Steve Corino Discusses Ring of Honor, His In-Ring Career, and More

In a recent interview with The-NewsHub.com, former wrestling superstar turned color commentator Steve Corino discusses Ring of Honor, his in-ring career, and more with writer Marc Madison. Corino was doing the interview to promote Ring of Honor’s upcoming event, “Ring of Honor: Best in the World,” which is set to take place on June 19.

Corino talked about his early days in ECW, saying,

“When I came in there were always no promises. I came in as just an underneath guy. I was Nova’s friend and this was right after November to Remember 98’ and they were looking for new guys and Paul wanted to build new guys. So they had Reckless Youth that was the guy they wanted and I was the afterthought. The guy was Nova’s buddy here is pretty good and he’s got an anti-hard-core thing alright bring him to the arena and do a quick try out match.

That’s how I won my job. Then little things would come up and happen. Whereas Candido would mess up and Paul would look at me like, ‘Steve you can talk let’s do this thing with Tazz’ and then Candido would be back and then he would be fine and then I’d get pushed down a little bit and then Candido would mess up again and then all of a sudden I’m back.

There was a time where no one remembers where I had Rhyno and Tajiri and Candido comes back and all of a sudden I had no one and Candido had Rhyno and Tajiri then 3 weeks later he’d mess up again. And then I’m back without explanation it was just like I was the go to guy.

As far as the titles, it’s funny because he’s probably said this to everybody but Heyman said that the night I was hired ‘‘2 years and you’re going to be the world champion”. Um, yeah sure I will. My summer of 99’ was losing to Francine and Jazz and I was not on the road to the title and once Dusty came in that’s when everything turned.

It was a whole hey you’ve got the blond hair now, now your with Dusty and now you’re the old school guy and people are starting to cheer for you now and hey we’ve got something here now and it also helped with the financial problems guys like Jerry Lynn and Justin Credible and Sandman all had breech contracts with claims in so and I was the only one that was still under contract that didn’t have mine in yet.

So it was like oh, he’s the safe guy to put the title on right now. So it took a little wind out of the sail but it was still the greatest honor. Paul was always great because he had such visions of everything but he also let everyone else talk to you or talk about their character and sit there and get your input and ask what do you think? Where do you see yourself? and I’ll never forget that because he wanted real emotion to come out he’d would give me an outline for a promo because he wanted me to like real emotion to come and that’s where I learned bad habits too because in ECW you weren’t given times you weren’t told hey you gotta get this match done in 15 minutes or 8 minutes or 6 minutes.

It was go out there, kill yourselves, steal the show and we’ll clip it as far as we need it. I bring it back to Ring of Honor in 2009’ and were like hey we need a commercial break, we need this and I’m like whoa I need to learn how to work TV! It was always a positive experience”

He also discusses his time in TNA Wrestling, saying,

“Now when I was in TNA it was still in Nashville and very unorganized so you can’t compare the TNA of 2003-2004 to what’s now. No, I wouldn’t have foreseen it. With wrestling like with life there is always the next big thing and you hear it and if it happens cool but if it doesn’t then it’s not. Ring of Honor could sit there and tell me that we’re replacing Raw on Monday and everything like that and I’m like until I see it.

I guess wrestling teaches you that but I guess life teaches you that. So I didn’t see it but I think the wrong people were always in charge of creative. I believe if you’re going to be an alternative to what the WWE is doing you have to be different. The six sided ring was weird but it was different. Now how do we capitalize that. We should capitalize on it this way. Why are we having guys write the show that were writing for WWE and then got let go?

I use baseball as a theory. Why are we going to grab the manager that was 60 and 102 with a great potential team and we hire him to manage our team when we could get somebody that was better? I believe that hurt them. Jim Cornette said you only get that shot to make that first impression and then you’re done. I believe it’s so true. I think that’s what’s hurt them.

Coca Cola is always going to be the name brand but there is room for Pepsi and RC and any other soda. WWE is always going to be that name brand but there is room. You just gotta be different. We’re different. Ring of Honor is different. NXT is different from WWE. There has got to be alternatives because if you don’t and there is nothing different about the product why wouldn’t you just wait to watch the product that you know?”

Corino talks about joining the Ring of Honor roster following TNA, and his transition to commentator following his retirement, saying,

“Ring of Honor started out in February of 02’ and I started out as a commentator. Rob, Gabe and Doug asked me hey would you like to voice some of these over we’ve got this idea of this super Indy promotion. That’s what the goal was and a way to sell VHS tapes on RF Video and they wanted to have these super independent shows. They didn’t want a lot of big names and stuff like that but they knew that I could do color commentary and then it was something like hey, we need somebody for this angle. I never knew that they would be what they are now. I never knew that when I got back here in 09’ that we were still on HDNet that we would be here today.

It’s one of those slow build and slow burns and it worked. They didn’t learn to run before learning how to crawl but no one could see it. Just like I said before everyone’s got that idea of what’s going to be the next big thing but until you really see it unfold and where you see where it’s going to come from where is the capital going to come from and how will we use the television station that were going to be on.

Until you see all this stuff you’re really amazed. Last year I was amazed when they told us we were going to do these shows with New Japan. I was like whoah, this should be weird but let’s see how it works out and now its an every year thing. Now its 4 shows in one week instead of 2. They’re crawling. You never know. I can’t tell you what next for Ring of Honor. I hope I’m along for the ride. Yeah, I can’t tell you what’s next. I would have never thought that in a million years.

The transitions been great. I couldn’t have asked for a better mentor than Kevin Kelly. Just a quick story of how things go in circles 2002, the WWE called me to try out for the program that was filmed in the WWE New York location and then aired on the Sunday’s. That was the try out that I did and the guy that I did the tryout with at the WWE studios was with Kevin Kelly.

I had known Kevin since my time jobbing in the WWE and now 13 years later he’s my broadcast partner every week. It’s so weird how the world goes. I always knew that I wanted to be a color commentator because my whole foretay in wrestling was talking and I was always known for promos. So I thought am I going to be the guy that’s going to be 60 years old and go out every week and bump and feel bad or can I talk until I’m 65 and I thought this was a better time than any. Then there is always the urban legends because our booker is very tight and he tells you what you need to know.

I was told by people inside that SCUM was originally supposed to be Adam Pearce being the leader and then something didn’t work out and it was like oh we can put Steve in that role and then I was going to get the colour commentating job before but then I had to do the SCUM stuff and parlay into it. I had asked right in the beginning from Sinclair, when Jim Cornette brought it up and I said I’d like to audition for colour commentator and they said ah, I don’t see it. Maybe a backstage interview but I never see you being a colour commentator.

I thought alright I’m going to get that one shot to be a colour commentator whether or not to audition for this and I have to hit it a homerun. That was Best in the World 12’, Kevin (Steen) was still champ. It was arguably the best. It made Sinclair think you know, that guy could be a good colour commentator. I love it. But people don’t understand that I am the ill prepared colour commentator of all time because they like the interaction between me and Kevin (Kelly).

It comes across as genuine because he’s the one guy that gets my humour. So he’s thinking of something and wants to throw it out there so Steve can hit it home. I don’t have a format and there are TV tapings going on and I’m watching baseball on my ipad. Gorilla Monsoon would always be prepared but Bobby Heenan wasn’t. He just went with whatever Gorilla said and they would interact. So they were going with that formula and it seemed to work. For me I’m thinking man I wish I was more prepared and then I told nope it’s okay just do your thing. It works and its fun.

I also think because I don’t myself too seriously that I’m not afraid to make mistakes. I’m not afraid to mumble my words and then say man, I couldn’t get that one out. I believe were all human we all don’t have to be perfect all the time. Like last night (May 15th) if you rewatch the ippv I don’t know what made me say but Naito did something to Elgin but I say yeah, you don’t play in his sandbox and Kevin Kelly goes, really sandbox?

He asked me where’d you get that I said I don’t know. And then 5 minutes later something happens again between Elgin and Naito and I said “I told you not to go in his sandbox”. So it makes people think okay he’s trying to come up with something new. The motor-boating thing was all Kevin and I talked about last night. Jushin Thunder Liger has been in the wrestling business 31 years and now he will be forever known in my mind as the guy that motor-boated Maria. I think that’s the ridiculousness of it.

If you were to draw it down as to how it was going to be then there would be no style. We have to think about this. He loves Adam Cole. He’s very homoerotic towards Adam Cole, he loves super kicks and then when it comes to BJ Whitmer he’s the toughest son of a bitch in the world or I’m an analyst for this guy. Me and ACH have our high five out of nowhere before each match and I’m all over the place.

It’s what separate’s me from Lawler and Booker and JBL and Taz. It separates me. It makes people go oh he is different than the normal let’s plug something. If I plug something then I try to make a joke out of it. I just try to keep it light its pro wrestling, it should be fun.”

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Editor’s Note:

Corino is awesome. This is a great read.