Jim Cornette Pays Tribute To Don West Following His Passing
Wrestling veteran Jim Cornette has paid tribute to former TNA announcer Don West following his passing at the age of 59.
Wrestling fans are very familiar with Don West because he was one of the original TNA Wrestling announcers along with Mike Tenay when the company was formed by Jeff Jarrett and his father Jerry in the summer of 2002.
West was TNA’s main color analyst from 2002 until the summer of 2009 when the company hired Taz and put him in the commentary position. West remained a part of TNA Wrestling for several more years.
It was announced by his longtime broadcast partner Mike Tenay on the 30th of December that West had passed away at the age of 59 due to lymphoma of the brain.
Speaking on his Experience podcast, Jim Cornette paid tribute to the late star and touched on WWE’s own tribute to West paid by Michael Cole on the SmackDown following West’s death:
“Obviously it wasn’t unexpected, because we had mentioned that it was, probably what, three or four months ago was his GoFundMe, which still may be active, I don’t know, and if you can search it out. You know, we were having some fun with Scott D’Amore. And because he was matching all the donations that week, so we amplified it a little bit and I think we stuck D’Amore for about 15 grand and he loved every minute of it.”
“Because a lot of people tweeted about [it], I’ve made mention, I don’t tweet about people dying anymore because it’s just what do you say and blah blah blah in a tweet. But the outpouring from everybody that had ever worked with Don or even that didn’t know him.”
“Michael Cole, and obviously with approval, mentioned it on SmackDown this past Friday night. The WWE is a company that in the producing of the Ric Flair video completely overlooked his five years or whatever in TNA, it was never mentioned, but they mentioned Don West on Smackdown on network television. Everybody loves Don West and you couldn’t not if you ever met him. And that way, you know he was even good-natured.”
“He took some heat early on from people because he had absolutely no wrestling experience. You know, Jeff I think, and his dad Jerry, one or the other both had seen Don on the home shopping channel. Don had even been parodied on Saturday Night Live, you know, [Brian mentions Don was on the Shop at Home channel] I’m not fluent in all the various shopping channels, but whatever the big one was, and he was the star of it.”
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