Jim Cornette has now released a statement regarding his incident with Santino Marella at a recent wrestling convention in Detroit: 

"I was on my way to the food court. Marella approached me with his hand outstretched. I shook it and told him with no profanity and not yelling–the first time–that we had nothing to talk about and tried to walk away. He kept detaining me to plead the case of why an incident 12 years ago was not his fault. I told him, in ever-increasing detail, that we had nothing to talk about and why and tried again to walk off. He obviously expected me to say something different to his face than I have in public, and I did not, whereupon he then wouldn’t let me past and tried to wind me up to hit him in public and potentially get arrested. Regardless of who threw the first blow, I figured most people would believe it was me, so I called attention to the troublemaker. The worst part happened at that point, where with all the fans yelling and security swarming, I was unable to get my club sandwich.

If anyone wonders why Santino Marella and I will never be on the same page, I refer you to his own words in the statement he made. The fact that at a live wrestling television taping in front of 500 fans–for which I was not just the announcer but part owner of the company–that Marella, a wrestling school student of two weeks, would see one of the featured heels of the program heading toward him and his first thought was that his intent was to scare Marella’s daughter so everyone would laugh and have a good time, tells you all you need to know about this guy not understanding the world he was in and his place in it, a state which continues today. Also, he uses the word “Gosh” in an official statement, so a special level of Hell should be reserved for him where he has to watch an endless loop of his comedy matches which were an embarassment to my profession."

Click here to read Santino's statement.