Right now, Jim Cornette is one of the most polarizing figures in all of Sports Entertainment. The former manager, booker, promoter, writer, and current podcaster has a bajillion unique opinions on all facets of the industry. But unfortunately with the direction the business as a whole has taken, The Louisville Lip has ostracized himself. That self-imposed exile has turned Corney into wrestling’s version of a Shock Jock, criticizing nearly everything while taking upsides with fellow iconoclasts, like CM Punk for example.
Before Cornette became a “get off my lawn,” “shout out clouds” kind of guy, he was one of the greatest managers of all time. He and the iconic tennis racket worked all over the world and with a variety of superstars and stables. Of course his most known connection is with the legendary Midnight Express and all of its incarnations. But he has had his fair share of experience managing stables too.
6 The First Family (CWA)
The uncrowned Hall Of Famer got his start in Continental, or Memphis - the CWA. He got his start as the manager of The First Family stable. He actually took it over for Jimmy Hart when The Mouth Of The South headed to the WWE. Prior to Hart leaving Memphis, the duo were actually co-managers of Hart’s stable. This was a stable that had everyone from Jim Neidhart to Rick Rude to Koko B. Ware to even Andy Kaufman.
5 Camp Cornette
Once Bruce Prichard convinced his old friend Jim Cornette to come to the WWE, he was immediately inserted into a top spot managing the WWE World Champion, Yokozuna. Out of that booking, a new stable started to form - Camp Cornette. Over the course of the few years Corny was around, he assembled a squad featuring several sets of tag team champions - Owen and Yokozuna and Owen and Davey Boy Smith. He also brought in his team from Smokey Mountain, The Heavenly Bodies.
Cornette helped to orchestrate Vader coming to the company and managed him, even though he wasn’t able to actually control The Mastodon. During the New Generation, there weren’t many better stables than Camp Cornette.
4 FITE
Just like Vince McMahon years prior, when Jim Cornette was promoting his own company, Smoky Mountain, he surrounded himself with his own factions. The FITE faction was short lived and more of a showcase for a wrestler known as Bruiser Bedlam. Corney thought that Bedlam might have been a huge star. That all changed the day he disappeared. As plenty of fans learned during a Dark Side Of The Ring episode. Evidently, Bruiser Bedlam moonlighted during his wrestling career as a big nasty biker from Canada.
3 The Militia
The other Jim Cornette stable out of Smoky Mountain had a little more notoriety than FITE. The Militia featured some future big names - Al Snow, Unabomb (Kane), and Bull Buchanan (Punisher), as well Sgt. Rock (Jackie Moore).
Unfortunately that notoriety wasn’t for anything good. The Militia featured James E. wearing army gear. For a guy who bemoans all kinds of silly “mud show” gimmicks, Cornette himself clearly had no issue involving himself in nonsense, and in fact, was the one who booked it.
2 National Wrestling Alliance
With the nWo invading WCW and running roughshod over all of the competition, WWE must have thought that any ol’ invading faction would translate to dollar signs. He took his real life friendship with Dennis Coralluzzo (former NWA New Jersey Promoter) that was filled with angst over what Paul Heyman had done years ago and somehow twisting that into a storyline where he’d lead the National Wrestling Alliance into battle against the WWE. He brought together the likes of NWA stalwarts like Barry Windham and The Rock And Roll Express (despite their long history as rivals).
Cornette also brought back Jeff Jarrett and Dan Severn, who was at the time, the NWA Champion, amongst many other titles. Severn wasn’t the first ever duel-sports, crossover superstar, but for many WWE fans at this time, the original Beast was fan’s introduction to the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.
1 The Midnight Express
They might not be an official stable, but you can’t have a discussion about James E. Cornette and his managerial skills without talking about the legendary Midnight Express. The uncrowned Hall Of Fame tag team has had several iterations, and all of them have been a Hall Of Fame level team to aspire to (The New Midnight Express not withstanding).
When the group originally started, it was a duo in Southeast Wrestling, featuring Randy Rose and Dennis Condrey. Norvell Austin would turn on his tag team partner, Brad Armstrong and make the team a trio. When Condrey and Cornette headed to Mid-South, Bobby Eaton joined them to make a new version of the team, even Wendi Richter would join the team. The most well-known version of the team, Beautiful Bobby Eaton and Sweet Stan Lane came when Condrey left Crockett out of nowhere (eventually reforming the original Midnight with Rose in NWA). That paved the way for Eaton to be teamed up with Sweet Stan Lane to form the most iconic version of the team.