Recap by: Christopher Jay, rajah.com
Please send all feedback to: jspodcast2020@gmail.com or @wrestlingfancs
JIM CORNETTE EXPERIENCE 4/10/20: KEVIN SULLIVAN TALKS CHRIS AND NANCY BENOIT
Sullivan on why he hasn't commented on the Chris Benoit situation:
"I have been extremely sensitive to them. They were dear friends at one time, and I can't imagine how it is to get up every morning for the mother and the father to see two urns on a mantle. That to me has to be the hardest thing in the world. I respect them very very much and I wanted to hear from them if they ok'd it because they have never talked about it publicly that I know of."
Sullivan on how he met Nancy:
"She had done some publicity pictures for the magazines. They took some pictures with me and that's how I got to meet her. I was 32 and she was 21. We got to be friends and it was one of those things that blossomed into something else. But we were friends for quite a while."
Sullivan on how the Fallen Angel character come about:
"We were going to have a big show in Miami at the Orange Bowl. I was going to wrestle Mulligan in a hangman's noose match. I thought, I need something spectacular. They drew close to 30,000 people and I was saying what am I going to do. The photographer said why don't you have her valet you. I had The Lock, Winona Little Heart. I had her as The Lock who I supposedly hypnotized and was a childhood friend Kendall Windham. I also had Humperdink. She actually came up with a pretty good idea of her wearing the bikini and high heels. We did the thing with the chains and her carrying snakes because a lot of people are afraid of snakes and it seems to me most ladies are afraid of snakes. It was so over that night. I have to give her a lot of credit because she pulled it off well and some of the Divas that tried to follow her is something very similar. I think she opened the door for Divas and the other thing is, I think she deserves to be in the Hall of Fame."
Coronette on how the Midnight Express was going to be part of the 4 Horseman group:
"Woman was going to be the new manager of the new 4 Horsemen consisting of Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane. Herd (Jim Herd) was trying to split me and the Midnights up and he blocked Tully and we needed horsemen, so we all go together, you (Cornette) I and Ric and we came up with that and Ric loved Nancy's work. We even shot a couple of promos that were going to begin to lead to this. Herd decided to stop the whole thing and the Midnight Express never became horsemen and the whole thing fell in the hole."
Sullivan on him and Nancy having problems before Chris Benoit came in:
"We had problems before Chris (Benoit) came in for about 6 months. It happens daily. It happened to us. We grew apart. Truthfully, there was that age difference where she spent her early 20's with me. She saw the world but not on her own and Benoit when we put him with her, his wife was pregnant at the time and he was very leery about it because he had a meeting with Eric (Bischoff) and I. He said I have to make sure my wife doesn't get upset about this. He was very concerned because she was pregnant at the time. We (Sullivan and Nancy) had two houses at the time that we lived in. I was spending more and more time down in the keys and she was spending more and more time in Daytona. Then as it eventually went, an incident happened where I actually stayed in the keys 98% of the time and the only time I went up to Daytona was when she wasn't there. We were headed for divorce somewhere down the line. We tried to patch it up a couple times, but things just didn't work...We got married in '92 but we were together full time for 13 years, but for the first year and a half, we were not living together."
Sullivan on his relationship with Chris Benoit when Benoit first came into WCW:
"I had never met him before. He was very professional. He was all business. He was a quiet guy. He had a small circle of friends, but they were very loyal to one another. Every night he was going out to have the best match on the card."
Cornette mentioned that there was only one report of domestic violence between Sullivan and Nancy. Sullivan responded: "Yea, I never brought that up Jimmy. If you look at it, there were charges put on her. She spent three days in jail, and she stabbed me with a knife. That was the breaking of our relationship completely. Then I never went back to Daytona. I paid for her to get out of jail, but I never brought it up because of the respect I had for her mother and father. I know it weighs heavy on their heart. I used to say I can carry this, they can't. I'm not trying to be a hero here but why put more weight on their heads and say that. I think Sandra (Nancy's sister) sees things her own way. These guys from Dark Side of the Ring certainly are not Sherlock Holmes or Watson or they would have figured that out if they did some research on that. Her mother was very appreciative, and father too, of what I did to get it squashed. We went to court and said this is the only time we ever had a problem; it won't happen again, and I got her out. She went home and I got the car and drove to the keys."
Cornette brought up Sandra saying, "There were a couple of physical fights (between Sullivan and Nancy)". Cornette asked Sullivan if he ever gave Nancy a black eye as was said in the program. Sullivan said "I was living down in the keys. I did not see Nancy for four months. If she had a black eye, I'm not sure how she got it, but I think Sandra got her timeline wrong. I never gave her a black eye."
