Jim Cornette Talks The Early Days Of Tape Trading

[@FreneticZetetic]

Imagine a young Cornette engineering a 10ft antennae on his mom's roof, lmfao."FUCKIN' GIMMICK AIN'T GETTIN' OVER!" Buying himself a VCR, etc. Legendary gold.

[@tmage23]

Anyone who thinks Satoru Sayama wasn't great has no business commenting on professional wresting. His matches with Dynamite Kid in the early 80's were like watching a mid 90's Japanese match years before anyone else in the world worked like that

[@toddiwod]

Say what you want about how Dynamite Kid fucked up his life, his matches were amazing, especially with Tiger Mask.

[@federicodistefano6891]

There's a 1982 match out there of Tiger Mask Vs Kuniaki Kobayashi that ends on a count-out, with the Ref actually using the microphone to count as both wrestlers were trying to make it back to the ring on time...It was just marvellous, I recommend it, my favourite Sayama match ever :-)

[@Lfdjake91]

I got my first job in a local hotel laundry so I could buy a VCR, then around $500, just so I could record wrestling.

[@toddiwod]

Now THAT'S dedication. Salute!

[@MisterBeauJanGels]

I paid $400 for my first VCR in 1985. Two years later, I saw the first dual-deck VCR with a list price of $1300, which I didn't have the money for at the time.

[@stinkypinkeee5085]

@@MisterBeauJanGels We just connected two VCR's together for that, but by the late 80's the licensed videos had anti-piracy protection...

[@ingotants3809]

There are People that think Tiger Mask wasn't good???Lol...

[@robertoravec1299]

Ingo Tants

[@GetBenched2010]

Internet smarks are weapons grade contrarians combined with Chris Chan levels of autism. I'm surprised it took this long for that BS to get traction.

[@bradnimbus4836]

The feelings I get from that opening are pretty euphoric!

[@maxxdahl6062]

Indeed!

[@topazzz1546]

Stiiiiing, do you remember...

[@FreneticZetetic]

Reminds me of Mortal Kombat, but with Cornette instead. CORNETTE KOMBAT!!!

[@wyattrussell7496]

I can imagine Cornette cutting a heel promo on that kid’s mom because she wouldn’t let them take apart the telephone to invent the internet in order to watch other regional wrestling programming.

[@TheCastellan]

How many "mother FUCKER!" 's you think that would involve?

[@bradpaton3927]

US military already invented the internet in the 1960's, dude.

[@wyattrussell7496]

@@TheCastellan one for every year since that spawn exited her gut trap

[@michaelacampora1020]

"Only $1000 for a VCR" ...that was alot of money back then.

[@Crusader7077]

In 1989, hating what wrestling was becoming (in the midst of the Jim Herd reign over WCW as well as how cartoonish WWF was), one day at a local video rental store, I found and rented a videotape called "World Pro Wrestling from Japan, Volume 1" hosted by Gordon Solie. He did voiceover play-by-play for matches that came from New Japan Pro Wrestling, and I loved it. From that point on, I looked everywhere I could to find more footage of Japanese wrestling, and that for me was my starting point in tape trading.

[@MisterBeauJanGels]

When I came into tape trading, Cornette was already working full-time in the business, so most folks weren't necessarily dealing with him. Norm Dooley was dealing with a lot of folks and seemed to have access to a lot of Cornette's stuff. From what I remember, two people stood out. There was a guy in Pennsylvania named Joe Shedlock who obtained originals from a wide variety of territories starting in 1980. He made compilations from those tapes and offered copies of those compilations. Dave Meltzer had a tape trading list for a short while until he became very busy with the Observer and the original foundation of his collection was Shedlock's stuff. There was also a guy in St. Louis named Steve Munari who obtained originals of full episodes from everywhere he could and offered copies of those tapes. In his case, when Brody was murdered, he pretty much lost interest in the business and fell off the radar, and I've never heard of what happened to those tapes. There was also a guy somewhere in New England named John McAdam, who collected everything he could and offered copies, but he came along many years after those two. He also disappeared suddenly without explanation; as he widely advertised on the net, it was speculated that the feds nabbed him for profiting off of the copyrights of others.

[@setadriftonfishandchips]

3:58 you can hear Brian's frustration with Bix when he clears his throat.

[@veegob5287]

Bix sounds like he eats Hot Pockets 5 days a week.

[@Cryptofwrestling]

Made some good friends trading tapes, and yes, I paid 79.99 for my copy of Dawn of the Dead (original version) back in 1980-ish... Hoo-boy..

[@brianandre5928]

That's a good one to buy.

[@dancharlton9440]

Dawn of the dead is a classic

[@mikewiley7529]

It's so much better with just Jim and Brian only

[@JohnSmithAprilMay]

The synthesizer is the best part of 6:05 . I would pay about 10 bucks for an album of Brian Last just freaking out on that thing.

[@floundermsu]

Bixenspan is so obnoxious. 6:05 has gotten so damn good since his exodus. Now I wish Zellner would throw him off of Between The Sheets.

[@AlonzoPichardo]

Love Jim Cornette , But He Looks Like a Young Billie Jean King in This Pic...

[@jonbaird8835]

Alonzo Pichardo And whoever that is in your profile picture looks like BoBo Brazil had been fed Estrogen supplements since he was twelve...

[@no-yj2cf]

and his shirt says "the king" lmao

[@SaluteTheGuard]

Wonder if Corny still has that Lawler shirt??? Lol

[@jeyDsixx18]

I wish I could give this 10 thumbs up

[@merleshand2442]

Well I've never seen them together

[@GetBenched2010]

To respond to the observer hall of fame bit, its by smarks for smarks and those geeks could get in a screaming match in an empty room. Weapons grade contrarians who shouldn't have any say with any hall of fame.

[@diggitydave75438]

Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) was outstanding in the ring. His stuff with Dynamite Kid and Rollerball Rocco was sick (Mark Rocco was another guy I think is slept on hard by a lot of fans). The only point I agree with is that Sayama's "top guy" run was pretty short because Inoki screwed him (like Cornette mentioned). He did have that short run with Akira Maeda in the original Japan version of the UWF, but that couldn't compare with his run in NJPW under the Tiger Mask gimmick. His run as the ace of the junior heavyweight division in New Japan Pro Wrestling was short.....but damn if it wasn't great.

[@knight2000-NC]

11:42 no need to really dump to dvd at first...just dump to digital since hard drive space is cheap as 20TBs are $200

[@robintst]

The WWE would kill to get his personal video collection.

[@MaxxCoyote]

Why? Why would they care? They own most territory tape libraries already and they barely do anything with them.

[@sclwa85]

The only reason WWE would want it would be to burn it.

[@210Dinero]

MaxxCoyote Many of the territories didn’t save tapes of their shows. They’d film over tapes that already had shows on it. There may be matches and shows in Jim’s collections that WWE doesn’t even know exists. They would own the rights to stream and make money off of it, but it’s in Jim’s possession, and they’d probably have to pay him a pretty penny to have it.

[@GetBenched2010]

@@MaxxCoyote Vince STILL doesn't have Memphis, the most sought after library they haven't been able to get.

[@Sargebri]

A small correction. The reason the porn industry went with VHS was because Sony, which made Betamax recorders and tapes, didn't want to be associated with pornography and wouldn't allow porn films to be taped in that format.

[@RyanThomasHall]

More 6:05 Superpodcast uploads would be great!

[@jmb01550]

I remember hearing about in Portland, Buddy Rose had a VCR and would take the Saturday night wrestling shows to critique his matches

[@LMLR187]

We knew corny was sitting on a wrestling goldmine but GOD DAMN

[@zlinedavid]

He could just charge admission to his house and it would blow any current wrestling hall of fame away.

[@davenwatts8173]

LOL that pic looks like my mom in her urly days, love u jim

[@PossumBuddy420]

You dont get an entire, multi generational Japanese anime if your in ring work didnt hold up

[@duvalcounty5861]

Love Bruce Richardson and James.E.Fornette....Man those were the days

[@hakumeng316]

For a second i thought his shirt was master shake from aqua teen

[@matthewschoeman4709]

Lmao 🤣

[@tanmartselby6937]

Goddamn look at how young Cornette looks in that photo

[@freewilliam93]

If you think TM 1 is bad then you need to call Okada vs Omega as boring as Thesz vs Funk.

[@sugartbube]

I just watch Tiger Dynamite that was a fucking great match!!!!! Jim's stories are a treasure!!!! Old School!!!

[@impalaman9707]

Boy, Let's really NERD out on this stuff---Comic Books, Dungeons and Dragons, Stamp collections, and Tape Trading!

[@drunkensailor112]

I never heard anywhere that people thought sayama wasn't good.

[@theecharmingbilly]

It's crazy how expensive that stuff was.

[@shakeandjake_1]

I wish I was around that era. It would be awesome trading tapes of wrestling instead of sending links to a Dailymotion video

[@savagecatgt]

You may rethink that when you realize how expensive and time consuming it was. Much harder to find what you want as well. And if you're impatient, it was hellish.

[@antondalton8293]

Brian where is the footage with kenny bolins leakage?

[@aaronm8143]

Who’s the other guy that isn’t Brian?

[@JoeGallo43]

I think his name is Alice Radley.

[@mike04574]

where to get the lawler shirt like cornette has

[@Rando1975]

I started tape trading around 1997. Mostly ECW, FMW, Big Japan, and later Toryumon. Plus all the early UFC's during the dark ages when they were not on PPV, and not being released on VHS anymore. Plus, all the other MMA going on at the time. I stopped in early 2000's after I got a DVD recorder/VCR combo and converted all my tapes to DVD.

[@chrischar9428]

Always felt like I missed it I didn't start tape trading until 92

[@timf7413]

I would love to see Jim's 10 foot rotating antenna. That sounds crazy.

[@maxxdahl6062]

My family had one taller than that. rotating also.

[@maxxdahl6062]

My dad would have to wear one of those belts that electrical workers wear to climb up the tower of our antenna.

[@timf7413]

I guess that was a thing from before my time.

[@maxxdahl6062]

We also had one of those big ass satellite dishes that also rotated.

[@maxxdahl6062]

We could get actually the exact same territories cornette talks about.

[@rumtuckskatter]

The 3rd wheel here represents everything wrong with present day wannabe smarks. Reddit I'm looking your way.....

[@madamefeast4824]

@MemphoWrasslin1 Why who is that? I've listened for a while but I only know when Brian questions Jim or the lady before Brian. Who is this kid? Too be honest I thought same thing

[@HkFinn83]

Who’s the mark saying Tiger Mask sucks?😂

[@brianm2850]

David Bixenspan

[@bentonmckinney5454]

Satoro sayama the original tiger mask was a great multi-promotional world Jr heavyweight champion NWA NJPW & two or three others

[@bestboy1979]

I don’t know who’s speaking with Jimmy and Brian, but he is awful to listen. 4:18 is as far as I could make it.

[@leebryantutah]

Bix is better known to Cornette listeners now as "Bitch the Journalist".

[@bdr113080]

Today’s smart fans of WWE, NJPW, and ROH need to shut the fuck up about eras that they weren’t around for. I consider my generations wrestling is the 80’s and 90’s and we loved our wrestling but even though we didn’t grow up on pro wrestling from the 60’s and 70’s we didn’t talk shit about it! We respected them because we were smart enough to know it was a different time, we weren’t there, and would be stupid of us to try and compare it. Not only that but we were Smart enough to know that without the wrestlers that came before we wouldn’t have what we love during our day. Today’s fans make me sick.

[@SadeTryce]

Jim looked like the angriest nerd back then

[@melbias5046]

jim is a treasure.

[@isaacsilverman9976]

Sounds like what Deadheads used to do.

[@Saber808]

Jim at a KISS Army meeting

[@josephmoore1168]

DailyMotion.com has a ton of Japanese wrestling

[@kryceksangel]

I did tape trading

[@joeparker7508]

Jim who booked the ole turn on Dusty

[@Gebraldo420]

Im just gonna be honest and say it.... This early pic of Jim Cornette... BAWH GAWD... Whatta NERD!!! 🤓

[@Dermos05]

I listen to Jim any chance I get. Love it

[@larryfloyd4993]

when you talk the wrestling observer hall of fame.... i'm 64 yrs old... and still wonder why ...Wilbur Snyder , is not in the hall of fame..... look at everything he did...he is more then hall of fame worthy

[@crh6939]

JIM!!!!!!

[@rumtuckskatter]

Oh Jesus Christ!

[@namelessjedi2242]

I love hearing about this stuff. A whole fascinating subculture and history of its own.

[@shadegreen5351]

Only $1000.

[@joeyowens1974]

ThoseOldVCRsThatHadTuningWheelsToFineTuneChannelSignalsWereAwesomeBackInTheDay.