Legendary wrestling manager and historian Jim Cornette has announced the upcoming release of his new book, “Heroes and Friends.” On the latest episode of his “Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru” podcast, Cornette revealed the details of the project, which will feature extensive essays and remembrances of some of the most iconic figures in wrestling history, accompanied by rare and high-quality photographs from his personal collection.
The book is set to go on sale on Saturday, October 11, at noon Eastern time, exclusively on his website, JimCornette.com. “It’s going to go on sale at jimcornette.com on October 11,” Cornette stated. “Heroes and Friends, with extensive essays, remembrances, is what they are, on a variety of great wrestling superstars that I have interacted with.”
The book will feature chapters on a wide array of wrestling legends, including Bobby Heenan, The Sheik, Bruno Sammartino, Ray “The Crippler” Stevens, The Dream Machine, Paul Bearer, Vader, Sputnik Monroe, Lance Russell, Ron Wright, Boo Bradley (aka Balls Mahoney), and the Green Shadow, Pat Malone. “We’re going to find out a lot of stories have been on here. Some haven’t. Some are the product of the research I’ve been doing over the last year,” Cornette said.
A significant focus of the book will be the photography. Cornette explained that modern technology has allowed him to reproduce his personal photos from over four decades ago in a quality that has never been seen before. “The state of the art of photo printing in the last 45 years has changed a little bit. And I was gobsmacked,” he said.
He used a famous photo he took of legendary Memphis wrestling announcers Lance Russell and Dave Brown as an example. “What they can do now with the negative… It looks like a completely different photo,” he explained. “And another one of Lance that we were looking at just earlier before we went on the air, you can see one of the gold molars in his mouth, and I was using, for anybody that’s a 60-year-old photographer, 400-speed Kodak color film with a Canon AE-1 and 125-millimeter telephoto lens in a TV studio… when you got the print back in those days, it wasn’t capable of reproducing what the negative had recorded. And now they are.”
The book, which is priced at $24.95 and will be autographed, is a passion project for Cornette, who has spent the last six months writing and compiling the content. “I have sat down and created a masterpiece,” he said. “It ain’t too bad for a guy in his spare time.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Jim Cornette and Brian Last with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
