the practices and mindsets involved.
Jim Cornette, as he is wont to do, responded by taking a short second to relent and say he'd potentially give it a shot. And he then spent the next couple of minutes detailing everything he didn't like about the original program.
The original G.L.O.W., when it came on in the '80s, it was syndicated everywhere. And for two years, you just couldn't get away from that fucking show. But it was a goddamn clown show fucking parody of wrestling. With girls that -- most of them didn't even have wrestling backgrounds. It was bad comedy, bad scripted bullshit, and when I first saw it, my head exploded. My god. . . . It was a bad wrestling parody show that I fucking hated. And it wasn't because there's girls involved, I'm not being sexist. It's because it was a phony fucking comedy wrestling show, and that was not done in those days.
Tell us how you really feel, Jim! Part of his argument was tethered to how the original G.L.O.W. casually broke kayfabe by giving audiences a behind-the-curtain look at how pro wrestling's magic came together. Understandable, certainly, but perhaps not still worth griping about 30 years later.
Jim Cornette returned to the WWE earlier this year to induct the Rock 'n' Roll Express into the WWE Hall of Fame, but otherwise hasn't been involved with the sport in recent years; outside of talking about it on his podcast, that is. But in case anyone thought his long-running feud with famed wrestling writer Vince Russo had stalled, think again.
Netflix subscribers can currently catch the entire Season 1 of GLOW streaming right now. If you don't want to wrestle with figuring out what to watch after you're done with it, head to our 2017 Netflix calendar and our summer TV premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows hitting the small screen in the coming months.
